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1、【英文读物】The Service The brave man is the elder son of creation, who has stept buoyantly into his inheritance, while the coward, who is the younger, waiteth patiently till he decease. He rides as wide of this earths gravity as a star, and by yielding incessantly to all the impulses of the soul, is cons
2、tantly drawn upward and becomes a fixed star. His bravery deals not so much in resolute action, as healthy and assured rest; its palmy state is a staying at home and compelling alliance in all directions. So stands his life to heaven, as some fair sunlit tree against the western horizon, and by sunr
3、ise is planted on some eastern hill, to glisten in the first rays of the dawn. The brave man braves nothing, nor knows he of his bravery. He is that sixth champion against Thebes, whom, when the proud devices of the rest have been recorded, the poet describes as “bearing a full-orbed shield of solid
4、 brass,”“But there was no device upon its circle,For not to seem just but to be is his wish.” He does not present a gleaming edge to ward off harm, for that will oftenest attract the lightning, but rather is the all-pervading ether, which the lightning does not strike but purify. So is the profanity
5、 of his companion as a flash across the face of his sky, which lights up and reveals its serene depths. Earth cannot shock the heavens, but its dull vapor and foul smoke make a bright cloud spot in the ether, and anon the sun, like a cunning artificer, will cut and paint it, and set it for a jewel i
6、n the breast of the sky.His greatness is not measurable; not such a greatness as when we would erect a stupendous piece of art, and send far and near for materials, intending to lay the foundations deeper, and rear the structure higher than ever; for hence results only a remarkable bulkiness without
7、 grandeur, lacking those true and simple proportions which are independent of size. He was not builded by that unwise generation that would fain have reached the heavens by piling one brick upon another; but by a far wiser, that builded inward and not outward, having found out a shorter way, through
8、 the observance of a higher art. The Pyramids some artisan may measure with his line; but if he gives you the dimensions of the Parthenon in feet and inches, the figures will not embrace it like a cord, but dangle from its entablature like an elastic drapery.His eye is the focus in which all the ray
9、s, from whatever side, are collected; for, itself being within and central, the entire circumference is revealed to it. Just as we scan the whole concave of the heavens at a glance, but can compass only one side of the pebble at our feet. So does his discretion give prevalence to his valor. “Discret
10、ion is the wise mans soul” says the poet. His prudence may safely go many strides beyond the utmost rashness of the coward; for, while he observes strictly the golden mean, he seems to run through all extremes with impunity. Like the sun, which, to the poor worldling, now appears in the zenith, now
11、in the horizon, and again is faintly reflected from the moons disk, and has the credit of describing an entire great circle, crossing the equinoctial and solstitial colures,without detriment to his steadfastness or mediocrity. The golden mean, in ethics, as in physics, is the centre of the system, a
12、nd that about which all revolve; and, though to a distant and plodding planet it be the uttermost extreme, yet one day, when that planets year is complete, it will be found to be central. They who are alarmed lest Virtue should so far demean herself as to be extremely good, have not yet wholly embra
13、ced her, but described only a slight arc of a few seconds about her; and from so small and ill-defined a curvature, you can calculate no centre whatever; but their mean is no better than meanness, nor their medium than mediocrity.The coward wants resolution, which the brave man can do without. He re
14、cognizes no faith but a creed, thinking this straw, by which he is moored, does him good service, because his sheet-anchor does not drag. “The house-roof fights with the rain; he who is under shelter does not know it.” In his religion the ligature, which should be muscle and sinew, is rather like th
15、at thread which the accomplices of Cylon held in their hands, when they went abroad from the temple of Minerva,the other end being attached to the statue of the goddess. But frequently, as in their case, the thread breaks, being stretched; and he is left without an asylum.The divinity in man is the
16、true vestal fire of the temple, which is never permitted to go out, but burns as steadily, and with as pure a flame, on the obscure provincial altars as in Numas temple at Rome. In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed. We say, justly, that the weak person
17、is “flat,”for, like all flat substances, he does not stand in the direction of his strength, that is, on his edge, but affords a convenient surface to put upon. He slides all the way through life. Most things are strong in one direction; a straw longitudinally; a board in the direction of its edge;
