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我认为这两句诗十分优美，因为它们让我心情愉悦。但为什么会这样？没有答案。我只知道，那些痴迷于文学作品的少数人大体上能与我达成共识，他们能从这些诗行中获得神秘的快乐。我们从同一个作家的这些诗行和其他诗行中体会到的快乐，会使得大众坚信威廉·巴特勒·叶芝是一个文学巨匠，对此我深信不疑。令人欣慰的是，这些少数文学爱好者所表现出来的志趣始终如一。在实践中，坚持一类兴趣的可以最终形成具有共性的观点，不同的只是兴趣的广度。这些少数人中，有些人的兴趣由于缺乏广泛性，常常局限于某一狭窄领域内，从而所剩寥寥。因此他们对作家声誉的促进作用也仅能作用于更有局限性的作家，如克拉肖。但是，这些人的文学偏好并不会和其他少数文学爱好者的文学主张相违背，相反，是对他们文学主张的巩固。
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所谓经典著作，就是那些作品，它们能够给那些对文学表现出持久且浓厚兴趣的少数人带来快乐的作品。这种快乐感之所以存在，是因为这类少数人愿意体验新的快感，于是怀揣一颗永无止境的好奇心，投入于永不止步的再发现当中。成就一部经典之作并不倚仗于伦理道德。经典作品能够流芳百世，并不是因为其遵循了某套标准，也不是因为其备受关注而免受疏忽，而是因为经典作品是快乐的源泉。狂热的少数人绝不会对经典视而不见，就像蜜蜂绝不会对花朵视而不见一样。这类少数人不会因为作品内容是正确的就去阅读它们，换句话说不会犯本末倒置的错误。中意的作品之所以中意仅仅因为它们为少数人所阅读，这些人是因为的确喜爱文学，而去阅读经典的文学作品。因此，我的观点是：文学品位的一个基本要素就是对文学的极度热爱。你做到了这一点，那剩下的则是水到渠成。目前，你没有在某些经典文学作品中获得快乐，这并无大碍。你对文学的兴趣，会驱使你获得更多经验。这些经验会教你运用快乐的方法，那就是你本人也不知道的快乐秘诀，仅此而已。持久的兴趣一定会带给你强烈的快乐感。但是，经验的获得既可能是明晰顺理，也可能无章可循，就如同去帕特尼，既可以经由沃尔瑟姆·格林，也可以经由圣彼得堡一样。
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（罗选民 译）
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[1]这两句为叶芝的《快乐的牧人之歌》一诗的开篇。此处引用傅浩译文。
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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033848]
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30 EVOLUTION
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By John Galsworthy
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EVOLUTION, by John Galsworthy, in his The Inn of Tranquillity , New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912. As reprinted in Chamberlain and Bolton,Progressive Readings in Prose , pp. 45-47.
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John Galsworthy （1867-1933）, English novelist, is well known among present-day English writers of plays and novels subtly analyzing the upper and the middle classes of England and revealing the conditions which largely determine them. Of his novels The Patrician , dealing with class distinctions and conventions, and The Man of Property , studying the passion for possession in the Forsyte family, are best known.Strife , a powerful account of the evil and the futility of a strike, and Justice , an indictment of the English legal system, are two of his finest plays.Evolution （1910）is a characteristic essay in its treatment of a changing phase of society and is typical of the exposition which combines the informality of the essay with the narrative interest of fiction.
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Coming out of the theater, we found it utterly impossible to get a taxicab; and, though it was raining slightly, walked through Leicester Square in the hope of picking one up as it returned down Piccadily. Numbers of hansoms and four-wheelers passed, or stood by the curb, hailing us feebly, or not even attempting to attract our attention, but every taxi seemed to have its load. At Piccadily Circus, losing patience, we beckoned to a four-wheeler and resigned ourselves to a long, slow journey. A sou’westerly air blew through the open windows, and there was in it the scent of change, that wet scent which visits even the hearts and towns and inspires the watcher of their myriad activities with thought of the restless Force that forever cries: “On, on!” But gradually the steady patter of the horse’s hoofs, the rattling of the windows, the slow thudding of the wheels, pressed on us so drowsily that when, at last, we reached home we were more than half asleep. The fare was two shillings, and, standing in the lamplight to make sure the coin was a half-crown before handing it to the driver, we happened to look up. This cabman appeared to be a man of about sixty, with a long thin face, whose chin and drooping gray mustaches seemed in permanent repose on the up-turned collar of his old blue overcoat. But the remarkable features of his face were the two furrows down his cheeks, so deep and hollow that it seemed as though that face were a collection of bones without coherent flesh, among which the eyes were sunk back so far that they had lost their luster. He sat quite motionless, gazing at the tail of his horse. And, almost unconsciously, one added the rest of one’s silver to that half-crown. He took the coins without speaking; but, as we were turning into the garden gate, we heard him say:
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“Thank you; you’ve saved my life.”
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Not knowing, either of us, what to reply to such a curious speech, we closed the gate again and came back to the cab.
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“Are things so very bad?”
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“They are,” replied the cabman. “It’s done with—is this job. We’re not wanted now.” And, taking up his whip, he prepared to drive away.
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“How long have they been as bad as this?”
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The cabman dropped his hand again, as though glad to rest it, and answered incoherently:
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“Thirty-five year I’ve been drivin’ a cab.”
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And, sunk again in contemplation of his horse’s tail, he could only be roused by many questions to express himself, having, as it seemed, no knowledge of the habit.
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“I don’t blame the taxis, I don’t blame nobody. It’s come on us, that’s what it has. I left the wife this morning with nothing in the house. She was saying to me only yesterday:‘What have you brought home the last four months? ‘ ‘Put it at six shillings a week, ‘ I said. ‘No, ‘ she said, ‘seven.’ Well, that’s right—she enters it all down in her book.”
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“You are really going short of food?”
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The cabman smiled; and that smile between those two deep hollows was surely as strange as ever shone on a human face.
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“You may say that,” he said. “Well, what does it amount to? Before I picked you up, I had one eighteenpenny fare to-day; and yesterday I took five shillings. And I’ve got seven bob a day to pay for the cab, and that’s low, too. There’s many and many a proprietor that’s broke and gone—every bit as bad as us. They let us down as easy as ever they can; you can’t get blood from a stone, can you?” Once again he smiled. “I’m sorry for them, too, and I’m sorry for the horses, though they come out the best of the three of us, I do believe.”
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One of us muttered something about the Public.