亨利‧大衛‧梭羅
(HENRY DAVID THOREAU)

湖濱散記
Walden

我到樹林中去，因為我希望從容不迫地生活，僅僅面對生活中最基本的事實，看看我是否能掌握生活的教誨，不至於在臨終時才發現自己不曾生活過。

梭羅在沃爾登塘生活了兩年。在那兒，他從日常事務和社會壓力之中解脫了出來，有時間思考生活中究竟什麼是重要的，有時間進行寫作。同普遍的傳統作法不一樣，在這期間，梭羅不是一位隱士，而是一位生活在社會邊緣的人。他離社會的距離不太遠，這樣他還能夠有客人造訪；但又不太近，這樣他才能夠剔除生活的繁文褥節，將其縮減到最基本的部分。

在十九世紀五十年代，梭羅深深捲入了廢除奴隸制的鬥爭之中。他拋棄了思索和孤僻的生活，選擇了積極的政治生活。他發表演說，寫文章反對奴隸制，通過地下鐵道幫助奴隸逃亡到北方。他身體不好，死於1862年，時年不到45歲。

以下摘選的《湖濱散記》在1854年最初發表時，並未獲得商業上的成功；五年中僅銷出了2000本。不過，從那以後，它成了美國文學中的經典作品。因為它是出色的新聞體作品，是一個人試圖在樸素的生活中尋找真理與意義的寫照，謳歌了與大自然和良知保持和諧的生活。

……許許多多人過著平靜而又絕望的生活。所謂的聽天由命，便是根深蒂固的絕望。從絕望的城市到絕望的國家，你得靠水貂與麝鼠般的勇氣來安慰自己。甚至在人類所謂的運動與娛樂之下，也隱藏著一成不變的、無意識的失望。其實，那不是娛樂，因為它是勞作的結果。它只是一種明智的、不鋌而走險的特徵。

用問答教學法的話來說，當我們考慮人生的主要目的是什麼，什麼是生活的真正需要，什麼是生活的手段的時候，看來人們似乎是故意選擇了同一的生活方式，因為他們對它偏愛超過對其他的生活方式。可是，他們又坦白地認為，除此之外別無其他選擇。不過，具有警覺、健康天性的人記得，太陽升起時是純潔無理的。拋棄偏見，無論何時都不會太遲。不論是多麼古老的想法或做法，只要缺乏佐證，都不足信。今天人們隨聲附和或默認為是真理的，結果明天就可能被證明是錯誤的，不過是如同煙雲般的想法而已，而有些人卻曾將這煙雲奉作能夠為田園普降甘露的雨雲。古人說你做不到的，你試過之後卻發現能夠做到。古法施 於古人，新法施於新人。古人也許由於知識貧乏，不懂得添加新燃料來促使火焰燃燒不熄；新人在罐子下放一小塊木柴，便能以飛鳥的速度繞著大地轉悠，正如俗話說的那樣，「氣死老頭」。作為導師，年邁的絲毫不會比年輕的更稱職，甚至還未必能比得上年輕的，因為年齡使他失去超過他所得到的。人人幾乎都懷疑，最聰明的人是否能單憑活著就可以獲得任何有絕對價值的知識。實際上，老年人沒有什麼非常重要的勸告可以給年輕人，正如他們必然會承認的那樣，他們的個人經驗是那麼片面，他們的生活由於某些個人的原因又是那麼令人沮喪的失敗。也許是由於他們還殘留著某些信仰的緣故，他們的經驗具有某種假像，其實，他們只不過是不那麼年輕罷了。我在這個星球上生活了大約三十年了，我還未從長輩那兒聽到過一句真正有價值的忠告，甚至連句真誠的勸告都沒有。他們什麼也沒告訴我，也許他們也無法中肯地告訴我任何事情。生活就在這兒。它是一項在很大程度上我還未嘗試過的試驗。他人的嘗試對我並無稗益。如果我有什麼我認為是有價值的經驗的話，我肯定會想到，我的導師根本就沒跟我說過這些……

