World Through My Eyes: 2023.10 Autumn Leaves in New York 紐約的秋葉

Although autumn has long gone, I don’t know how to use wonderful words to describe several photos of beautiful autumn leaves I took in New York on the East Coast in October. I recently read Mr. Lin Yutang’s description of autumn. I liked this passage very much, so I jotted it down here. Lin Yutang (Chinese: 林語堂; October 10, 1895 – March 26, 1976) was a Chinese inventor, linguist, novelist, philosopher, and translator. He had an informal style in both Chinese and English, and he made compilations and translations of classic Chinese texts into English. In the book "My Country and My People", Lin Yutang wrote: "I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death. The moon shone on it, reflecting the moonlight. The treetops looked pale, but when the setting sun touched them, the remaining light illuminated the treetops, and it could still smile happily. The morning mountain breeze blew, and the shrunken leaves danced happily to the ground. You don’t know if the song of the falling leaves is a song of laughter or a song of farewell. Because this is the spirit of early autumn, the spirit of calmness, wisdom, and maturity, which can face sadness with a smile and appreciate the cold wind that makes people sober - this is the spirit of autumn."
雖然秋天早已過去，有一些我10月在東岸紐約照的漂亮的秋葉，卻不知道用什麽美妙的文字來形容它們。最近讀到林語堂先生對秋天的描述，很喜歡這段話，在此記錄一下。林語堂 (1895年10月10日—1976年3月26日) 是一位中華民國的發明家、語言學家、小說家、哲學家、翻譯家。他的中英雙語風格不拘一格，並將中國經典文本編纂並翻譯成英文。在《吾國與吾民》這本書中，林語堂這麼寫的: "我喜歡春天，但是它太年輕；我喜歡夏天，可是它太驕傲。所以我最喜歡的還是秋天，因為秋天樹葉剛呈嫩黃，色調比較柔和，色彩比較豐富，又染有一絲的憂愁和不祥之兆。它金黃的多彩所要說的不是春天的純真，也不是夏天的威猛，而是老成的持重和慈祥的智慧。它知道生命的有限所以知足，因它既知道生命的有限，又閱歷甚豐，從而繪成了無與倫比的繽紛：綠色象徵生命和力量，橙色象徵稱心的滿足，而紫色象徵順從和死亡。月亮照耀著它，反映著月光，樹梢顯得蒼白，然而當落日撫著它，餘輝照亮著樹梢，它仍然可以嫣然歡笑。清晨的山風吹過，瑟縮的葉子愉快地飛舞到地面。你不知道落葉的歌是歡笑的歌唱，還是訣別的哀吟。因為這就是初秋的精神，就是平靜、智慧與成熟的精神，能夠以微笑面對悲哀，能夠讚賞那使人清醒的冷風–這就是秋之精神。"