The Cardinal¹ Virtue² of Prose

散文的本质特征

Prose of its very nature is longer than verse,and the virtues³ peculiar⁴ to it manifest themselves gradually. If the cardinal virtue of poetry is love, the cardinal virtue of prose is justice; and, whereas love makes you act and speak on the spur of moment, justice needs inquiry⁵, patience, and a control even of the noblest passions. By justice here I do not mean justice only to particular people or ideas, but a habit of justice in all the processes of thought, a style tranquillized and a form moulded by that habit.

本质上，散文长于韵文，散文独有的品质逐渐显现。若诗歌的主要品质是爱，那散文的主要品质就是正义；而且，尽管爱会让你一时心血来潮的去动作和表达，但正义则需要质询，耐心和对强烈感情的控制。这里所说的正义，并非专对某些人或思想，正义是所有思想过程中的习惯，以及由此习惯铸就的形态和沉静的风格。

The master of prose is not cold, but will not let any word or image inflame⁶ him with a heat irrelevant⁷ to his purpose. Unhasting, unresting, he pursues it, subduing⁸ all the riches of his mind to it, rejecting all beauties that are not germane⁹ to it; making his own beauty out of the very accomplishment¹⁰ of it, out of the whole work and its proportions, so that you must read to the end before you know that it is beautiful.

散文大家并不冷漠，但也不会因头脑发热，让任意与其目的无关的词汇或形象扰乱自己。从容不迫，坚持不懈，他追寻着它，献出自己毕生的智慧，赶走所有与它无关的浮华。成就散文创造自己的美，美渗透于整体和部分，所以你只有把它读完，才能发现它的美。

But he has his reward, for he is trusted and convinces, as those who are at the mercy of their own eloquence¹¹ do not; and he gives a pleasure all the greater for being hardly noticed. In the best prose, whether narrative¹² or argument, we are so led on as we read, that we do not stop to applaud the writer, nor do we stop to question him.

但他也有所回报，因为人们信任他，他也使人们信服，这正是那些靠口才的人所不能得到的；他不露声色而给人更大的愉悦。最好的散文，无论是叙述或辩论，都使我们着迷，已无心停下来为作者叫好，亦或质询什么。