翻译美文典范

翻译美文典范

培根美文：of study (论读书）

STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.
Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring;
for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the
judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can
execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but
the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs,
come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time
in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is
affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the
humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected
by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants,
that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give
forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in
by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire
them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use;
but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by
observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe
and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to
weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be
swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is,
some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read,
but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with
diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy,
and extracts made of them bothers; but that would be only in
the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books,
else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy
things.

Reading make a full man; conference a ready man; and writing
an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had
need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need
have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have
much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Histories
make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtitle; natural
philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Abeunt studia in mores. Nay, there is no stand or impediment in
the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases
of the body, may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for
the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle
walking for the stomach; riding fo