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● Blindness had always favoured…：从历史上看来，目盲非但不足为害，而且大有助于深思冥想的习惯。动词时态had favoured表示在普氏以前已经如此。
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● 接着用两句问话，这种句子形式虽为问句，事实上答案不言自明，在修辞学上称为rhetorical question，相当于中文的“反问”。
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● Nicolas de Malebranche（1638—1715）：法国哲学家。他总把百叶窗拉下，不让阳光进屋，免得周围景物，分了他用功的心（中国也有“十年目不窥园”的佳话）。
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● Democritus：纪元前四五世纪间的希腊哲学家。据古人传说（as the legend said），他故意（deliberately）把眼睛弄瞎，为的要激发自己的思想。
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● invention：这里不是指科学上的发明，而是文学家的想象。创造人物，制作故事。希腊大诗人荷马据说是个瞎子，密尔顿的《失乐园》等巨著都是在失明以后写成。许多诗人可以证明：目盲有益于文学创作。
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● The blind：瞎子，形容词作名词用，相当于the rich表示所有的富人。瞎子都以耐心出名，不会心浮气粗；他们的惊人的记忆力，尤为世人所乐道。feats：特殊技能，如力能扛鼎，百步穿杨，一目十行等。feats of memory：能记普通人所不能记的东西。
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Prescott taught himself to use a noctograph, by means of which, with the aid of an ivory stylus, pressing on a sheet of carbon-paper, he took his notes and wrote his manuscripts. The secretary copied the notes in a large, round hand, which Prescott was sometimes able to read. Meanwhile, he had learned to memorize, composing in his memory to such an extent that he could often carry in his mind as many as three chapters of one of his books, seventy-two pages of printed text. He could hold it there for several days, turning it over and over, remodelling every sentence. One chapter he thus remodelled sixteen times, before committing a word to paper.
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● noctograph：盲人用的写字机器，构造不详，想必是利用触觉代替视觉的。ivory stylus：象牙制的尖头笔。carbon-paper：复写纸。pressing on：加压力于其上，即“写”。took notes：记笔记。manuscripts：文稿。
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● large：字迹（hand）很大。round hand：圆形字体，笔划清楚，不倾不斜，各字母间都分开的。相当于中文的“正楷”，易于辨认，与“行书”（running hand）不同。sometimes：秘书把他的笔记这样清清楚楚地抄了下来，普氏还只是“有时”能读得出来而已，其目力之不济可想而知。
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● composing in his memory：用他的记忆来作文。写下的稿子自己不能读，如何能修改补正呢？只好把文章都记在脑子里。to such an extent that：普通人也有会拟“腹稿”的，可是比起普氏来，真是小巫之见大巫。普氏的拟腹稿，能够做到把好几十页书都记在脑筋里的“程度”。
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● 关于“记住”，这两句里用了两个动词，都值得称道。一个是carry：把一本书整整三章文章（排印起来要占七十二页之多）都“背”在脑筋里。还有一个字是hold：放在那里，牢记不忘。hold it的it，指那几章文章的“整体”。
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● turning it over and over：心里翻来覆去地想它。remodelling every sentence：腹稿未必妥当，句句都在脑筋里仔细地修改。remodelling所指，不单是更动几个字而已，硬是把句法都要彻底地改过。
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● committing a word to paper：写一个字在纸上。先是一字不落，想之又想，改之又改，然后再落笔。有一章他的腹稿改了十六次之多。committing有“付托”之意。
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His blindness had another effect. It increased the sensitivity that lay behind the judgments he conveyed—as an artist ought to convey them—by subtle modulations of tone and style. He spoke of the careless indifference with which men who would never abuse a dog crushed, without a thought, insects whose bodily agonies were imperceptible to the naked eye.
