论慷慨

The word "gift" has got dangerously devalued of late. Salesmen use so-called free gifts as bait and publicists use them as bribes; the wealthy can make "gifts" to their children, or to charities, with no more noble motive than saving tax. And anything labelled a gift shop, or catalogue, can generally be guaranteed to be full of curious, zany items like personalised solid silver back-scratchers and musical ashtrays, which are only classified as "giftware" because nobody in their senses would buy them to use themselves.

We need to claim the word back this Christmas. We also need to claim back the word "generous": which too often gets used in the sense of over-large portions of food, hotel towels, the size of sheets, or women spilling out of their dresses. For generosity--the ability to make real gifts with modesty and love, expecting nothing back--is one of the things which most make us human. You do not find pigs or lions giving one another thoughtful little presents, do you? Monkeys, apparently, offer one another fleas at times, but not in any provable spirit of kindliness. We should honour generosity more than we do.

Perhaps it has become suspect because of the tales of over-the-top generosity sometimes told in gossip about the very rich. The late Christina Onassis giving her daughter a personal zoo and a flock of sheep with their own shepherd, for instance; assorted tycoons flying their guests halfway round the world for birthday parties where there is an emerald bracelet or cufflinks on every place-setting; wealthy men paying off old girlfriends with houses, yachts and Ferraris. In this context, generosity has come to mean that you hurl money around like a drunken sailor. And there is always the suspicion that, like the sailor, you are doing it just to prove that you can afford it. That is not giving: that is showing off.

But the real thing, when you meet it, is magical, and as a quality it belongs equally to rich and poor. Sometimes the poor--like the widow in the Bible who gave her mite--are best at it. Travellers in remote parts, from Poland to Peru, come home with stories of bread, shelter, even beds shared without question with the stranger on the peasant principle that "A guest in the house is God in the house". Nearer home, I loved the stories collected in memory of Katie Sullivan, the 23-year-old mental home care assistant who was murdered last year. Particularly the one about the day she was walking to the pub, and lagged behind, and her student friends caught a glimpse of her emptying her whole purse into a tramp's hands when she thought they weren't looking. Later in the pub they teased her about not drinking, trying to make her admit what she had done; but she steadfastly pretended she didn't want a drink.

“礼物”一词近来已被危险地贬值了。推销员用所谓的免费赠品作为诱饵，公关人员用它们来行贿；富人们可以制造“礼物”送给他们的子女或捐给慈善团体，这与避免上税一样都没有什么高尚的动机。标有礼品店或礼品目录的任何东西通常可以保证入目全是奇异的、滑稽的物品，如个人用纯银痒痒挠和音乐烟灰缸----因为精神正常的人都不会买来自用，所以它们只好被划归为“礼品”。

今年圣诞节我们需要还这个词本来的面目。我们也需要还“慷慨”这个同本来的面目，因为这个词在食品、宾馆毛巾、床单大小或胖得快要撑破衣裳的女人的绝大部分意思上用得太泛太滥了。慷慨----即出于谦恭和爱心赠送真正意义的礼物而不期望任何回报的能力----是最使我们人之所以为人的一个方面。你没有发现猪或狮子彼此赠送亲切的小礼品吧？猴子似乎有时互相帮助捉跳蚤，但是这并不在任何可以证明的善意的范畴内。与现在所做的相比，我们应该对慷慨表示更多的敬意。

由于有时在闲聊中谈及的有关非常富有的人过度慷慨的故事，或许它已变得令人怀疑。例如，已故的克里斯蒂娜·奥纳西斯送给她的女儿一座私人动物园和配有牧羊人的一群羊；某些大亨们派飞机飞越半个地球去接客人来参加他们的生日宴会，并在每人的餐具处放上一只祖母绿手镯或一付袖扣；富翁们用房子、游艇和法拉利跑车来堵住旧日女友的嘴。在这种情况下，慷慨已变了味，无异于你像一个喝得烂醉的水手，向周围的人大把大把地扔钱。因此，那样做总是令人怀疑你不过是为了证明你花得起。那不是给予，是炫耀。

