英譯漢

　　In his classic novel, “The Pioneers”, James Fenimore Cooper has his hero, a land developer, take his cousin on a tour of the city he is building. He describes the broad streets, rows of houses, a teeming metropolis. But his cousin looks around bewildered. All she sees is a forest, “Where are the beauties and improvements which you were to show me?” she asks. He’s astonished she can’t see them. “Where! Why everywhere,” he replies. For though they are not yet built on earth, he has built them in his mind, and they are as concrete to him as if they were already constructed and finished.

　　Cooper was illustrating a distinctly American trait, future-mindedness: the ability to see the present from the vantage point of the future; the freedom to feel unencumbered by the past and more emotionally attached to things to come. As Albert Einstein once said, “Life for the American is always becoming, never being.”

　　參考譯文

　　詹姆斯庫伯在他的經(jīng)典小說《拓荒者》中，塑造了一個(gè)主人公，一個(gè)土地開發(fā)商。他帶著他的表妹去參觀自己正在規(guī)劃中的城鎮(zhèn)，他津津樂道地描述著寬敞的街道、林立的高樓，儼然一個(gè)熙來攘往的大都市。但表妹環(huán)顧四周，一臉迷茫。她看到就只是一片森林。“你要給我看得美景和被你改造了的地方在哪里啊?”開發(fā)商大驚：“在哪兒?這部到處都是么?”盡管一切還沒動工破土，但在他的心里早就已經(jīng)建好了，而且真切的就如同早已竣工一樣。

　　庫伯在這里揭示了美國人的一種特有品性——前瞻性，站在未來的高度來看待現(xiàn)在的一切，不受過去的束縛而放眼未來。正如艾爾伯特所說：美國人永遠(yuǎn)生活在未來而不是現(xiàn)在。