Rural Life in England
by Washington Irving
(1783-1859)
O friendly to the best pursuits of man, Friendly to thought, to virtue and to peace, Domestic life in rural pleasures past! COWPER.
THE stranger who would form a correct opinion of the English character, must not confine his observations to the metropolis. He must go forth into the country; he must sojourn in villages and hamlets; he must visit castles, villas, farm-houses, cottages; he must wander through parks and gardens; along hedges and green lanes; he must loiter about country churches; attend wakes and fairs, and other rural festivals; and cope with the people in all their conditions, and all their habits and humors.
In some countries, the large cities absorb the wealth and fashion of the nation; they are the only fixed abodes of elegant and intelligent society, and the country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish peasantry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis is a mere gathering-place, or general rendezvous, of the polite classes, where they devote a small portion of the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and, having indulged this kind of carnival, return again to the apparently more congenial habits of rural life. The various orders of society are therefore diffused over the whole surface of the kingdom, and the more retired neighborhoods afford specimens of the different ranks.
The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the rural feeling. They possess a quick sensibility to the beauties of nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures and employments of the country. This passion seems inherent in them. Even the inhabitants of cities, born and brought up among brick walls and bustling streets, enter with facility into rural habits, and evince a tact for rural occupation. The merchant has his snug retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he often displays as much pride and zeal in the cultivation of his flower-garden, and the maturing of his fruits, as he does in the conduct of his business, and the success of a commercial enterprise. Even those less fortunate individuals, who are doomed to pass their lives in the midst of din and traffic, contrive to have something that shall remind them of the green aspect of nature. In the most dark and dingy quarters of the city, the drawing-room window resembles frequently a bank of flowers; every spot capable of vegetation has its grass-plot and flower-bed; and every square its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste, and gleaming with refreshing verdure.
Those who see the Englishman only in town, are apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character. He is either absorbed in business, or distracted by the thousand engagements that dissipate time, thought, and feeling, in this huge metropolis. He has, therefore, too commonly, a look of hurry and abstraction. Wherever he happens to be, he is on the point of going somewhere else; at the moment he is talking on one subject, his mind is wandering to another; and while paying a friendly visit, he is calculating how he shall economize time so as to pay the other visits allotted to the morning. An immense metropolis, like London, is calculated to make men selfish and uninteresting. In their casual and transient meetings, they can but deal briefly in commonplaces. They present but the cold superfices of character--its rich and genial qualities have no time to be warmed into a flow.
It is in the country that the Englishman gives scope to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from the cold formalities and negative civilities of town; throws off his habits of shy reserve, and becomes joyous and free-hearted. He manages to collect round him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite life, and to banish its restraints. His country-seat abounds with every requisite, either for studious retirement, tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paintings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of all kinds, are at hand. He puts no constraint, either upon his guests or himself, but, in the true spirit of hospitality, provides the means of enjoyment, and leaves every one to partake according to his inclination.
The taste of the English in the cultivation of land, and in what is called landscape gardening, is unrivalled. They have studied Nature intently, and discovered an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms which, in other countries, she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes.
Nothing can be more imposing than the magnificence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there clumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of foliage. The solemn pomp of groves and woodland glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across them; the hare, bounding away to the covert; or the pheasant, suddenly bursting upon the wing. The brook, taught to wind in natural meanderings, or expand into a glassy lake--the sequestered pool, reflecting the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleeping on its bosom, and the trout roaming fearlessly about its limpid waters; while some rustic temple, or sylvan statue, grown green and dank with age, gives an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion.
These are but a few of the features of park scenery; but what most delights me, is the creative talent with which the English decorate the unostentatious abodes of middle life. The rudest habitation, the most unpromising and scanty portion of land, in the hands of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes at once upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the future landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness under his hand; and yet the operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The cherishing and training of some trees; the cautious pruning of others; the nice distribution of flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage; the introduction of a green slope of velvet turf; the partial opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water;-all these are managed with a delicate tact, a pervading yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings with which a painter finishes up a favorite picture.
