《瓦尔登湖·第四章·声音·Sounds》第6节
When I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off with planetary motion,—or, rather, like a comet, for the beholder knows not if with that velocity and with that direction it will ever revisit this system, since its orbit does not look like a returning curve,—with its steam cloud like a banner streaming behind in golden and silver wreaths, like many a downy cloud which I have seen, high in the heavens, unfolding its masses to the light,—as if this travelling demigod, this cloud-compeller, would ere long take the sunset sky for the livery of his train; when I hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils, (what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon they will put into the new Mythology I don’t know), it seems as if the earth had got a race now worthy to inhabit it. If all were as it seems, and men made the elements their servants for noble ends! If the cloud that hangs over the engine were the perspiration of heroic deeds, or as beneficent as that which floats over the farmer’s fields, then the elements and Nature herself would cheerfully accompany men on their errands and be their escort.
注释摘要
梭罗在这一段里与蒸汽机车迎面相遇，把他对铁路的全部矛盾心情凝聚成一个高度集中的意象序列。他先赋予火车以天体的尺度，说是"行星般的运动"，随即又修正为彗星——行星的轨道可预测，彗星不然，它划过的弧线未必指向回归。这个改动不是修辞游戏，正是此前段落里那句"我们给自己造了一种命运，一种从不拐弯的阿特洛波斯"的延续：铁路斩钉截铁的轨迹既壮丽又盲目，你不知道这一趟力…