23Aprilапреля · 23-е апреля
Истинное добро всегда просто.
Простота так привлекательна, так выгодна, что удивительно, как мало людей бывают просты.
True goodness is always simple.
Simplicity is so attractive, so advantageous, that it is surprising how few people are simple.
1. Не ищи счастия за морем. Благодарение всевышнему, что нужное он сделал нетрудным, а трудное — ненужным.
1. Do not seek happiness beyond the sea. Thanks be to the Most High that he made the needful not hard, and the hard — not needful.
From Начальная дверь ко христианскому добронравию · joined by Tolstoy from several places .
Original · RussianБлагодареніе блаженному Богу о томъ. что нужное сдѣлалъ не труднымъ, а трудное не нужнымъ.
Не ищи счастья за моремъ, не проси его у человѣка, не странствуй по планетамъ.
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · На каждый день«Благодарю Бога за то, что он все нужное сделал легким, а только ненужное сделал трудным».
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Начальная дверь ко христианскому добронравию (written 1766, revised 1780), Преддверие, Сочинения в стихах и прозе Г. С. Сковороды (St Petersburg, 1861), pp. 268–269.
Joined from two places in the opening of Skovoroda's «Начальная дверь ко христианскому добронравию», in reverse order. Its heading reads «Благодарение блаженному Богу о том, что нужное сделал не трудным, а трудное не нужным» (thanks to the blessed God that he made the needful not hard and the hard not needful); a page later, after the hard happiness built on the flesh, comes «Не ищи счастья за морем, не проси его у человека, не странствуй по планетам» (do not seek happiness beyond the sea, do not beg it of man, do not wander the planets). Tolstoy puts the second first and keeps only its first clause, and writes «всевышнему» (the Most High) for «блаженному Богу» (the blessed God). In «На каждый день» (the tolstoy block) he gives the saying as Skovoroda's motto in his own words. The 1861 printing is quoted from its OCR, which has a full stop for the comma after «о том». Tolstoy read Skovoroda later in Bagalei's Kharkov edition of 1894 (Jubilee vol. 40 commentary), not online; the 1861 edition stands in for it. No English translation is known.
Translation note. The Russian italic is broken only at punctuation, at the full stop and the dash; it is set here as one span.
2. Все истинно хорошие вещи дешевы, все вредные — дороги.
2. All truly good things are cheap, all harmful ones — dear.
From Journal, 3 March 1841, as printed in Early Spring in Massachusetts, ed. H. G. O. Blake · close to the original .
What Tolstoy read · Every Day with Thoreau, in The Coming DayAll good things are cheap, all bad are very dear.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Journal, 3 March 1841, as printed in Early Spring in Massachusetts, ed. H. G. O. Blake (Boston, 1881), Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881), pp. 47–48, under March 3, 1841, after 'Here I contemplate to drudge that I may own a farm'.
A close translation: 'All truly good things are cheap, all harmful ones dear'; 'truly' (истинно) is added and 'bad' becomes 'harmful' (вредные), 'very dear' 'dear'. The Jubilee list of Tolstoy's sources names 'Every day with Thoreau', bound sheets from an unidentified book. John Page Hopps's monthly The Coming Day printed a Thoreau calendar under that title through 1898, and all five of April's Thoreau entries are in it (March 19, May 25, July 12, September 12, December 31; the April number is not on archive.org), so its sheets were probably Tolstoy's route, as February's trace of 2-24.1 proposed.
3. Каждое приобретение так называемого прогресса сопряжено с некоторым лишением: общество обогатится, например, новым изобретением, а между тем утратит некоторое свойство, врожденное каждому из нас. Образованный человек имеет экипажи, но едва владеет своими ногами. У него прекрасные женевские часы, но ему не узнать часа по солнцу. Он купит астрономический календарь и, полагаясь на то, что найдет в нем всё нужное, не сумеет отличить ни одной звезды на небе, не подметит ни осеннего, ни весеннего равноденствия.
Разумный человек, откидывая всё излишнее, в конце концов возвращается к тому, что для него необходимо.
3. Every acquisition of so-called progress is bound up with some deprivation: society will be enriched, for example, by a new invention, and meanwhile will lose some faculty inborn in each of us. The educated man has carriages, but barely has the use of his own legs. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he cannot tell the hour by the sun. He will buy an astronomical almanac and, relying on finding everything he needs in it, will not be able to pick out a single star in the sky, will notice neither the autumnal nor the vernal equinox.
The reasonable man, casting off everything superfluous, in the end returns to what is necessary for him.
