《瓦尔登湖·第一章·经济篇·Economy》第20节
When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me gravely, “They do not make them so now,” not emphasizing the “They” at all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I find it difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot believe that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this oracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to myself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I may find out by what degree of consanguinity They are related to me, and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so nearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal mystery, and without any more emphasis of the “they,”—“It is true, they did not make them so recently, but they do now.” Of what use this measuring of me if she does not measure my character, but only the breadth of my shoulders, as it were a peg to hang the coat on? We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcæ, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller’s cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same. I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men. They would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again, and then there would be some one in the company with a maggot in his head, hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows when, for not even fire kills these things, and you would have lost your labor. Nevertheless, we will not forget that some Egyptian wheat was handed down to us by a mummy.
注释摘要
这一小段出自《经济篇》接近尾声的部分，梭罗在这里已经把话题从房屋、食物、燃料一步步收紧到了穿衣这个看起来最表面、最私人的题目上。他想讨论的当然不只是衣服，而是人在日常生活中向无形的权威让步的那个瞬间。整段文字的语调在半是戏谑半是认真之间游走，把裁缝铺里一句漫不经心的回话，当成了一则关于自由与习俗的微型寓言来读。 梭罗走进店里，请女裁缝照他的意思做一件衣服，…