瞎子摸象

There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite at our elbows. The thick wood is not just at our door, nor the pond, but somewhat is always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appropriated and fenced in some way, and reclaimed from Nature. For what reason have I this vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest, for my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. At night there was never a traveller passed my house, or knocked at my door, more than if I were the first or last man; unless it were in the spring, when at long intervals some came from the village to fish for pouts — they plainly fished much more in the Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited their hooks with darkness — but they soon retreated, usually with light baskets, and left "the world to darkness and to me," and the black kernel of the night was never profaned by any human neighborhood. I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.

夜晚，過了午夜12點，我總是帶著小狗出門，到附近的文化中心；那個時候，整個文化中心都是我的庭院，尤其在夏間雨後，人們就把這個小小世界留給黑暗和我，退入他們溫暖的格子裡。時常，有一些精力過剩的年輕人闖入，在我的地方大聲嘻鬧；我想起自己也有過的年少輕狂，也會任由他們放肆。

無論是怎樣的風雨，一個健康純潔的人聽起來都像是美妙的樂章；沒有任何事情可以把簡單而勇敢的人逼入卑俗的悲傷之中。禽鳥之所以無法分辨燈泡和牠的卵，是因為他要把更多的精神用在撫育幼鳥上；人如果不要那麼有分別心，就可以達到真實究竟的清淨解脫。