培根美文欣赏:论友谊

　　It had been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all, of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self, for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Canadian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable　solitude to want true friends; without which the　world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

　　A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

　　“喜欢孤独的人不是野兽便是神灵”。说这话的人若要在寥寥数语之中，更能把真理和邪说放在一处，那就很难了。因为，若说一个人心里有了一种天生的、隐秘的、对社会的憎恨嫌弃，则那个人不免带点野兽的性质，这是极其真实的；然而要说这样的一个人居然有任何神灵的性质，则是极不真实的。只有一点可为例外，那就是当这种憎恨社会的心理不是出于对孤独的爱好而是出于一种想把自己退出社会以求更崇高的生活的心理的时候；这样的人异教徒中有些人曾冒充过，如克瑞蒂人埃辟曼尼底斯、罗马人努马、西西利人安辟道克利斯和蒂安那人阿波郎尼亚斯；而基督教会中许多的古隐者和长老则确有如此者。但是一般人并不大明白何为孤独以及孤独的范围。因为在没有“仁爱”的地方，一群人众并不能算做一个团体，许多面目也仅仅是一列图画；而交谈则不过是铙钹叮铃作声而已。这种情形有句拉丁成语略能形容：“一座大城市就是一片大荒野”；因为在一座大城市里朋友们是散居各处的，所以就其大概而言，不像在小一点的城镇里，有那样的交情。但是我们不妨更进一步并且很真实地断言说，缺乏真正的朋友乃是最纯粹最可怜的孤独；没有友谊则斯世不过是一片荒野；我们还可以用这个意义来论“孤独”说，凡是天性不配交友的人其性情可说是来自禽兽而不是来自人类的。

　　友谊的主要效用之一就在使人心中的愤懑抑郁之气得以宣泄弛放，这些不平之气是各种的情感都可以引起的。闭塞之症于人的身体最为凶险，这是我们知道的；在人的精神方面亦复如此：你可以服撒尔沙以通肝，服钢以通脾，服硫华以通肺，服海狸胶以通脑，然而除了一个真心的朋友之外没有一样药剂是可以通心的。对一个真心的朋友，你可以传达你的忧愁、欢悦、恐惧、希望、疑忌、谏净，以及任何压在你心上的事情，有如一种教堂之外的忏悔一样。

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