以前人们常说，英国人享乐时也会郁郁不乐。如今，如果英国人真有什么乐趣可享的话，情况无疑还会依然如此，不过英国的烟酒价格构成了足以令人忧愁的外因。有时我觉得，这种享乐时也郁郁不乐的癖性已经传到了大西洋彼岸，我不由得纳闷：这么多讲英语的人身体又健康，收入又丰厚，怎么人生观却如此消沉。
我在美国旅行期间，注意到了一种根深蒂固的忧郁症。我觉得这种忧郁症似乎极其普遍，这就给社会改革家出了难题。大多数社会改革家认为，若是消除了贫困，有了经济保障，太平盛世就会到来。但是，无论在贵国还是在蔽国，看着坐在豪华轿车里的人们的面孔，却见不到社会改革家引导人们期待的那种喜气洋洋的神情。相反，十有八九，我看到的是一副厌倦不满的神情，以及一种近似疯狂的渴望，想找点东西吊起早已发腻的胃口。
【参考译文】It used to be said that English people take their pleasure sadly. This would no doubt still be the case today if they had any pleasure to take, but the price of alcohol and tobacco in British has provided sufficient external causes for melancholy. I have sometimes thought that the habit of taking pleasure sadly has crossed the Atlantic, and I have wondered why so many English-speaking people somber in their outlook in spite of good health and a good income.
During my travels in the America, I have been impressed by a kind of fundamental malaise which seems to me extremely common and poses difficult problems for the social reformer. Most social reformers have held the opinion that, if poverty were abolished and there were no more economic insecurity, the millennium would have arrived. But when I look at the faces of people in luxury cars, whether in your country or in mine, I do not see that look of radiant happiness which the aforesaid social reformers had led people to expect. In all likelihood, on the contrary, I see instead a look of boredom, discontent and an almost frantic longing for something that might tickle the jaded palate.
