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这些人中，三号下铺那位是最糟糕的。
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他的鼾声真是闻所未闻。即使是在像卧铺车这样呼噜锦标赛的宝地，这也是我们听过的最有条不紊的呼噜。大家还没关灯上床就寝，这边就开始鼾声大作。噢不！这家伙是更冷血的魔头。当所有人刚刚入眠正在品尝梦乡的甜美时，他破门而入，像一个张开双翼的活生生的魔鬼，让人整夜无法安宁。
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他那响亮的“咕噜噜”的开场白让车厢中每一个人睁开双眼。但我们还指望这只是偶然，他不会再接再厉，那么还可以原谅。可接着他用一声悠长的“呱哈哈”的声浪摧毁了我们的希望，使那些饱含安宁善意的谅解顿时灰飞烟灭。听上去此人绝不会就此善罢甘休。每个无法入眠的人都抬高了头，足足有一分钟，大家悬着心屏息等待最糟的情况。三号下铺却开始一长串抑扬顿挫、品质稳定并且余音袅袅的呼噜声。
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“咕哇——哈！咕哇——哈！咕哇——哈！咕哇——哈！”
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很明显今夜他是打算没完没了的了。疲倦的人们倒向枕头却了无睡意，有人开始咒骂。低沉含混的喃喃自语像是遥远雷暴的回声。很快，三号下铺玩起了新花样。他突然吐出一声“咕呜——咔”，听上去好像他的鼻子要愤而罢工。然后他停顿了一下，在我们开始期望他要么睡醒，要么被勒死的时候——随便哪个都行——他带着喉音的一声“咕噜兮”让每个人都失望之极。
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然后他停顿片刻，调整呼吸，厚积薄发地发出响亮的“咔——噗”，几乎把车厢顶都掀掉了。接着他继续用鼻子玩着各种匪夷所思的技巧，呼吸声惊天地泣鬼神，如果诸神能听到的话。任何人要用自己的呼吸器官发出像三号下铺这位仁兄用鼻子所发出的那种震天动地的可怕噪音几乎是不可能的。他在鼻腔各个部位游走，在鼾声的半音阶上下颤动；他穷尽各种微妙、令人生畏的变化，直到他的鼻子听上去应该早已脱节并散落一地。他就这样没日没夜地讲述自己的故事：“呱呜！呱啦！咕——！咔噗！嘎哇——哈！喔咔！喔特！喔——喔噗！”
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正当其他乘客商量如何干掉这家伙的时候，拂晓来临，三号下铺终于醒了。每个人都盯着门帘，想看看把卧铺车厢搅成一锅粥的到底是何方神圣。梳洗完毕，门帘打开，“三号下铺”站在大家面前。老天爷！
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那是个漂亮的年轻姑娘，金色的头发，羞怯恳求的目光，就像一只被追捕的小鹿。
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（张萍 译）
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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033828]
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20 A LIBERAL EDUCATION
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By Thomas Henry Huxley
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A LIBERAL EDUCATION, by Thomas Henry Huxley, as reprinted in Roger Sherman Loomis’s Freshman Readings , Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925, pp. 301-305.
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Thomas Henry Huxley （1825-1895）, English biologist who lectured widely and wrote extensively.
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What is education? Above all things, what is our ideal of a thoroughly liberal education? —of that education which, if we could begin life again, we would give ourselves—of the education which, if we could mold the fates to our own will, we would give our children? Well, I know not what may be your conceptions upon this matter but I will tell you mine, and I hope I shall find that our views are not very discrepant.
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Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game at chess. Don’t you think we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight?
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Yet, it is a plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players, in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated—without haste, but without remorse.
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My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win—and I should accept it as an image of human life.
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Well, what I mean by education is learning the rules of this mighty game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which professes to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority or of numbers upon the other side.
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It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigor of his faculties, could be suddenly born in the world, as Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as he best might. How long would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes. Nature would begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain and pleasure would be at his elbow telling him to do this and avoid that; and by slow degrees the man would receive an education which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate to his circumstances, though there would be no extras and very few accomplishments.
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And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam, or, better still, an Eve, a new and greater world, that of social and moral phenomena, would be revealed. Joys and woes, compared with which all others might seem but faint shadows, would spring from the new relations. Happiness and sorrow would take the place of the coarse monitors, pleasure and pain; but conduct would still be shaped by the observation of the natural consequences of actions; or, in other words, by the laws of the nature of man.
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To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as to Adam. And then, long before we were susceptible of any other mode of instruction, nature took us in hand, and every minute of waking life brought its educational influence, shaping our actions into rough accordance with nature’s laws, so that we might not be ended untimely by too gross disobedience. Nor should I speak of this process of education as past for anyone, be he as old as he may. For every man the world is as fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the eyes to see them. And nature is still continuing her patient education of us in that great university, the universe, of which we are all members—nature having no Test-Acts.
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Those who take honors in nature’s university, who learn the laws which govern men and things and obey them, are the really great and successful men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the “Poll,” who pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those who won’t learn at all are plucked; and then you can’t come up again. Nature’s pluck means extermination.
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Thus the question of compulsory education is settled so far as nature is concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed long ago. But, like all compulsory legislation, that of nature is harsh and wasteful in its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as wilful disobedience—incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime. Nature’s discipline is not even a word and a blow, and the blow first; but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out why your ears were boxed.