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This is our third article from Issue 26, which arrives with print subscribers this week.

这是我们第 26 期的第三篇文章，印刷版订阅者将于本周收到。

Books about successful people often make success sound rather unappealing.

关于成功人士的书籍常常让成功听起来毫无吸引力。

Education should be intense and rigorous, focused on driving up IQ and on the ‘STEM’ quaternity of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

教育应该是密集而严格的，重点是提高智商和科学、技术、工程和数学的“STEM”四元性。

Once adulthood is reached, life follows an austere pattern, with a 5am start, cold baths, daily visits to the gym, little or no alcohol, a Huel-rich diet, and Stakhanovite working hours.

一旦成年，生活就会遵循简朴的模式，早上 5 点起床，洗冷水澡，每天去健身房，很少或不喝酒，富含 Huel 的饮食，以及斯达汉诺夫式的工作时间。

This last point generates particular excitement, and descriptions of powerful people dwell with eager fascination on how many hours they devote to their labors.

最后一点引起了特别的兴奋，对有权有势的人的描述都热切地着迷于他们在工作中投入了多少时间。

The elites of Victorian Britain operated differently.

维多利亚时代英国的精英们的运作方式有所不同。

Their schools and universities were not terribly academic and had very little STEM.

他们的学校和大学学术性并不强，STEM 也很少。

As adults, they got up late, drank a lot, and spent a remarkable share of their waking hours partying.

成年后，他们起得很晚，喝了很多酒，醒着的时候大部分时间都花在聚会上。

They loved feasting, sports, holidays, dancing, and dressing up.

他们喜欢宴会、运动、假期、跳舞和盛装打扮。

Contrary to their stodgy reputation, they were probably a lot of fun.

与他们古板的名声相反，他们可能很有趣。

Despite this, the elites of nineteenth-century Britain were, by their own lights, extremely successful.

尽管如此，十九世纪英国的精英们自认为还是非常成功的。

For much of the century, Britain was the richest country on Earth.

在本世纪的大部分时间里，英国是地球上最富有的国家。

Its companies dominated global commerce, industry and finance.

它的公司主导着全球商业、工业和金融。

Its huge navy reigned over the world’s oceans, and its tiny army won a long sequence of wars while keeping watch over an enormous empire.

它庞大的海军统治着世界海洋，它的小军队在保卫一个庞大帝国的同时赢得了一系列战争。

Britain progressed gradually toward democracy with none of the revolutions and civil wars that wracked continental Europe.

英国逐渐走向民主，没有发生欧洲大陆那样的革命和内战。

There is a longstanding view that the prosperity of Britain’s elites came at the cost of the hundreds of millions whom they subordinated and oppressed, and no doubt that is at least partly true.

长期以来有一种观点认为，英国精英的繁荣是以他们服从和压迫的数亿人为代价的，毫无疑问，这至少部分是正确的。

But on their own terms, the British ruling class enjoyed a victorious century .

但按照英国统治阶级自己的说法，他们享受了一个胜利的世纪。

Maybe the Victorian elite succeeded in spite of being feckless and incompetent: the Industrial Revolution created great wealth, which they enjoyed passively and parasitically.

也许维多利亚时代的精英尽管软弱无能，但还是成功了：工业革命创造了巨大的财富，他们被动地、寄生地享受着这些财富。

We cannot run controlled experiments on Victorian Britain, so this thesis is hard to test.

我们无法对维多利亚时代的英国进行对照实验，因此这篇论文很难检验。

But I want to explore the possibility that a relentless focus on soft skills, team building, and intra-elite networking actually worked rather well.

但我想探讨的是，对软技能、团队建设和精英内部网络的不懈关注实际上效果相当好。

Huel, STEM, and cold baths have their merits.

Huel、STEM 和冷水浴各有优点。

But the example of the Victorians should make us hesitate before concluding that there is only one way to rule the world.

但维多利亚时代的例子应该让我们在得出统治世界只有一种方法的结论之前犹豫不决。

Caricaturing a little, we can distinguish two groups in modern educational debates: traditionalists and progressives.

稍微讽刺一下，我们可以区分现代教育辩论中的两个群体：传统主义者和进步主义者。

Traditionalists think that education should prioritize acquiring knowledge, that it should focus on ‘hard’ subjects like science, mathematics, and foreign languages, and that it should take place in a highly structured environment, where students’ time and behavior are tightly regulated.

