Are they so frightful because the valley is full of foreigners--dull, insensate brutes, with no love of beauty in them? Then why didn't these foreigners set up similar abominations in the countries that they came from? You will, in fact, find nothing of the sort in Europe--save perhaps in the more putrid parts of England. There is scarcely an ugly village on the whole Continent. The peasants, however poor, somehow manage to make themselves graceful and charming habitations, even in Spain. But in the American village and small town the pull is always toward ugliness, and in that Westmoreland valley it has been yielded to with an eagerness bordering upon passion. It is incredible that mere ignorance should have achieved such masterpieces of horror.
這些房屋如此丑陋，難道是因?yàn)樵摵庸鹊貐^(qū)住滿了一些愚蠢遲鈍、麻木不仁、毫無愛美之心的外國蠻子嗎?若果然如此，為什么那些外國蠻子卻并沒有在自己的故土上造出這樣丑惡的東西來呢?事實(shí)上，在歐洲絕對找不到這種丑惡的東西--英國的某些破敗的地區(qū)也許例外。整個歐洲大陸很難找到一個丑陋的村落。歐洲那兒的農(nóng)民，不論怎么窮，都會想方設(shè)法將自己的居室修造得美觀雅致，即使在西班牙也是如此。而在美國的鄉(xiāng)村和小城鎮(zhèn)里，人們千方百計(jì)地追求的目標(biāo)是丑陋，尤其在那個威斯特摩蘭河谷地區(qū)，人們對丑的追求已達(dá)到狂熱的程度。如果說單憑愚昧無知就能造就這樣令人毛骨悚然的杰作，那是無法讓人信服的。
On certain levels of the American race, indeed, there seems to be a positive libido for the ugly, as on other and less Christian levels there is a libido for the beautiful. It is impossible to put down the wallpaper that defaces the average American home of the lower middle class to mere inadvertence,or to the,obscene humor of the, manufacturers. Such ghastly designs, it must be obvious, give a genuine delight to a certain type of mind. They meet, in some unfathomable way, its obscure and unintelligible demands. The taste for them is as enigmatical and yet as common as the taste for dogmatic theology and the poetry of Edgar A Guest.
美國某些階層的人們當(dāng)中似乎的的確確存在著一種愛丑之欲，如同在另一些不那么虔信基督教的階層當(dāng)中存在著一種愛美之心一樣。那些把一般美國中下層家庭的住宅打扮得像丑八怪的糊墻紙決不能歸咎于選購者的疏忽大意，也不能歸咎于制造商的鄙俗的幽默感。那些糊墻紙上的丑陋圖案顯然真正能使具有某種心理的人覺得賞心悅目。它們以某種莫名其妙的方式滿足了這種人的某種晦澀難解的心理需要。人們對這類丑陋圖案的欣賞，就同某些人對教條主義神學(xué)和埃德加·A格斯特的詩歌的迷戀一樣，既不可思議，又讓人習(xí)以為常。
來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/Article/201509/398708.shtml
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