评论
打印
The next letter, likewise docketed by Miss Jenkyns, was endorsed, “Letter of pious congratulation and exhortation from my venerable grandfather to my beloved mother, on occasion of my own birth.
下一封信，同样由詹金斯小姐收入档案，上面写着：“我敬爱的祖父于我出生之际，给我亲爱的母亲写的一封虔诚的祝贺和劝诫信。”
Also some practical remarks on the desirability of keeping warm the extremities of infants, from my excellent grandmother.”
以及一些实用的建议，关于让婴儿的四肢保持温暖的必要性，出自我贤惠的祖母之口。”
The first part was, indeed, a severe and forcible picture of the responsibilities of mothers, and a warning against the evils that were in the world, and lying in ghastly wait for the little baby of two days old.
信的第一部分确实是严肃而有力地描绘了母亲的责任，以及对世界上存在邪恶的警告，这些邪恶正可怕地等待着这个两天大的小婴儿。
His wife did not write, said the old gentleman, because he had forbidden it, she being indisposed with a sprained ankle, which (he said) quite incapacitated her from holding a pen.
老先生说，他的妻子没有写信，因为他禁止她写，她身体不适，脚踝扭伤了，（他说）这使她完全无法握笔。
However, at the foot of the page was a small “T.O.,”
然而，在信纸的下边有一个小小的“续页”，
and on turning it over, sure enough, there was a letter to “my dear, dearest Molly,” begging her, when she left her room, whatever she did, to go up stairs before going down:
把信纸翻过来，果然，有一封写给“我最最亲爱的莫莉”的信，信中恳求她，当她离开房间时，无论做什么，都要先上楼再下楼：
and telling her to wrap her baby’s feet up in flannel, and keep it warm by the fire, although it was summer, for babies were so tender.
并告诉她用绒布把孩子的脚包起来，让它在炉火旁保持温暖，尽管现在是夏天，因为婴儿是如此娇弱。
It was pretty to see from the letters, which were evidently exchanged with some frequency between the young mother and the grandmother, how the girlish vanity was being weeded out of her heart by love for her baby.
这位年轻的母亲和祖母之间显然经常通信，从这些信中看到她对孩子的爱如何逐渐取代了少女时候的虚荣心，真是很美好的。
The white “Paduasoy” figured again in the letters, with almost as much vigour as before.
白色的“帕杜阿索”再次出现在信中，她的感情一如既往地热切。
In one, it was being made into a christening cloak for the baby.
在一封信中，它被制成了婴儿的洗礼披风。
It decked it when it went with its parents to spend a day or two at Arley Hall.
婴儿和父母一起去阿利庄园玩一两天的时候，就是用这个披风来打扮婴儿。
It added to its charms, when it was “the prettiest little baby that ever was seen.
披风让婴儿更加可爱，信中说“那是她曾经见过的最漂亮的小婴儿。
Dear mother, I wish you could see her!
亲爱的妈妈，我多希望你能见到她！
Without any pershality, I do think she will grow up a regular bewty!”
她没有任何独特个性，但我确实认为她会出落成一个普通的美女！”（注：有两处写信人的笔误，personality和beauty。）
I thought of Miss Jenkyns, grey, withered, and wrinkled, and I wondered if her mother had known her in the courts of heaven: and then I knew that she had, and that they stood there in angelic guise.
我想起了詹金斯小姐，她满头白发，形容憔悴，满脸皱纹，我在想她的母亲是否能在天堂里认出她：然后我知道她能认出，她们站在那里，已是天使的模样。
There was a great gap before any of the rector’s letters appeared.
在教区长的信件出现之前，有很长一段空白期。
And then his wife had changed her mode of her endorsement.
然后他的妻子改变了签名方式。
It was no longer from, “My dearest John;” it was from “My Honoured Husband.”
不再是“我最亲爱的约翰”，而是“我尊敬的丈夫”。
The letters were written on occasion of the publication of the same sermon which was represented in the picture.
这些信件是在布道词出版之际写的，就是那幅画像中的布道词。
The preaching before “My Lord Judge,” and the “publishing by request,” was evidently the culminating point—the event of his life.
在“我的主审法官”面前的布道，以及“应请求出版”，显然是他一生中的巅峰时刻——他生命中的大事件。
It had been necessary for him to go up to London to superintend it through the press.
