儒琴英语咀嚼阿兰·德波顿的《旅行的艺术》 (The Art of Travel) 英语用词。阿兰·德波顿(Alain de Botton)是一位出生于瑞士的英国哲学家和作家。他写的散文式的书被称为“日常生活哲学”。他的作品涉及爱情、旅行、建筑和文学，包括小说《爱情笔记》（1993）、《爱上浪漫》（1994）、《亲吻与诉说》（1995）及散文作品《拥抱逝水年华》（1997 ）、《哲学的慰藉》（2000）、《旅行的艺术》（2002）、《写给无神论者》（2012）。他的书在30个国家畅销。
Departure : I Anticipation (Places: Hammersmith, London, Barbados )1
出发：第1章: 对旅行的期待 (伦敦,哈默史密斯,巴巴多斯) 第1节
第1节
It was hard to say when exactly winter arrived. The decline was gradual, like that of a person into old age, inconspicuous from day to day until the season became an established relentless reality. First came a dip in evening temperatures, then days of continuous rain, confused gusts of Atlantic wind, dampness, the fall of leaves and the changing of the clocks – though there were still occasional moments of reprieve, mornings when one could leave the house without a coat and the sky was cloudless and bright. But they were like false signs of recovery in a patient upon whom death has passed its sentence. By December, the new season was entrenched and the city was covered almost every day by an ominous steely-grey sky, like one in a painting by Mantegna or Veronese, the perfect backdrop to the crucifixion of Christ or to a day beneath the bedclothes. The neighbourhood park became a desolate spread of mud and water, lit up at night by rain-streaked lamps. Passing it one evening during a downpour, I recalled how, in the intense heat of the previous summer, I had stretched out on the ground and let my bare feet slip from my shoes to caress the grass and how this direct contact with the earth had brought with it a sense of freedom and expansiveness, summer breaking down the usual boundaries between indoors and out, and allowing me to feel as much at home in the world as in my own bedroom.
But now the park was foreign once more, the grass a forbidding arena in the incessant rain. Any sadness I might have felt, any suspicion that happiness or understanding was unattainable, seemed to find ready encouragement in the sodden dark-red brick buildings and low skies tinged orange by the city’s street-lights.
Such climatic circumstances, together with a sequence of events that occurred at around this time (and seemed to confirm Chamfort’s dictum that a man must swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead), conspired to render me intensely susceptible to the unsolicited arrival one late afternoon of a large, brightly illustrated brochure entitled ‘Winter Sun’. Its cover displayed a row of palm trees, many of them growing at an angle, on a sandy beach fringed by a turquoise sea, set against a backdrop of hills, where I imagined there to be waterfalls and relief from the heat in the shade of sweet-smelling fruit trees. The photographs reminded me of the paintings of Tahiti that William Hodges had brought back from his journey with Captain Cook, showing a tropical lagoon in soft evening light where smiling local girls cavorted carefree (and barefoot) through luxuriant foliage, images that had provoked wonder and longing when Hodges first exhibited them at the Royal Academy in London in the sharp winter of 1776 – and that continued to provide a model for subsequent depictions of tropical idylls, including the pages of ‘Winter Sun’.
Those responsible for the brochure had darkly intuited how easily their readers might be turned into prey by photographs whose power insulted the intelligence and contravened any notions of free will: over-exposed photographs of palm trees, clear skies and white beaches. Readers who would have been capable of scepticism and prudence in other areas of their lives reverted in contact with these elements to a primordial innocence and optimism. The longing provoked by the brochure was an example, at once touching and bathetic, of how projects (and even whole lives) might be influenced by the simplest and most unexamined images of happiness; of how a lengthy and ruinously expensive journey might be set into motion by nothing more than the sight of a photograph of a palm tree gently inclining in a tropical breeze.
I resolved to travel to the island of Barbados.
重点用词注解
inconspicuous: 不显眼的，不引人注目的
relentless： /rɪˈlent.ləs/ continuing without becoming weaker, less severe, etc. 不停的; 持续强烈的; 不减弱的; 苛刻的; 无情的
continuous rain， incessant rain ：雨下个不停
reprieve： an escape from a bad situation or experience；to give relief for a time 暂时缓解；暂时解脱
entrench：to establish solidly 使处于牢固地位，使根深蒂固; entrenched: 牢固确立的；根深蒂固的；积重难返的
ominous steely-grey sky 不祥的钢灰色的的天空
Mantegna: 安德烈亚·曼特尼亚（Andrea Mantegna，1431～1506），意大利帕多瓦派文艺复兴画家
Veronese： 保罗·委罗内塞﹝Paolo Veronese，1528 -1588 ﹞被誉為十六世纪意大利威尼斯画派三杰之一，委罗内塞习惯用银灰色调。
sodden： /ˈsɑː.dən/ (of something that can absorb water) extremely wet 湿透的，湿漉漉的
tinge： verb [ T usually passive ] /tɪndʒ/ to contain a slight amount of （使）带有一点
Chamfort ： 法国哲学家尚福尔(Nicolas Chamfort，1741 – 13 April 1794) A man should swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead.一个人应该每天早上吞一只癞蛤蟆，这样在接下来的一天里就不会遇到更恶心的事情了。
dictum： noun [ C ]/ˈdɪk.təm/ a short statement, especially one expressing advice or a general truth 格言，隽语
unsolicited： adjective /ˌʌn.səˈlɪs.ɪ.t̬ɪd/ not asked for 未经要求的；自发的
susceptible： easily influenced or harmed by something 易受影响的，易受伤害的
Tahiti ：[təˈhiti] n. 塔希提岛（南太平洋）;大溪地
William Hodges： 威廉·霍奇斯（William Hodges，1744-1797年）英国风景画家，师从威尔逊，跟随詹姆斯·库克船长进行第二次太平洋远航探险，善于将现实与想象结合创作。
Captain Cook： 詹姆斯·库克(James Cook FRS)是英国探险家、航海家、制图家和英国皇家海军的船长，以他在1768年至1779年间的三次航行而闻名于世。
idyll：noun [ C ]/ˈɪd.əl/ a very happy, peaceful, and simple situation or period of time, especially in the countryside, or a piece of music, literature, etc. that describes this （尤指乡下）愉快恬淡的情景（或时期）；田园乐曲；田园诗
cavort: verb /kəˈvɔːrt/ to jump or move around in a playful way, sometimes noisily, and often in a sexual way 雀跃；嬉戏玩闹；（常指）调情玩乐
intuit： verb [ T ] formal /ɪnˈtuː.ɪt/ to know, sense, or understand by intuition 凭直觉感到
contravene： verb [ T ] /ˌkɑːn.trəˈviːn/ to go or act contrary to : violate 违反，违犯（法律或规则）
free will: the ability to decide what to do independently of any outside influence 自由意志
revert: verb /rɪˈvɝːt/ to come or go back (as to a former condition, period, or subject) 恢复到原状；又恢复了…
那些在生活的其他方面能够持怀疑态度和谨慎态度的读者，在接触到这些因素后，又恢复了原始的天真和乐观。
primordial： adjective /praɪˈmɔːr.di.əl/ existing at or since the beginning 原始的
bathetic： describes something that’s overly sentimental, gushy, and worse yet 指过于感情用事、感情用事，更糟糕的是——不真诚
