~~Memory~~

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本文地址:http://qzone.qq.com/blog/27260598-1226169242

附上简·奥斯汀Jane Austen在《曼斯菲尔德庄园Mansfield Park》关于memory的一段描写,for your read and recite。It might be hard to fully understand at first reading, please take your time to truly explore the beauty of language.

If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.

如果人的哪一种天生技能可以说是比别的技能更加奇妙的话,我看就是记忆力。人的记忆力有强有弱,发展不平衡,似乎比人的其它才智更加不可思议。记忆力有的时候又牢固、又管用、还温顺 —— 别的时候又糊涂、又虚弱 —— 还有的时候又很专横,无法驾驭!我们人各方面都堪称奇妙 —— 但记忆力和遗忘力尤为奇妙无比。
(译林 孙致礼译)

faculty: 天赋的智能或能力。
the faculty of memory 记忆力
speakingly: 适于说的
incomprehensible: 不能理解的,莫测高深的。
be incomprehensible to ordinary mind  非普通人所能理解的
inequality: 不平等。
Great inequalities in wealth may cause social unrest.  贫富悬殊可能引起社会动乱。
retentive: 有保持力的。
a retentive memory  好记性
serviceable: 耐用的。
serviceable shoes  耐穿的鞋子
obedient: 服从的、顺从的。
be obedient to one's parents 顺从父母
bewilder: 使迷惑;使昏乱。
I was bewildered by the maze of streets in the city.
我被城市里错综复杂的街道弄糊涂了。
tyrannic: 同tyrannical. 暴虐的、专横的、专政的。
a tyrannical government专制政府
recollect: 回想、追忆。
if I recollect correctly 假如我没记错的话
find out: 弄明白,理解,找出原因

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