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古希伯来圣贤宣称：“智慧产生于闲暇之时。”这并非说智者肯定出身于我们所谓的有闲阶层，而是说，假如某人只有一点可以自由支配的时间，那么，他就必须利用这点时间让隐藏的自我焕发新的生机。假如安息日不能休息一整天，他必须学会捍卫“小安息日”的时间，哪怕只是十分钟。在这段时间里，他什么工作都不要做。仅仅承认与保护工作及挣钱的自我是不够的，为了我们其他的自我，世界还应变得安全。《独立宣言》上不是说，人人都有追求幸福的不可剥夺的权利吗？
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要认识到人对自己的不满足，需要依靠想象力。由于缺乏想象力造成的不幸，我们曾有一个可怕的例子。普鲁士军国主义者煞费苦心地收集事实，但却鄙视人类的天性。他们的情商低得令人难以置信。他们视人如物。他们对待事实的态度极为严肃，却完全忽视人的情感。他们的特务遍布全世界，特务把看到的一切情报全都上报，可是却不考虑那些看不到的情报。于是，就在他们科学地处理一目了然的事实和武力的时候，人类灵魂中所有隐藏的力量都在与他们为敌。军国主义者启用那些缺乏同情心的高级专业人士来提高效率。在树立了一个标准以后，所有的多样性必然被压制。全世界反对的正是这种压制多样性的力量。为了反对制造枯燥乏味的单一性，我们必须继续斗争。倘若我们屈从我们自造的其他暴君的话，废黜那位德国皇帝也无济于事。
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（张白桦 译）
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[1]霍尔姆斯（Hom1es）应是与兰姆同时期的作家，此处为音译，不确。
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[2]典出莎士比亚作品《错误的喜剧》（Comedy of Errors），指荒唐可笑的事件。下文的大小德洛米奥是剧中的一对孪生兄弟。
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[3]亨利·斯坦利（1841—1904），威尔士裔美国记者、探险家，多次赴非洲探险，在以非洲营救苏格兰传教士、探险家利文斯通博士而闻名。
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[4]莎士比亚剧作《无事生非》中的警吏。本段所涉典故在剧中第四幕第二场。此处引用朱生豪译文。
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[5]此句典出《创世记》第43章30—31节。
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36 THE PHILOSOPHER
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By W. Somerset Maugham
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THE PHILOSOPHER, by W. Somerset Maugham, from his On a Chinese Screen , pp. 147-158.
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The Philosopher is undoubtedly Ku Hung-ming，辜鸿铭（汤生） （1847-1928）, who was then living in Peking. Maugham would have us believe that the interview took place in some such city as Chengtu, Szechwan. Ku had worked under Chang Chi-tung （张之洞）, one of the Empress Dowager’s greatest viceroys （line 18, p. 152）. This essay has already been translated into Chinese. See 人间世，二十三年九月二十日，第二十期，三十二至三十七页，辜鸿铭访问记，黄嘉音译 （惟黄先生未翻译篇后的两首诗）． 在该期内亦有人证明 Somerset’s Philosopher 是辜先生．
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It was surprising to find so vast a city in a spot that seemed to me so remote. From its battlemented gate towards sunset you could see the snowy mountains of Tibet. It was so populous that you could walk at ease only on the walls and it took a rapid walker three hours to complete their circuit. There was no railway within a thousand miles and the river on which it stood was so shallow that only junks of light burden could safely navigate it. Five days in a sampan were needed to reach the Upper Yangtze. For an uneasy moment you asked yourself whether trains and steamships were as necessary to the conduct of life as we who use them every day consider;for here, a million persons throve, married, begat their kind, and died; here a million persons were busily occupied with commerce, art, and thought.
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And here lived a philosopher of repute the desire to see whom had been to me one of the incentives of a somewhat arduous journey. He was the greatest authority in China on the Confucian learning. He was said to speak English and German with facility. He had been for many years secretary to one of the Empress Dowager’s greatest viceroys, but he lived now in retirement. On certain days in the week, however, all through the year he opened his doors to such as sought after knowledge, and discoursed on the teaching of Confucius. He had a body of disciples, but it was small, since the students for the most part preferred to his modest dwelling and his severe exhortations the sumptuous buildings of the foreign university and the useful science of the barbarians; with him this was mentioned only to be scornfully dismissed. From all I heard of him I concluded that he was a man of character.
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When I announced my wish to meet this distinguished person my host immediately offered to arrange it; but the days passed and nothing happened. I made inquiries and my host shrugged his shoulders.
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“I sent him a chit and told him to come along,” he said. “I don’t know why he hasn’t turned up. He’s cross-grained old fellow.”
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I did not think it was proper to approach a philosopher in so cavalier a fashion and I was hardly surprised that he had ignored a summons such as this. I caused a letter to be sent asking in the politest terms I could devise whether he would allow me to call upon him and within two hours received an answer making an appointment for the following morning at ten o’clock.
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I was carried in a chair. The way seemed interminable. I went through crowded streets and through streets deserted till I came at last to one, silent and empty, in which at a small door in a long white wall my bearers set down my chair. One of them knocked and after a considerable time a judas was opened; dark eyes looked through; there was a brief colloquy;and finally I was admitted. A youth, pallid of face, wizened, and poorly dressed motioned me to follow him. I did not know if he was a servant or a pupil of the great man. I passed through a shabby yard and was led into a long low room sparsely furnished with an American roll-top desk, a couple of blackwood chairs and two little Chinese tables. Against the walls were shelves on which were a great number of books
:most of them, of course, were Chinese; but there were many philosophical and scientific works in English, French and German; and there were hundreds of unbound copies of learned reviews. Where books did not take up the wall space hung scrolls on which in various calligraphies were written, I suppose, Confucian quotations. There was no carpet on the floor. It was a cold, bare, and comfortless chamber. Its somberness was relieved only by a yellow chrysanthemum which stood by itself on the desk in a long vase.
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I waited for some time and the youth who had shown me in brought a pot of tea, two cups, and a tin of Virginian cigarettes. As he went out the philosopher entered. I hastened to express my sense of the honor he did me in allowing me to visit him. He waved me to a chair and poured out the tea.
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