錢鍾書是博通古今中外的大學問家，當年他老人家考大學的時候數學只考了15分，但是國文和英文都達到了讓老師歎爲觀止的水平，其中他的英文更是考到了不可思議的滿分。爲了讓大家領略一下大師的英文風采，小編特地找出了錢鍾書先生的一封英文書信，文字典雅，幽默風趣，用詞考究，簡直都能做篇精讀課文了!
這封信是錢鍾書1938年留學巴黎時寫給外國友人司徒亞的，後者是他在牛津大學的同院同學。
My Dear Stuart,
親愛的司徒亞
We are overjoyed at your generously long letter(1). We have been rather worried about you since your reticent Xmas card from Spain. We thought that yourindignation(2) at the Fascist terrors might have made you join the Spanish Republican army on leaving Oxford. In that case, the world would certainly gain a hero, but we might (O horrible thought!) lose a friend. You can imagine our relief to hear from you again.
收到你這封慷慨的長信，我們真是喜出望外。上次你從西班牙寄來的聖誕賀卡語焉未詳，害得我們心裏一直忐忑不安。我們以爲，由於你對法西斯的恐怖行徑出離憤怒，或許會在牛津畢業後投入到西班牙共和軍的隊伍中。那樣的話，世界會多一位英雄，而我們或許會(啊，多可怕的想法!)失去一位朋友。我們收到你的信時的寬慰你可想而知了。
reticent: 謹嚴的;含蓄的
indignation: 憤慨
(1) be overjoyed at 既非常生動地表達了“溢於言表的喜悅之情”，又很好地保持了一份“典雅精緻的文風“。
(2) indignation的含義中有anger的意思，但是不同於anger的是indignation強調“這種憤怒並非出於個人的感情而是爲了他人和集體”。
We are very, very sorry indeed to hear about your viva. We do hope that it will not be prejudicial to your chances of getting a job. As your favorite Walter Raleigh used to say, Oxford final schools and the Last Judgement are two examinations, not one. You are quite right to take the whole thing lightly(3).
關於你大學口語入學口試的事，我們感到十分遺憾。真希望它不會影響你找工作。正如你的Walter Raleigh曾說的，牛津的畢業考試不等於末日審判，它們是兩種考試。你不把這事放在心上是對的。
viva: [英國口語]口試
prejudicial: 引起偏見的
(3) take…lightly 意思是“不把……放在心上”
We shall be here for another four or five months yet(4). My scholarship expires this August, and we shall sail home in September. Not that we have homes to return to(5)! Our houses, spared by the shell-fire, have been looted and gutted of all their valuable contents. Our respective families have taken refuge in mountainshoneycombed with bandits. My wife lost her mother, and I myself have no prospect whatsoever of getting decent jobs in China. Still, one's lot is with one's own people; I don't mind roughing it a bit. The revolution of the Fortune's wheel might bring us up(6), and, as Goethe was fond of saying, abwarten Sie. You see, I spare my own patriotic heroics.
我們在這還要待四五個月。我的獎學金在八月到期，九月份我們將坐船回家。可不是因爲我們有家可歸!我們的房子雖免於戰火，但值錢的家當被洗劫一空。我們倆各自的家庭也都在滿是土匪的山上尋求避難之處。我的妻子失去了她的母親，我對自己在中國找到體面的工作也不抱任何希望。但個人的命運是和民族的命運連在一起的`。我並不介意生活得艱苦一些。會時來運轉的，像歌德常說的abwarten Sie(德語，等待吧)。你看，我就不說那些愛國主義豪言壯語了。
looted: 被洗劫
gutted：被掠奪一空
honeycombed：如蜂巢般
bandits：土匪
(4) yet表明了“還有、還要”的意思，一個簡單的詞兒就使得這層意思活靈活現地表達了出來。
(5) 這句話強調了“我們沒有家回”。
(6) bring us up很生動地表達了“生活有起色”的意思，富有動態。
Yes, my clairvoyant Stuart, I have been working entirely on my own. I have tried to read French literature systematically downwards, beginning with Villon, and already got as far as the mid-nineteenth century. I have also laboriously tackled the German romantics. I am reading Taine's novel Graindorge and Novalis's Fragmente. Besides, I have not neglected my English and Chinese studies. I am reading——no, I am not going to tell you my reading debauches. This paragraph reads already like a snippet from that model letter of a schoolboy to his parents ("or parent according to circumstances") in Anstey's Vice Versa.
得承認，你很有遠見。我目前完全在自學。我在系統地用心讀法國文學，從維龍開始，已經讀到十九世紀中期。我也在費力地啃一些德國小說。我在讀泰納的 Graindorge和諾瓦利斯的《哲學片段》。此外，我也並未荒廢英語和漢語的學習。我在看——不，我還是不告訴你我縱情閱讀的內容了。這段文字讀來已然像是摘自Anstey的Vice Versa《父親的教訓》中小學生給父母的(或其中之一的，視情況而定)範例書信了。
clairvoyant：千里眼的;有洞察力的
debauches：縱情聲色
snippet：片段
The baby is burstingly fat(7). She already boasts of six teeth (each tooth meaing a week or so of worries and sleeplessness on her part as well our own). She is very naughty and mutinous and self-willed, altogether an ugly customer to deal with. She will be able to walk a little next month.
小寶寶胖得要爆了。她已經了不起地有六顆牙了(每顆牙都代表我們和她一個星期左右的憂慮和失眠)。她淘氣，叛逆，任性，整個一個難伺候的主。下個月她就會走路了。
mutinous：反叛的;暴動的
(7) burstingly用得實在是妙，小夥伴們看到這裏的時候眼前是不是馬上浮現出一幅“很美的畫面”呢?
You are a disquieting feller(8), my dear Stuart. You always give me the impression of some impending catastrophe. Why this sudden "treachery" to your "former interests"? You seem to have a "gout trop facilement degoute". Your mind seems toslough its idea as frequently as the snakes their skins. No doubt you will call me smug and incorrigible. Do keep me abreast of your lastest developments(9).
親愛的Stuart,，你是個不讓人放心的傢伙。你總給人一種大難臨頭的感覺。這次你對“舊的愛好”的“叛變”是怎麼回事?彷彿你有種gout trop facilement degoute(法語，有種愛改變口味的習慣)，你擺脫舊想法的頻率猶如蛇蛻皮。無怪乎你稱我是不可一世又不可救藥。請務必要讓我知道你的最新進展。
catastrophe：驟然而來的大災難
slough：蛻掉
incorrigible：不可救藥
(8) 錢老這裏沒有用fell來表達意思而是用了一個源於fell的“feller”活潑生動地表達了意義。
(9) abreat of 是一個表達“同步、同心”的很新穎的用法。
My wife sends you her best wishes, to which I say ditto. Write to me at your earliest convenience.
我妻子與我一併奉上最美好的祝願。期待你早日來信。
ditto：同上
Yours ever,
你永遠的，
Chung-shu Tchi'ien
錢鍾書
P.S. My wife wants me to tell you that the baby is really "her father's daughter". She loves nothing so much as books——to tear and nibble at, certainly not to read. She has already destroyed a German primer, not to mention innumberable tradesmen's circulars and booklets. She throws away her toys to grab at the books we happen to be reading.
又：我妻子讓我告訴你，小寶寶頗有“其父之風”，最愛的就是書——撕或咬，絕不是爲了讀。她已毀掉一本德語入門書，更不要說不可計數的商家傳單和手冊。當我們讀書時，她常扔掉手上的玩具，來抓我們的書。