I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can :see the folks,: and recreate, and, as he thinks, remunerate himself for his days solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and :the blues:; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.
我发现人若大多数时间用于独处，或有益身心。与人为伴，即便是挚友，也非常快会有厌烦或虚度光阴的感觉。我爱独处，我发现没比独处更好的伴侣了。出国，身在熙攘人群中，要比退守陋室更叫人寂寞。心有所想，身有所系的人一直孤身一人，不论他身处何地。独处与否更不是由人与人之间的距离来确定。在剑桥苦读的学子虽身处蜂巢般拥挤的教室，事实上却和沙漠中的苦行僧一样，学英语的网站，是在独处。农人终日耕于田间，伐于山野，此时他虽孤单但并不寂寞，因他专心于工作；但待到他日暮而息，却未必能忍受形影相吊，空有思绪做伴的时光，英语，他必到可以看见大伙儿的去处去找乐子，如他所觉得的那样以补偿白日里的孤独；因此他没办法理解学子怎么样能竟夜终日独坐而不心生厌倦或倍感凄凉；然而他没意识到，学习英语的好网站，学子虽身在学堂，但心系劳作，但耕于心田，伐于学林，这正和农人一样，学子在寻求的无非是和他一样的快乐与伴随，只不过形式更简洁罢了。
Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the post-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each others way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another. Certainly less frequency would suffice for all important and hearty communications. Consider the girls in a factory---never alone, hardly in their dreams. It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as where I live. The value of a man is not in his skin, that we should touch him.
与人交往一般都因唾手可得而毫无价值，在频繁的相处中，大家无暇从彼此获得新价值。大家每天三餐相聚，反复让彼此重新审视的也是依然故我，并无新奇之处。为此大家要墨守成规，称其为懂礼仪，讲礼貌，以便在这类频繁的接触中相安无事，无须论战而有辱斯文。大家相遇在邮局，邂逅在社交场合，围坐在夜晚的炉火旁，交情甚笃，彼此干扰着，纠缠着；事实上我觉得如此大家都多少失去了对彼此的尊重。对于所有要紧的倾心交流，相见不必过频。想想工厂里的女生，她们虽从不落单，但也少有梦想。像如此方圆一英里仅一人居住，那状况会更好。人的价值非在肌肤相亲，而在心有灵犀。
I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons, that some one may convey an idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I pray?
我的房屋里有不少伙伴，特别在无人造访的清晨。我把自己和周围事物对比一下，你可能能窥见我生活的一斑。比起那湖中长笑的潜鸟，还有那湖，我并不比它们孤独多少。你看：这孤单的湖又何以为伴呢？
And yet it has not the blue devils, but the blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. The sun is alone, except in thick weather, when there sometimes appear to be two, but one is a mock sun. god is alone---but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion. I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Millbrook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.
然而它那一湾天蓝的湖水里有些却是天使的纯净，而非魔鬼的忧郁。太阳是孤独的，虽然时而在阴郁的天气里会出现两个太阳，但其中之一为幻日；上帝是孤独的 - 魔鬼才从不孤单，他永远不乏伙伴，因从他都甚众。比起牧场上的一朵毛蕊花，一支蒲公英，一片豆叶，一束酢浆草，一只牛虻或大黄蜂来，我并不孤单多少；比想密尔溪，风标，北极星，南风，4月春雨，正月融雪，或者新房中的第一只蜘蛛，我也并不愈加孤单。
