為快樂而讀書
Reading for Pleasure
he first thing I want to insist on is that reading should be enjoyable. Of course, there are many books that we all have to road, either to pass examinations or to acquire information,from which it is impossible to extract enjoyment. We aro reading them for instruction, and the best we can hope is that our need for it will enable us to get through them without todium. Such books wo read with resignation rather than with alacrity. But that is not the sort of roading I have in mind. The books I shall mention in due course will help you neither to get a degree nor to earn your living, they will not teach you to sail a boat or get a stalled motor to run, but they will help you to live more fully. That, however, they cannot do unless you enjoy reading them.
Every man is his own best critic. Whatever the learned say about a book, however unanimous they are in their praise of it,unless it interests you, it is no business of yours. And you who read are the final judge of the value to you of the book you are reading. We are none of us exactly like everyone else, only rather like, and it would be unreasonable to suppose that the books that have meant a great deal to me should be precisely those that will mean a great deal to you. But they are books that I feel the richer for having read, and I think I should not be quite the man I am if I had not read them. No one is under an obligation to read poetry or fiction or the miscellaneous literature which is classed as belleslettres. He must read them for pleasure, and who can claim that what pleases one man must necessarily please another?
為快樂而讀書
我想堅持的第一點是，閱讀應當是愉悅的。 自然，我們每一個人都會為了通過考試，或是為了獲取信息而閱讀大量的書籍。從這樣的閱讀中我們無法獲取快樂。我們讀這些書是為了接受教育。我們最多只能希望自己對這些書籍的需要使得我們在讀完之后不至于感到單調乏味。這樣的書，我們讀得無可奈何而不是輕松愉快。然而，我心目中的閱讀不屬于這一種。我在下面很快將要提到的那一類書既不能幫助你獲取學位，也不能幫助你掙錢謀生，更不能教會你駕駛船只或修好出了故障的馬達，然而，它們能夠幫助你活得更加充實。而這一點，除非你喜歡閱讀它們，否則是無法做到的。
每個人都是他自己最好的評論家。無論什么學者對某一本書說了些什么，無論他們如何眾口一詞地對它大加稱贊，倘若它激不起你的興趣，那么這本書就與你毫不相干。作為讀者，你是你所讀書籍價值的最終仲裁人。我們當中，沒有一個人跟另外一個人完全相像，至多有點相像而已。想當然地認為對我來說很有價值的書恰恰對你也很有價值，這是不合情理的。但是這些書的特點是：在讀完之后，我感到更加充實了，我覺得要是沒有讀它們，我就不會成為現在的我。沒有什么人非要去閱讀詩歌、小說以及其他歸為“純文學”的作品不可。讀者閱讀這些作品必然是為了獲取快樂；而誰又能說，使一位讀者感到愉悅的書一定會讓另一位讀者喜歡呢?