《王尔德读书随笔》（张介明译，上海三联书店，1999）将庄子译成了孔子，因为整个都读不通了，看得我疑惑不解，所以我去找来了原文，随后附上。
文中提到，王尔德是读的赫伯特·贾尔斯（Herbert Allen Giles）的翻译版本。这本书应该是"Chuang Tzǔ: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer "。
Herbert Allen Giles （1845年－1935年），汉学家、前英国驻华外交官。1867年来华，历任英国驻汕头、厦门、宁波、上海等地英领馆领事。1892年出版用20年时间编撰的《华英字典》（A Chinese-English Dictionary）。1893年回国。1897年任剑桥大学汉学教授，至1932年退休，长达35年。一生翻译了许多孔子、老子等中国古代思想家著作。

不对，我搞错了。鉴于王尔德是1890年发表此文，所以他提到的Giles的书只能在此之前，那就是1886年的 The Remains of Lao Tzu 。
很想找到Giles翻译版来看看，但至今还没找到= =

他的真诚还体现在当19世纪中叶以后，像中国这样的东方国家的积贫积弱已暴露无遗，西方优越论和西方中心主义已盛行之时，他他仍毫无偏见、充满敬意地介绍中国圣人孔子（庄子），说：“孔子（庄子），这个名字我们必须作为从未写过的名字认真加以宣布。在耶稣之前上个世纪，他已诞生在黄河岸边那一方鲜花盛开的土地上。”“孔子（庄子）是一位达尔文以前的达尔文主义者，他追溯人的起源，并视其为自然的同一体。”他还告诉他的同胞“路易十五和路易十六事情许多漂亮的服装都受惠于中国艺术家那考究的装饰针线活……中国和日本的丝绸长袍教给我们色彩调和的新奇迹、精心设计的新奥妙。”要知道，当时即使是像黑格尔这样的哲学家，像爱默生这样的作家一谈起中国，言语间都充满了鄙视和轻蔑，这足见王尔德的正直、诚挚。
——摘自《王尔德读书随笔》译序 张介明

他用两个中国青瓷花瓶装饰房间，朝夕观赏，以至觉得自己越来越配不上它们的清雅了。
——摘自《奥斯卡·王尔德与中国文化》
非常可爱的奥斯卡，他还艳羡中国工人喝水用的茶杯呢！这篇论文在爱问有，想看的童鞋可以去搜，地址我就不放上来了，以免被删= =

