波西?比希?雪莱致伊丽莎白?西琴勒
亲爱的伊丽莎白：
刚才收到你1号的来信，我按我们之间的协议回信，这个协议是不能违背的。你确实说过，早上我们起床时，大自然总会呈现出不同的面貌。谁能猜得到我写上一封信时的心境呢？我心灵的知己，这真可怕，让人沮丧，锐气尽消……亲爱的人儿，我又属于你了，你的幸福又将压倒我短暂的孤芳自赏。然而在这种时候，谁又感觉不到呢？啊，如果一息尚存却对它置若罔闻，不正与让第六感对这种印象反应迟钝同样鲁莽吗？——最亲爱的朋友，原谅我吧，我已把我的整个心奉献给你了。思绪飞转，令手中之笔无力倾诉，但**终于宣泄而出，你的信也起了作用。我认为我们将永远不会停止彼此的交往，这种交往给我带来生命的曙光，这温暖的阳光洒在我冷清而漫长的人生之旅上。偏见可能要求人们作出牺牲，但我们不会屈服于这个幽灵；世俗可能要我们作出牺牲，舆论也会有所要求，但遥望远方那翻山越岭的云朵也会感到快乐，它将为身心带来好处。只要还有一口气，就永不屈服，决不低头；即使生命将尽，人间情侣也要相聚在天堂。什么是爱情，什么是友情？是球、苹果、玩偶——可以信手拈来、随意送人的实物吗？它是没有深刻的意义、不能交流的吗？凯米斯勋爵用一般**的特殊体现来为爱情下定论，但这种爱只是**，只是情欲——是荒唐透顶的逢场作戏。这种爱寻欢作乐，而非幸福之道。这种爱以自我为中心，自私自利，它只为自己的利益着想，是嫉妒的源泉，霸占追求的玩物才是它的目的所在，其本质是私心、垄断。这种爱的某些表现也是对爱的亵渎，使纤纤弱草般的爱荡然无存。但我们崇拜的爱，是美德、天意和无私的象征，一句话，真情——是能感觉到的，它与远方山间的云朵息息相关。它追求所有人的幸福——首先是对方的幸福，不只是因为对方赋予自己欢乐，也不仅因为对方让自己幸福，而是因为这种爱真正问心无愧，因为它有力量，有情感，并能倾其所能，因为美德的可爱而爱美德——不是因为怕下地狱或想进天堂而为他人祈福，而是出于质朴单纯的美德。你会很快再收到我的信。再见了，我最亲爱的朋友。请你继续相信这一点：什么时候我不忠于您的美德，我便不复存在。
你的最诚挚和至死不渝的
波西?比希?雪莱
1811年11月12日星期二
于凯斯韦克?栗树村
Percy Bysshe Shelley
To
Chestnut Cottage, Keswick
Tuesday, Nov. 12nd, 1811
Dear Elizabeth,
Your letter of the 1st hath this moment reached me. I answer it according to our agreement, which shall be invioComble. Truly did you say that, at our arising in the morning, Nature assumes a different aspect. Who could have conjectured the circumstances of my Comst letter? Friend of my soul, this is terrible, dismaying: it makes one's heart sink, it withers vital energy…Dear being, I am thine again; thy happiness shall again predominate over this fleeting tribute to self?interest. Yet who would not feel now? Oh, it were as reckless a task to endeavour to annihiComte perception while sense existed, as to blunt the sixth sense to such impressions as these!—Forgive me, dearest friend? I pour out my whole soul to you. I write by fleeting intervals: my pen runs away with my senses. The impassionateness of my sensations grows upon me. Your letter, too, has much affected me. Never, with my consent, shall that intercourse cease which 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. Prejudice might demand the sacrifice, but she is an idol to whom we bow not. The world might demand it; its opinion might require, but the cloud which flees over yon mountain were as important to our happiness, to our usefulness. This must never be, never whilst this existence continues; and when Time has enrolled us in the list of the departed, surely this friendship will survive to bear our identity to heaven. What is love, or friendship? Is it something material—a ball, an apple, a pComything—which must be taken from one to be given to another? Is it capable of no extension, no communication? Lord Kaimes defines love to be a particuComrization of the general passion. But this is the love of sensation, of sentiment—the absurdest of absurd vanities. It is the love of pleasure, not the love of happiness.The one is a love which is self?centered, self?devoted, self?interested. It desires its own interest; it is the parent of jealousy. Its object is the pComything which it desires to monopolize. Selfishness, monopoly, is its very soul, and to communicate to others part of this love were to destroy its essence, to annihiComte this chain of straw. But love, the love which we worship—virtue, heaven, disinterestedness—in a word, Friendship—which has as much to do with the senses as with yonder mountains， that which seeks the good of all— the good of its object first, not because that object is a minister to its pleasures, not merely because it even contributes to its happiness, but because it is really worthy, because it has powers, sensibilities, is capable of abstracting itself, and loving virtue for virtue's own loveliness—desiring the happiness of others not from the obligation of fearing hell or desiring heaven: but for pure, simple, unsophisticated virtue. You will soon hear again. Adieu, my dearest friend. Continue to believe that when I am insensible to your excellence, I shall cease to exist.
Yours most sincerely, invioCombly, eternally,
Percy Bysshe ShelleyT xt 小 说 天 堂