他有必要去伦敦，亲自监督它的印刷出版。
Many friends had to be called upon and consulted before he could decide on any printer fit for so onerous a task;
在他决定哪家印刷公司能胜任如此繁重的任务之前，他必须去拜访并咨询许多朋友；
and at length it was arranged that J. and J. Rivingtons were to have the honourable responsibility.
最后一切安排好了，J和J.里文顿印刷公司将承担这一光荣的责任。
The worthy rector seemed to be strung up by the occasion to a high literary pitch, for he could hardly write a letter to his wife without cropping out into Latin.
这位可敬的教区长似乎受这件事的刺激，而把语言升至很崇高的文学格调，因为他给妻子写信时几乎不能不突然冒出拉丁语。
I remember the end of one of his letters ran thus:
我记得他的一封信的结尾是这样写的：
“I shall ever hold the virtuous qualities of my Molly in remembrance, dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritus regit artus,”
“我将永远铭记我的莫莉的美德，但不忘己，但魂存体在，则永志不忘”，
which, considering that the English of his correspondent was sometimes at fault in grammar, and often in spelling, might be taken as a proof of how much he “idealised his Molly;”
考虑到跟他通信的人的英语有时在语法上还有错误，而且常常在拼写上有错误，这也许可以证明他是多么地“理想化他的莫莉”；
and, as Miss Jenkyns used to say, “People talk a great deal about idealising now-a-days, whatever that may mean.”
而且，正如詹金斯小姐过去常说的，“现在人们常常谈论理想化，不管那是什么意思。”
But this was nothing to a fit of writing classical poetry which soon seized him, in which his Molly figured away as “Maria.”
但这与他很快就染上的写古典诗歌的癖好相比，简直不值一提，在这些诗里，他的莫莉被描述成了“玛丽亚”。
The letter containing the carmen was endorsed by her, “Hebrew verses sent me by my honoured husband.
这封写了古典诗歌的信是由莫莉自己签字的：“我尊敬的丈夫寄给我的希伯来诗句。
I thowt to have had a letter about killing the pig, but must wait.
我原以为会有一封关于杀猪的信，但我还得等一等。
Mem., to send the poetry to Sir Peter Arley, as my husband desires.”
备忘：按照我丈夫的意愿，将这首诗送给彼得·阿利爵士。”
And in a post-scriptum note in his handwriting it was stated that the Ode had appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine, December 1782.
并且在他手写的一条附言中提到，这首颂歌已于1782年12月发表在《绅士杂志》上。
Her letters back to her husband (treasured as fondly by him as if they had been M.T. Ciceronis Epistolae) were more satisfactory to an absent husband and father than his could ever have been to her.
她给丈夫的回信（他视若珍宝，仿佛它们是西塞罗的《书信集》）对一位不在家的丈夫和父亲来说，要比他的信对她来说更令人满意。
She told him how Deborah sewed her seam very neatly every day, and read to her in the books he had set her;
她告诉他，黛博拉每天都把接线缝得非常整齐，还会给她读他给她指定的书；
how she was a very “forrard,” good child, but would ask questions her mother could not answer, but how she did not let herself down by saying she did not know, but took to stirring the fire, or sending the “forrard” child on an errand.
她是一个非常“上进”的好孩子，但会问一些她母亲回答不了的问题，不过她不会因为说不知道而让自己沮丧，而是会去拨弄炉火，或者派这个“上进”的孩子去跑腿。
Matty was now the mother’s darling, and promised (like her sister at her age), to be a great beauty.
马蒂现在是妈妈的宠儿，而且（像她姐姐在她这个年龄时一样）被认为长大后会是个大美人。
I was reading this aloud to Miss Matty, who smiled and sighed a little at the hope, so fondly expressed, that “little Matty might not be vain, even if she were a bewty.”
我大声地把这封信读给马蒂小姐听，她微笑着，听到希望“小马蒂即使是个美女，也不要虚荣”这句充满爱意的话时，轻轻叹了口气。
“I had very pretty hair, my dear,” said Miss Matilda; “and not a bad mouth.”
“我曾经有一头非常漂亮的头发，亲爱的，”玛蒂尔达小姐说，“嘴巴长得也不错。”
And I saw her soon afterwards adjust her cap and draw herself up.
我随后就看到她调整了一下帽子，并挺直了身子。
