The Instinct for the Beautiful 愛美的天性

By Rachel Louise Carson

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct of what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed or even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.

兒童的世界新奇而美麗，充滿了驚異和興奮。可是，對我們多數人來說，還未到成年，這種銳利的目光，這種愛一切美麗的和令人敬畏的事物的天性，就已經變得遲鈍，甚至喪失殆盡。這真是我們的不幸。據說，有一位善心的仙女主持所有兒童的洗禮。假如我能對她有所影響的話，我倒想向她提個要求：請她賦予世間的兒童以新奇感(一種能伴隨他們終身的無可摧毀的新奇感)，并使它成為萬靈的解藥。有了它，他們在以后的歲月中就會永遠陶醉在新奇之中，不致產生厭倦感，不致徒勞地全神貫注于人為的虛假的事物，不致脫離力量的源泉。

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement of mystery of the world we live in. Parents often have a sense of inadequacy when confronted on the hand with eager, sensitive child mind of a child and on the other with a world of complex physical nature, inhabited by a life so various and unfamiliar that it seems hopeless to reduce it to order and knowledge. In a mood of self-defeat, they exclaim, "How can I possibly teach my child about nature - why, I don’t even know one bird from another!"

假如一個兒童沒有受到仙女的賜予而想要持久地保持他那天生的新奇感，他至少需要有一個能與他共享新奇感的成年人和他作伴，并且跟他一起不斷去發現我們所生活的這個世界中的一切歡樂、刺激和神秘。做父母的常有力不從心之感。一方面，他們要滿足孩子那感覺靈敏而又渴望求知的心靈。另一方面，復雜的物質世界卻使他們感到難于應付，他們自己對于這個世界形形色色的生活都感到生疏，好像未抱有理出頭緒、弄個明白的愿望。他們自己就泄了氣，喊道：“我哪能教我的孩子認識大自然!啊，我連兩只鳥都分不清哩!”