The Instinct for the Beautiful 爱美的天性

By Rachel Louise Carson

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct of what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed or even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

儿童的世界新奇而美丽，充满了惊异和兴奋。可是，对我们多数人来说，还未到成年，这种锐利的目光，这种爱一切美丽的和令人敬畏的事物的天性，就已经变得迟钝，甚至丧失殆尽。这真是我们的不幸。据说，有一位善心的仙女主持所有儿童的洗礼。假如我能对她有所影响的话，我倒想向她提个要求：请她赋予世间的儿童以新奇感(一种能伴随他们终身的无可摧毁的新奇感)，并使它成为万灵的解药。有了它，他们在以后的岁月中就会永远陶醉在新奇之中，不致产生厌倦感，不致徒劳地全神贯注于人为的虚假的事物，不致脱离力量的源泉。

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement of mystery of the world we live in. Parents often have a sense of inadequacy when confronted on the hand with eager, sensitive child mind of a child and on the other with a world of complex physical nature, inhabited by a life so various and unfamiliar that it seems hopeless to reduce it to order and knowledge. In a mood of self-defeat, they exclaim, "How can I possibly teach my child about nature - why, I don’t even know one bird from another!"

假如一个儿童没有受到仙女的赐予而想要持久地保持他那天生的新奇感，他至少需要有一个能与他共享新奇感的成年人和他作伴，并且跟他一起不断去发现我们所生活的这个世界中的一切欢乐、刺激和神秘。做父母的常有力不从心之感。一方面，他们要满足孩子那感觉灵敏而又渴望求知的心灵。另一方面，复杂的物质世界却使他们感到难于应付，他们自己对于这个世界形形色色的生活都感到生疏，好像未抱有理出头绪、弄个明白的愿望。他们自己就泄了气，喊道：“我哪能教我的孩子认识大自然!啊，我连两只鸟都分不清哩!”