From Self-Reliance, in Essays, First Series · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changedAdds a closing sentence not found in the essay, “The reasonable man, casting off everything superfluous, in the end returns to what is necessary for him”; “For every thing that is given something is taken” becomes “Every acquisition of so-called progress is bound up with some deprivation.” †
† An intermediate translation may have made this change.
Emerson’s own wordsFor every thing that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts.
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.
He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; …
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Self-Reliance, in Essays, First Series (1841), Part 4 of the essay, on the spirit of society, after 'Society never advances'.
Emerson's sentences in order, shortened and changed, with a closing sentence not found. 'For every thing that is given something is taken' becomes 'Every acquisition of so-called progress (так называемого прогресса) is joined with some loss'; 'Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts' becomes 'society is enriched, for example, by a new invention, and loses some property innate in each of us'. The American and the New Zealander are left out. 'has lost the use of his feet' becomes 'hardly commands his legs', and 'He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle' is left out. The Geneva watch is kept; the Greenwich nautical almanac becomes 'an astronomical calendar', 'does not know a star in the sky' 'will not be able to tell one star in the sky', and 'The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little' 'will not notice either the autumn or the spring equinox'. The second paragraph, 'The reasonable man, casting off everything superfluous, in the end returns to what is necessary for him', is not in the essay; the nearest found is 'the wish, namely, to cast aside the superfluous and arrive at short methods' in Emerson's 'New England Reformers' (Essays, Second Series). No printable. The Jubilee list names two Russian Emerson selections, Nakashidze's «Высшая душа» (Posrednik, 1902) and «О доверии к себе» (Posrednik, 1904), and two English ones, Garnett's Passages (1902) and Broadbent's An Emerson's Treasury (1903); none was found online, so whether a change is Tolstoy's or a translator's cannot be told.
4. Почти все наши расходы делаются для того, чтобы быть похожими на других.
4. Our expense is almost all for conformity.
From Man the Reformer, a lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library Association,… · close to the original .
Tolstoy’s version, in EnglishAlmost all our expenses are incurred in order to be like others.
Emerson’s own wordsOur expense is almost all for conformity. It is for cake that we run in debt; …
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Man the Reformer, a lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library Association, Boston, 25 January 1841, After 'We spend our incomes for paint and paper, for a hundred trifles, I know not what, and not for the things of a man'.
A close translation of one sentence: 'Almost all our expenses are made so as to be like others', which renders 'for conformity'. The Jubilee list names two Russian Emerson selections, Nakashidze's «Высшая душа» (Posrednik, 1902) and «О доверии к себе» (Posrednik, 1904), and two English ones, Garnett's Passages (1902) and Broadbent's An Emerson's Treasury (1903); none was found online, so whether a change is Tolstoy's or a translator's cannot be told.
Translation note. Tolstoy kept the author’s words closely, so the author’s own English is printed here (ruling 1); Tolstoy’s Russian, translated, is in the source panel.
5. Служи общему делу — делай дело любви — словом, воздержанием, усилием: тут не сказал словечка дурного, не сделал того, что было бы хуже, тут преодолел робость и ложный стыд и сделал и сказал то, что надо, что хорошо, то, что любовно, — всё крошечные, незаметные поступки и слова, и из этих-то горчичных зерен вырастает дерево любви, закрывающее ветвями весь мир.
5. Serve the common work — do the work of love — by word, by self-restraint, by effort: here you did not say a single unkind word, did not do what would have been worse; here you overcame timidity and false shame and did and said what was needed, what was good, what was loving — all tiny, unnoticed acts and words, and from these very mustard seeds grows the tree of love, which covers the whole world with its branches.
6. Не нужно искать подвигов. Если только будешь делать то, что от тебя требуется сейчас в том положении, в котором ты находишься, наилучшим образом, по-христиански, вовсю, то жизнь будет полна, и нечего будет искать подвигов.
6. There is no need to seek great deeds. If only you do what is required of you now, in the situation you are in, in the best way, in a Christian way, with all your might, life will be full, and there will be no reason to seek great deeds.
7. Всякое величайшее дело делается в условиях незаметности, скромности, простоты: ни пахать, ни строить, ни пасти скотину, ни мыслить даже нельзя при громе и блеске. Великие, истинные дела — всегда просты, скромны.
7. All the greatest deeds are done in conditions of obscurity, modesty, simplicity: it is impossible to plow, or build, or tend cattle, or even think amid thunder and glitter. Great, true deeds are always simple, modest.
Менее всего просты люди, желающие казаться простыми. Умышленная простота есть самая большая и неприятная искусственность.
Least simple of all are people who want to seem simple. Deliberate simplicity is the greatest and most unpleasant artificiality.
Tolstoy TodayТолстой сегодня · tolstoytoday.org/april/23