Yes; incredible as it may seem, this curious thinker looked back with a
sigh of regret to a certain Golden Age when there were no competitive
examinations, no wearisome educational systems, no missionaries, no penny
dinners for the people, no Established Churches, no Humanitarian
Societies, no dull lectures about one's duty to one's neighbour, and no
tedious sermons about any subject at all. In those ideal days, he tells
us, people loved each other without being conscious of charity, or writing
to the newspapers about it. They were upright, and yet they never
published books upon Altruism. As every man kept his knowledge to himself,
the world escaped the curse of scepticism; and as every man kept his
virtues to himself, nobody meddled in other people's business. They lived
simple and peaceful lives, and were contented with such food and raiment
as they could get. Neighbouring districts were in sight, and 'the cocks
and dogs of one could be heard in the other,' yet the people grew old and
died without ever interchanging visits. There was no chattering about
clever men, and no laudation of good men. The intolerable sense of
obligation was unknown. The deeds of humanity left no trace, and their
affairs were not made a burden for posterity by foolish historians.
In an evil moment the Philanthropist made his appearance, and brought with
him the mischievous idea of Government. 'There is such a thing,' says
Chuang Tzu, 'as leaving mankind alone: there has never been such a thing
as governing mankind.' All modes of government are wrong. They are
unscientific, because they seek to alter the natural environment of man;
they are immoral because, by interfering with the individual, they produce
the most aggressive forms of egotism; they are ignorant, because they try
to spread education; they are self-destructive, because they engender
anarchy. 'Of old,' he tells us, 'the Yellow Emperor first caused charity
and duty to one's neighbour to interfere with the natural goodness of the
heart of man. In consequence of this, Yao and Shun wore the hair off their
legs in endeavouring to feed their people. They disturbed their internal
economy in order to find room for artificial virtues. They exhausted their
energies in framing laws, and they were failures.' Man's heart, our
philosopher goes on to say, may be 'forced down or stirred up,' and in
either case the issue is fatal. Yao made the people too happy, so they
were not satisfied. Chieh made them too wretched, so they grew
discontented. Then every one began to argue about the best way of
tinkering up society. 'It is quite clear that something must be done,'
they said to each other, and there was a general rush for knowledge. The
results were so dreadful that the Government of the day had to bring in
Coercion, and as a consequence of this 'virtuous men sought refuge in
mountain caves, while rulers of state sat trembling in ancestral halls.'
Then, when everything was in a state of perfect chaos, the Social
Reformers got up on platforms, and preached salvation from the ills that
they and their system had caused. The poor Social Reformers! 'They know
not shame, nor what it is to blush,' is the verdict of Chuang Tzuu upon
them.
The economic question, also, is discussed by this almond-eyed sage at
great length, and he writes about the curse of capital as eloquently as
Mr. Hyndman. The accumulation of wealth is to him the origin of evil. It
makes the strong violent, and the weak dishonest. It creates the petty
thief, and puts him in a bamboo cage. It creates the big thief, and sets
him on a throne of white jade. It is the father of competition, and
competition is the waste, as well as the destruction, of energy. The order
of nature is rest, repetition, and peace. Weariness and war are the
results of an artificial society based upon capital; and the richer this
society gets, the more thoroughly bankrupt it really is, for it has
neither sufficient rewards for the good nor sufficient punishments for the
wicked. There is also this to be remembered--that the prizes of the world
degrade a man as much as the world's punishments. The age is rotten with
its worship of success. As for education, true wisdom can neither be
learnt nor taught. It is a spiritual state, to which he who lives in
harmony with nature attains. Knowledge is shallow if we compare it with
the extent of the unknown, and only the unknowable is of value. Society
produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another. That
is the only result of School Boards. Besides, of what possible philosophic
importance can education be, when it serves simply to make each man differ
from his neighbour? We arrive ultimately at a chaos of opinions, doubt
everything, and fall into the vulgar habit of arguing; and it is only the
intellectually lost who ever argue. Look at Hui Tzu. 'He was a man of many
ideas. His works would fill five carts. But his doctrines were
paradoxical.' He said that there were feathers in an egg, because there
were feathers on a chicken; that a dog could be a sheep, because all names
were arbitrary; that there was a moment when a swiftly-flying arrow was
neither moving nor at rest; that if you took a stick a foot long, and cut
it in half every day, you would never come to the end of it; and that a
bay horse and a dun cow were three, because taken separately they were
two, and taken together they were one, and one and two made up three. 'He
was like a man running a race with his own shadow, and making a noise in
order to drown the echo. He was a clever gadfly, that was all. What was
the use of him?'
Morality is, of course, a different thing. It went out of fashion, says
Chuang Tzu, when people began to moralise. Men ceased then to be
spontaneous and to act on intuition. They became priggish and artificial,
and were so blind as to have a definite purpose in life. Then came
Governments and Philanthropists, those two pests of the age. The former
tried to coerce people into being good, and so destroyed the natural
goodness of man. The latter were a set of aggressive busybodies who caused
confusion wherever they went. They were stupid enough to have principles,
and unfortunate enough to act up to them. They all came to bad ends, and
showed that universal altruism is as bad in its results as universal
egotism. They 'tripped people up over charity, and fettered them with
duties to their neighbours.' They gushed over music, and fussed over
ceremonies. As a consequence of all this, the world lost its equilibrium,
and has been staggering ever since.
Who, then, according to Chuang Tzu, is the perfect man? And what is his
manner of life? The perfect man does nothing beyond gazing at the
universe. He adopts no absolute position. 'In motion, he is like water. At
rest, he is like a mirror. And, like Echo, he answers only when he is
called upon.' He lets externals take care of themselves. Nothing material
injures him; nothing spiritual punishes him. His mental equilibrium gives
him the empire of the world. He is never the slave of objective
existences. He knows that, 'just as the best language is that which is
never spoken, so the best action is that which is never done.' He is
passive, and accepts the laws of life. He rests in inactivity, and sees
the world become virtuous of itself. He does not try to 'bring about his
own good deeds.' He never wastes himself on effort. He is not troubled
about moral distinctions. He knows that things are what they are, and that
their consequences will be what they will be. His mind is the 'speculum of
creation,' and he is ever at peace.
All this is of course excessively dangerous, but we must remember that
Chuang Tzu lived more than two thousand years ago, and never had the
opportunity of seeing our unrivalled civilisation. And yet it is possible
that, were he to come back to earth and visit us, he might have something
to say to Mr. Balfour about his coercion and active misgovernment in
Ireland; he might smile at some of our philanthropic ardours, and shake
his head over many of our organised charities; the School Board might not
impress him, nor our race for wealth stir his admiration; he might wonder
at our ideals, and grow sad over what we have realised. Perhaps it is well
that Chuang Tzu cannot return.

