导读：
Essay
Analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition, usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view. The essay has been the vehicle of literary and social criticism for some, while for others it could serve semipolitical, nationalistic, or polemical purposes and could have a detached, playful, earnest, or bitter tone.
——Britannica
散 文
解析，说明或批评式的文学作品，通常从一个有限的和个人的角度出发对主题进行处理，对某些人来说，散文是文学和社会批评的工具，对其他人来说，散文带有部分政治的、民族主义的或是辩论的目的，语调可超然，可嬉笑，可真挚，亦可苦闷。
——《大英百科全书》
All literature answers to something in life, some habitual form of human expression.
文学本来不外是生活中某种事物的反响，人类某种表达习惯的再现。
Famous Quotes by Joseph Addison
The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.
He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old ,and remember when he is old ,that he has once been young.
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.
约瑟夫·艾迪生语录
生物最强烈的欲望是性欲和食欲，前者使物种得以繁衍，后者使生存得以延续。
若要舒适且有尊严地老去，就应该在年轻时考虑到自己有一天会变老，在年老时记得自己曾经拥有青春。
阳光赋予花朵的就如同微笑赋予人类的。看起来当然微不足道，但是在人生的点滴之间，收益之丰是难以想象的。
一旦对某物熟稔起来，艳羡之情就转瞬即逝，除非对其不断有新的发现或者奇迹连续出现使其弥久常新。
目 录
CONTENTS
斯威夫特
JONATHAN SWIFT
育婴刍议………………………………………………………………………………
A Modest Proposal
艾迪生与斯梯尔
JOSEPH ADDISON and RICHARD STEELE
旁观者自述（艾迪生）………………………………………………………………
The Spectator's Account of Himself (Addison)
旁观者俱乐部（斯梯尔）……………………………………………………………
The Spectator's Club (Steele)
伦敦的叫卖声（艾迪生）……………………………………………………………
On the Cries of London (Addison)
哥尔德斯密斯
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
黑衣人…………………………………………………………………………………
The Man in Black
兰姆
CHARLES LAMB
读书漫谈………………………………………………………………………………
Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading
黑兹利特
WILLIAM HAZLITT
论平易的文体…………………………………………………………………………
On Familiar Style
亨特
LEIGH HUNT
睡眠小议………………………………………………………………………………
A Few Thoug hts on Sleep
德·昆西
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
知识的文学和力量的文学……………………………………………………………
The Literature of Knowledge and the Literature of Power
夏洛蒂·勃朗特
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
埃利斯·贝尔与阿克顿·贝尔生平纪略……………………………………………
Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell
佩特
WALTER PATER
《文艺复兴史研究》的引言和结语…………………………………………………
From The Renaissance
（一）引言………………………………………………………………………
1. Preface
（二）结语………………………………………………………………………
2. Conclusion
史蒂文森
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
理想中的黄金国………………………………………………………………………
El Dorado
本森
ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON
随笔作家的艺术………………………………………………………………………
The Art of the Essayist
卢卡斯
EDWARD VERRALL LUCAS
葬礼……………………………………………………………………………………
A Funeral
伍尔夫
VIRGINIA WOOLF
“我是克里斯蒂娜·罗塞蒂”………………………………………………………
“Am Christina Rossetti” | 