传统主义者认为，教育应该优先考虑获取知识，应该关注科学、数学和外语等“硬”科目，并且应该在高度结构化的环境中进行，学生的时间和行为受到严格监管。

Progressives think that education should prioritize acquiring skills, that it should embrace ‘soft’ subjects beyond the supposed academic core, and that students should be given wide freedom in which to develop personally and socially.

进步主义者认为，教育应该优先考虑技能的获取，应该涵盖超出所谓学术核心的“软”科目，并且应该给予学生广泛的自由来发展个人和社会。

One might assume that Victorian education was at the extreme traditionalist end of the spectrum, and modern educational progressives would indeed be horrified by the rote learning and corporal punishment of Victorian schooling.

人们可能会认为维多利亚时代的教育处于极端传统主义的一端，而现代教育进步人士确实会对维多利亚时代学校教育的死记硬背和体罚感到震惊。

But in respect of all the controversies listed above, elite Victorian schools lean curiously toward the ‘progressive’ side of the spectrum.

但就上述所有争议而言，维多利亚时代的精英学校奇怪地倾向于“进步”的一面。

Most socially elite Victorian boys began formal education at the age of seven or eight, spending about five years in a ‘preparatory school’ before passing on to a ‘public school’ (which, to the enduring confusion of international observers, is a kind of elite private school).

大多数维多利亚时代的社会精英男孩在七八岁时开始接受正规教育，在“预科学校”学习大约五年，然后进入“公立学校”（令国际观察家长期困惑的是，这是一种精英私立学校）。

There was a hierarchy of public schools, with the nine ‘Clarendon schools’ at the top, and just one, Eton College, clearly at the apex.

公立学校有一个等级制度，九所“克拉伦登学校”位于最顶端，只有一所伊顿公学显然位于顶端。

About 30 percent of nineteenth-century cabinet ministers and 40 percent of prime ministers were Old Etonians.

十九世纪大约 30% 的内阁部长和 40% 的首相是老伊顿公学的学生。

Most students at both preparatory and public schools were boarders, meaning that elite Victorians were generally sent away from home by the age of eight and spent their childhoods more with peers than with family.

预科学校和公立学校的大多数学生都是寄宿生，这意味着维多利亚州的精英学生通常在八岁时就被送离家，他们的童年更多地是与同龄人一起度过，而不是与家人一起度过。

In this respect they were distinctive even in their own time: elite families in continental Europe and the United States were far more likely to keep their children at home and educate them at small local private schools.

在这方面，即使在他们自己的时代，他们也是与众不同的：欧洲大陆和美国的精英家庭更有可能将孩子留在家里，并在当地的小型私立学校接受教育。

It is plausible that this contributed to the lack of subnational loyalties in the British elite, in contrast to the distinct elites of, for example, the Southern United States, Catalonia in Spain, or Hungary in the Austrian Empire.

与美国南部、西班牙加泰罗尼亚或奥地利帝国匈牙利等地区的独特精英相比，这可能导致英国精英缺乏地方忠诚度。

The public schools were of course single-sex, generating a somewhat febrile atmosphere in which intense quasi-romantic (or sometimes actually romantic) relationships between boys were common.

公立学校当然是单性别的，产生了一种有点狂热的氛围，男孩之间强烈的准浪漫（有时实际上是浪漫）关系很常见。

Perhaps the powerful ties of nostalgia and loyalty that students felt for their former schoolmates were linked to this.

也许学生们对以前的同学的怀旧和忠诚的强烈纽带与此有关。

The writer Jan Morris said that ‘the whole of English upper-class life…was shot through with bisexual instinct’ and that ‘the public school system…meant that male relationships were full of emotional nuance and undertone’.

作家简·莫里斯说，“整个英国上流社会的生活……都充满了双性恋的本能”，而“公立学校系统……意味着男性关系充满了情感上的细微差别和暗示”。

Demonstrative affection remained normal in adult life, and it was completely standard for pairs of Victorian men to walk arm-in-arm in public.

在成年生活中，表现出的感情仍然很正常，维多利亚时代的男人在公共场合手挽手走路也是完全标准的。

Academic life was dominated by Latin and, to a lesser extent, Greek.

学术生活主要以拉丁语为主，其次是希腊语。

The exact share varied, but the classical languages took up generally at least half of teaching hours, and sometimes as much as 80 percent, especially earlier in the century.

确切的比例各不相同，但古典语言通常至少占用一半的教学时间，有时甚至高达 80%，尤其是在本世纪早期。

Trailing in third and fourth places were mathematics and modern languages.

