阅读的喜悦
演讲时间：1933年
——史上最著名的十大演讲NO.6：威廉.里昂.菲尔普斯演讲稿
菲尔普斯是一位就职于耶鲁大学英语系达四十年的作家与学者。这篇演说入选十大演讲稿是因为它是对书籍与阅读的伟大论述。在纳粹党开始烧毁反对者的书籍之前一年，这篇演说在收音机中被发表。
以下是演讲翻译摘录：
『借来的书，就如同家里的宾客，必须要细心、体贴地对待。你必须要保证它不被毁坏;它不能在你的家中受到委屈。你不能漫不经心地随手乱放，你不能在书里做记号，你不能折书页，你不能随便使用它。然后的某一天，虽然很少人能做到，但是你确实应该归还它。』
William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943) was anAmerican educator, literary critic and author. He served as a professor ofEnglish at Yale University from 1901 to 1933. His works include Advance of theEnglish Novel and Essays on Modern Dramatists. On April 6, 1933, he deliveredthis speech during a radio broadcast.
His reverence for books was not shared byeveryone, especially those in Nazi Germany. On May 10, 1933, the Nazis hadstaged an event unseen since the Middle Ages as young German students fromuniversities, formerly regarded as among the finest in the world, had gatheredin Berlin and other German cities to burn books with "un-German"ideas.
The habit of reading is one of the greatestresources of mankind; and we enjoy reading books that belong to us much morethan if they are borrowed. A borrowed book is like a guest in the house; itmust be treated with punctiliousness, with a certain considerate formality. Youmust see that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer while under your roof.You cannot leave it carelessly, you cannot mark it, you cannot turn down thepages, you cannot use it familiarly. And then, some day, although this isseldom done, you really ought to return it.
But your own books belong to you; you treatthem with that affectionate intimacy that annihilates formality. Books are foruse, not for show; you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up, orafraid to place on the table, wide open and face down. A good reason formarking favorite passages in books is that this practice enables you toremember more easily the significant sayings, to refer to them quickly, andthen in later years, it is like visiting a forest where you once blazed atrail. You have the pleasure of going over the old ground, and recalling boththe intellectual scenery and your own earlier self.
Everyone should begin collecting a privatelibrary in youth; the instinct of private property, which is fundamental inhuman beings, can here be cultivated with every advantage and no evils. Oneshould have one"s own bookshelves, which should not have doors, glass windows,or keys; they should be free and accessible to the hand as well as to the eye.The best of mural decorations is books; they are more varied in color andappearance than any wallpaper, they are more attractive in design, and theyhave the prime advantage of being separate personalities, so that if you sitalone in the room in the firelight, you are surrounded with intimate friends.The knowledge that they are there in plain view is both stimulating andrefreshing. You do not have to read them all. Most of my indoor life is spentin a room containing six thousand books; and I have a stock answer to theinvariable question that comes from strangers. "Have you read all of thesebooks?"
"Some of them twice." This replyis both true and unexpected.
There are of course no friends like living,breathing, corporeal men and women; my devotion to reading has never made me arecluse. How could it? Books are of the people, by the people, for the people.Literature is the immortal part of history; it is the best and most enduringpart of personality. But book-friends have this advantage over living friends;you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever youwant it. The great dead are beyond our physical reach, and the great living areusually almost as inaccessible; as for our personal friends and acquaintances,we cannot always see them. Perchance they are asleep, or away on a journey. Butin a private library, you can at any moment converse with Socrates orShakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens or Shaw or Barrie or Galsworthy. Andthere is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best. Theywrote for you. They "laid themselves out," they did their ultimatebest to entertain you, to make a favorable impression. You are necessary tothem as an audience is to an actor; only instead of seeing them masked, youlook into their innermost heart of heart.
William Lyon Phelps - 1933
