With a little more deliberation in the choice of their pursuits，all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers， for certainly their nature and destiny are interesting to all alike.  In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity， in founding a family or a state， or acquiring fame even， we are mortal； but in dealing with truth we are immortal， and need fear no change nor accident.  The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the statue of the divinity； and still the trembling robe remains raised， and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did，since it was I in him that was then so bold， and it is he in me that now reviews the vision.  No dust has settled on that robe； no time has elapsed since that divinity was revealed.  That time which we really improve， or which is improvable， is neither past， present，nor future.

　　My residence was more favorable， not only to thought， but to serious reading， than a university； and though I was beyond the range of the ordinary circulating library， I had more than ever come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world，whose sentences were first written on bark， and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper.  Says the poet Mr Udd， "Being seated， to run through the region of the spiritual world； I have had this advantage in books.  To be intoxicated by a single glass of wine； I have experienced this pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of the esoteric doctrines."  I kept Homer's Iliad on my table through the summer， though I looked at his page only now and then.  Incessant labor with my hands， at first， for I had my house to finish and my beans to hoe at the same time， made more study impossible.  Yet I sustained myself by the prospect of such reading in future.  I read one or two shallow books of travel in the intervals of my work， till that employment made me ashamed of myself， and I asked where it was then that I lived.

　　The student may read Homer or AEschylus in the Greek without danger of dissipation or luxuriousness， for it implies that he in some measure emulate their heroes， and consecrate morning hours to their pages.  The heroic books， even if printed in the character of our mother tongue， will always be in a language dead to degenerate times； and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line， conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have.  The modern cheap and fertile press， with all its translations， has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity.  They seem as solitary， and the letter in which they are printed as rare and curious， as ever.  It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours， if you learn only some words of an ancient language，which are raised out of the trivialness of the street， to be perpetual suggestions and provocations.  It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard. Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies； but the adventurous student will always study classics， in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be.  For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man？  They are the only oracles which are not decayed， and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave.  We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.  To read well， that is， to read true books in a true spirit， is a noble exercise， and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem.  It requires a training such as the athletes underwent，the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object.  Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written， for there is a memorable interval between the spoken and the written language， the language heard and the language read.  The one is commonly transitory， a sound， a tongue， a dialect merely， almost brutish， and we learn it unconsciously， like the brutes， of our mothers.  The other is the maturity and experience of that； if that is our mother tongue， this is our father tongue， a reserved and select expression， too significant to be heard by the ear， which we must be born again in order to speak.  The crowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and Latin tongues in the Middle Ages were not entitled by the accident of birth to read the works of genius written in those languages； for these were not written in that Greek or Latin which they knew， but in the select language of literature.  They had not learned the nobler dialects of Greece and Rome， but the very materials on which they were written were waste paper to them， and they prized instead a cheap contemporary literature.  But when the several nations of Europe had acquired distinct though rude written languages of their own， sufficient for the purposes of their rising literatures， then first learning revived， and scholars were enabled to discern from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity.  What the Roman and Grecian multitude could not hear， after the lapse of ages a few scholars read， and a few scholars only are still reading it.

　　如果更審慎地選擇自己追逐的職業，所有的人也許都愿意主要做學生兼觀察家，因為兩者的性質和命運對所有的人都一樣地饒有興味。為我們自己和后代積累財富，成家或建國，甚或沽名釣譽，在這些方面我們都是凡人；可是在研究真理之時、我們便不朽了，也不必害怕變化或遭到意外了。最古的埃及哲學家和印度哲學家從神像上曳起了輕紗一角；這微顫著的袍子，現在仍是撩起的，我望見它跟當初一樣的鮮艷榮耀，因為當初如此勇敢的，是他的體內的“我”，而現在重新瞻仰著那個形象的是我體內的“他”。

