評論
打印
Mr. Anagnos, in speaking of my composition on the cities, has said, "These ideas are poetic in their essence." But I do not understand how he ever thought a blind and deaf child of eleven could have invented them. Yet I cannot think that because I did not originate the ideas, my little composition is therefore quite devoid of interest. It shows me that I could express my appreciation of beautiful and poetic ideas in clear and animated language.
阿納戈諾斯先生則說我描寫古代城市的作文“詩意地再現了其內在特質”。但我并不知曉他是如何看待一個十一歲的盲聾小孩的遣詞造句的。總之，我并不認為我有創作的本事，因為我無法創造自己的觀點，所以我的作文空泛而無趣也就在所難免了。這反倒提醒了我，我應該使用清晰而生動的語言來描述美好的事物，品評詩意的思想。
Those early compositions were mental gymnastics. I was learning, as all young and inexperienced persons learn, by assimilation and imitation, to put ideas into words. Everything I found in books that pleased me I retained in my memory, consciously or unconsciously, and adapted it. The young writer, as Stevenson has said, instinctively tries to copy whatever seems most admirable, and he shifts his admiration with astonishing versatility. It is only after years of this sort of practice that even great men have learned to marshal the legion of words which come thronging through every byway of the mind.
那些作文構成了我早期的智力訓練課程。像所有缺乏經驗的年輕人一樣，我通過吸收和模仿將自己的思想訴諸文字。書本中任何給我留下愉悅記憶的事物——無論是有意還是無意——都適用于這個原則。有一個年輕的作家史蒂文森曾說過，受本能驅使，他總是盡其所能地再現那些最令人景仰的崇高思想，而且，他會令人驚訝地將這種崇高轉化為千變萬化的文字效果。即使是偉大的人物，也只有經年累月地持續訓練，才能匯聚起攻往每一條思想小徑的文字大軍。
I am afraid I have not yet completed this process. It is certain that I cannot always distinguish my own thoughts from those I read, because what I read becomes the very substance and texture of my mind. Consequently, in nearly all that I write, I produce something which very much resembles the crazy patchwork I used to make when I first learned to sew.
至今，我仍擔心自己無法完成這一過程。顯而易見的是，我不能總是從我讀到的東西里辨認出我自己的思想，因為我讀過的東西已經變成了我的精神食糧，它已經與我融為一體。所以說，在我寫的幾乎所有文章里，我所創造出的是這樣一種東西——它很像我最初學習女紅時所縫制的一件色彩斑斕的百衲衣。
