原文：
It seems as if a great deal were attainable in a world where thereare so many marriages and decisive battles, and where we all, atcertain hours of the day, and with great gusto and dispatch,stow a portion of victuals finally and irretrievably into the bagwhich contains us. And it would seem also, on a hasty view, that the attainment of as much aspossible was the one goal of man's contentious life. And yet, as regards the spirit, this is but asemblance. We live in an ascending scale where we live happily, one thing leading to another in anendless series. There is always a new horizon for onward-looking men, and although we dwell on asmall planet, immersed in petty business and not enduring beyond a brief period of years, we areso constituted that our hopes are inaccessible, like stars, and the term of hoping is prolonged untilthe term of life. To be truly happy is a question of how we begin and not of how we end, of whatwe want and not of what we have. An aspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landedestate, a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue ofpleasurable activity. To have many of these is to be spiritually rich. Life is only a very dull and ill-directed theatre unless we have some interests in the piece; and to those who have neither art norscience, the world is a mere arrangement of colors or a rough footway where they may very wellbreak their shins. It is in virtue of his own desires and curiosities that any msn continues to existwith even patience, that he is charmed by the look of things and people, and that he wakensevery morning with a renewed appetite for work and pleasure. Desire and curiosity are the twoeyes through which he sees the world in the most enchanted colors: it is they that make womenbeautiful or fossils interesting: and the man may squander his estate and come to beggary, but ifhe keeps these two amulets he is still rich in the possibilities of pleasure.
參考譯文：
人在這個世界上好像真可以大有作為，因為世間有那么多聯(lián)姻婚嫁，決戰(zhàn)廝殺，因為我們每日都按時急匆匆、樂滋滋地將一份食物一去不復(fù)返地塞入我們自己的皮囊。 乍一看，在這個你爭我斗的人生里，人活著的唯一目的仿佛真是獲取利益，多多益善?？墒菑木穹矫娼庾x人生，此種觀點卻只觸及皮相。正是因為我們不停地追求 進取，我們才感到生活幸福，一件事完成后，另一件隨之而來，如此永無止境。對于朝前看的人，眼前永遠有新的地平線。雖然我們生活在一個小小的星球上，為塵 世中的瑣事日夜奔忙，加之生命又極其短暫，可是造化使我們永遠無法企及希望，恰如天上的繁星，無法摘取，希望和生命似同枝連理，希望會延伸至生命的最后一 刻。真正的幸福是啟程時的欣喜，而非抵達處的歡樂，真正的幸福源于想有而沒有的渴望，而非來自一切到手的滿足?？释且粋€永恒的喜悅，一筆如地產(chǎn)般穩(wěn)固的 財產(chǎn)，一份取之不盡的財富，正是心中懷有渴望，我們才年復(fù)一年參與令人欣喜的世事。一個人如有很多希望，就是精神的富豪。人生只是一出枯燥的戲文，編導(dǎo)得 又十分抽劣，要想讓人生不乏味，我們就得對這出戲文興致勃勃。一個人若無藝術(shù)愛好，又缺科學頭腦，世界便只是五顏六色的湊合，或可比之為崎嶇的旅程，讓人 歷盡坎坷。但正是因為有了欲望和好奇，人才能永遠耐心地活下去，才能見物而喜，遇人而樂，才能在晨起時重新激起想工作、要歡樂的沖動。欲望和好奇是兩只眼 睛，人通過它們觀看世界，世界于是也色彩紛呈。正因為有了欲望和好奇，女人才能美得傾國傾城，頑石竟會讓人興趣盎然。一個人可以傾家蕩產(chǎn)，淪為乞丐，可是 只要他有這兩樣財寶，他就仍然可能有無限的歡樂。