However mean your life is, meet it and live it, do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you're richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts...
Excerpt From Walden
By Henry David Thoreau
［参考译文］
热爱生活
亨利·大卫·梭罗
不管你的生活如何卑微，你都得面对与度过；不要逃避，更不要诅咒。生活并不像你想象的那样糟糕；而当你富甲天下时，生活却显得贫瘠乏味。就是在天堂，挑剔的人也总能挑出缺点。虽然贫穷，你也应该热爱生活，因为即使在救济院，你也有自己的快乐、幸福与辉煌的时刻。夕阳照在救济院的窗上的光同照在富人家的一样耀目，门前的积雪也同在早春融化。我看到心绪宁静的人，即便住在那里也会如同住在皇宫一样心满意足、快乐无比。经常在我看来，城镇中的贫民都过着最为无拘无束的生活。或许他们只是超乎寻常，毫不恐惧地接受这一切。大多数人都认为自己无需依赖城镇的供养，然而结果常常是他们养活自己靠的是不诚实的手段，这比贫民的生活更不体面。如圣人那般视贫穷如园中的花草慢慢培养。不要自找麻烦去追求新花样——新衣服或新朋友。寻求故往，回归故往。万物未变，是我们在变。你的衣服可以卖掉，但要保留自己的思想。
［注释］
poor-house ：济贫院 an establishment maintained at public expenses as housing for the homeless
alms-house ：济贫院 a poor house
above being supported ：不靠外援
［作者简介］
亨利·大卫·梭罗（Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862），博物学家、散文家、超验主义作家。生于美国康科德，毕业于剑桥大学。他是一名虔诚的超验主义信徒，并用毕生的实践来体验这一思想，曾隐居家乡的瓦尔登湖长达两年之久，过着与世隔绝的生活。其代表作《瓦尔登湖》又名《湖滨散记》，是他隐居生活的真实记录。他的作品朴实无华、亲近自然，极大地感染了一战后美国人的思想，从而也奠定了他在美国文学史上的崇高地位。