LESSON 116

HOW MEN REASON

人是如何推理的

My friend, the Professor, whom I have mentioned to you once or twice, told me yesterday that somebody had been abusing him in some of the journals of his calling. I told him that I did n’t doubt he deserved it; that I hoped he did deserve a little abuse occasionally, and would for a number of years to come; that nobody could do anything to make his neighbors wiser or better without being liable to abuse for it; especially that people hated to have their little mistakes made fun of, and perhaps he had been doing something of the kind. The Professor smiled.

Now, said I, hear what I am going to say. It will not take many years to bring you to the period of life when men, at least the majority of writing and talking men, do nothing but praise. Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay. I don’t know what it is,—whether a spontaneous change, mental or bodily, or whether it is through experience of the thanklessness of critical honesty,—but it is a fact, that most writers, except sour and unsuccessful ones, get tired of finding fault at about the time when they are beginning to grow old.

As a general thing, I would not give a great deal for the fair words of a critic, if he is himself an author, over fifty years of age. At thirty, we are all trying to cut our names in big letters upon the walls of this tenement of life; twenty years later, we have carved it, or shut up our jackknives. Then we are ready to help others, and care less to hinder any, because nobody’s elbows are in our way. So I am glad you have a little life left; you will be saccharine enough in a few years.

Some of the softening effects of advancing age have struck me very much in what I have heard or seen here and elsewhere. I just now spoke of the sweetening process that authors undergo. Do you know that in the gradual passage from maturity to helplessness the harshest characters sometimes have a period in which they are gentle and placid as young children? I have heard it said, but I can not be sponsor for its truth, that the famous chieftain, Lochiel, was rocked in a cradle like a baby, in his old age. An old man, whose studies had been of the severest scholastic kind, used to love to hear little nursery stories read over and over to him. One who saw the Duke of Wellington in his last years describes him as very gentle in his aspect and demeanor. I remember a person of singularly stern and lofty bearing who became remarkably gracious and easy in all his ways in the later period of his life.

And that leads me to say that men often remind me of pears in their way of coming to maturity. Some are ripe at twenty, like human Jargonelles, and must be made the most of, for their day is soon over. Some come into their perfect condition late, like the autumn kinds, and they last better than the summer fruit. And some, that, like the Winter Nelis, have been hard and uninviting until all the rest have had their season, get their glow and perfume long after the frost and snow have done their worst with the orchards. Beware of rash criticisms; the rough and stringent fruit you condemn may be an autumn or a winter pear, and that which you picked up beneath the same bough in August may have been only its worm-eaten windfalls. Milton was a Saint Germain with a graft of the roseate Early Catherine. Rich, juicy, lively, fragrant, russet-skinned old Chaucer was an Easter Beurre; the buds of a new summer were swelling when he ripened.

(Holmes)

【中文阅读】

我的朋友，那位教授，此人我曾经向你提到过一两次，告诉我说昨天有人在某杂志上诋毁他的职业。我告诉他，我丝毫不怀疑他配得上这份职业；我倒是希望他偶尔听到一些毁谤之辞，这么多年来受到一点毁谤总是难免的。没有谁在没有受过毁谤之害的情况下，能使他的邻居变得更聪明或相处得更好。尤其是憎恶拿一点点过错来取笑别人的人，也许他自己就小错不断。闻听此言，这位教授脸上现出笑意。

现在，我晓得该说什么了。在这个至少大多数喜欢舞文弄墨和喜好议论针砭的人，什么也没做却博得好名声的年代，用不了多少年你就会进入这个人生阶段。男人，像桃子和鸭梨一样，在开始腐烂变质前总会甜上一段时间。我不晓得这是什么缘故——是否是身体和精神上一时的变化，或者是否通过自己的诚实吃力不讨好的经验——但事实是，绝大多数作者，除了酸腐和籍籍无名的那些人外，都懒得在他们开始变老之际查找自身的毛病。

一般而言，我不会给予一位批评家相当多溢美之词，如果他本人就是一位作家，年龄超过五旬的话。在三十岁时，我们都力求将我们的名字以大号字体刻在生活这间出租屋的墙上；二十年后，我们已经化掉这些字，或者收起我们的折叠刀。然后，我们准备帮助他人，不再在意什么阻碍，因为没有谁能为我们指引道路。于是，我很高兴你还有余生，在未来几年时间里你会故作多情。

随着年龄增长一些变得不那么明显的感受，对我在这儿或别的地方听到或看到的产生了很大的影响。我现在提到的是作家经历过的变得温和的过程。你知道在从成熟到无能为力这个逐渐发展的阶段里，哪怕是最严厉的人有时也有个像小孩子那样温柔和温和的阶段吗？我听人这么说过，但我不敢保证是不是确有道理，著名的部落首领洛希尔在老年时，还像婴儿似的躺在摇篮里让人来回推着呢。上了年纪的人，他的研究属于最严肃的学者那类，总是乐于听小孩愿意听的故事，一遍又一遍地听也不烦。曾有幸见过威灵顿公爵晚年生活的人，形容他言谈举止非常温和。我记得有一位特别严厉和高傲的人在晚年却各方面都变得非常亲切、容易相处。

这会促使我说，经常让我想起梨子的人在某些方面正在接近成熟。有些人在二十岁时就成熟了，就像早熟梨子一样，必然在某一天腐烂枯萎。有些人进入完美状态迟了些，就像秋梨一样，最终要比夏天成熟的梨子更香甜。有些人则像冬青果，果实坚硬，直到所有其他的果实都过了季节，经过严寒和霜冻后很久才渐渐发红，才散发出郁郁芳香。要小心鲁莽轻率的批评。你所称的坚硬和难吃的水果也许就是到秋天和冬天才成熟的梨子，而在八月份你在同一根大树枝下拾起的也许只是梨子上的虫子——专吃被风吹落的果子。弥尔顿是嫁接了凯瑟琳王朝早期乐观精神的圣日耳曼，而味浓、汁多、色彩鲜艳、芬芳和黄褐色的老乔叟则是一种复活节黄油。在成熟时，初夏的蓓蕾迅速膨大。

（霍尔姆斯）