This morning, when I first caught sight of the unfamiliar whitened world, I could not help wishing that we had snow oftener, that English winters were more wintry.
How delightful it would be, I thought, to have months of clean snow and a landscape sparkling with frost instead of innumerable grey featureless days of rain and raw winds.
I began to envy my friends in such places as the Eastern States of America and Canada, who can count upon a solid winter every year and know that the snow will arrive by a certain date and will remain, without degenerating into black slush, until Spring is close at hand. To have snow and frost and yet a clear sunny sky and air as crisp as a biscuit - this seemed to me happiness indeed.
And then I saw that it would never do for us. We should be sick of it in a week. After the first day the magic would be gone and there would be nothing left but the unchanging glare of the day and the bitter cruel nights.
It is not the snow itself,the sight of the blanketed world, that is so enchanting, but the first coming of the snow, the sudden and silent change.Out of the relations, for ever shifting and unanticipated,of wind and water comes a magical event.
Who would change this state of things for a steadily recurring round,an earth governed by the calendar? It has been well said that while other countries have a climate, we alone in England have weather. There is nothing duller than climate,which can be converted into a topic only by scientists and hypochondriacs.
But weather is our earth's Cleopatra, and it is not to be wondered at that we, who must share her gigantic moods, should be for ever talking about her. Once we were settled in America, Siberia, Australia, where there is nothing but a steady pact between climate and the calendar,we should regret her very naughtinesses, her willful pranks,her gusts of rage, and sudden tears.
参考中文翻译
今天早上，当我第一次看见这个陌生的银白色的世界时，我不禁衷心希望这里能够多下几场雪，这样我们英国的冬天才能更增添几分冬天的味道。
我想，如果我们这里经常是个冰雪积月、霜华璀璨的景象，而不是像现在这种苦雨凄风永无尽期的阴沉而乏特色的日子，那该多么令人喜悦啊！
于是我羡慕起那些居住在美国东部各州和加拿大的我的友人们，他们那里年年都能出现一个像样的冬天，都能说得出降雪的确切日期，并能保证，直至大地春回之前，那里的雪绝无退化为黑色泥浆的可能。既有霜雪，又有晴朗温煦的天空，而且空气又非常凉爽清新——这在我看来实在是很大的快乐。
但马上我又觉得这样还是不行。不出一周人们就会对它感到厌烦。第一天后魔力便会消失，剩下的唯有白昼那种永无变化的耀眼阳光与刺骨严寒和凄冷的夜晚。
让人如此着迷的不是雪的本身，不在这个银装素裹的景象，而是初雪降临时，那突然而宁静的变化。正是从风风雨雨这类变幻无常和难以预期的关系之中才会出现这种以降雪为奇迹的情形。
谁又肯拿眼前这般景致去换上个永远周而复始的单调局面，一个全由年历来控制的大地？有一句话说的好，别的国家都有气候，唯有英国才有天气。气候是最为枯燥和乏味的，或许只有科学家与疑难杂症患者才会把它当做话题。
但是天气却是我们这块土地上的克里奥佩特拉，因而毫不奇怪，人们为它巨大情绪变化所左右，总不免要对她窃窃私议。假如一旦我们定居于美洲、西伯利亚与澳大利亚，在那里气候与年历之间早已有成约在先，我们即使仅仅因为失去她的调皮，她任性的恶作剧，她的狂忿盛怒与涕泣涟涟也会深感遗憾。