18、a knee transversely to its grain; but the brave man is a perfect sphere, which cannot fall on its flat side, and is equally strong every way. The coward is wretchedly spheroidal at best, too much educated or drawn out on one side, and depressed on the other; or may be likened to a hollow sphere, who
19、se disposition of matter is best when the greatest bulk is intended.We shall not attain to be spherical by lying on one or the other side for an eternity, but only by resigning ourselves implicitly to the law of gravity in us, shall we find our axis coincident with the celestial axis, and by revolvi
20、ng incessantly through all circles, acquire a perfect sphericity. Mankind, like the earth, revolve mainly from west to east, and so are flattened at the pole. But does not philosophy give hint of a movement commencing to be rotary at the poles too, which in a millennium will have acquired increased
21、rapidity, and help restore an equilibrium? And when at length every star in the nebul? and Milky Way has looked down with mild radiance for a season, exerting its whole influence as the polar star, the demands of science will in some degree be satisfied.The grand and majestic have always somewhat of
22、 the undulatoriness of the sphere. It is the secret of majesty in the rolling gait of the elephant, and of all grace in action and in art. Always the line of beauty is a curve. When with pomp a huge sphere is drawn along the streets, by the efforts of a hundred men, I seem to discover each striving
23、to imitate its gait, and keep step with it,if possible to swell to its own diameter. But onward it moves, and conquers the multitude with its majesty. What shame, then, that our lives, which might so well be the source of planetary motion, and sanction the order of the spheres, should be full of abr
24、uptness and angularity, so as not to roll nor move majestically!The Romans “made Fortune sirname to Fortitude,” for fortitude is that alchemy that turns all things to good fortune. The man of fortitude, whom the Latins called fortis is no other than that lucky person whom fors favors, or vir summae
25、fortis. If we will, every bark may “carry C?sar and C?sars fortune.” For an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself; he was no artist, but an artisan, who first made shields of brass. For armor of proof, mea virtute me involvo,I wrap myself in my virtue;“Tumble me down, and I will sitUpon my ruin
26、s, smiling yet.” If you let a single ray of light through the shutter, it will go on diffusing itself without limit till it enlighten the world; but the shadow that was never so wide at first, as rapidly contracts till it comes to naught. The shadow of the moon, when it passes nearest the sun, is lo
27、st in space ere it can reach our earth to eclipse it. Always the System shines with uninterrupted light; for as the sun is so much larger than any planet, no shadow can travel far into space. We may bask always in the light of the System, always may step back out of the shade. No mans shadow is as l
28、arge as his body, if the rays make a right angle with the reflecting surface. Let our lives be passed under the equator, with the sun in the meridian.There is no ill which may not be dissipated like the dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it. Overcome evil with good. Practice no such narrow ec
29、onomy as they, whose bravery amounts to no more light than a farthing candle, before which most objects cast a shadow wider than themselves.Nature refuses to sympathize with our sorrow; she has not provided for, but by a thousand contrivances against it: she has bevelled the margin of the eyelids, t
30、hat the tears may not overflow on the cheeks. It was a conceit of Plutarch, accounting for the preference given to signs observed on the left hand, that men may have thought “things terrestrial and mortal directly over against heavenly and divine things, and do conjecture that the things which to us
31、 are on the left hand, the gods send down from their right hand.” If we are not blind, we shall see how a right hand is stretched over all,as well the unlucky as the lucky,and that the ordering Soul is only right-handed, distributing with one palm all our fates.What first suggested that necessity wa
32、s grim, and made fate to be so fatal? The strongest is always the least violent. Necessity is my eastern cushion on which I recline. My eye revels in its prospect as in the summer haze. I ask no more but to be left alone with it. It is the bosom of time and the lap of eternity. To be necessary is to
33、 be needful, and necessity is only another name for inflexibility of good. How I welcome my grim fellow, and walk arm in arm with him! Let me too be such a Necessity as he! I love him, he is so flexile, and yields to me as the air to my body. I leap and dance in his midst, and play with his beard ti