The residence of people of fortune and refinement in the country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance in rural economy that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before the door, the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its blossoms about the lattice; the pot of flowers in the window; the holly, providently planted about the house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and to throw in a semblance of green summer to cheer the fireside; all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing down from high sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the public mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, delights to visit a cottage, it must be the cottage of an English peasant.
The fondness for rural life among the higher classes of the English has had a great and salutary effect upon the national character. I do not know a finer race of men than the English gentlemen. Instead of the softness and effeminacy which characterize the men of rank in most countries, they exhibit a union of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to attribute to their living so much in the open air, and pursuing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of the country. The hardy exercises produce also a healthful tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness and simplicity of manners, which even the follies and dissipations of the town cannot easily pervert, and can never entirely destroy. In the country, too, the different orders of society seem to approach more freely, to be more disposed to blend and operate favorably upon each other. The distinctions between them do not appear to be so marked and impassable as in the cities. The manner in which property has been distributed into small estates and farms has established a regular gradation from the noblemen, through the classes of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantial farmers, down to the laboring peasantry; and while it has thus banded the extremes of society together, has infused into each intermediate rank a spirit of independence. This, it must be confessed, is not so universally the case at present as it was formerly; the larger estates having, in late years of distress, absorbed the smaller, and, in some parts of the country, almost annihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. These, however, I believe, are but casual breaks in the general system I have mentioned.
In rural occupation, there is nothing mean and debasing. It leads a, man forth among scenes of natural grandeur and beauty; it leaves him to the workings of his own mind, operated upon by the purest and most elevating of external influences. Such a man may be simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. The man of refinement, therefore, finds nothing revolting in an intercourse with the lower orders in rural life, as he does when he casually mingles with the lower orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, and is glad to waive the distinctions of rank, and to enter into the honest, heartfelt enjoyments of common life. Indeed, the very amusements of the country bring, men more and more together; and the sound hound and horn blend all feelings into harmony. I believe this is one great reason why the nobility and gentry are more popular among the inferior orders in England than they are in any other country; and why the latter have endured so many excessive pressures and extremities, without repining more generally at the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege.
To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society may also be attributed the rural feeling that runs through British literature; the frequent use of illustrations from rural life; those incomparable descriptions of Nature, that abound in the British poets--that have continued down from "The Flower and the Leaf," of Chaucer, and have brought into our closets all the freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they had paid Nature an occasional visit, and become acquainted with her general charms; but the British poets have lived and revelled with her--they have wooed her in her most secret haunts--they have watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not tremble in the breeze--a leaf could not rustle to the ground--a diamond drop could not patter in the stream--a fragrance could not exhale from the humble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the morning, but it has been noticed by these impassioned and delicate observers, and wrought up into some beautiful morality.
The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rural occupations has been wonderful on the face of the country. A great part of the island is rather level, and would be monotonous, were it not for the charms of culture; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were, with castles and palaces, and embroidered with parks and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little home scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm-house and moss-grown cottage is a picture; and as the roads are continually winding, and the view is shut in by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a continual succession of small landscapes of captivating loveliness.
The great charm, however, of English scenery, is the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is associated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of sober well-established principles, of hoary usage and reverend custom. Every thing seems to be the growth of ages of regular and peaceful existence. The old church of remote architecture, with its low, massive portal; its Gothic tower; its windows rich with tracery and painted glass, in scrupulous preservation; its stately monuments of warriors and worthies of the olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil; its tombstones, recording successive generations of sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the same fields, and kneel at the same altar;--the parsonage, a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but repaired and altered in the tastes of various ages and occupants;--the stile and foot-path leading from the churchyard, across pleasant fields, and along shady hedgerows, according to an immemorial right of way;--the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the present race have sported;--the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene; all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, a hereditary transmission of homebred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation.
It is a pleasing sight, of a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces, and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them.