排在第三和第四位的是数学和现代语言。

There was resistance to the teaching of science, not because Victorians were hostile to science in principle, but because they thought it irrelevant to the kind of moral and cultural formation that a school for gentlemen was supposed to provide.

人们对科学教学存在抵制，并不是因为维多利亚时代的人原则上敌视科学，而是因为他们认为科学与绅士学校应该提供的道德和文化形成无关。

Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School and the leading educationalist of Victorian Britain, remarked that ‘rather than have physical science the principal thing in my son’s mind, I would gladly have him think that the sun went round the Earth, and that the stars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament’.

拉格比学校校长、维多利亚时代英国的著名教育家托马斯·阿诺德 (Thomas Arnold) 评论道：“我儿子的头脑中最重要的不是物理科学，而是我很乐意让他认为太阳绕着地球转，星星是明亮的蓝色苍穹中的许多亮片”。

(By contrast, girls were not usually taught classics, meaning that, rather surprisingly, affluent Victorian girls generally followed a more modern curriculum than their brothers.)

（相比之下，女孩通常不会接受古典文学教育，这意味着，令人惊讶的是，富裕的维多利亚时代女孩通常比她们的兄弟们学习更现代的课程。）

Victorian adults had little occasion to use their classical languages, so they tended to forget them.

维多利亚时代的成年人很少有机会使用古典语言，因此他们往往会忘记它们。

‘I have gladly forgotten all my Latin, and don’t ever want to remember it again’, wrote the war poet Charles Sorley, one year after leaving school; at least he did better than Winston Churchill, who remarked that ‘In all the twelve years I was at school no one ever succeeded in making me write a Latin verse or learn any Greek except the alphabet’.

“我很高兴忘记了所有的拉丁语，并且再也不想记住它”，战争诗人查尔斯·索利在离开学校一年后写道；至少他比温斯顿·丘吉尔做得更好，后者说“在我上学的十二年里，没有人成功地让我写过一首拉丁诗或学习除字母表之外的任何希腊语”。

The most that can be said for Victorians’ classical education is perhaps that, like schooling in any difficult subject, it trained students in self-discipline, memorization, and applying rules.

对于维多利亚时代的古典教育，最能说的也许是，就像任何困难科目的学校教育一样，它训练学生自律、记忆和应用规则。

The Victorians themselves occasionally hinted that they regarded the official curriculum of school as something of a MacGuffin .

维多利亚时代的人有时也暗示，他们认为学校的官方课程有点像麦高芬。

In the hugely influential 1857 novel Tom Brown’s School Days , Tom’s benevolent father muses, ‘I don’t care a straw for Greek particles…

在 1857 年影响巨大的小说《汤姆·布朗的学生时代》中，汤姆仁慈的父亲沉思道：“我一点也不在乎希腊粒子……

What is [Tom] sent to school for?

[汤姆]被送去学校是为了什么？

…

……

If he’ll only turn out a brave, helpful, truth-telling Englishman, and a gentleman, and a Christian, that’s all I want’.

如果他能成为一个勇敢、乐于助人、说实话的英国人、绅士和基督徒，那就是我想要的。”

In a similar spirit, Thomas Arnold wrote that ‘what we must look for here is, first, religious and moral principles; second, gentlemanly conduct; thirdly, intellectual ability’.

本着类似的精神，托马斯·阿诺德写道：“我们在这里必须寻找的首先是宗教和道德原则；其次是宗教和道德原则。”第二，君子品行；第三，智力”。

Under such circumstances, it is perhaps unsurprising that the share of time spent in the classroom was relatively modest.

在这种情况下，花在课堂上的时间相对较少也就不足为奇了。

At Rugby School, weeks were divided into three ‘full days’, three ‘half days’, and Sunday.

在拉格比学校，每周分为三个“全天”、三个“半天”和周日。

On a full day, students spent about five hours in the classroom, compared with maybe two hours on a half day.

一整天，学生们在教室里待的时间大约为五个小时，而半天的时间可能只有两个小时。

Other schools varied, but nearly all left many hours unfilled.

其他学校各不相同，但几乎所有学校都留下了很多空余时间。

In general, classroom hours were certainly not longer, and probably rather shorter, than those in normal schools today.

总的来说，课堂时间肯定不会比今天的普通学校更长，甚至可能更短。

They also tended to be shorter than those of contemporary elite schools in France, Germany, or Italy, where the curriculum was normally more academically rigorous.

它们也往往比法国、德国或意大利当代精英学校的课程较短，这些学校的课程通常在学术上更加严格。

The focus on character formation led to increasing interest in how students spent their time outside the classroom.

