約翰·布萊德利/John H.Bradley
約翰·布萊德利（1815￡·1870），19世紀美國著名的專欄作家、評論家、文學家，著有散文集《幸福時光》及新聞專著若幹本。
"...I was rich,if not in money,in sunny hours and summer days."
--Henry David Thoreau
When Thoreau wrote that line,he was thinking of the Walden.Pond he knew as a boy.
Woodchoppers and the Iron Horse had not yet greatly damaged the beau ty of its setting.A boy could go to the pond and lie on his back agains t the seat of a boat,lazily drifting from shore to shore while the loon s dived and the swallows dipped around him.Thoreau loved to recall such sunny hours and summer days "when idleness was the most attractive and p roductive business."
I too was once a boy in love with a pond,rich in sunny hours and su mmer days.Sun and summer are still what they always were,but the boy a nd the pond changed.The boy,who is now a man,no longer finds much tim e for idle drifting.The pond has been annexed by a great city.The swam ps where herons once hunted are now drained and filled with houses.The bay where water lilies quietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats.In short,everything that the boy loved no longer exists--except in the man's memory of it.
Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter.But how much poorer we would be if we really lived by that rule!So much of what we d o today is frivolous and futile and soon forgotten.So much of what we h ope to do tomorrow never happens.
The past is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession--the memories that give meaning and depth to our lives.
Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing of the good old days,because days enshrined in memory are never lost.Death it self is powerless to still a remembered voice or erase a remembered smil e.And for one boy who is now a man,there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change,where he can still spend a quiet hour in the sun.
“雖然我不富甲天下，卻擁有無數個豔陽天和夏日。”
——亨利·大衛·梭羅
寫這句話時，梭羅想起孩提時代的瓦爾登湖。
當時伐木者和火車尚未嚴重破壞湖畔的美麗景致。小男孩可以走向湖中，仰臥小舟，自一岸緩緩漂向另一岸，周遭有鳥兒戲水，燕子紛飛。梭羅喜歡回憶這樣的豔陽天和夏日，“這時，慵懶是最迷人也是最具生產力的事情！”
我也曾經是熱愛湖塘的小男孩，擁有無數豔陽天與夏日。如今陽光、夏日依舊，男孩和湖塘卻已改變。那男孩已長大成人，不再有那麽多時間泛舟湖上，而湖塘也為大城市所並。曾有蒼鷺覓食的沼澤，如今已枯竭殆盡，上麵蓋滿了房舍。睡蓮靜靜漂浮的湖灣，現在成了汽艇的避風港。總之，男孩所愛的一切都已不複存在——隻留在人們的回憶中。
有些人堅持認為隻有今日和明日才是重要的，可是如果真的照此生活，我們將是何其可憐！許多今日我們做的事是徒勞不足取的，很快就會被忘記。許多我們期待明天將要做的事情卻從來沒有發生過。
過去是一所銀行，我們將最可貴的財產——記憶珍藏其中。記憶賜予我們生命的意義和深度。
真正珍惜過去的人，不會悲歎舊日美好時光的逝去，因為藏於記憶中的時光永不流失。死亡本身無法止住一個記憶中的聲音，或擦除一個記憶中的微笑。對現已長大成人的那個男孩來說，那兒將有一個池塘不會因時間和潮汐而改變，可以讓他繼續在陽光下享受安靜時光。