蜂鸟（1）

（大家好！今天我试一试翻译文章的一部分，题目是‘蜂鸟’。英文原著在Notes里。如果不太难，我下次会继续！）

维多利亚女王不容易被娱乐。她自己的孩子，她说过是“恶心的”和“相似青蛙”。官方画像上，她脸的表情像看过很多事物而宁可烧毁大部看过东西的一个人。但是，有一个例外：蜂鸟。1851年在万国工业博览会，鸟类学者，John Gould，展出了1500只蜂鸟：大约320种类，剥制在栩栩如生的姿态陈列了。女王被迷住了。她在日记里写：”这些小小的蜂鸟是漂亮不可言状，它们多种多样，它们精彩的颜色。”

狄更斯也惊喜地看蜂鸟的美丽，羡慕高质量剥制蜂鸟能授予所有者的权力。“能得到被看作独特的一个样本的人” 他说 “别人当作拥有一幅柯勒乔的原本画一样。” Gould的展览对罗斯金那么有影响，让他很抑郁：“如果我原来为鸟贡献了自己的一生，我可能会创造值得做的事... 但愿我有机会看一只蜂鸟飞，这就会成为在我的生活中一个黄金时代。”

Queen Victoria​ was not readily amused. She referred to her own children as ‘nasty’ and ‘frog-like’. In portraits her face has the expression of one who has seen a great deal and would prefer to burn most of it. There was an exception, though, and it was the hummingbird. At the Great Exhibition in 1851, the ornithologist John Gould mounted a display of 1500 hummingbirds: about 320 different species, stuffed and arranged in lifelike poses. The queen was beguiled. ‘It is impossible to imagine anything so lovely as these little hummingbirds,’ she wrote in her diary, ‘their variety and the extraordinary brilliancy of their colours.’

Dickens, too, was impressed by their beauty, and by the power a fine specimen conferred on its owner. ‘Those who have secured a specimen considered unique,’ he said, ‘are looked on with the same sort of admiring envy that gathers round the owner of a genuine Correggio.’ Ruskin’s awe at Gould’s exhibit was such that it left him despondent. ‘Had I devoted myself to birds, I might have produced something myself worth doing ... If only I could have seen a hummingbird fly, it would have been an epoch in my life.’