我住到樹林裏，也就是，開始在那兒度過日日夜夜的第一天，恰巧是獨立日，或者說是1845年7月4日。那時，我的房子還未完工，還不宜過冬。它還未粉刷，也沒有煙囪，僅僅能避雨。牆壁是用粗糙、飽經風霜、汙跡斑斑的木板釘成的，牆上有很寬的裂縫。到了夜裏，房裏倒是挺涼快。斧頭劈得白白的筆直壁骨和新裝上木板的門和窗框使房子給人一種乾淨、通風的感覺。尤其是在早晨，當壁板浸泡了露水的時候，我幻想著，到了中午，從這些露水中會滲透出一些可愛的仙人。一整天，這幻想或多或少地帶著曙光般的色彩留在我的想像中，使我想起一年前我在山中到過的一幢房子。那是一座通風、未粉刷過的木屋，適合用來招待雲遊仙人，或讓仙女的婆娑衣裙在屋裏掠過。那穿堂過室的風，有如那掠過山脊之雄風，帶著斷斷續續的大地之聲，或者，僅僅是大地樂聲中的天 籟。早上，總是晨風吹拂，創造著無窮無盡的詩境；不過，能領略這詩意的卻寥寥無幾。奧林匹斯山比比皆是，唯獨不在塵世之間……

我到樹林中去，因為我希望從容不迫地生活，僅僅面對生活中最基本的事實，看看我是否能掌握生活的教海，不至於在臨終時才發現自己不曾生活過。我不希望過那種稱不上是生活的生活，因為生存的代價是那麼昂貴；我也不希望聽天由命，除非那是萬不得已。我要生活得深沈，吮吸生活的所有精髓；我要生活得堅定，像斯巴頓人一樣，摒棄一切不屬於生活的事物，辛勤勞作，生活簡樸，將生活局限在小範圍內，將它降到最低水平。如果證明生活是低賤的，那麼就完整、真實地瞭解其低賤之處，並將之公諸於世；如果證明生活是高尚的，那麼就通過實踐瞭解它，並且下一次遠足時，就能對它作出真實的描述。因為，在我看來，大部分人對生活，不管它是魔鬼的產物還是上帝的創造，都非常沒有把握；並且，他們還頗有點倉促地下結論，認為「為上帝增光和永遠享受上帝的福扯」是人類在這世界上的主要目的。

儘管寓言告訴我們說，很久以前我們就進化成人了，但是，我們卻活得低賤，就像螞蟻一樣。我們仍然不自量力地像小精靈似地與鶴爭鬥。這是錯上加錯，雪上加霜；我們最優秀的德性，也有其過分的、但又是可以避免的鄙賤性。我們的生活被細節消耗殆盡。老實人用十個手指頭計數就差不多了；若在極特殊情況下，他可以湊上十個腳趾，至於其他的可以合在一起算。要簡單、簡單、再簡單!依我說，你要做的事應當是兩、三件，而不是成百上千件；數上半打，而不要數上百萬；把你的帳日記在你的大姆指指甲上。在這多變的文明生活的海洋裏，雲霧、風暴、流沙和許許多多事情都得考慮。如果一個人不想沈淪到底層，又不短躲進港灣，就得靠精心算計，才能活下去。他要成功，就必須是台出色的計算器。簡化、再簡化！如果吃飯是必須的話，那麼就一天吃一餐，而不要吃三餐；不要吃上百道菜，就吃五道菜；其他的東西也作相應的削減。我們的生活就像由許多小國家組成的德國聯盟一樣，邊界老是在變動；即使德國人自己也無法告訴你，某時某刻它的邊界在那裡。國家本身，儘管內部有些所謂的改善，(順便指出，這些改善都是表面上的、膚淺的)但它仍是一個龐大而且畸形發展的機構，就像這片土地上的千千萬萬座樓房一樣，裏面擠滿了傢俱，被自己設下的陷阱所制約，被奢侈和毫無顧忌的開支、被缺乏精打細算和缺乏有價值的目標弄得傾家蕩產。挽救它的唯一方法，就像挽救那些房子一樣，是嚴格的精打細算，是一種嚴格的、比斯巴頓人更簡樸的生活方武和高尚的生活目標。生活的節奏太快了。人們認為，至關重要的是國家要有商業，要出口冰塊，要通過電報交談，要每小時行駛三十英里，而毫不質疑，他們做得到還是做不到；但是，我們是否應當像狒狒一樣生活，還是像人一樣生活，卻仍是個不定之數……

我們為什麼要生活得如此匆忙，如此浪費生命呢?我們還不曾感到餓，便斷定會挨餓。人們說，及時縫一針，省得縫九針，於是，他們便在今天縫上千百針，好為明天省下九針。至於工作，我們還沒有過任何有價值的工作。我們跳聖‧維圖斯舞，可卻無法保持頭不動……飯後，人們幾乎不午睡，可是當他醒來時，他抬頭便問：「有什麼消息?」好像人類其他人都在為他站崗放哨似的。毫無疑義，有些人囑咐別人每半小時叫醒他一次，其目的卻僅僅是為了被這樣叫醒。爾後，作為回報，他們就敘述自己夢到的事情。睡了一夜之後，新聞就跟早餐一樣不可缺少。「求你告訴我，世界上什麼地方，什麼人發生了什麼新鮮事。」──他一邊喝咖啡吃麵捲，一邊閱讀新聞：在瓦赫土河有個人的眼睛被挖掉了；同時，他卻沒想到他正生活在世界上深不可測的猛馬洞穴裏，而且他自己也只有一隻發育不健全的眼睛。