It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affection in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments; and I cannot close these desultory remarks better, than by quoting the words of a modern English poet, who has depicted it with remarkable felicity:
Through each gradation, from the castled hall, The city dome, the villa crowned with shade, But chief from modest mansions numberless, In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life, Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roof'd shed; This western isle has long been famed for scenes Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling-place; Domestic bliss, that, like a harmless dove, (Honor and sweet endearment keeping guard,) Can centre in a little quiet nest All that desire would fly for through the earth; That can, the world eluding, be itself A world enjoyed; that wants no witnesses But its own sharers, and approving Heaven; That, like a flower deep hid in rock cleft, Smiles, though 't is looking only at the sky.
英国的乡村生活
作者：华盛顿·欧文(美)
翻译：戴苏春
啊，在乡村享受天伦之乐，
有益人们最美的追求，
有益人们的思想、德行与和睦！
——库珀
外国人若欲对英国人的特性有一个正确认识，切不可将视野局限于都市。他须深入乡间，逗留于大小村庄；游览城堡。别墅、农房、村舍；漫步园林；沿树篱和青葱小道缓缓而行；流连于乡村教堂，参加教区节庆、定期集市等乡村节日，并与身份、习惯和性格各异者交往。
在一些国家，都市吸引着本国的富翁名流，为优雅贤明的上流人士惟一固定居地，而在乡村居住的几乎为粗俗农民。相反，在英国都市仅为一个聚会的场所，或 曰上流人士集中的总部。一年中，他们只在城里度过短暂时光，寻求一时消遣，并在匆匆纵情狂欢之后，又一如既往地返归乡村生活，此处显然更为惬意。因此，各 阶层的人遍及全国，即便在最偏僻幽深的地点，你亦时有所见。
事实上，英国人对于乡村天生情深意浓。他们对自然之美颇能感悟，对乡村的乐趣与劳作喜爱非凡。此种激情仿佛与生俱来。即便市民，生活于熙来攘往的闹 市，亦能很快熟悉习俗，对乡下的活儿显得颇为老练。商人在都市附近有其舒适的休养场地，常在此种植花园，培育果树，其自豪热情，与经商习俗，对乡下的活儿 显得颇为老练。商人在都市附近有其舒适的休养场地，常在此种植花园，培育果树，其自豪热情，与经商买卖、获取成功时的相比并不逊色。即使不幸的人——他们 注定要在拥挤的闹市中度过一生——也极力装点什么，以便时时看见自然的鲜绿色彩。在城市最昏暗阴沉的角落，客厅窗户常装饰着一排鲜花；凡能种植的空地，均 有草坪与花床；每一四面临街的房区，均有仿造园林，造型别致，翠绿清新，熠熠生辉。