对性格形成的关注导致人们对学生如何度过课堂之外的时间越来越感兴趣。

In the early decades of the nineteenth century, they were still mostly left to their own devices: their preferred pastime seems to have been roaming the local countryside and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

在十九世纪初期的几十年里，他们仍然大多自行其是：他们最喜欢的消遣似乎是在当地乡村漫步，通常会制造麻烦。

During the Victorian period, school authorities introduced programs of organized sports, chiefly cricket in summer and various forms of ‘football’ (including what became rugby) in winter.

在维多利亚时期，学校当局引入了有组织的体育项目，主要是夏季的板球运动和冬季的各种形式的“足球”（包括后来的橄榄球）。

Many schools ultimately had four, five, or even six afternoons of sports per week: a student would certainly spend ten hours a week on the sports field, and might well spend twenty.

许多学校最终每周有四个、五个甚至六个下午的体育运动：学生每周肯定会在运动场上花费十个小时，甚至可能会花费二十个小时。

The Victorians thought extremely highly of sports, believing that they instilled team spirit and endurance, fostered mutual loyalty, channeled energy and competitiveness, and taught men how to win and lose graciously.

维多利亚时代的人非常重视体育运动，认为体育运动可以灌输团队精神和耐力，培养相互忠诚，引导能量和竞争力，并教会人们如何优雅地获胜和失败。

An extreme but not entirely unrepresentative example was Hely Hutchinson Almond, headmaster of Loretto School, who described his school’s priorities as ‘First – character, second – physique, third – intelligence, fourth – manners, fifth – information’.

一个极端但并非完全不具有代表性的例子是洛雷托学校校长赫利·哈钦森·阿尔蒙德，他将学校的优先事项描述为“第一——品格，第二——体格，第三——智力，第四——举止，第五——信息”。

The cult of team sports was generally not shared in continental Europe, and European visitors were often bewildered by how seriously the English took schoolboy ballgames.

欧洲大陆普遍不流行对团队运动的崇拜，欧洲游客常常对英国人对学生球赛的重视程度感到困惑。

But it spread across the Anglophone world, and it is still embodied in the traditions of American high school and intercollegiate sports today.

但它传播到了英语世界，并且至今仍然体现在美国高中和校际体育的传统中。

Another distinctive feature of the public schools, relative both to modern education and to other nineteenth-century school systems, was student self-government.

相对于现代教育和其他十九世纪的学校系统，公立学校的另一个显着特征是学生自治。

The Victorians thought that close supervision by schoolmasters would inculcate servile habits in boys, compromising what one headmaster called ‘the great glory of an English public school – its free development of character, its social expansiveness, in short its liberty’.

维多利亚时代的人认为，校长的密切监督会向男孩灌输奴性的习惯，从而损害一位校长所说的“英国公立学校的伟大荣耀——它的性格的自由发展，它的社会扩张性，简而言之它的自由”。

As a result, a system of prefects was developed in which, in theory, the more benevolent and mature boys were given extensive pastoral and disciplinary responsibilities over the others.

结果，一种级长制度得以发展，理论上，较仁慈和成熟的男孩比其他男孩被赋予更广泛的教牧和纪律责任。

The prefects would receive an apprenticeship in leadership, while the student body as a whole would come to see authority as something emanating from their peers rather than imposed upon them by an alien entity.

级长将接受领导学徒培训，而整个学生团体将把权威视为来自同龄人的东西，而不是由外来实体强加给他们的。

It is not hard to imagine how a self-governing oligarchy of teenage boys might go wrong.

不难想象，一个由十几岁男孩组成的自治寡头政治可能会出错。

Victorian educationalists were themselves concerned about the potential for abuse, and various checks and balances were developed, like jury systems and rights of appeal before punishment.

维多利亚时代的教育家本身就担心虐待的可能性，并制定了各种制衡措施，例如陪审团制度和惩罚前上诉的权利。

It is hard to say how often the prefect system operated unjustly, reliant as we are on the impressionistic evidence of personal memoirs, but it is beyond doubt that it was sometimes brutal.

很难说完美的制度有多少次不公正地运作，因为我们依赖于个人回忆录的印象主义证据，但毫无疑问，它有时是残酷的。

It is important to understand, however, that it was intended not simply as a system of domination, but almost as one of ‘elite liberalism’, whereby students would not only be subjects of authority, but also to some extent its legislators and executors.

