介绍:
I'm never more aware of the limitations of language than when I try to describe beauty. Language can create its own loveliness, of course, but it cannot deliver to us the radiance we apprehend in the world, any more than a photograph can capture the stunning swiftness of a hawk or the withering power of a supernova⑶. Eva's wedding album holds only a faint glimmer of the wedding itself. All that pictures or words can do is gesture beyond themselves toward the fleeting glory that stirs our hearts. So I keep gesturing.
每当我尝试着将美付诸于文字时，我便极为深刻地意识到：文字的力量是多么有限。语言自有其灵动可人之处，可它却无法传达大千世界的绚烂。正如一方相片框不住一只鹰的迅捷，也再现不了一颗超新星毁灭时的壮丽。伊娃的婚礼相册仅仅留存了一丝微弱的光芒，以见证婚礼现场的光鲜夺目。相片和文字能够做到的最多只是描摹那些瞬息即逝的、那些让我们心潮涌动的光芒。于是，我一直都在努力描摹。
“All nature is meant to make us think of paradise,” Thomas Merton⑷ observed. Because the Creation puts on a nonstop show, beauty is free and inexhaustible, but we need training in order to perceive more than the most obvious kinds. Even 15 billion years or so after the Big Bang⑸, echoes of that event still linger in the form of background radiation⑹, only a few degrees above absolute zero⑺. Just so, I believe, the experience of beauty is an echo of the order and power that permeate the universe. To measure background radiation, we need subtle instruments; to measure beauty, we need alert intelligence and our five keen senses.
托马斯·梅尔顿说过，“世间造物之神奇无不令人联想到天堂乐土”，因为创世纪本身就是一出永不落幕的表演；其间芳华之美悠游自在，无穷无尽。有些美显而易见，容易为我们所捕捉，但另一些则不然：若要欣赏她们，我们得付出一点努力。宇宙大爆炸在一百五十多亿年后的今天仍余波未平，爆炸当时所释放的能量（即使这些能量看起来似乎微不足道）仍以背景辐射现象的形式存在着。由此，我得出一个观点：人类对美的体验中暗含着秩序和力量的影子，而这些秩序和力量充斥着整个宇宙空间。测量背景辐射，我们需要精密仪器；而衡量美，则需要动用我们的聪慧和所有敏锐的感官。
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