　　袍子上沒有一點微塵；自從這神圣被顯示以來，時間并沒有逝去。我們真正地改良了的，或者是可以改良的時間，既不是過去，又不是現在，也不是未來呵。

　　我的木屋，比起一個大學來，不僅更宜于思想，還更宜于嚴肅地閱讀；雖然我借閱的書在一般圖書館的流通范圍之外，我卻比以往更多地接受到那些流通全世界的書本的影響，那些書先前是寫在樹皮上的，如今只是時而抄在布紋紙上。詩人密爾。喀瑪。烏亭。瑪斯脫說，“要坐著，而能馳騁在精神世界的領域內；這種益處我得自書本。一杯酒就陶醉；當我喝下了秘傳教義的芳洌瓊漿時，我也經歷過這樣的愉快。”整個夏天，我把荷馬的《伊利亞特》放在桌上，雖然我只能間歇地翻閱他的詩頁。起初，有無窮的工作在手上，我有房子要造，同時有豆子要鋤，使我不可能讀更多的書。但預知我未來可以讀得多些，這個念頭支持了我。在我的工作之余，我還讀過一兩本淺近的關于旅行的書，后來我自己都臉紅了，我問了自己到底我是住在什么地方。

　　可以讀荷馬或埃斯庫羅斯的希臘文原著的學生，決無放蕩不羈或奢侈豪華的危險，因為他讀了原著就會在相當程度之內仿效他們的英雄，會將他們的黎明奉獻給他們的詩頁。如果這些英雄的詩篇是用我們自己那種語言印刷成書的，這種語言在我們這種品德敗壞的時代也已變成死文字了；所以我們必須辛辛昔苦地找出每一行詩每一個字的原意來，盡我們所有的智力、勇武與氣量，來尋思它們的原意，要比通常應用時尋求更深更廣的原來意義。近代那些廉價而多產的印刷所，出版了那么多的翻譯本，卻并沒有使得我們更接近那些古代的英雄作家。他們還很寂寞，他們的文字依然被印得稀罕而怪異。

　　那是很值得的，花費那些少年的歲月，那些值得珍惜的光陰，來學會一種古代文字，即使只學會了幾個字，它們卻是從街頭巷尾的瑣碎平凡之中被提煉出來的語言，是永久的暗示，具有永恒的激發力量。有的老農聽到一些拉丁語警句，記在心上，時常說起它們，不是沒有用處的。有些人說過，古典作品的研究最后好像會讓位給一些更現代化、更實用的研究；但是，有進取心的學生還是會時常去研究古典作品的，不管它們是用什么文字寫的，也不管它們如何地古老。因為古典作品如果不是最崇高的人類思想的記錄，那又是什么呢？它們是唯一的，不朽的神示卜辭。便是求神問卜于臺爾菲和多多那，也都得不到的，近代的一些求問的回答，在古典作品中卻能找到。我們甚至還不消研究大自然，因為她已經老了。讀得好書，就是說，在真實的精神中讀真實的書，是一種崇高的訓練，這花費一個人的力氣，超過舉世公認的種種訓練。這需要一種訓練，像競技家必須經受的一樣，要不變初衷，終身努力。書本是謹慎地，含蓄地寫作的，也應該謹慎地，含蓄地閱讀。本書所著寫的那一國的文字，就算你能說它，也還是不夠的，因為口語與文字有著值得注意的不同，一種是聽的文字，另一種是閱讀的文字。一種通常是變化多端的，聲音或舌音，只是一種土話，幾乎可以說是很野蠻的，我們可以像野蠻人一樣從母親那里不知不覺地學會的。另一種卻是前一種的成熟形態與經驗的凝集；如果前一種是母親的舌音，這一種便是我們的父親的舌音，是一些經過洗煉的表達方式，它的意義不是耳朵所能聽到的，我們必須重新誕生一次，才能學會說它。中世紀的時候，有多少人，能夠說希臘語與拉丁語，可是由于出生之地的關系而并沒有資格讀天才作家用這兩種文字來著寫的作品，因為這些作品不是用他們知道的那種希臘語和拉丁語來寫的，而是用精煉的文學語言寫的，他們還沒有學會希臘和羅馬的那種更高級的方言，那種高級方言所寫的書，在他們看來就只是一堆廢紙，他們重視的倒是一種廉價的當代文學。可是，當歐洲的好幾個國家，得到了他們自己的語文，雖然粗淺，卻很明澈，就足夠他們興起他們的文藝了，于是，最初那些學問復興了，學者們能夠從那遙遠的地方辨識古代的珍藏了。羅馬和希臘的群眾不能傾聽的作品，經過了幾個世紀之后，卻有少數學者在閱讀它們了，而且現今也只有少數的學者還在閱讀它們呢。

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