旅行的艺术:Ⅵ 壮阔-5

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但是为什么会产生这种欣悦？为什么要追求这种渺小的感觉、甚至因此而感到高兴？为什么要离开埃拉特城的安逸，背起沉重的背包，跟随一组沙漠爱好者沿着亚喀巴湾的海滩行走数英里，来到一个只有岩石的沉寂之所？还必须像一个逃犯那样躲在少数几块巨大岩石的阴影之下，以躲避烈日的曝晒？为什么我们充满欢欣地期盼花岗石床、砂砾烤盘，以及那向远处伸展、山峰镶嵌在深蓝天空一角的凝固火山熔岩，而不感到沮丧呢？

But why the pleasure? Why seek out this feeling of smallness-delight in it even? Why leave the comforts of Eilat, join a group of desert devotees and walk for miles with a heavy pack along the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba, to reach a place of rocks and silence, in which one must shelter from the sun like a fugitive in the scant shadow of giant boulders? Why contemplate with exhilaration rather than despair beds of granite and baking gravel pans and a frozen lava of mountains extending into the distance until the peaks dissolve on the edge of a hard blue sky?

有一种解释是，那些比我们强大威猛的东西不一定令我们感到憎恨。那些与我们意志相违的东西可能引起我们的愤怒和怨恨，然而它也可能让我们心生敬畏。而它们是否能引发我们的敬畏，则完全取决于它们貌似挑衅、恶劣和傲慢的同时，是否也具尊贵之风度。看门人的自大傲慢令人生怨，迷雾笼罩的高山奇险则使人心生尊崇之意。强大却卑劣之物让人有被羞辱之感，但强大且尊贵之物则使我们敬畏。让我们再次引申伯克关于动物的比喻：一头野牛或许能引起壮阔之感，但一条水虎鱼却不能。其关键似乎在于动机：我们视水虎鱼的力量为邪恶且具掠夺性的，却把野牛的力量视为坦率和正大光明的。

One answer is that not everything which is more powerful than us must always be hateful to us. What defies our will can provoke anger and resentment; it may also arouse awe and respect. It depends on whether the obstacle appears noble in its defiance or squalid and insolent. We begrudge the defiance of the cocky doorman, we honour the defiance of the mistshrouded mountain. We are humiliated by what is powerful and mean, but awed by what is powerful and noble. To return to and extend Burke's animal analogy, a bull may arouse a feeling of the sublime, a piranha does not. It seems a matter of motives: we interpret the piranha's power as vicious and predatory, the bull's as guileless and impersonal.

即使我们不在沙漠中，别人的行为及自己的缺点也会让我们感到渺小。羞辱感是人类永远的危机。我们的意志常被违抗，愿望也常被阻挠。崇高的景观不会因此而直接揭示我们的不足。它们的吸引力在于提供我们一个新颖和有效的方法，去面对我们原已熟悉的缺憾。壮阔的景致以宏伟的方式，重复着日常生活经常施予我们的教训：“宇宙 强而有力，而人类脆弱不堪；人的生命是脆弱和短暂的；我们除了接受加诸于意志之上的限制外，别无选择；许多的必然性不是我们可以对抗的，面对它们时，我们只能臣服。”

Even when we are not in deserts, the behaviour of others and our own flaws are prone to leave us feeling small. Humiliation is a perpetual risk in the world of men. It is not unusual for our will to be defied and our wishes frustrated. Sublime landscapes do not therefore introduce us to our inadequacy. Rather, to touch on the crux of their appeal, they allow us to conceive of a familiar inadequacy in a new and more helpful way. Sublime places repeat in grand terms a lesson that ordinary life typically teaches viciously: that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and temporary and have no alternative but to accept limitations on our will; that we must bow to necessities greater than ourselves.

这便是写在沙漠岩石上和南北两极冰地上的教诲。因为书写得如此壮丽，我们在离开这些景点后不会有任何挫折之感，反倒为这些超越自身的东西所感动，并在回忆中归返这些我们精神生活所不可或缺的庄严壮美的景象。我们的敬畏之心也可能演化为崇拜之情。

This is the lesson written into the stones of the desert and the icefields of the poles. So grandly is it written there that we may come away from such places, not crushed, but inspired by what lies beyond us; privileged to be subject to such majestic necessities. The sense of awe may even shade into a desire to worship.