然而，重要的是要理解，它的目的不仅仅是作为一种统治体系，而且几乎是一种“精英自由主义”，学生不仅是权威的主体，而且在某种程度上也是权威的立法者和执行者。

From school, most elite Victorian men went on to Oxford or Cambridge (‘Oxbridge’).

大多数维多利亚时代的精英男子从学校毕业后，都进入了牛津大学或剑桥大学（“牛剑”）。

Oxbridge was not necessarily a big step up academically.

牛津剑桥在学术上不一定有很大进步。

Virtually everyone who applied was accepted.

几乎所有申请者都被接受了。

Once you were in, you could pursue one of two tracks: either an ‘honors’ degree, which involved at least some serious study, or a ‘pass’ or ‘ordinary’ degree, which involved sitting only some very easy exams in classics and religion.

一旦你入学，你可以攻读以下两种途径之一：要么是“荣誉”学位，至少涉及一些认真的学习，要么是“及格”或“普通”学位，其中只需要参加一些非常简单的古典学和宗教考试。

In the early Victorian period, most Oxbridge students were ‘pass men’; this changed gradually as the century drew on, but there were still plenty of pass men around as late as 1914.

在维多利亚时代早期，大多数牛津剑桥学生都是“及格生”。随着本世纪的临近，这种情况逐渐发生了变化，但直到 1914 年，仍然有大量的传球人。

The pass degree was particularly popular among aristocratic students, who tended to prioritize rowing, feasting, and social polish over disciplined study.

通过学位在贵族学生中特别受欢迎，他们倾向于优先考虑划船、宴会和社交优雅而不是纪律学习。

Many honors students took their studies more seriously.

许多荣誉学生更加认真地对待他们的学习。

But even they were not very practical in orientation.

但即便如此，它们在定位上也不是很实用。

Oxbridge tutors believed overwhelmingly that the purpose of an undergraduate degree was neither training for work nor even preparation for academic research, but rather a general moral and intellectual formation that would fit students for any professional role they might later pursue.

牛津剑桥的导师绝大多数认为，本科学位的目的既不是工作培训，也不是为学术研究做准备，而是一种普遍的道德和智力形成，使学生适合他们以后可能追求的任何职业角色。

‘No man will be a first-rate physician or engineer who is not something more than either, who has not some taste for art, some feeling for literature, or some other interest external to his profession’, said Benjamin Jowett , the influential master of Balliol College.

贝利奥尔学院颇具影响力的校长本杰明·乔伊特 (Benjamin Jowett) 表示，“如果一个人不具备某种艺术品味、某种文学感情或职业之外的其他兴趣，那么，任何人都不会成为一流的医生或工程师。”

Jowett aimed to convey this ‘something more’ to his undergraduates, leaving them to acquire specific technical knowledge later.

乔伊特的目的是将这种“更多的东西”传达给他的本科生，让他们稍后获得具体的技术知识。

In the first half of the nineteenth century, such theories led the universities to exclude almost everything except classics and (at Cambridge) mathematics from the curriculum.

在十九世纪上半叶，这样的理论导致大学将除了古典文学和（在剑桥）数学之外的几乎所有内容排除在课程之外。

Natural and applied sciences were viewed with suspicion on the basis that they were, in the words of the famous Oxford professor Edward Bouverie Pusey, ‘confined to the reception of information on matters of fact’ and do not involve ‘continued reasoning’.

人们对自然科学和应用科学持怀疑态度，因为用著名牛津大学教授爱德华·布维里·普西的话说，它们“仅限于接收有关事实的信息”，而不涉及“持续推理”。

Between 1855 and 1860 , just 8.1 percent of honors degrees were awarded to science students; in 1910–1914, it was still only 13.7 percent.

1855 年至 1860 年间，只有 8.1% 的荣誉学位授予理科学生； 1910年至1914年，这一比例仍仅为13.7%。

Nearly all students lived together in colleges.

几乎所有学生都住在大学里。

This contrasted with the situation in continental Europe, where students generally rented rooms off campus.

这与欧洲大陆的情况形成鲜明对比，欧洲大陆的学生通常在校外租房。

Victorian pedagogues believed that colleges provided religious, cultural, and social formation, and that they prevented English students from acquiring the bad morals and habits of their continental peers.

维多利亚时代的教育家认为，大学提供宗教、文化和社会形成，并防止英国学生养成欧洲大陆同龄人的不良道德和习惯。

A typical day began with chapel; honors students and the less indolent pass men would then spend the morning reading and preparing assignments.