而当你遇上真正的慷慨时，它有着不可思议的魅力，作为一种品质，无论贫富，都一样拥有它。有时穷人----就像《圣经》中那个给小钱的寡妇----在这一点上做得更好。从波兰到秘鲁，在远方旅行的人回家时都会有这样的经历----所经之处的人们本着“家中客即上帝”的农民原则，毫无问题地与异乡人共享面包、小屋甚至床铺。在家乡一带，我喜欢的是为纪念去年被人谋杀、年仅23岁的家庭心理治疗助理凯蒂·沙利文而收集的故事。尤其是其中的一则故事：有一天她去酒吧，走在了大家的后面，她的学友们瞥见她把钱包里的钱全倒进一个流浪者的手里，当时她以为他们都没有注意。后来他们在酒吧中取笑她不喝酒，试图让她承认她所做的一切；但是她坚定地假装她并不想喝酒。

Another student I knew, a man, knew that his roommate couldn't afford an important textbook in his subject; a book which was very scarce in second-hand shops and impossibly expensive when new. His friend was far too proud to accept a loan, and so spent a lot of time trekking to the library in the rain to look things up. So the better-off student went to Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford, bought a brand-new copy for 35 pounds, dirtied it up a bit and tore off the paper cover, writing a fictitious name in the front. He even remembered to age the ink by putting it over a radiator, and made a few dogears and faint pencil-marks against what he thought might be significant passages. Then he went home in triumph claiming to have spotted the book in the second-hand bookshop and "beaten them down to two quid". He even got a receipt for the money by buying himself another book at the same secondhand shop. Talk about doing good by stealth: and in case you wonder, I heard the story from the poorer roommate, who had got suspicious and, ten years later, forced the richer one to confess.

Tact is the key to real generosity: tact, and real thought for the person you are giving the present to. You can buy anyone a picture by a fashionable and expensive artist, if you can afford it; but it might be kinder to spend a tenth of the amount--and a bit of trouble on getting the framed original of a cartoon you know has cheered them up at a bad time. Anyone can buy a man a gold watch; but it takes a generous wife to do what one lately did, and track down an antique gold strap which precisely fits the old one he inherited from his beloved father.

Conversely, it is not generous to keep pressing expensive drinks on people who really want a half-pint of bitter. ("Co on! Have another! Tell you what, have a double brandy! The best brandy!" ) It is harassment. So is refusing to let someone pay their half of the taxi if it makes them feel small. Buying someone a bottle of the very best champagne when they don't particularly like champagne is pointless; so is giving them a negligee, or sweater, which you would like to see them in but which they are going to hate. Until courting couples learn this rule, girls will go on ending up with drawersful of unwearable slippery camisoles in lurid colours, and men with racks of acutely embarrassing ties. On the other hand, this kind of present does give the recipient an opportunity to show another kind of generosity by selflessly pretending to appreciate it. In the Agatha Christie novel The Hollow, Henrietta displays remarkable kindness towards a shy, unintellectual woman who isn't fitting in to a sparkling houseparty. Greta is wearing a dreadful cardigan she knitted herself; Henrietta not only praises it, but asks for the pattern. Having got the pattern, moreover, she heroically knits the dreadful thing and wears it herself next time she meets Greta. That is what I call follow-through. So is the wedding present a friend got from a broke but domestic sister-in-law: she promised to bake her a loaf of special, delicious wholemeal bread every week for the first year of her marriage, and did so.

You can give people to other people, too. Matchmaking for single friends can be done in a disastrously tactless way which makes both parties cringe; but there are circumstances--not necessarily romantic ones--when a well-timed introduction can be the best thing you can do for anybody. The best present you can give to a woman expecting her first baby, for example, is to introduce her to another like-minded pregnant woman, who lives reasonably close by. They will keep one another sane for the first chaotic year. And if you do happen to be of the type who networks professionally, and gives power dinner-parties, it would be a generous thing to remember sometimes to invite younger people in the field, who are looking for jobs or contacts or merely for stimulation and inspiration. One of the kindest things anyone ever did for me was an elderly, very distinguished don who introduced me to the world's most encouraging literary agent when I was 21. He shouldn't have gone to all the trouble, I said blushingly; but I was glad he had. And that is the test of any real present: the thoughtfulness, not the wrapping.

