《瓦尔登湖·第九章·湖·The Ponds》第13节
In such a day, in September or October, Walden is a perfect forest mirror, set round with stones as precious to my eye as if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go without defiling it. It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh;—a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun’s hazy brush,—this the light dust-cloth,—which retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still. A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate in its nature between land and sky. On land only the grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface. We shall, perhaps, look down thus on the surface of air at length, and mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it.
注释摘要
这一段是《湖》全章中修辞密度最高的段落之一，梭罗把整座华尔腾湖想象成一面活的镜子，并由此铺展出一整套关于自然如何永恒自洁的形而上学。他拣选九月十月的午后，阳光已褪去盛夏的暴烈，空气里开始有薄薄的霭，湖水在此时获得一种介于固体与流体之间的质地，于是他可以说它是“完美的森林之镜”，周遭的石块仿佛镶嵌的宝石。这句“as precious to my eye as…