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如果说诗歌的主要品质是爱，那么散文的主要品质则为其合理公正性。爱使人热情奔放，瞬间爆发，而合理公正，则需要质疑，需要耐心，需要控制情感，即便是那最高尚的激情。

The Cardinal Virtue of Prose

Prose of its very nature is longer than verse, and the virtues peculiar 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 the moment, justice needs inquiry, 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.

The master of prose is not cold, but he will not let any word or image inflame him with a heat irrelevant to his purpose. Unhasting, unresting, he pursues it, subduing all the riches of his mind to it, rejecting all beauties that are not germane to it; making his own beauty out of the very accomplishment 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. But he has his reward, for he is trusted and convinces, as those who are at the mercy of their own eloquence do not; and he gives a pleasure all the greater for being hardly noticed.

In the best prose, whether narrative 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.

参考译文

散文的篇幅较诗歌长，它自身所蕴涵的特有品质，总是逐渐得向人们展示出来。如果说诗歌的主要品质是爱，那么散文的主要品质则为其合理公正性。爱使人热情奔放，瞬间爆发，而合理公正，则需要质疑，需要耐心，需要控制情感，即便是那最高尚的激情。我这里说的合理公正，并非指代某个特殊的人或是特殊的想法，而是指一种习性。它体现在一切思想的过程中，是一种文静的风格，一种由此习性塑成的形式。

散文的创作者并非冷酷无情，然而任何与其写作意图无关的词语，亦或是图象都休想热昏他的头脑。他从容不迫，反复推敲，脑海中那丰富的想象，华丽的辞藻，但凡与其文章主旨无关的，一概竭力抑制，不予理睬。一旦完成，它的整体以及枝节都完成了，那么他追求的，文章的那种独立的美也就出来了。所以你只有通篇全读后，才能真正领略到它的美。然而，对于这样的创作者，是有回报的。他让人充满信任，使人信服。而绝不像那些夸夸其谈者；他向我们展示的，是生活中那些不轻易为人察觉的美好事物。

一篇散文佳作，无论其是叙述型还是辩论型的，我们一旦开始阅读，就被其引领上路，无须停下为作者鼓掌喝彩亦或是唏嘘质疑。