The most distinguished of living Englishmen, who, great as he is in many directions, is perhaps inherently more a man of letters

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问题   The most distinguished of living Englishmen, who, great as he is in many directions, is perhaps inherently more a man of letters than anything else, has been overheard mournfully to declare that there were more booksellers, shops in his native town sixty years ago, when he was a boy in it, than are today to be found within its boundaries. And yet the place "all unabashed" now boasts its bookless self a city!
  Mr. Gladstone was, of course, referring to second-hand bookshops. Neither he nor any other sensible man puts himself out about new books. When a new book is published, read an old one, was the advice of a sound though surly critic. It is one of the boasts of letters to have glorified the term "second-hand", which other crafts have "soiled to all ignoble use". But why it has been able to do this is obvious. All the best books are necessarily second-hand. The writers of today need not grumble. If their books are worth anything, they, too, one day will be second-hand. If their books are not worth anything there are ancient trades still in full operation among us—the pastrycooks and the trunk-makers—who must have paper.

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答案在世的英国人中最有名望的一位,尽管他在许多方面都十分伟大,他的天赋也许更多地表现于他是一位文人,有人无意间听说,他很忧伤地宣告,六十年前他的故乡有不少书店,那时他是幼童,现在今不如昔了,方圆之内找不到几家书店。可是如今这地方竟“恬不知耻”地吹嘘不见书本的本埠是一座城市! 这位格莱斯领先生当然指的是旧书店。不论他还是任何明智的人,都不会把心思放在新书上。一本新书出版之际,先读旧书,这是一位头脑好而脾气坏的批评家的忠告。溢美“二手货”乃是文人的一个吹嘘之词,而在其他行业它“滥用一气名声扫地”。但是其所以然则彰明较著。一切上乘之作必然是“二手货”。当今的作家不必叽里咕噜。如果他们的书真有什么价值的话,有朝一日也会变成“二手货”。如果他们的书毫无价值的话,也还有些古老的行业盛行于我们中间——如糕点师和箱子工——他们总要用纸张。

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