I do not intend to follow in close detail the events of the decades after 1874 except to correct some misconceptions,to describe one curious experience,new for him and moving,and to put in order the essential narrative.
我在此并不想復(fù)述1874年之后幾十年間各種事情的細(xì)節(jié),而是為了糾正一些錯(cuò)誤認(rèn)識(shí),介紹一段既新又動(dòng)人的不尋常經(jīng)歷,從而使這一重要敘述井然有序.
Only one major objective was left to Whitman in life after his powers began to fail,and everything he did with energy from now on had reference to what his friend Kennedy called somewhat extravagantly,yet with a large kernel of truth,the fight of a book for the world.
在身體開始衰弱以后,惠特曼(Whitman)只有一個(gè)未盡的重大目標(biāo),這就是為了全世界的一次著作之戰(zhàn),從那時(shí)起,他所做的一切都是為了此書,他朋友肯尼迪(Kennedy)評(píng)價(jià)該書雖有些離經(jīng)叛道,卻蘊(yùn)藏著大量的真理.
he was not destitute,as has been often stated,not uncared for,except for a very brief period later on,never rightly an object of pity,unless as a man only in his fifties whose magnificent mind and body were shaken by physical disaster.a letter to Pete Doyle describes his outer circumstances fairly enough.
他并非人們常常所說的一貧如洗和無人照料,只在之后很短的一段時(shí)間內(nèi)是如此,他從來都不是被人憐憫的對(duì)象,但是他五十歲左右卻令當(dāng)別論,在病魔的蠶食下,他那驚人的大腦和身體都被極大地削弱了,有封致皮特*道爾(Pete Doyle)的信比較詳細(xì)地介紹了他當(dāng)時(shí)的外部狀況.