美国语文第六册 第267期:英国人的性格(4)

The character of an Englishman, under its most refined aspect, has some disagreeable points which jar unpleasantly on the foreigner not accustomed to them.

一个英国人的性格，在最精致的外表下，有一些刺激外国人神经的无法接受之处，令其无法适应他们。

The consciousness of national superiority, combined with natural feelings of independence, gives him an air of arrogance,

对民族优越感的意识，与独立性这种自然流露出来的情感结合在一起，赋予其傲慢自大的神态，

though it must be owned that this is never betrayed in his own house, I may almost say in his own country. But abroad,

尽管必须承认他绝对不会在自己的家里流露出来，我几乎可以说在自己国家里也很少流露出来。但是在国外，

when he seems to institute a comparison between himself and the people he is thrown with,

当他打算拿自己与所在国家的人进行比较时，

it becomes so obvious that he is the most unpopular, not to say odious, person in the world.

再明显不过的是，他是世界上最不受欢迎的人，这样说并无恶意。

Even the open hand with which he dispenses his bounty will not atone for the violence he offers to national vanity.

甚至连他为了施舍而张开的手，也不会弥补他展现民族虚荣时所带来的伤害。

 

There are other defects, which are visible even in his most favored circumstances.

还有其他缺点，甚至在对他最友好的环境里也显而易见。

Such is his bigotry, surpassing everything in a quiet passive form, that has been witnessed since the more active bigotry of the times of the Spanish Philips.

这就是他的顽固，以一种相当被动的形式漠视一切，已经为西班牙菲利普斯统治时期以来所体现出的更顽固的性格所证实。

Such, too, is the exclusive, limited range of his knowledge and conceptions of all political and social topics and relations.

还有排外，限制了他对所有政治和社会话题以及相互关系的认知与观念。

The Englishman, the cultivated Englishman, has no standard of excellence borrowed from mankind.

英国人，尤其是有教养的英国人，没有从人类借用的卓越这一标准规范。

His speculation never travels beyond his own little—great little—island.

他的思考从未超越过自己所在的那一相对而言狭小的英伦三岛。