外国人，若仅见到都市的英国人，则易对其社交特性不存好感。在大都市，他要么一心忙生意，要么赶赴无尽的约会，其时间、思想和感情即由此耗费。所以他 总好像急急匆匆，心不在焉。他无论身在何处，马上又欲去其他地方；谈着某个问题，又恍您想到另一件事情；一面探亲访友，一面又考虑节约时间，另作他访—— 因这一拜访已于早晨安排。人们认为，都市如伦敦，会使人自私无聊。熟人朋友相见，极其偶然短暂，只能简单寒暄客套。你目中所见，只为其冷漠的外表——而可 贵友好的品质根本无暇活跃，奔涌而出。
但在乡下，英国人便将真情实意充分流露。他挣脱都市冷漠拘泥的形式和消极不良的礼仪，抛弃畏缩冷淡的习惯，变得快乐开心。高雅社会一切美好的东西， 他极力获取，却将其约束尽皆摈弃。他或隐居一处，勤奋用功，或寻求雅趣，或从事乡间劳作，所需物资在乡邻应有尽有。各种书籍、绘画、乐曲、马狗及体育用品 随手可获。无论对人对己，他均不强制，真诚待之，热情好客，一心带去欢喜，人人均凭爱好各有所得。
在耕作土地和所谓园林术上的情趣，英国人无与伦比。他们潜心研究自然，发现她千姿百态，优美可爱，和谐相融。在其他国家，迷人景色遍布野外；而在英国，居家附近随处可见。他们似乎抓住她腼腆隐秘的魁力，犹如玩耍魔法，将其呈现于乡宅四周。
英国的园林景色宏伟壮丽，感人至深。草坪宽阔，如一张价涨鲜绿的地毯，不时可见参天大树，枝茂叶盛。树丛和林地庄庄严壮观，鹿群结队悄然而过，野兔跳 向隐蔽之处，或野鸡忽然振翅高飞。小溪婉蜒曲折，自然优美，或扩展成一片明净的湖水——这一潭与世隔绝的小湖，将颤动的树影映照其间，黄叶安然躺于其中， 鲑鱼漫游于清澈的水里，丝毫无惧。某乡村庙宇或林神塑像，因天长日久发绿受潮——这一切，使幽僻的地方呈现出古雅神圣气派。
而这些，仅为英国园林景观的几许特征而已；尤其令我欣喜的，倒是英国人装点中等生活朴素的房屋时，所具有的创造旧才。即便最拙劣的住处，最贫瘠的不毛 之地，一经英国人之手，即变成小小乐园。他们独具慧眼，立即看出其潜力所在，心中构想出未来美景。一块草木不生的地方，经他们一运作，即可爱迷人，此为艺 术之功，极尽微妙。他们将树木精心栽培，细加修剪；鲜花植物布局美观，叶片鲜嫩雅致；山坡上新生出天鹅绒般的绿草；透过空隙处，可见远方蓝蓝天空，或水面 银波闪闪——这些，均配置得灵巧嫡熟，一丝不苟，素雅温和，宛如画家作完备受喜爱的画，再富有魔力地着上几笔。
英国富人雅士的宅第，颇富意趣，优美雅观，其特征多少为乡村汲取，直至最低阶层。连普通农夫，亦对茅屋和狭小土地作精心修饰。树篱匀称堪称可人，门前 有一草地，只见花坛小巧，四周黄杨整洁悦目；忍冬爬至墙上，花悬于格构窗周围；窗内有花盆数个；冬青植于住屋近处，别具一格，冬天因此不再沉闷，仿佛满目 绿色的夏日，天伦之乐由此而生——这，无不显示高雅情趣的影响，此情趣源于上流社会，渗入公众最低一层。正如诗人所颂，若爱神乐意一睹茅屋，定非英国农夫 之村舍莫属。
英国上层，对乡村生活的热爱，对其民族性产生了重大影响。我以为，世上最优秀的人莫过于英国绅士。许多国家有身份的人，显得柔弱娇气，而他们则既雅 致漂亮，又强壮有力，气色颇佳。我想，此为长处户外，兴味盎然于乡村鼓舞人心的娱乐所致。他们吃苦耐劳，身体得以锻炼；精神为之健康活泼，举止果敢坦率， 即使都市愚蠢放荡之事，亦难腐蚀其品性，而绝不会令其消亡。此外，在乡下，不同社会阶层似乎更自由地被此接近，更易融为一体，互相促进。其间差别，不如都 市明显无情。财富分布至小庄园小农场，如此，从贵族到中上层人士，到小土地拥有者，到大量农场劳工，直至个体农民，彼此环环相依，秩序井然，贫富两极互相 连结，而每个中等阶层者倒具有一种独立精神。但必须承认，总体而言英国已不同过去；近几年生活艰辛，大庄园将小庄园吞并；有些地方，刚毅不屈的小农消失殆 尽。然而我以为，在上述整个体系中，这些仅为偶然的变化而已。
