评论
打印
In 1769, the year that Oliver Goldsmith was writing his poem, a military officer with a social conscience, Philip Thicknesse, published a horrifying account of four persons starved to death in a poorhouse at Datchworth.
就在1769年，奥利弗·哥德史密斯写诗那年，菲利普·西克尼斯，一位有社会道德的军官，发表了一篇令人震惊的文章，记述了在达茨沃斯救济院四个人被活活饿死。
To most complacent Britons, this was supposed to happen in rat-infested corners of the continent, not in Hertfordshire.
大多数自得意满的英国人还以为只有在欧洲大陆那些鼠患猖獗的穷乡僻壤才会如此，赫特福德郡绝无可能。
For those who had eyes to see beyond the railings of their parklands, two painful questions presented themselves about the real state of the British countryside.
那些不固步自封、愿意踏出自己庄园的人，就能看到英国乡村正面临着两个非常棘手的问题。
What was to be done and who was to blame? Was it the responsibility of the Church?
现状该谁负责，又该如何治理？这是教会的责任吗？
Had the Church grown too fat, too respectable, too indifferent to its duties towards the unfortunate?
是教会发展的过于庞大，身价过高，对不幸之人无动于衷，不尽职尽责了吗？
Or was it a matter for the absentee land-owning gentry, whose estates were being run by hard-nosed men with an eye to bottom-line profit?
还是要怪那些常年不在的地主们放任那些铁石心肠、只顾利益的人来管理产业？
Or was it wrong to think in terms of what had once been?
我们惦念昨日的辉煌是对是错？
Was that just applying a coat of whitewash to a building that was fundamentally rotten from top to bottom? Was the answer not charity, but politics?
要维护旧习是否只是在粉饰一座无可救药的建筑？也许乡村的出路不在慈善，而在政治改革？
Thomas Bewick certainly thought so. As a child outside Newcastle, he didn't need Rousseau to tell him about the freedom of fresh air.
托马斯·比威克显然这么认为。在纽卡斯尔长大的他不用等卢梭来教育他，也自会跑去自然中尽情玩耍。
Bewick had played truant from school, and instead of filling his slate with improving knowledge, he'd filled it compulsively with drawings,
比威克经常逃学，而比起利用逃学时间增长知识，他更愿意把这时间全部献给绘画，
finding his way instinctively towards his vocation as the first great illustrator of British natural history.
几乎本能地踏上了他日后的职业道路，成为英国首位著名的自然历史插画家。
What's more, Bewick's pictures weren't just meant for a gentleman's library.
更重要的是，比威克的插画并不仅仅是画给绅士们的。
Ordinary people wanted a little book packed with images of the birds and animals of the British Isles.
平民百姓也会想要一本画满了不列颠群岛飞鸟走兽的小册子。
But Bewick was looking at something else, too.
但比威克也着眼于其他事物。
Snuggled between the plover and a waxwing was a portrait of his world, rain-soaked Northumberland, a tough, dark, gritty place, a world in a lot of pain.
参杂在珩鸟和连雀之中的是他个人世界的写照，阴雨绵绵的诺森伯兰，是一个环境艰苦、阴暗、多沙、苦难深重之地。
In his churchyards, dogs snarl. By his roadsides, poor bastards break rocks. In his garrets, blind old paupers slurp soup.
教堂庭院里有吠犬。路边有穷人在敲石块。阁楼里又老又聋的乞丐喝着汤。
All this made Thomas Bewick very angry. All this made Thomas Bewick a radical.
这些都令托马斯·比威克非常愤怒。促成他成为一个激进者。
In Newcastle, he mixed in debating clubs with men like himself, educated artisans, tradesmen and professionals passionate in their devotion to liberty.
他在纽卡斯尔加入志同道合的辩论协会，成员均为受过良好教育的工匠、商人和专家，热衷于为自由献身。
It is by the good conduct and consequent character of the great mass of the people that a nation is exalted.
正是这一大批人的良好行为和理性品格让这个民族备受尊崇。
And what fired Bewick's radicalism wasn't just anger.
点燃比威克激进思想的不只是怒火。
It was an emotion new to politics -- sympathy, what moved him was an overwhelming feeling for the victims of injustice, poverty and suffering; a recognition that deep down, we are all bonded by our shared human nature.
还有政治上的一种新情绪，同情，打动他的是对受到不公正待遇、贫穷、苦难者的强烈同情，他意识到在内心深处我们都被赋予了共同的天性。
It was a call to action echoed in pulpits up and down the country.
号召人们为之行动的声音响彻了国内的每一间教堂。
How could you feel the suffering of the others and not want to do all in your power to remedy it?
你都感受到了他人的苦痛，怎么能不尽全力去补救呢？
For the first time, there was a politics of suffering, one that could no longer turn a blind eye to the plight of children, the aged, the sick and the poor.
这是第一个为苦难而发起的政治活动，没人可以再视而不见那些困苦的儿童、老人、病患和穷人。
Yet bigwigs did turn a blind eye. They believed that the Glorious Revolution of 1688 had sent James II and his Catholic despotism packing, and given birth to a land of the free.
然而权贵们却真的视而不见。他们相信1688年光荣革命已经推翻了詹姆斯二世和天主教专制，创造了一片自由的国土。
In 1788, with a 100th anniversary upon them, how tempting it was to continue patting themselves on the back as being the most enlightened country in the world.
在1788年，革命一百周年之际，继续自吹自擂英国是世上最开明国家又是多么有诱惑力。
But for the likes of Bewick and his friends, there was nothing to be complacent about.
但对于比威克和他的朋友们来说，没什么可以沾沾自喜的。
The real problem of the Glorious Revolution, the radicals argued, was its hijacking by scoundrels who'd perverted it to satisfy their own greed and ambition.
激进分子们认为光荣革命真正的问题是革命成果被一群无赖劫持，为了自己的贪婪和野心把国家引入歧途。
They packed parliament with sycophants placement and they sold their vote to pay their tailor's bill.
议会里充满了逢迎拍马之辈，出卖自己的选票，只为奢侈华服。
The real forgotten lesson of 1688 was that the people were entitled to resist, entitled to change their government, entitled the kind of sovereign that understood the reality of a limited monarchy.
他们忘了1688年真正的教训，人民有权反抗，有权撤换政府，有权选择真正懂得君主立宪制含义的君主。
