双语有声阅读：论读书

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第 1 页：美文原文

第 2 页：美文翻译

Studies serve for delight, for ornament¹, and for ability.Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse²; and for ability, is in the judgment³ and disposition⁴ of business.For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth⁵; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make jugment wholly by their rules, isthe humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning⁶ by study; and studies themselves do give forth⁷ directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty⁸ men contemn⁹ studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously¹⁰; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled¹¹ books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things.

 

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man writelittle, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poetswitty; the mathematics subtitle¹²; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic¹³ and rhetoric¹⁴ able to contend.Abeunt studia in mores¹⁵. Nay¹⁶ there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought¹⁷ out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling¹⁸ is good for the stone and reins:shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations¹⁹, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let himstudy the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate²⁰ another, let him study the lawyers’cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

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