典型的一天从教堂开始；然后，优等生和不太懒惰的通过考试的人会花早上的时间阅读和准备作业。

Students normally ordered lunch to their rooms: rich students could have elaborate feasts brought up from the college kitchens, like Sebastian Flyte’s lunch in Brideshead Revisited .

学生们通常会在自己的房间里点午餐：有钱的学生可以享用大学厨房里精心准备的丰盛大餐，比如《故园重游》中塞巴斯蒂安·弗莱特的午餐。

In the early afternoon it was customary to go out for rural walks or sports, especially rowing and cricket.

下午早些时候，人们习惯外出乡村散步或运动，尤其是划船和板球。

Around 4pm, students returned to college.

下午4点左右，同学们陆续返回校园。

Once or twice a week this was the time for ‘tutorials’, one-to-one or small-group discussions with tutors, often over tea or sherry.

每周一到两次，这是进行“辅导”的时间，即与导师进行一对一或小组讨论，通常是一边喝茶或喝雪利酒。

The tutorial system contrasted sharply with the more didactic and lecture-based teaching that prevailed in other university systems, and was seen as a way of inculcating independent thought.

导师制与其他大学系统中盛行的更具说教性和讲座式的教学形成鲜明对比，并被视为灌输独立思考的一种方式。

If a student had no tutorials, he would probably spend the early evening reading, socializing, or at one of the university’s various cultural, discussion, or debating societies, notably the Oxford and Cambridge Unions.

如果学生没有辅导，他可能会在傍晚阅读、社交，或者参加大学的各种文化、讨论或辩论社团，特别是牛津和剑桥联盟。

The day concluded with a formal dinner in the college hall, often followed by conversation over dessert, digestifs and tobacco in college rooms.

这一天以在大学礼堂举行的正式晚宴结束，随后通常在大学房间里一边吃甜点、餐后酒和烟草一边交谈。

Although the tutorial system was seen with pride, the quality of tutoring was decidedly uneven.

虽然导师制让人自豪，但辅导的质量却明显参差不齐。

Until the 1870s, most fellowships were open only to Anglican priests.

直到 1870 年代，大多数团契只向英国圣公会牧师开放。

Fellowships were comfortable positions, but much less comfortable than well-paid positions in the Church of England, especially since fellows were generally not allowed to marry.

研究员是舒适的职位，但比英国教会的高薪职位舒适得多，特别是因为研究员通常不允许结婚。

The typical Oxbridge don of the mid-nineteenth century was thus in his early or mid-twenties and regarded his fellowship as a holding post, which he would leave as soon as a desirable parish became available.

因此，十九世纪中叶典型的牛津剑桥大学教授二十岁出头或二十五岁左右，将他的研究员职位视为一个固定职位，一旦有合适的教区出现，他就会离开。

Many of these young men would have been very bright, but few were serious researchers or experienced teachers.

这些年轻人中的许多人都非常聪明，但很少有人是认真的研究人员或经验丰富的教师。

Fellowships were opened up to laymen in the later decades of the century, but Oxford and Cambridge did not become world-leading research institutions until they were transformed by German scholars fleeing Nazism in the 1930s.

20世纪后几十年，奖学金向非专业人士开放，但牛津和剑桥直到20世纪30年代被逃离纳粹主义的德国学者改造后才成为世界领先的研究机构。

The dominance of Oxbridge in British culture was unusual: these institutions educated a much larger share of the elite than was the case for any two institutions in any other country, with the possible exception of the top grandes écoles in France.

牛津大学和剑桥大学在英国文化中的主导地位是不同寻常的：这些机构教育的精英比例比任何其他国家的任何两所机构都要大得多，但法国的顶级大学校可能是个例外。

Nonetheless, some elite and quasi-elite Victorian groups followed alternative educational pathways.

尽管如此，一些维多利亚时代的精英和准精英群体仍然遵循替代的教育途径。

For example, for much of the nineteenth century the colonial civil service in India was educated at a training college called Haileybury.

例如，在 19 世纪的大部分时间里，印度殖民地公务员都是在一所名为黑利伯里的培训学院接受教育。

These programs were not, however, necessarily more rigorous than the usual Oxbridge track.

然而，这些项目并不一定比通常的牛津剑桥课程更严格。

I cannot improve upon David Gilmour’s description of a day in the life at Haileybury, distilled from the memoirs of the civil servant John Beames:

大卫·吉尔莫 (David Gilmour) 对黑利伯里一天生活的描述是从公务员约翰·比姆斯 (John Beames) 的回忆录中提炼出来的，我无法对其进行改进：

At eight in the morning, the students rushed to chapel, many of them wearing only a nightshirt under a gown or overcoat.

