I too was once a boy in love with a pond， rich in sunny hours and summer days. Sun and summer are still what they always were， but the boy and the pond changed. The boy， who is now a man， no longer finds much time for idle drifting. The pond has been annexed by a great city. The swamps where herons once hunted are now drained and filled with houses. The bay where water lilies quietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats. In short， everything that the boy loved no longer exists—except in the man’s memory of it.
Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But how much poorer we would be if we really lived by that rule！ So much of what we do today is frivolous and futile and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow never happens.
The past is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession—the memories that give meaning and depth to our lives.
Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing of the good old days， because days enshrined in memory are never lost. Death itself is powerless to still a remembered voice or erase a remembered smile. And for one boy who is now a man， there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change， where he can still spend a quiet hour in the sun.
初？雪
First Snow
約翰·博因頓·普裏斯特利 / John Boynton Priestley
羅伯特·林德曾這樣評論簡·奧斯汀筆下的人物：“他們是這樣的人，在他們的生活中，能遇上一場小雪就算是一件大事。”盡管可能被這位詼諧而溫和的評論家看成是伍德豪斯式的人物，我仍然堅持認為，昨晚這裏下了一場雪的確是一件大事。清晨，看到這皚皚白雪，我和孩子們不禁興奮起來，我看到他們在幼兒室的窗戶前凝望著外麵奇妙的世界，七嘴八舌說個沒完，仿佛又要過聖誕節了。事實上，這場雪對我和孩子們來說都是驚奇、迷人的。這是這裏今年冬天的第一場雪，由於去年此時我身在國外，在落雪時節正經曆著熱帶的高溫，所以再次看到鋪著這潔白地毯的大地，有種久違了的感覺。去年在國外時，我遇上英屬圭亞那三個年輕的女孩子，她們剛結束對英國的初訪。她們印象最深的兩件事是：倫敦街頭熙熙攘攘的人群，全都是陌生的麵孔（她們強調這一點，是因為她們一直生活在小鎮，人們彼此都很熟悉）；另外一件事是在索默塞特某地，一天清晨醒來忽然見到了白雪皚皚的景象。她們欣喜若狂，一掃淑女的矜持，衝出屋子，來回奔跑在那片晶瑩潔白的雪地上，在無人踩過的雪毯上，留下了橫七豎八快樂的腳印，正像孩子們今天早晨在花園裏做的那樣。