《瓦尔登湖·第十八章·结束语·Conclusion》第1节
To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery. Thank Heaven, here is not all the world. The buck-eye does not grow in New England, and the mocking-bird is rarely heard here. The wild-goose is more of a cosmopolite than we; he breaks his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in the Ohio, and plumes himself for the night in a southern bayou. Even the bison, to some extent, keeps pace with the seasons, cropping the pastures of the Colorado only till a greener and sweeter grass awaits him by the Yellowstone. Yet we think that if rail-fences are pulled down, and stone-walls piled up on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates decided. If you are chosen town-clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer: but you may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless. The universe is wider than our views of it. Yet we should oftener look over the tafferel of our craft, like curious passengers, and not make the voyage like stupid sailors picking oakum. The other side of the globe is but the home of our correspondent. Our voyaging is only great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely. One hastens to Southern Africa to chase the giraffe; but surely that is not the game he would be after. How long, pray, would a man hunt giraffes if he could? Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sport; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot one’s self.— “Direct your eye right inward, and you’ll find / A thousand regions in your mind / Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be / Expert in home-cosmography.”
注释摘要
梭罗在这一节开头借医生的常见建议起兴：病人需要换换空气和风景。但他立刻把话锋一转，用新英格兰的眼光标注出世界的有限性——七叶树在这里长不出来，嘲鸫在这里也难得听见。这看似闲笔，却是提醒读者，每一种特定的地方只提供一部分世界，没有哪里是全部。紧随其后的是一串按季节迁徙的动物意象：大雁在加拿大吃早餐，在俄亥俄用午餐，在南方的河口整理羽毛过夜；野牛追逐更绿的草场…