早上八点，学生们冲向教堂，其中许多人在长袍或大衣下只穿着睡衣。

Afterwards they returned to their rooms for breakfast, which often turned into parties with ‘tankards of beer or claret’.

之后，他们回到自己的房间吃早餐，早餐常常变成“大杯啤酒或红葡萄酒”的派对。

Breakfast was followed by smoking a pipe and dealing with tailors and other tradesmen who had arrived from Hertford.

早餐后，我们抽着烟斗，与从赫特福德赶来的裁缝和其他商人打交道。

At ten o’clock the bell rang for lectures, which lasted two hours on some days, three on others.

十点钟，讲座的铃声响起，有些日子持续两个小时，有些日子持续三个小时。

The studious minority known as the ‘steadies’ took notes; the others yawned, drew sketches of their teachers and fooled about.

被称为“稳定者”的勤奋好学的少数人记下了笔记。其他人打着哈欠，画着老师的素描，然后胡闹。

After a lunch of bread, cheese and beer, they were free to do what they liked.

吃过面包、奶酪和啤酒的午餐后，他们可以自由地做自己喜欢做的​​事情。

The oarsmen went to the river, the cricketers went to their cricket pitch, the ‘steadies’ went for a ‘solemn constitutional’ along the lanes, and the ‘fast men’ either slipped off by train to London or else clattered off in dog-carts to play billiards at Hertford or Ware.

桨手们去了河边，板球手们去了他们的板球场，“稳定者”们沿着球道进行了“庄严的宪法”，而“快人”要么乘火车溜到伦敦，要么乘坐狗车去赫特福德或韦尔打台球。

Dinner took place in Hall at six followed by evening chapel at eight.

六点钟在礼堂吃晚饭，八点钟在晚间教堂举行。

Then the ‘steadies’ retired to their rooms and read far into the night, most of the others sat about drinking and singing, and at about two in the morning the ‘fast men’ returned very drunk from Broxbourne Station after catching the last train from Shoreditch.

然后，“稳定者”回到自己的房间，读书到深夜，其他大多数人则坐着喝酒唱歌，凌晨两点左右，“快人”从肖尔迪奇赶上末班车后，醉醺醺地从布罗克斯伯恩车站回来。

Beames’s account was particularly colorful, but nobody seems to have had a good word to say about Haileybury as a teaching institution.

比姆斯的叙述特别丰富多彩，但似乎没有人对黑利伯里作为一所教学机构说好话。

Everyone, however, including Beames, agreed that it engendered much esprit de corps among its graduates.

然而，包括比姆斯在内的每个人都同意，它在毕业生中激发了很大的团队精神。

The future prime minister Lord Salisbury commented on the ‘close friendships formed there, which softened the rivalries of after life and secured devoted instead of perfunctory co-operation’.

未来的首相索尔兹伯里勋爵评论道，“在那里形成的亲密友谊，缓和了来世的竞争，确保了忠诚而不是敷衍的合作”。

Perhaps something similar might be said for much of the elite Victorian education system.

对于维多利亚时代的精英教育体系来说，或许也可以说类似的话。

One virtue that upper-class Victorian education signally failed to inculcate was early rising.

维多利亚时代上流社会的教育明显未能灌输的一项美德是早起。

Although Victorian schoolboys and university students got up fairly early for chapel, the day of an upper-class Victorian adult started late.

尽管维多利亚时代的小学生和大学生起床去教堂的时间相当早，但维多利亚时代上流社会成年人的一天却开始得很晚。

The great prime minister of the early nineteenth century, Pitt the Younger, breakfasted at 9am .

十九世纪初伟大的首相小皮特早上 9 点吃早餐。

The great prime minister of the Victorian period, William Gladstone, hosted a social breakfast starting at 10.30am (claret was served), continuing till about noon.

维多利亚时期伟大的首相威廉·格莱斯顿 (William Gladstone) 从上午 10.30 开始举办了一场社交早餐（供应红葡萄酒），一直持续到中午左右。

His rival Benjamin Disraeli attended breakfasts hosted by Lord Houghton, which started at 10am, but which Disraeli would join at about 11.30am .

他的竞争对手本杰明·迪斯雷利参加了霍顿勋爵主办的早餐会，早餐会于上午 10 点开始，但迪斯雷利将于上午 11 点 30 分左右加入。

Elite Victorians generally had flexible working hours and were free to work from home unless they had meetings elsewhere.