乡村劳作，绝无卑劣低贱可言。大自然一派宏伟壮丽景象，置身其中，令人奋发向上。自然最为纯洁，使人欢欣鼓舞，在其影响下人即可自由退思。此人也许简单粗陋，却不庸俗。
因此，雅士在乡村与下层人交往，绝不像偶然与都市下层人为伍时产生厌恶。他不再疏远冷淡，而乐于将等级差别抛弃，真心诚意享受普通生活。的确，乡村乐 趣使人们更紧密相连；猎狗和号角声，使一切情感和谐相融。英国贵族和中上阶级，与任何国家的相比，在下层人中更受欢迎；尽管下层人忍受诸多艰苦，但对财富 特权分配的差别几无怨言，我想此为一个重要原因。
高低社会阶层之所以能彼此融洽，或许亦归功于贯穿英国文学的乡村情感：作品常以乡村生活为题，英国诗人对自然的描写丰富多彩，无可比拟。此种情况，始 于乔叟的《花与叶》，延续至今，自然风景的清新芳香无不飘入室中。外国的田园诗人，仿佛仅对自然偶然一顾，因此只知其一般可爱之处；而英国诗人却与之同生 共乐，寻她至最幽深隐蔽的地方，观察其细致入微的变化。微风中水花震颤，树叶沙沙落地，溪里传来钻石般的滴水声，朴实的紫罗兰散发出芳香，雏菊清晨焕发出 绯红的色彩——这一切，均逃不过热情灵敏的观察者的双眼，并在其笔下幻化着美丽寓言。
雅士投身乡村事务，使其大为改观，堪称奇迹。英国岛多则极为平坦，但一经精心培育即妩媚动人，否则便单调乏味；仿佛它被装饰上城堡宫殿，绣以各种公园 和花园。它所富有的，并非雄伟壮丽的景观，而是小巧精美的田园风光，颇具乡村的幽静与安宁。每一古老农舍和生着苔藓的茅屋，即是一幅风景画。道路蜿蜒曲 折，美景深藏于簇簇树林和围篱中，使玲珑可爱的风光接连不断，赏心悦目。
然而，英国景色最妩媚之处，尚在于似乎贯穿其中的精神情感。它使人想到井然的秩序，宁静的环境，公认的简朴准则，古老可敬的风俗习惯。万物好像无不生 于长年累月井然安宁的生活方式。古老教堂有着悠久的建筑风格；其门低矮厚实；哥特式尖塔高耸其上；窗多为窗花格和彩色玻璃，受到精心维护：昔日的勇士伟人 以及当今君主祖先的墓碑，庄严堂皇；墓碑上，记载着一代代坚强不屈的自耕农的历史，其子孙后代，今天仍在同一土地上耕种，在同一圣坛祈祷。牧师宅第古雅离 奇，有助陈旧老化，但不同时代住户仍依照各自情趣，加以维修改造。小路按传统通行权利，从教堂墓地延伸出来，穿过令人惬意的田野，沿一排排阴凉的树篱伸 去。附近村舍历史悠久，公共草坪掩蔽于树阴之下，而今人的祖先即曾在此游戏玩耍。古代宅第独处一旁，俯瞰周围美景，俨然一派保护神气。这些特征，多为英国 风景所具备，显示出一种宁静安然的情调，世袭的朴素美德和对乡土的依恋之情；这亦深切动人表明了英国民族的精神风貌。
礼拜日早晨，田野一片静谧，教堂响起庄严的钟声。农夫们装扮一新，面容红润，心怀喜悦，平静地穿过青葱小路拥向教堂，目睹此景总令人高兴。但更让人高兴的是，傍晚见他们聚集在小屋门口，愉快有加，虽然亲手装点的舒适环境极尽简朴。
正是此种亲切朴实的情感，此种置身庭园美景所深怀的宁然之心，使最牢固的美德和最纯洁的欢乐由此而生；而结束我这散漫无序的议论，最好莫过于引用一位现代英国诗人的诗，他对英国风景的描述深刻之至：
上自堡垒般大厦，市中圆顶，
林阴覆盖的别墅，
但以村镇中等阶级朴素的宅第为主，
下至山谷茅屋，
这西方小岛之美景久已闻名——
天伦之乐在此栖身：
它犹如天真无邪的鸽子，
（崇敬与甜蜜的爱抚守卫一旁）
围着一个宁静的小巢飞舞，
将寻遍世界所获的快乐置于其中。
它远离尘世，只欣赏
自己小小的乐园；其欢乐无须旁人作证，
只需喜悦的同伴和赞许的苍穹。
它像一朵深藏于岩缝中的鲜花，
微笑着，尽管只能仰望天空。
