評(píng)論
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The words themselves fascinated me; but I took no conscious account of what I read. My mind must, however, have been very impressionable at that period, for it retained many words and whole sentences, to the meaning of which I had not the faintest clue; and afterward, when I began to talk and write, these words and sentences would flash out quite naturally, so that my friends wondered at the richness of my vocabulary. I must have read parts of many books (in those early days I think I never read any one book through) and a great deal of poetry in this uncomprehending way, until I discovered "Little Lord Fauntleroy," which was the first book of any consequence I read understandingly.
可以說，令我著迷的正是那些詞語(yǔ)本身，而書的內(nèi)容反倒不在我的考慮之列。即使這樣，我對(duì)知識(shí)的感知能力卻十分強(qiáng)大，因?yàn)槲业暮芏嘣~匯和句式都是在那時(shí)掌握的。雖然對(duì)那些詞句的含義不甚明了，但是在后來，當(dāng)我開始學(xué)習(xí)說話和寫字的時(shí)候，這些詞句竟然自然而然地脫口而出，以至于朋友們對(duì)我豐富的詞匯量大為驚訝。正是以這種不知不覺的方式，我閱讀了大量的書籍（當(dāng)然，在早期的閱讀中，我從來沒有把一本書完整地讀完）和詩(shī)歌，直到我發(fā)現(xiàn)《小爵爺方特勒羅伊》——這是我完全讀懂的第一本書——我的閱讀生涯才算正式開始。
One day my teacher found me in a corner of the library poring over the pages of "The Scarlet Letter." I was then about eight years old. I remember she asked me if I liked little Pearl, and explained some of the words that had puzzled me. Then she told me that she had a beautiful story about a little boy which she was sure I should like better than "The Scarlet Letter." The name of the story was "Little Lord Fauntleroy," and she promised to read it to me the following summer. But we did not begin the story until August; the first few weeks of my stay at the seashore were so full of discoveries and excitement that I forgot the very existence of books. Then my teacher went to visit some friends in Boston, leaving me for a short time.
有一天，在圖書館的一個(gè)角落里，我的老師發(fā)現(xiàn)我正面對(duì)著《紅字》的書頁(yè)若有所思。那時(shí)我大約八歲。我記得她問我是否喜歡小珀?duì)枺疫€向我解釋了一些晦澀難懂的詞句。隨后，她對(duì)我說她有一本講述一個(gè)小男孩經(jīng)歷的故事書，她保證那本書比《紅字》有趣得多，我也一定會(huì)喜歡的。那本書的名字叫《小爵爺方特勒羅伊》，她答應(yīng)接下來的夏天就讀給我聽。可是一直到了8月份，我們還沒有開始看這本書；因?yàn)樵诤＿叺淖畛鯉讉€(gè)星期里，我完全沉浸在獵奇的興奮之中，以至于忘記了看書這回事。當(dāng)時(shí)我的老師要去波士頓探望一些友人，所以暫時(shí)離開了我。
When she returned almost the first thing we did was to begin the story of "Little Lord Fauntleroy." I recall distinctly the time and place when we read the first chapters of the fascinating child's story.
當(dāng)老師返回時(shí)，我們所做的第一件事就是開始閱讀《小爵爺方特勒羅伊》。我清楚地記得我們讀第一章時(shí)的時(shí)間和地點(diǎn)。
