倪志娟 译
如果“简约是最优雅的风格”，
那么你拥有它。收缩，
正如谦逊，皆是一种美德。
我们在风格中所看重的
并非任何一种能为你增色的
战利品，
也并非偶然的品质，作为
被充分表述的某种事物的伴随物而闪现，
而是被隐藏的原则：
在脚的缺席中，隐藏着“一种结论的方法”；
在你好奇的枕角现象中，
隐藏着“一种原理知识”。
To A Snail
Marianne Moore
If “compression is the first grace of style”,
you have it. Contractility is a virtue
as modesty is a virtue.
It is not the acquisition of any one thing
that is able to adorn,
or the incidental quality that occurs
as a concomitant of something well said,
that we value in style,
but the principle that is hid:
in the absence of feet, “a method of conclusions”;
“a knowledge of principles”,
in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.
