悅讀——On Motes and Beams今日不講考試
前陣子發過一篇毛姆的《論見名人》，近日讀他的《微塵與棟樑》，再感慨一下大師的簡潔而犀利。
我常說，備考和學習是兩碼事情，很想和同學們分享一些學習的內容（而不是如何做題，選ABCD），卻又囿於各位備考的急切心情與外部的壓力。本身就是弱勢群體，若再背一個上課不過如此的名聲，恐怕日子更加難過。真的到那個窘境，還要請各位打賞讚助了。（話說你們覺得我上課好不好？哈哈~）
今日不講考試，就當小酌了,靜靜心，怡怡情。
On Motes and Beams
Maugham,W. Somerset
It is curious that our own offenses should seem so much less heinous than the offenses of others. I suppose the reason is that we know all the circumstances that have occasioned them and so manage to excuse in ourselves what we cannot excuse in others. We turn our attention away from our own defects, and when we are forced by untoward events to consider them, find it easy to condone them. For all I know, we are right to do this; they are part of us and we must accept the good and bad in ourselves together.
讓人奇怪的是，和別人的過錯比起來，我們自身的過錯往往不是那樣的可惡。我想，其原因應該是我們知曉一切導致自己犯錯的情況，因此能夠設法諒解自己的錯誤，而別人的錯誤卻不能諒解。我們對自己的缺點不甚關注，即便是深陷困境而不得不正視它們的時候，我們也會很容易就寬恕自己。據我所知，我們這樣做是正確的。缺點是我們自身的一部分，我們必須接納自己的好和壞。
注釋：
1）heinous 可憎的
2) occasion 引起，產生
3）untoward 不幸的，困難的
4）condone 寬恕
5）the reason is that + we know all the circumstances... and so manage to excuse...，即we後面跟know和manage to。
But when we come to judge others, it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world. To take a trivial instance: how scornful we are when we catch someone out telling a lie; but who can say that he has never told not one, but a hundred?
但是當我們評判別人的時候，情況就不同了。我們不是通過真實的自我來評判別人，而是用一種自我形象來評判，這種自我形象完全摒棄了在任何世人眼中會傷害到自己的虛榮或者體面的東西。舉一個小例子來說：當覺察到別人說謊時，我們是多麼地蔑視他啊！但是，誰能夠說自從未說過謊？可能還不止一百次呢。
注釋：
1）it isnot by ourselves as we really arethat we judge them是強調句，下劃線是強調部分。
2）an image that we have formed of ourselves from which ...that offends ...這個句子，在that, from which 和that三部分斷句，嵌入式定從。
3）vanity 虛榮心
4）discredit 使丟臉
5）scornful 鄙視的
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