金錢與愛情
談婚論嫁是為了金錢還是愛情一直是人們的熱門話題。誠然，每個(gè)人都渴望無關(guān)金錢的真愛，但青蛙變成王子、灰姑娘當(dāng)了王后的結(jié)局誰不相信呢？且不管正確與否，本文作者所持觀點(diǎn)頗為特別而新鮮。

　　When the Romantic Movement was still in its first fervor,1 it was a common matter of debate whether people should marry for love or for money. The young people concerned usually favored love, and their parents usually favored money. In the novels of the period the dilemma was felicitously solved by the discovery, on the last page, that the apparently penniless heroine was really a great heiress.2 But in real life young men who hoped for this denouement were apt to be disappointed.3 Prudent parents, while admitting that their daughters should marry for love, took care that all the young men they met should be rich. This method was sometimes very successful; it was adopted, for example, by my maternal grandfather, who had a large number of romantic daughters, none of whom married badly.

　　In these days of psychology the matter no longer looks so simple as it did eighty years ago. We realize now that money may be the cause, or part of the cause, of quite genuine love; of this there are notable examples in history. Benjamin Disraeli, who became Lord Beaconsfield,4 was, in his youth, poor and struggling and passionately ambitious. He married a rich widow, much older than himself, and considered by the world to be rather silly. Owing to her, he was able to make his career a success. A cynical world naturally assumed that he loved her money better than he loved her, but in this the world was mistaken;5 throughout the whole of their married life, he was deeply and genuinely devoted to her. I do not suppose he would have loved her if she had been poor when he first knew her, but the gratitude which he felt for the help which he owed to her kindly interest in him easily developed into a sincere affection. A great deal of affection is based upon the fact that its object is a help in realizing the purposes of the person who feels it.6 Men in whom ambition is the leading passion are likely to love women who assist them in their career, and it would be very shallow psychology to suppose that the love is not real because it has its instinctive root in self-interest.7

　　An even more notable instance than Disraeli is Mohammed.8 As everyone knows, he was camel-driver to a rich widow whom he loved and ultimately married. It was her capital which supported him throughout the early unremunerative years of the prophet business.9 Mohammed was not the man to give an exclusive devotion to any one woman, but there is no doubt that, within the limit set by polygamy, he was genuinely fond of his wife and benefactress.10

　　I have taken examples where the man was poor and the woman rich, but in a world dominated by men the opposite is the commoner case. The psychology, however, is much the same. If a very rich man asks a very poor girl to marry him, she is likely, especially if she has social ambitions, to feel a kind of gratitude which will lead her to fall in love with him, provided he is not too repulsive; at any rate, he will need a smaller degree of personal attractiveness than a poor man would need. Wealth can often purchase not only the semblance of love but its reality.11 This is unjust and undesirable but nonetheless a fact.

1. 在浪漫主義運(yùn)動(dòng)風(fēng)行之初。Romantic Movement: 浪漫主義運(yùn)動(dòng)（指18世紀(jì)末19世紀(jì)初在歐洲文學(xué)藝術(shù)界興起的一個(gè)反對權(quán)威、傳統(tǒng)和古典模式的運(yùn)動(dòng)）；in its first fervor: 剛開始盛行。
2. 在當(dāng)時(shí)的小說里，這一難題常常由最后一頁的重大發(fā)現(xiàn)得以巧妙地解決：原先一文不名的女主人公搖身一變，成了巨額財(cái)富的繼承人。
3. 但是在現(xiàn)實(shí)生活中，滿心想往這種大團(tuán)圓結(jié)局的年輕人們往往多會(huì)大失所望。denouement:（小說、戲劇等的）結(jié)局、收場；be apt to: 易于……的。
4. 本杰明·迪斯累里（1804-1881），英國首相[1868，1874-1880]、保守黨領(lǐng)袖、作家，寫過小說和政論作品，被封為比肯斯菲爾德伯爵。
5. 冷嘲熱諷的世人自然認(rèn)為迪斯累里愛她的財(cái)富多過愛她本人，但在一點(diǎn)上世人實(shí)在是大錯(cuò)特錯(cuò)了。
cynical: 冷嘲熱諷的，挑剔挖苦的。
6. 事實(shí)上，一個(gè)人之所以會(huì)對另一個(gè)人產(chǎn)生愛意，很大程度上是由于對方曾幫助自己實(shí)現(xiàn)了個(gè)人目標(biāo)。
7. 如果因?yàn)檫@種愛的根源是利己的本能，便認(rèn)為它算不上真愛，那這種心理分析未免太膚淺。
8. 即Muhammad，穆罕默德（570-632）伊斯蘭教創(chuàng)立人，生于麥加城，自稱安拉使者，在麥加城開始創(chuàng)立伊斯蘭教[610]，后在麥地那建立神權(quán)國家[622]，基本上統(tǒng)一了阿拉伯半島。
9. 正是她的財(cái)產(chǎn)幫助穆罕默德度過了早年沒有任何收益的傳教歲月。unremunerative: 無利可圖的，賺不到錢的；prophet:（主義等的）宣揚(yáng)者，提倡者。
10. 但毫無疑問的是：盡管當(dāng)時(shí)并沒有一夫一妻制的約束，他仍然真心實(shí)意地愛著他的妻子兼恩人。
polygamy: 或monogamy:一夫一妻制。
11. 金錢不僅可以換來愛的表象，也可能換來愛的實(shí)質(zhì)。 semblance: 外觀。

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