【每天读一点英文：生而为赢Born to Win英文经典短文】gnuhpc注释版: On Meeting the Celebrated 论见名人

On Meeting the Celebrated (N, 名人)论见名人

I have always wondered at the passion many people have to meet the celebrated. The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account. The celebrated develop a technique to deal with the persons they come across. They show the world a mask, often an impressive on, but take care to conceal their real selves. They play the part that is expected from them, and with practice learn to play it very well, but you are stupid if you think that this public performance of theirs corresponds with（与对应） the man within(内心里).

 

I have been attached, deeply attached, to a few people; but I have been interested in men in general not for their own sakes, but for the sake of(为了) my work. I have not, as Kant enjoined(吩咐; 嘱咐; 命令), regarded each man as an end in himself, but as material that might be useful to me as a writer. I have been more concerned with the obscure than with the famous. They are more often themselves. They have had no need to create a figure to protect themselves from the world or to impress it. Their idiosyncrasies( [id·i·o·syn·cra·sy || ‚ɪdɪə'sɪŋkrəsɪ]n.  特质, 特性) have had more chance to develop in the limited circle of their activity, and since they have never been in the public eye it has never occurred to them that they have anything to conceal. They display their oddities because it has never struck them that they are odd. And after all it is with the common run(趋向) of men that we writers have to deal; kings, dictators, commercial magnates(  [mag·nate || 'mægneɪt, -nət]n.  巨头) are from our point of view very unsatisfactory. To write about them is a venture that has often tempted writers, but the failure that has attended their efforts shows that such beings are too exceptional to form a proper ground for a work of art. They cannot be made real. The ordinary is the writer’s richer field. Its unexpectedness, its singularity, its infinite variety afford unending material. The great man is too often all of a piece(完全一致); it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible( [in·ex·haust·i·ble || ‚ɪnɪg'zɔːstəbl]adj.  用不完的, 不知疲倦的, 无穷尽的). You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store(贮藏着，准备着) for you. For my part I would much sooner spend a month on a desert island with a veterinary(兽医) surgeon than with a prime minister.