先提两个问题：
第一、通过欣赏林语堂先生的文章，现在你可以围绕“阅读”用英语谈谈自己的观点或想法吗？
第二、今天有没有什么事情让你高兴得手舞足蹈呢？这句话用英文怎么表达？
现在继续欣赏林语堂先生《生活的艺术》一书中有关“阅读的艺术”的第九段。
先看译文：
我以为一个人能发现他所爱好的作家，实在是他的心智发展中一件最重要的情。世上原有所谓性情相近这件事，所以一个人必须从古今中外的作家中去找寻和自己的性情相近的人。一个人惟有藉着这个方法，才能从读书中获得益处。他必须不受拘束地去找寻自己的先生。一个人所最喜爱的作家是谁？这句问话，没有人能回答，即在本人也未必能答出来。这好似一见钟情，一个读者不能由旁人指点着去爱好这个或那个作家。但他一旦遇到他所爱好的作家时，他的天性必会立刻使他知道。这类忽然寻到所爱好的作家的例子甚多。世上常有古今异代相距千百年的学者，因思想和感觉的相同，竟会在书页上会面时完全融洽和谐，如面对着自己的肖像一般。在中国语言中，我们称这种精神的融洽为“灵魂的转世”。例如苏东坡乃是庄周或陶渊明转世，袁中郎乃是苏东坡转世之类。苏东坡曾说，当他初次读庄子时，他觉得他幼时的思想和见地正和这书中所论者完全相同。当袁中郎于某夜偶然抽到一诗集而发现一位同时代的不出名作家徐文长时，他会不知不觉地从床上跳起来，叫起他的朋友，两人共读共叫，甚至童仆都被惊醒。乔治·艾略特（George Eliot）描摹她一次读卢梭经历，称之为一次触电。尼采（Nietzsche）于初读叔本华（Schopenhauer）时也有同样的感觉。但叔本华是一位乖戾的先生，而尼采则是一个暴躁的学生，无怪后来这学生就背叛他的先生了。
再看英文原著：
I regard the discovery of one's favourite author as the most critical event in one's intellectual development. There is such a thing as the affinity of spirits, and among the authors of ancient and modern times, one must try to find an author whose spirit is akin with his own. Only in this way can one get any real good out of reading. One has to be independent and search out his masters. Who is one's favourite author, no one can tell, probably not even the man himself. It is like love at first sight. The reader cannot be told to love this one or that one, but when he has found the author he loves, he knows it himself by a kind of instinct. We have such famous cases of discoveries of authors. Scholars seem to have lived in different ages, separated by centuries, and yet their modes of thinking and feeling were so akin that their coming together across the pages of a book was like a person finding his own image. In Chinese phraseology, we speak of these kindred spirits as reincarnations of the same soul, as Su Tungpo was said to be a reincarnation of Chuangtse or T'ao Yuanming, and Yuan Chunglang was said to be the reincarnation of Su Tungpo, Su Tungpo said that when he first read Chuangtse, he felt as if all the time since his childhood he had been thinking the same things and making the same views himself. When Yuan Chunglang discovered one night Hsu Wench'ang, a comtemporary unknown to him, in a small book of poems, he jumped out of bed and shouted to his friend, and his friend began to read it and shout in turn, and then they both read and shouted again until their servant was completely puzzled. George Eliot described her first reading of Rousseau as an electric shock. Nietzsche felt the same thing about Schopenhauer, but Schopenhauer was a peevish master and Nietzsche was a violent-tempered pupil, and it was natural that the pupil later rebelled against the teacher.
我的思考和应用：
affinity这个词有必要查一下英文解释，朗文字典提供的解释：[countable, uncountable] a close relationship between two things because of qualities or features that they share.
“There is such a thing as the affinity of spirits, and among the authors of ancient and modern times, one must try to find an author whose spirit is akin with his own.”
如果两个人的思想相近，则更容易建立起亲密的关系。
如果学生喜欢自己的老师，与自己的老师性情相投，那么往往可以学到更多东西。
"One has to be independent and search out his masters. Who is one' favourite author, on one can tell, probably not even the man himself. It is like love at first sight. The reader cannot be told to love this one or that one, but when he has found the author he loves, he knows it himself by a kind of instinct."
如果在现实生活中暂时找不到自己的导师，那么可以试着去书中寻找，也许某时某地的某一个作者，可以解决你目前的困惑。如果暂时找不到自己的Mr. or Mrs. Right, 也可以去书本中找找看，说不定可以体验一下穿越时空的“一见钟情”。
If you can not find your mentor in real life, try to find one in books, maybe some time some where in the world there is an author who can answer your question. If you can not find your Mr. or Mrs. Right now, why not immerse yourself in reading, perhaps you can find your love at first sight, who knows.
注释：本文配图为：《艾琳·卡亨·安德维普小姐画像》。作者：雷诺阿
《艾琳·卡亨·安德维普小姐画像》是19世纪后半叶印象主义（Impressionism）的代表作之一。印象主义绘画主张忽略形状，用色彩和光影作画，其强调身临其境的“沉浸式”体验。
