The Faculty of Delight

British|Charles Edward Montague

Among the mind's powers is one that comes of itself to many children and artists. It need not be lost, to the end of his days, by anyone who has ever had it. This is the power of taking delight in a thing, or rather in anything, everything, not as a means to some other end, but just because it is what it is, as the lover dotes on whatever may be the traits of the beloved object. A child in the full health of his mind will put his hand flat on the summer turf1, feel it, and give a little shiver of private glee2at the elastic firmness of the globe. He is not thinking how well it will do for some game or to feed sheep upon. That would be the way of the wooer whose mind runs on his mistress's money.The child's is sheer affection, the true ecstatic sense of the thing's inherent characteristics. No matter what the things may be, no matter what they are good or no good for, there they are, each with a thrilling unique look and feel of its own, like a face; the iron astringently3 coop4 under its paint, the painted wood familiarly warmer, the clod crumbling enchantingly down in the hands, with its little dry smell of the sun and of hot nettles; each common thing a personality marked by delicious differences.

The joy of an Adam new to the garden and just looking round is brought by the normal child to the things that he does as well as those that he sees. To be suffered to do some plain work with the real spade used by mankind can give him a mystical exaltation: to come home with his legs, as the French say, reentering his body from the fatigue of helping the gardener to weed5beds sends him to sleep in the glow of a beatitude that is an end in itself...

热词天地

1.turf [tɜ:f] n．草皮；泥炭

2.glee [gli:] n．快乐，欢喜；重唱的歌曲

3.astringently[əst'rɪndʒəntlɪ] adv．收敛性地；压缩地

4.coop[ku:p] vt．把……关在笼子（或栏舍等）中；把……拘禁起来5.weed[wi:d] vt．给……除杂草；除（草）