And when such as had come in contact with Strickland in the past, writers who had known him in London, painters who had met him in the cafes of Montmartre, discovered to their amazement that where they had seen but an unsuccessful artist, like another, authentic genius had rubbed shoulders with them（失之交臂） there began to appear in the magazines of France and America a succession of articles, the reminiscences of one, the appreciation of another, which added to Strickland's notoriety, and fed without satisfying the curiosity of the public. The subject was grateful, and the industrious Weitbrecht-Rotholz in his imposing monograph(2) has been able to give a remarkable list of authorities.
后来那些在CS生前曾和他有过接触的人——有些人是在伦敦就认识他的作家，有些是在蒙特玛特尔咖啡座上和他会过面的画家——非常惊奇的地发现，（那个）他们当初看作是个失败的画家，一个同无数落魄艺术家没有什么不同的人，原来是个真正的天才，他们却失之交臂了。从这时起，在法国和美国的一些杂志上连续地出现了各式各类的文章：这个写对CS的回忆，那个写对他作品的评述。结果是，这些文章更增加了思特里克兰德的声誉，挑起了、但却无法满足读者的好奇心。这个题目大受读者欢迎，W/R下了不少工夫，在他写的一篇洋洋洒洒的专题论文①里开列了一张篇目，列举出了富有权威性的一些文章。
2) "Karl Strickland: sein Leben und seine Kunst, " by Hugo Weitbrecht-Rotholz, Ph. D. Schwingel und Hanisch. Leipzig, 1914.
①《C.S，生平与作品》，哲学博士H W-R，莱比锡1914年施威英格尔与汉尼施出版。（作者注）
The faculty for myth is innate(天生的固有的） in the human race. It seizes with avidity upon any incidents, surprising or mysterious, in the career of those who have at all distinguished themselves from their fellows, and invents a legend to which it then attaches a fanatical belief. It is the protest of romance against the commonplace of life. The incidents of the legend become the hero's surest passport to immortality. The ironic philosopher reflects with a smile that Sir Walter Raleigh is more safely inshrined in the memory of mankind because he set his cloak（披风）） for the Virgin Queen to walk on than because he carried the English name to undiscovered countries.
制造神话是人类的天性。对那些出类拔萃的人物，如果他们生活中有什么令人感到惊奇或者困惑的的事件，人们就会抓住不放，编造出种种神话，而且深信不疑，近乎狂热。这可以说是浪漫主义对平淡的生活的一种抗议。传奇中的一些小故事成为英雄通向不朽的最可靠的护照。W.R爵士②之所以永远珍留在人们记忆里是因为他把披风铺在地上，让伊丽莎白女皇踏着走过去，而不是因为他把英国名字带给了许多过去人们未知的领土；
Charles Strickland lived obscurely. He made enemies rather than friends. It is not strange, then, that those who wrote of him should have eked out（弥补） their scanty recollections with a lively fancy, and it is evident that there was enough in the little that was known of him to give opportunity to the romantic scribe; there was much in his life which was strange and terrible, in his character something outrageous, and in his fate not a little that was pathetic. In due course a legend arose of such circumstantiality that the wise historian would hesitate to attack it.
讲到C.S，在他还在世的时候知道他的人并不多。树敌不少，但没有什么朋友。因此，那些给他写文章的人必须借助于活跃的想象以弥补贫乏的事实，看来也就不足为奇了。事实非常清楚，尽管人们对他生平的事迹知之甚少，也够浪漫主义的文人从中找到大量铺材料，他的生活中有许多离奇可怕的行径，他的性格里有不少荒谬的怪僻，他的命运中又不乏悲怆的遭遇。经过一段时间，从这一系列事情的演绎中产生了一个神话，而明智的历史学家是不会贸然反对的。
But a wise historian is precisely（恰好的；细心的） what the Rev. Robert Strickland is not. He wrote his biography(3) avowedly to "remove certain misconceptions which had gained currency" in regard to the later part of his father's life, and which had "caused considerable pain to persons still living. " It is obvious that there was much in the commonly received account of Strickland's life to embarrass a respectable family.
RR牧师恰好不是这样一位明智的历史学家。他认为有关他父亲的后半生人们有许多误解，他公开申明自己写这部传记③就是为了“移除某些成为流传的误解”，这些流言蜚语“给生者带来很大的痛苦”。但谁都清楚，那些流传于街头巷尾的C.S的生平轶事里有许多事件可以让一个体面的家族难堪。
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