34、ll he smiles. I greet thee, my elder brother! who with thy touch ennoblest all things. Then is holiday when naught intervenes betwixt me and thee. Must it be so,then is it good. The stars are thy interpreters to me.Over Greece hangs the divine necessity, ever a mellower heaven of itself; whose light
35、 gilds the Acropolis and a thousand fanes and groves.II. What Music Shall We Have? Each more melodious note I hearBrings this reproach to me,That I alone afford the ear,Who would the music be. The brave man is the sole patron of music; he recognizes it for his mother tongue; a more mellifluous and a
36、rticulate language than words, in comparison with which, speech is recent and temporary. It is his voice. His language must have the same majestic movement and cadence that philosophy assigns to the heavenly bodies. The steady flux of his thought constitutes time in music. The universe falls in and
37、keeps pace with it, which before proceeded singly and discordant. Hence are poetry and song. When Bravery first grew afraid and went to war, it took Music along with it. The soul is delighted still to hear the echo of her own voice. Especially the soldier insists on agreement and harmony always. To
38、secure these he falls out. Indeed, it is that friendship there is in war that makes it chivalrous and heroic. It was the dim sentiment of a noble friendship for the purest soul the world has seen, that gave to Europe a crusading era. War is but the compelling of peace. If the soldier marches to the
39、sack of a town, he must be preceded by drum and trumpet, which shall identify his cause with the accordant universe. All things thus echo back his own spirit, and thus the hostile territory is preoccupied for him. He is no longer insulated, but infinitely related and familiar. The roll-call musters
40、for him all the forces of Nature.There is as much music in the world as virtue. In a world of peace and love music would be the universal language, and men greet each other in the fields in such accents as a Beethoven now utters at rare intervals from a distance. All things obey music as they obey v
41、irtue. It is the herald of virtue. It is Gods voice. In it are the centripetal and centrifugal forces. The universe needed only to hear a divine melody, that every star might fall into its proper place, and assume its true sphericity. It entails a surpassing affluence on the meanest thing; riding ov
42、er the heads of sages, and soothing the din of philosophy. When we listen to it we are so wise that we need not to know. All sounds, and more than all, silence, do fife and drum for us. The least creaking doth whet all our senses, and emit a tremulous light, like the aurora borealis, over things. As
43、 polishing expresses the vein in marble, and the grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. It is either a sedative or a tonic to the soul.I read that “Plato thinks the gods never gave men music, the science of melody and harmony, for mere delectation or to tickle the ear; but
44、 that the discordant parts of the circulations and beauteous fabric of the soul, and that of it that roves about the body, and many times for want of tune and air, breaks forth into many extravagances and excesses, might be sweetly recalled and artfully wound up to their former consent and agreement
45、.”A sudden burst from a horn startles us, as if one had rashly provoked a wild beast. We admire his boldness; he dares wake the echoes which he cannot put to rest. The sound of a bugle in the stillness of the night sends forth its voice to the farthest stars, and marshals them in new order and harmo
46、ny. Instantly it finds a fit sounding-board in the heavens. The notes flash out on the horizon like heat lightning, quickening the pulse of creation. The heavens say, Now is this my own earth.To the sensitive soul the Universe has her own fixed measure, which is its measure also, and as this, expres
47、sed in the regularity of its pulse, is inseparable from a healthy body, so is its healthiness dependent on the regularity of its rhythm. In all sounds the soul recognizes its own rhythm, and seeks to express its sympathy by a correspondent movement of the limbs. When the body marches to the measure
48、of the soul, then is true courage and invincible strength. The coward would reduce this thrilling sphere-music to a universal wail,this melodious chant to a nasal cant. He thinks to conciliate all hostile influences by compelling his neighborhood into a partial concord with himself; but his music is
49、 no better than a jingle, which is akin to a jar,jars regularly recurring. He blows a feeble blast of slender melody, because Nature can have no more sympathy with such a soul than it has of cheerful melody in itself. Hence hears he no accordant note in the universe, and is a coward, or consciously outcast and deserted man. But the brave man, without drum or trumpet, compels concord everywhere, by the universality and tunefulness of his soul.Let not the faithful sorrow that he has no ear for the more fick