Meanwhile, thanks to Mr. Giles and Mr. Quaritch, we have his book to
console us, and certainly it is a most fascinating and delightful volume.
Chuang Tzu is one of the Darwinians before Darwin. He traces man from the
germ, and sees his unity with nature. As an anthropologist he is
excessively interesting, and he describes our primitive arboreal ancestor
living in trees through his terror of animals stronger than himself, and
knowing only one parent, the mother, with all the accuracy of a lecturer
at the Royal Society. Like Plato, he adopts the dialogue as his mode of
expression, 'putting words into other people's mouths,' he tells us, 'in
order to gain breadth of view.' As a story-teller he is charming. The
account of the visit of the respectable Confucius to the great Robber Che
is most vivid and brilliant, and it is impossible not to laugh over the
ultimate discomfiture of the sage, the barrenness of whose moral
platitudes is ruthlessly exposed by the successful brigand. Even in his
metaphysics, Chuang Tzu is intensely humorous. He personifies his
abstractions, and makes them act plays before us. The Spirit of the
Clouds, when passing eastward through the expanse of air, happened to fall
in with the Vital Principle. The latter was slapping his ribs and hopping
about: whereupon the Spirit of the Clouds said, 'Who are you, old man, and
what are you doing?' 'Strolling!' replied the Vital Principle, without
stopping, for all activities are ceaseless. 'I want to _know_ something,'
continued the Spirit of the Clouds. 'Ah!' cried the Vital Principle, in a
tone of disapprobation, and a marvellous conversation follows, that is not
unlike the dialogue between the Sphinx and the Chimera in Flaubert's
curious drama. Talking animals, also, have their place in Chuang Tzu's
parables and stories, and through myth and poetry and fancy his strange
philosophy finds musical utterance.
Of course it is sad to be told that it is immoral to be consciously good,
and that doing anything is the worst form of idleness. Thousands of
excellent and really earnest philanthropists would be absolutely thrown
upon the rates if we adopted the view that nobody should be allowed to
meddle in what does not concern him. The doctrine of the uselessness of
all useful things would not merely endanger our commercial supremacy as a
nation, but might bring discredit upon many prosperous and serious-minded
members of the shop-keeping classes. What would become of our popular
preachers, our Exeter Hall orators, our drawing-room evangelists, if we
said to them, in the words of Chuang Tzu, 'Mosquitoes will keep a man
awake all night with their biting, and just in the same way this talk of
charity and duty to one's neighbour drives us nearly crazy. Sirs, strive
to keep the world to its own original simplicity, and, as the wind bloweth
where it listeth, so let Virtue establish itself. Wherefore this undue
energy?' And what would be the fate of governments and professional
politicians if we came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as
governing mankind at all? It is clear that Chuang Tzu is a very dangerous
writer, and the publication of his book in English, two thousand years
after his death, is obviously premature, and may cause a great deal of
pain to many thoroughly respectable and industrious persons. It may be
true that the ideal of self-culture and self-development, which is the aim
of his scheme of life, and the basis of his scheme of philosophy, is an
ideal somewhat needed by an age like ours, in which most people are so
anxious to educate their neighbours that they have actually no time left
in which to educate themselves. But would it be wise to say so? It seems
to me that if we once admitted the force of any one of Chuang Tzu's
destructive criticisms we should have to put some check on our national
habit of self-glorification; and the only thing that ever consoles man for
the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing
them. There may, however, be a few who have grown wearied of that strange
modern tendency that sets enthusiasm to do the work of the intellect. To
these, and such as these, Chuang Tzu will be welcome. But let them only
read him. Let them not talk about him. He would be disturbing at
dinner-parties, and impossible at afternoon teas, and his whole life was a
protest against platform speaking. 'The perfect man ignores self; the
divine man ignores action; the true sage ignores reputation.' These are
the principles of Chuang Tzu.

‘The perfect man ignores self; the
divine man ignores action; the true sage ignores reputation.' These are
the principles of Chuang Tzu.
至人无己，神人无功，圣人无名。
——逍遥游

庄子幽默的地方多了去啦，看他的书令我笑不可遏~我要去吃饭了，明天再来……

楼楼辛苦了，坐等更新

文中提到庄子怀念的a certain Golden Age，就是庄子所说的“至德之世”。因为三联书店那本书上翻译的是孔子，要说孔子所认为的“黄金时代”，那是夏商周三代之英，即英明的人主禹汤文武的时代。“大道之行也，与三代之英，丘未之逮也，而有志焉。”孔子很遗憾自己没有生在那时，但换成庄子，却不是这样，他追慕的是上古社会的原始状态，“绝圣弃知”的时代。
算了，我还是将这篇文章整个翻译一下罢。已有的那个翻译版实在不能读，不但庄子的原文一个字也没有，还有翻译错误。我不敢说比原译者要翻译得好，但是尽量把它改成符合中文的表达习惯，看起来顺畅一些吧~

翻译他的文真不是一般的费力，到处都是陷阱，比翻小波费力多了= =
我在自讨苦吃，啊啊啊

关于超验，补充一些介绍：
Transcendent（超验）在康德的哲学中，同“内在”相对，意为超出一切可能的经验之上，非人的认识能力可以达到。感觉之外的物质世界“自在之物”是客观存在的，它作用于人们的感官而产生感觉；但是人们通过感觉只能认识到它的现象而不可能是其本体。本体是超验的世界，如果试图以经验世界的认知逻辑来切入理解超验世界，就会因“超越”而使理性陷入“二律背反”。

东方文化之于西方，多是猎艳心态，看好莱坞镜头下的中国，全是自己的脑补与意淫，楼主如果不嫌麻烦，实在可以另码一篇王尔德与中国，介绍王尔德作品在中国的影响度~

不为功名所苦，不受德望所缚，居然押韵了，哦耶~~
惠子也很可爱啊，他也是位有名的辩客，读其他地方记载的惠子故事也超搞笑的。王尔德在这里不遗余力举了惠子的诡辩事例，我想他一定是面带微笑的。庄子说：辩者以此与惠施相应，终身无穷。笑死我也~