Observe a child; any one will do. You will see that not a day passes in which he does not find something or other to make him happy, though he may be in tears the next moment. Then look at a man; any one of us will do. You will notice that weeks and months can pass in which every day is greeted with nothing more than resignation, and endure with polite indifference.
But it is true that they smile so seldom that when they do, they don't recognize their face. So distorted it is from the fixed mask they take for granted. And even then, a man can not smile like a child, for a child smiles with his eyes, whereas a man smiles with his lips alone. It is not a smile, but a grin; it has something to do with humor, but little to do with happiness. And then, as anyone can see, there is a point ( and who can define that point ) when a man becomes an old man, and then he will smile again.
It would seem that happiness has something to do with simplicity, and that it is the ability to extract pleasure from the simplest things—such as a peach stone, for instance.
幸福似乎和单纯有些关系，幸福是一种能从最简单的事物里——譬如说，从一颗桃核中——汲取快乐的能力。
It is obvious that it has nothing to do with success. For, Sir Henry Stewart was certainly successful. It has been twenty years since he came down to our village from London and bought a couple of old cottages, which he then had knocked into one. He used his house as a weekend refuge. He was a barrister and the village followed his brilliant career with something amounting to almost paternal pride.
I remember, some ten years ago, when he was made a King's Counsel, Amos and I, upon seeing him getting off the London train, went to congratulate him. We grinned with pleasure; he looked merely as miserable as though he'd received a capital sentence. It was the same when he was knighted. He never smiled a bit and didn't even bother to celebrate with a round of drinks at the “Blue Fox”. He took his success as a child does his medicine. And not one of his achievements brought even a ghost of a smile to his tired eyes.
I asked him one day, soon after he'd retired to potter about his garden, what it was like to achieve all of one's ambitions. He looked down at his roses, and went on watering them. Then he said, “The only value in achieving one's ambition is that then you realize that they were not worth achieving.” Quickly he moved the conversation on to a more practical level, and within a moment we were back to a safe discussion on the weather. That was two years ago.
I recall this incident, for yesterday I was passing his house, and had drawn up my cart just outside his garden wall. I had pulled in from the road for no other reason than to let a bus pass me. As I set there filling my pipe, I suddenly heard a shout of sheer joy come from the other side of the wall.
I peered over. There stood Sir Henry doing nothing less than a tribal war dance of sheer unashamed ecstasy. Even when he observed my bewildered face staring over the wall he did not seem put out or embarrassed, but shouted for me to climb over.
“Come and see, Jan. Look! I have done it at last! I have done it at last!”
“快来看，简，看呀！我终于成功了！我终于成功了！”
There he was, holding a small box of earth in his hand. I observed three tiny shoots out of it.
他站在那里，手里拿着一小盒土。我发现土里有三棵嫩芽。
“And there were only three!” he said, his eyes laughing to heaven.
“而且正好是三个！”他眉开眼笑地说。
“Three what?” I asked.
“三个什么？”我问。作者: kobe 时间: 2016-12-4 23:26
“Peach stones,” he replied. “I've always wanted to make peach stones grow, ever since I was a child, when I used to take them home after a party, or as a man after a banquet. And I used to plant them, and then forgot where I planted them. But now at last I have done it. And, what's more, I had only three stones, and there you are, one, two, three shoots,”he counted.
