董桥:我常常想起 George Gissing《四季零墨》里的一段话:“今之男女,煮字以疗饥者多不胜数,实则得以靠此维生者万中无一。此辈中人或因别无他技而舞文弄墨,或因惯见文人一行自立门户、风光无穷而效颦操觚,不惜乞哀告怜,举债度日,终至进退维谷,悔之晚矣,不知如何是好?区区一生命途多舛,回首前尘,深感鼓励晚辈以文谋生,简直罪过。”
(Innumerable are the men and women now writing for bread, who have not the least chance of finding in such work a permanent livelihood. They took to writing because they knew not what else to do, or because the literary calling tempted them by its independence and its dazzling prices. They will hang on to the squalid profession, their earnings eked out by begging and borrowing, until it is too late for them to do anything else - and what then? With a lifetime of dread experience behind me, I say that he who encourages any young man or woman to look for his living to 'literature', commits no less than a crime.)
董桥:乔治.吉辛那本The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft,记得有人把书名译作「草堂随笔」,古雅得很。後来我偶然想到,这本书既然分成春夏秋冬四个章目去写,译成「四季零墨」,大概也行。这本书一九○三年初版,当时吉辛刚死了几个月,後来前前後後不知道出了多少种版本。…他认为,吉辛笔下的莱克洛夫,其实是个极端小资产阶级反动文人,是个和平主义者,憎恨民主,醉心莎士比亚、约翰森、史特恩和蓝姆的作品,也喜欢古老英国的烤牛肉
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