就我來說，沒有郵局，我也能夠輕鬆對付。我覺得，沒有什麼非常重要的消息是通過郵局得到的。挑剔地說，我一生中僅收到過一、兩封信，其內容值得付那郵資──這是我數年前寫的。通常收費低廉的郵局只是一種機構，通過它你能一本正經地付上一點錢，便可購買他人心中的想法，而且付這麼點錢還常常是為了開個肯定不會出差錯的玩笑。我確信，我從未在報紙上讀到過任何值得記憶的消息。如果我們讀一則關於有個人遭搶劫的消息，或者有人被謀殺，或者有人在事故中喪生，或者有座房子被燒了，或者條船沈沒了，或者有艘汽輪爆炸了，或者有只母牛在西部鐵路被壓死了，或者一條瘋狗被宰了，或者冬季裏來了一批蝗蟲──那麼，我就絕對不必再讀其他消息了。一則就夠了。如果你已經認識了這條原則，那麼你搭理那一大堆具體例子和該原則的實際應用情況又有什麼用呢?對於哲學家來說，所有的新聞，所謂的新聞，都是閒話，其 編輯和讀者都是些老婦人，一邊喝茶，一邊藉以度日。

讓我們像大自然一樣，從容不迫地過上一天吧，別讓一些落在枕木上的堅果和蚊子的翅膀將我們顛出軌。讓我們一早起來，不吃早飯或吃早飯，一切慢慢來，不帶任何煩亂。朋友來也罷，走也罷；門鈴響也罷，孩子哭也罷，──橫下一條心，過一天這樣的日子。我們為什麼應當向潮流屈服和順應潮流呢?午飯，有如位於淺灘中央的湍急而又可怕的 漩渦，屆時我們萬萬不可心煩意亂，不知所措。度過這個危險，你就平安了，因為剩下的時間就如下山，帶著未鬆懈的勇氣和上午的活力，揚帆而下，縛於桅桿上，像尤利西斯一樣，領略另一側風光。如果引擎發出響聲，就讓它一直響到聲音嘶啞，痛苦不已。如果鈴聲響了，我們幹嘛得跑呢?我們可以想想鈴聲像何種音樂。讓我們安下心來工作吧。觀念、偏見、傳統、妄想和表面現像組成的泥濘淤積層覆蓋了整個地球，從巴黎到倫敦，從紐約到波士頓再到康科，從教會到政府，從詩學到哲學再到宗教，全部被覆蓋著。我們要邁開雙腳，踏著淤泥前進，一直到我們抵達我們稱之為「現實」的實地和礁石為止。我們說，就是這個，沒錯……不論是生還是死，我們僅追求現實。如果我們真的要死了，那就讓我們聽到喉頭的呼嚇聲，感到臨終的冰冷；如果還活著，那就讓我們幹我們的事業。

時間不過是我垂釣的小溪。我飲用溪中水；喝水時，我看到沙質的水底，發覺溪水是那麼淺。那淺淺的水流一溜而過，留下的是永恆。我要喝得深一些，到空中垂釣，蒼穹的盡頭是有如鵝卵石的星星。我不識數，我連字母表上的第－個字母都不認得，我一直後悔我不能像初生時那麼聰明。理智是一把利刃，它辨清方向，一路剖切直抵事物的奧秘之所在。如非必需，我不希望動手忙碌。我的大腦就是手和腳。我覺得，我的所有最精華的能力都集中在大腦裏。我的本能告訴我，我的大腦是挖掘器官，就像一些生靈用嘴或前爪挖穴一樣，我用大腦挖掘一條穿過這些山巒的隧道。我想，最富足的礦脈就在這兒的某個地方，憑藉這魔杖和這淡淡升騰起的霧氣，我的判斷也是如此。我要在這兒開始我的挖掘。

Walden

 . . . . The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

    When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion,. which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me any thing to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about....

    When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a traveling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere. . . .

    I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

    Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way, are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain. ...

    Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to-morrow. As for work, we haven't any of any consequence. We have the Saint Vitus' dance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still. ... Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. "Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe,"--and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

    For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life--1 wrote this some years ago--that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter,--we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. . . .

    Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry,--determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill. With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are like. Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through Church and State, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake. . . . Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.

    Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.