英译汉翻译

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My grandfather had no relations because he was an only child and, being solitary and silent, he had few friends. He corresponded with Campbell of Islay who had befriended him and his crew after a shipwreck, and Captain Webb, the first man who had swum the Channel and who was drowned swimming the Niagara Rapids, had been a mate in his employ and a close friend. That is all the friends I can remember and ye t he was so looked up to and admired that when he returned from taking the waters at Bath his men would light bonfires along the railway line for miles. I think I confused my grandfather with God, for I remember in one of my attacks of melancholy praying that he might punish me for my sins, and I was shocked and astonished when a daring little girl --- a cousin I think --- having waited under a group of trees in the avenue, where she knew he would pass near four o’clock on the way to his dinner, said to him, “I f I were you and you were a little girl, I would give you a doll.”

Keys:

祖父是独生子，没有任何亲戚。因为他孤僻寡言，没有几个朋友。他与爱雷岛上的坎贝尔有通信来往，此人在一次父亲及其船员遇难时待他们如朋友。另一位是韦布船长，第一个泅渡英吉利海峡的人。他是祖父雇佣的助手和亲密朋友，在尼加拉急流中游泳时溺水身亡。这就是我记得的他的所有朋友。然而，祖父是那么受人敬仰，他在巴斯城疗养归来时，他的下属会沿铁路几英里点燃篝火迎接他。我想我当时是把祖父当成上帝了。因为我记得在一次心情苦闷的时候，我曾祈祷祖父会惩罚我的罪过。一个胆大的小女孩---- 想是我的堂妹----她知道祖父在四点钟要路过林荫路去吃晚饭，便在树下等候。她对祖父说，“如果我变成你，你变成一个小女孩，我就给你哥娃娃。”她对祖父这样说话，对此我真情不已。

Lexicography provides at its best a joyful sense of busyness with language. One is immersed in the details of language as in no other field. Sometimes the details are so overwhelming and endless they sap the spirit and depress the mind. Often at the end of a hard day’s work one realizes with dismay that the meager stack of finished work one has accomplished has an immeasurably slight impact on the work as a whole. As I hope the readers of this work will come to understand dictionaries do not sprint into being. People must plan them collect information and write them. Writing takes time and it is often frustrating and even infuriating. No other form of writing is at once so quixotic and so intensely practical. Dictionary making does not require brilliance or originality of mind. It does require high intelligence mastery of the craft and dedication to hard work. If one has produced a dictionary one has the satisfaction of having produced a work of enduring value.

词典编纂的绝妙之处是给人一种与语言打交道的快乐感。不像其他领域，编词典的人整天都钻在语言材料中。有时碰到的语言材料浩如烟海，令人耗神。往往一天辛苦工作下来，发觉所完成的薄薄几页草稿只是全部工作的九牛一毛，好

不沮丧。正如我希望这部著作的读者会逐渐明白的那样，词典并非是一蹴而就的。必须先制定计划，收集材料，然后方能编写。编写词典不仅耗费时间，而且常让人受挫，甚至恼怒。没有其他的写作像编纂词典那样，既要有空想又要脚踏实地。词典编纂并不需要横渡的才华或独创的思维，但却要求很高的智力，对词典编纂的精通，和甘于吃苦的精神。一个人编写出一部词典，就会因它的长久价值而得到一份快慰。

In his classic novel, “The Pioneers”, James, Feminore Cooper has his hero, a land developer, take his cousin on a tour of the city he is building. He describes the broad streets, rows of houses, a teeming metropolis. But his cousin looks around bewildered. All she sees is a forest, “Where are the beauties and improvements which you were to show me?” she asks. He’s astonished she can’t see them. “Where! Why everywhere,” he replies. For though they are not yet built on earth, he has built them in his mind, and they are as concrete to him as if they were already constructed and finished.// Cooper was illustrating a distinctly American trait, future-mindedness: the ability to see the present from the vantage point of the future; the freedom to feel unencumbered by the past and more emotionally attached to things to come. As Albert Einstein once said, “Life for the American is always becoming, never being.”

参考译文：詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏在其经典小说《拓荒者》中，记述了主人公——一位土地开发商——带着表妹游览一座他将要建造的城市的情景。他向表妹描绘了宽阔的街道，排排的房屋，俨然一座熙来攘往的大都市。// 然而，表妹环顾四周，却一脸迷茫，她所看到的只是一片森林。于是她问：“你要给我看的美景和改观在哪里啊？”他很惊讶，她居然还不能心领神会。便回答说：“还问哪里？这不到处都是嘛。”因为尽管他还没有把它们真正建成，他却早已在心中构想好了。它们对他来说是如此真实具体仿佛它们早已建成。

库柏在这里揭示了一种美国人独有的特征，即前瞻性：他们能够站在未来的高度来看现在的一切；摆脱过去束缚而更加心系未来。正如埃尔伯特?爱因斯坦曾言：“对美国人来说，生活总是进取，而非守成。”