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● effect：效果。
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● the judgements he conveyed：他所下的判断。convey：表达。西班牙那时盛行“异教裁判”，对于思想罪犯百般凌虐，普氏写这一段的历史，对于此种暴行，甚表不满。“不满”就是他的判断，他如何表达他自己的见解呢？他既是一个讲究行文措辞的“艺术家”，他并不直言责斥，他用的是艺术家的办法。在他文章的语调（tone）和风格（style）之中，自有其不可捉摸（subtle）的抑扬顿挫（modulations），他就在这种地方，暗加褒贬。
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● 他的见解基于他对人类的同情，所以说在他的判断的后面（that lay behind the judgments）有他对于人生是非苦乐的敏感之心（sensitivity），而盲人又是特别的敏感。
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● men who would never abuse a dog：从不肯虐待猫狗的人。这种人应该是很仁慈的了，可是他们会毫不加思索地（without a thought）踏死小虫！（crushed后面虽有逗号，但是在语法结构上，它应该连它的宾语insects）。因为猫狗的痛苦，显而易见，虫豸的痛苦，非大慈大悲极具同情心者，不能体会。它们身体上的苦楚（bodily agonies）为肉眼所不能见。naked eyes：肉眼，普通人的眼睛。所以有眼睛的人，未必能体贴入微，而盲人可能特别敏感，乃知蝼蚁之亦贪生也。
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● the careless indifference with which men…crushed…insects：人踏死小虫的时候，带一种马虎满不在乎的态度。普氏在某一篇文章里，就讨论到（spoke of）这一点，足见盲目反而增加了他的敏感。
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He had first acquired these mental habits when, as a young man with failing sight, he had been sent abroad, to London and Paris, to consult the doctors there, and had spent a quiet winter in the Azores. People were surprised, in later years, that Prescott, who had never visited Spain, or Mexico or Peru, knew so much about these tropical scenes and was able to fill his books with such glowing pictures,—Spanish gardens, myrtles, laurels, lemons, the box-tree and the rose, mountain vistas, wildly picturesque, the Cordilleras and the Sierra Nevada, with convent-bells ringing in the valleys. A young man who had grown up in Boston, under cloudy skies, lashed by the east wind, would have had little imagination if he had not received vivid impressions during these June-like months in the Azores.
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● these mental habits：这些心理上的习惯，即上文所说的记忆，拟腹稿等。acquired：获得；“养成一种习惯”可说to acquire a habit。with failing sight：目力渐渐丧失。
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● to consult the doctors there：请教伦敦巴黎两地的名医。（普氏游欧，在他19岁到21岁之间。）Azores：大西洋中岛屿，属葡萄牙。群岛前面，该加冠词the。普氏的外祖父那时是岛上的美国领事。
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● 本文文章的特点，是长句子相当多，可是句子虽长，停顿也多，很少有一气呵成的，读了几个字读者就可以换一口气，调子缓慢，不慌不忙，有闲散轻松之妙。调子既慢，装饰用的字眼可以随时插入，句法内容因以丰富，而句法变化亦变幻莫测矣。以第一句为例，when以前的句法是直接了当的，到了when以后，从句的主语he不见出来，反而添了一个comma，comma之后又来as a young man with failing sight这样一个短语，这六个字紧凑得好，假如初学写来，写成when he was young and his sight was failing就显得笨拙而啰嗦矣。六个字过后，再说他到海外去。去哪里呢？（语气一顿）伦敦、巴黎。去干什么呢？（语气又一顿）是去瞧大夫的。
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● 这样写法在第二句中更为明显。如surprised后，语气一顿，接in later years（普氏成名以后）；that Prescott之后，隔了好多字，动词knew才出现；而knew之前，语气又要停好几次；Spain之后一顿，or Mexico后一小顿；or Peru后又一顿。如中间取消一个or，改说Spain, Mexico or Peru句法较直捷干脆，唯韵味不同矣。总之，文章无定法，调子快有调子快的好处，调子慢有调子慢的好处。本文调子很慢，作者苦心所在，尚望读者仔细体会。
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● 普氏从来没有去过西班牙，也没有去过墨西哥和秘鲁，（普氏继Ferdinand and Isabella之后，复完成两大巨著：Conquest of Mexico与Conquest of Peru），可是他对于那些热带国家的风光景色知道得非常清楚，犹如曾经身历其境一般，所以以后读者很觉奇怪。他的书里面到处是南欧和中南美洲风景的描写，色彩鲜明，生动如画（glowing：发光的）。
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