我知道的另一个学生是个男生。他得知他的室友买不起本学科的一本重要教科书——一本旧书店中难得一见而新书又贵得出奇的书。他的朋友自尊心太强，不肯接受别人借钱给他，并因此而花费了许多时间冒雨去图书馆查阅资料。于是这位较有钱的学生去了牛津的布拉克韦尔书店，花35英镑买了一本全新的，先是把书弄脏一点，然后撕去封面，在书面写了一个假名。他甚至没有忘记把书放在散热器上使墨水的色泽陈旧，将几张书页折上角，并且在他认为可能非常重要的段落做上淡淡的铅笔标记。然后，他得意地回到学校，宣称已在旧书店找到了这本书，并且“杀价到两英镑”。他甚至通过从同一家旧书店买了另一本书而搞到一张两英镑的收据。说到悄悄地做好事，倘若你想知道，这故事我是听那位较贫困的室友讲的，他当时对此已有怀疑，十年后他通那位富裕的学生招认了事情的经过。

灵活机智是真正慷慨的关键：对你要赠送礼物的人要做到策略得体并且设想周到。如果付得起钱，你可以买上一幅时髦名画家的画送人；但是花上该款额的十分之一，费点神买一幅你所知道的镶框的漫画原件，使他们在沮丧的时候高兴不已，岂不是更亲切一些？任何女人都可以给丈夫买块金表，但慷慨的妻子在不久前做那件事的同时，还要为他从敬爱的老爸那儿继承过来的旧表物色一条与之匹配完美的旧式金表带。

反过来说，硬逼着其实只想喝半品脱苦啤酒的人喝昂贵的酒并不是慷慨。（“来吧！再喝一杯！露一手，喝两杯白兰地！最好的白兰地！”）这是骚扰。不让别人付出租车的那一半费用，致使他觉得被人小觑，其情与此无异。人家并不特别喜欢香槟时，却给他们买一瓶优质香槟，这就没有什么意义；送一件居家便服或毛衣，你想看他们穿在身上，而他们却不喜欢它，这与上面的情况一样。互献殷勤的男女们直到后来才了解这个规则，结果是女孩们的衣橱抽屉塞满了难以捉摸的、不能穿着的色彩艳丽的贴身内衣，男人们则有了一排排令人极度尴尬的领带。另一方面，这种礼品确实也使受礼人有机会以无私地假装感激的方式表示另一种慷慨。在阿加莎·克里斯蒂的小说《空谷幽兰》中，亨里埃塔对去参加一个充满活力的家庭舞会的一位既害羞又不聪明、与众不甚相称的妇女显示了惊人的善意。格里塔穿着一件她自己编织的难看的羊毛衫；亨里埃塔不仅对它大加赞赏，而且索要其式样。在拿到式样后，她还英雄般地编织这件难看的衣服，并且在她下次与格里塔会面时把它穿在身上。这就是我所说的“始终贯彻”。一位朋友从一个一文不名但喜欢家事的嫂子那儿获得的结婚礼物是这样的：她的嫂嫂许诺在她结婚的第一年，每个星期为她烤一块特制的美味的全麦面包。这位嫂嫂也确实这样做了。

你也可以把一些人介绍给其他人。为单身朋友做媒可能搞得拙劣不堪，太不乖巧，致使双方畏缩不前；但是在有些情形下-----并不一定是罗曼蒂克的情况----适合时宜的介绍可能是你能为任何人所做的最好的事情。例如，你送给期盼她的第一个孩子降生的妇女的最好礼物是，把她介绍给另一个住在附近有着相同心境的怀孕妇女。她们将在这忙乱的第一年使彼此保持明智。如果你碰巧是在职业上交游范围广且有举办大型宴会能力的那类人，那么不要忘记间或邀请一些正在寻找工作或寻求交往或仅仅想寻求刺激和灵感的年轻人参加比赛或进行野外研究活动，那会是一件慷慨之举。曾经有人为我做过的最好的事值之一是，一位年长的、非常有名的大学教师把我介绍给了世界上最振奋人心的一位文学代理人，当时我才21岁。我腼腆地说，他实在不必为我那么麻烦；但是我很高兴他那么做了。这就是任何真正礼物的试金石：设想周到，而非走走形式。