LESSON 33

CHARACTER OF MR. PITT

_{皮特先生的品格}

Henry Grattan, 1750-1820, an Irish orator and statesman, was born at Dublin, and graduated from Trinity College, in his native city. By his admiration of Mr. Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, he was led to turn his attention to oratory. In personal appearance, he was unprepossessing; but his private character was without a blemish.

The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty itself. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sank him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame.

Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to effect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which those schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestion of an understanding animated by ardor and enlightened by prophecy.

The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent, were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system, to counsel and decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered and refuted her.

Nor were his political his only talents. His eloquence was an era in the senate; peculiar and spontaneous; familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instructive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully; it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. He did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtilty of argumentation, nor was he ever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of the eye, were felt, but could not be followed.

Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wildness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or overwhelm empires, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through the universe.

【中文阅读】

这位大臣一个人站了起来。近代堕落的风气没有在他身上觅到。他的性格之独具和不肯通融的方方面面，颇具古人的刚毅风范。他那如疾风暴雨般的思想连陛下都不胜敬畏。没有对国事的枉顾，没有对残酷的政治设立狭隘的制度，没有与大臣们的成功进行愚蠢的竞争，却将他贬至平庸的水平上；但是，他的目标是整个英格兰，他的抱负就是荣誉，这个断言有些傲慢但有说服力，尽管断不可行。

没有分化，他毁灭了整个党派；没有贪赃舞弊，他开创的是贪污盛行的时代。法兰西倒在他脚下。他一只手就推到了波旁王朝，对另一个英格兰民主政体施加决定性影响。他的思想疆域是无限的；他的图谋并不只是影响英格兰和当前的时代，而是欧洲和后世。奇妙之处在于，这些图谋赖以实现的手段。始终有合理性，始终恰当，对这些图谋的理解暗示系由热情驱动的，由预言而受到启发的。

赋予生命以和蔼和懒惰这些特质的正常情感，他无从知晓。国家处于困境和积弱并不会影响他。但是，脱离生活的卑鄙肮脏，不会为人际交往所玷污，他偶尔会闯进我们的圈子，提出劝告和做出决定。一种如此高不可攀，如此令人茫然无措，如此易变，如此彰显权威的性格，令一个贪腐横行的时代惊愕莫名，通过腐败的各个阶层，国库的情况动摇了皮特的声誉。的确，贪污腐败者以为，在这个政治家身上必定存在缺点，谈论更多的是他的荣誉有矛盾之处，他的胜利必定瓦解；但是，他的国家的历史和这个敌人的灾难，回答和驳斥了贪污腐败者的断言。

从事政治并非他唯一的才能。他的雄辩在议院堪称一个纪元，独有的风格和机智；熟悉的表达方式孕育着巨大的情感力量和有益的智慧；既不像德摩斯梯尼式的湍急洪流，也不似西塞罗式的熊熊烈火；有时像隆隆雷声，有时又像舒缓的音乐。他不会通过论证那种令人伤脑筋的狡猾来让听众理解，也不会始终费力地绞尽脑汁，而是直入主题，通过思想的闪光来切入重点。恰似眼睛观察到的那一切，只能感知但无法效法。

总的来说，在这个男人身上存在能够创造，颠覆和或者改头换面的东西；一种知性，一种精神和一种雄辩，召唤人类去交流思想或者打破奴隶制枷锁，通过没有束缚的权威来释放内心的狂野；那种能建立或推翻帝国，朝这个能听到宇宙回音的世界给予有力一击的气质。