海倫·凱勒自傳《我的生活》第33期
Miss Canby herself wrote kindly, "Some day you will write a great story out of your own head, that will be a comfort and help to many." But this kind prophecy has never been fulfilled. I have never played with words again for the mere pleasure of the game. Indeed, I have ever since been tortured by the fear that what I write is not my own. For a long time, when I wrote a letter, even to my mother, I was seized with a sudden feeling of terror, and I would spell the sentences over and over, to make sure that I had not read them in a book. Had it not been for the persistent encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up trying to write altogether.
肯拜小姐親自寫信安慰我：“有朝一日，你也會用自己的頭腦寫出一篇偉大的故事，它將會撫慰很多人，也會對他們助益匪淺。”但是這個預言從來沒有實現，我不再做僅僅爲了娛樂而玩弄辭藻的遊戲了。實際上，自那以後，我被恐懼折磨着，我害怕我寫的東西不是我自己的。有很長一段時間，即便是在給母親寫信的時候，我也會感到如臨大敵般惴惴不安。我會反反覆覆地拼寫句子，以確信我並沒有在某本書中讀到過這些話。如果沒有蘇立文小姐持久的鼓勵，我想我肯定無法把那些單詞組合成句。I have read "The Frost Fairies" since, also the letters I wrote in which I used other ideas of Miss Canby's. I find in one of them, a letter to Mr. Anagnos, dated September 29, 1891, words and sentiments exactly like those of the book. At the time I was writing "The Frost King," and this letter, like many others, contains phrases which show that my mind was saturated with the story. I represent my teacher as saying to me of the golden autumn leaves, "Yes, they are beautiful enough to comfort us for the flight of summer"—an idea direct from Miss Canby's story.
事實上，那時我不但讀了《冰雪仙子》，我還在我寫的信中借用了肯拜小姐的一些觀點。我在一封信中找到了佐證，這封信是寫給阿納戈諾斯先生的，時間是1891年9月29日，信中的措辭和觀點確實很像那本書的語言。當時，我正在寫《冰雪之王》，就像我寫的很多別的信一樣，這封信中也包含了那篇故事所使用的語句。當然，這些成語都是被我融會貫通後，能夠代表我思想的詞句。比如，我是這樣描述老師所說的秋日中的金黃色的樹葉的：“是的，它們的美麗足以安撫我們對逝去夏日的眷戀之情。”——這樣的一個觀點直接來自於肯拜小姐的故事。This habit of assimilating what pleased me and giving it out again as my own appears in much of my early correspondence and my first attempts at writing. In a composition which I wrote about the old cities of Greece and Italy, I borrowed my glowing descriptions, with variations, from sources I have forgotten. I knew Mr. Anagnos's great love of antiquity and his enthusiastic appreciation of all beautiful sentiments about Italy and Greece. I therefore gathered from all the books I read every bit of poetry or of history that I thought would give him pleasure. Mr. Anagnos, in speaking of my composition on the cities, has said, "These ideas are poetic in their essence." But I do not understand how he ever thought a blind and deaf child of eleven could have invented them. Yet I cannot think that because I did not originate the ideas, my little composition is therefore quite devoid of interest. It shows me that I could express my appreciation of beautiful and poetic ideas in clear and animated language.
這種深受周圍事物同化的習性令我樂此不疲，我在早期通信和最初的寫作中無不透露出同化因素的影響。我曾在自己的作文中寫到了希臘和意大利的古老城市，我借用了多姿多彩的生動描述，但是我已經不記得它們的出處了。我知道阿納戈諾斯先生對古代希臘和羅馬的遺蹟情有獨鍾，並且對它們所創造的古代文明推崇備至。於是，我便從我讀過的所有書本中搜集出相關的詩歌和歷史，我想這一定會令他很開心。阿納戈諾斯先生則說我描寫古代城市的作文“詩意地再現了其內在特質”。但我並不知曉他是如何看待一個十一歲的盲聾小孩的遣詞造句的。總之，我並不認爲我有創作的本事，因爲我無法創造自己的觀點，所以我的作文空泛而無趣也就在所難免了。這反倒提醒了我，我應該使用清晰而生動的語言來描述美好的事物，品評詩意的思想。
Those early compositions were mental gymnastics. I was learning, as all young and inexperienced persons learn, by assimilation and imitation, to put ideas into words. Everything I found in books that pleased me I retained in my memory, consciously or unconsciously, and adapted it. The young writer, as Stevenson has said, instinctively tries to copy whatever seems most admirable, and he shifts his admiration with astonishing versatility. It is only after years of this sort of practice that even great men have learned to marshal the legion of words which come thronging through every byway of the mind.
那些作文構成了我早期的智力訓練課程。像所有缺乏經驗的年輕人一樣，我通過吸收和模仿將自己的思想訴諸文字。書本中任何給我留下愉悅記憶的事物——無論是有意還是無意——都適用於這個原則。有一個年輕的作家史蒂文森曾說過，受本能驅使，他總是盡其所能地再現那些最令人景仰的崇高思想，而且，他會令人驚訝地將這種崇高轉化爲千變萬化的文字效果。即使是偉大的人物，也只有經年累月地持續訓練，才能匯聚起攻往每一條思想小徑的文字大軍。
