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5#
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发表于 22.6.2003 10:58:30
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Shelley to Elizabeth Hitchhiker<br><br>Your letter of the 1st hath this moment reached me. I answer it according to o<br>ur agreement, which shall be inviolable. Truly did you say that, at our arisin<br>g in the morning, Nature assumes a different aspect. Who could have conjecture<br>d the circumstances of my last letter? Friend of my soul, this is terrible, di<br>smaying: it makes one's heart sink, it withers vital energy... dear being, I a<br>m thine again; the happiness shall again predominate over this fleeting tribut<br>e to self-interest. Yet who would not feel now? Oh'twere as reckless a task to<br> endeavor to annihilate perception while sense existed, as to blunt the sixth <br>sense to such impressions as these! ... Forgive me, dearest friend? I pour out<br> my whole soul to you. I write by fleeting intervals: my pen runs away with my<br> senses. The impassionateness of my sensations grows upon me. Your letter, too<br>, has much affected me. Never, with my consent, shall that intercourse cease w<br>hich has been the day-dawn of my existence, the sun which has shed warmth on the cold drear length of the anticipated prospect of life. Preju<br>dice might demand the sacrifice, but she is an idol to whom we bow not. The wo<br>rld might demand it; its opinion might require; but the cloud which flees over<br> yon mountain were as important to our happiness, to our usefulness. This must<br> never be, never whilst this existence continues; and when time has enrolled u<br>s in the list of the departed, surely this friendship will survive to bear our<br> identity to heaven. What is love, or friendship? Is it something material ...<br> a ball, an apple, a plaything ... which must be taken from one to be given to<br> another? Is it capable of no extension, no communication? Lord Kaimes defines<br> love to be a particularization of the general passion. But this is the love o<br>f sensation, of sentiment ... the absurdest of absurd vanities: it is the love<br> of pleasure, not the love of happiness. The one is a love which is selfcenter<br>ed, selfinterested: It desires its own interest; it is the parent of jealousy. Its object is the plaything which it desires to monopolize. Se<br>lfishness, monopoly, is its very soul, and to communicate to others part of th<br>is love were to destroy its essence, to annihilate this chain of straw. But lo<br>ve, the love which we worship , ... virtue, heaven, disinterestedness ... in a<br> word, Friendship ... which has as much to do with the senses as with yonder m<br>ountains; that which seeks the good of all ... the good of its object first, n<br>ot because that object is a minister to its Pleasures, not merely because it e<br>ven contributes to its happiness, but because it is really worthy, because it <br>has powers, sensibilities, is capable of abstracting itself, and loving virtue<br>'s own loveliness ... desiring the happiness of others not from the obligation<br> of fearing the happiness of others not from the obligation of fearing hell or<br> desiring heaven: but for pure, simple, unsophisticated virtue. You will soon <br>hear again. Adieu, my dearest friend. Continue to believe that when I am insensible to your excellence, I shall cease to exist.<br><br> |
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狗仔卡
发表于 22.6.2003 10:57:32
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