维多利亚州的精英人士通常有灵活的工作时间，并且可以自由地在家工作，除非他们在其他地方开会。

Many spent the whole morning at home, reading the newspaper, answering letters, and preparing for later meetings.

许多人整个上午都待在家里，看报纸、回信，为稍后的会议做准备。

The Edwardian prime minister Arthur Balfour generally did all this literally in bed , rarely emerging from his bedroom before lunchtime.

爱德华时代的首相阿瑟·贝尔福通常都是在床上完成这一切，很少在午餐时间之前从卧室里出来。

As we shall see, mornings must often have been even later from February to July, when many leading Victorians would have spent much of the night partying.

正如我们将看到的，从二月到七月，早晨通常会更晚，许多维多利亚时代的领军人物会在晚上的大部分时间里参加聚会。

At some point in the late morning, the Victorian would finally make his way to the office.

上午晚些时候的某个时候，这位维多利亚时代的人终于会去办公室了。

By the end of the century, some wealthy people lived in suburbs and commuted by railway, especially in industrial cities like Birmingham and Manchester.

到本世纪末，一些富人居住在郊区并通过铁路上下班，特别是在伯明翰和曼彻斯特等工业城市。

In general, however, Britain’s elites were slow to suburbanize, and in 1914 most still lived in centrally located row houses and walked to work.

然而，总体而言，英国精英的郊区化进展缓慢，1914 年，大多数人仍然住在市中心的排屋里，步行去上班。

Every day a great herd of frock-coated men emerged from Belgravia and Mayfair and poured through Covent Garden to their offices in Parliament, Whitehall, the Inns of Court, and the City.

每天都有一大群穿着礼服的男人从贝尔格莱维亚区和梅菲尔区涌出，穿过考文特花园涌向他们在议会、白厅、法院和伦敦金融城的办公室。

The exact timetable for the middle of the day varied by period and profession.

中午的确切时间表因时期和职业而异。

In the early Victorian period, the upper classes often went without a serious lunch but dined early at 5 or 6pm.

在维多利亚时代早期，上层阶级经常没有正经的午餐，而是在下午 5 点或 6 点早起用餐。

This changed drastically in the third quarter of the century, perhaps because of improved artificial lighting, so that by the 1870s many Victorians had a substantial lunch with wine, usually with professional peers at a club, sustaining them until dinner at about 8.30pm.

这种情况在本世纪第三个四分之一世纪发生了巨大的变化，也许是因为人工照明的改善，因此到了 1870 年代，许多维多利亚人通常与俱乐部的专业同行一起享用丰盛的葡萄酒午餐，一直维持到晚上 8.30 左右吃晚饭。

Politics was a part-time job for most members of Parliament (MPs) and peers, so Parliament typically did not start sitting until 4.30 or 5pm; the majority of part-time politicians could wind up a gentlemanly day at the office in time for this, while the minority of full-time politicians could spend the day on party management, or (if they were ministers) at government business in their ministries.

对于大多数国会议员 (MP) 和同行来说，政治是一项兼职工作，因此议会通常要到下午 4.30 或 5 点才开始开会；大多数兼职政治家可以及时在办公室度过绅士般的一天，而少数全职政治家可以将这一天花在政党管理上，或者（如果他们是部长）处理他们各部委的政府事务。

Provided Parliament did not interfere, however, an elite Victorian would stroll home to dress for dinner.

然而，如果议会不干涉，维多利亚时代的精英就会漫步回家，穿好衣服去吃晚饭。

Upper-class Victorians of both sexes paid great attention to their clothes.

维多利亚上流社会的男女都非常注重自己的着装。

For an informal dinner at home, a man would change into evening dress, usually including a starched collar, cuff and shirt front, patent leather shoes, and gold shirt studs and cufflinks.

在家里举行非正式晚宴时，男士会换上晚礼服，通常包括浆过的衣领、袖口和衬衫前襟、漆皮鞋、金色衬衫饰钉和袖扣。

Dinners were rich and elaborate.

晚餐丰盛而精致。

The number of courses naturally varied, but it was invariably more than a modern dinner at an equivalent grade of formality.

菜肴的数量自然有所不同，但总是比同等正式程度的现代晚餐要多。

A typical dinner began with soup and sherry, then proceeded to fish with hock (Rhineland whites), passing on through a sequence of meat courses with champagne or red wines, and finishing with various desserts and savories served with port and madeira.

典型的晚餐以汤和雪利酒开始，然后是鱼肉（莱茵兰白葡萄酒），接着是一系列肉类菜肴，搭配香槟或红酒，最后是各种甜点和开胃菜，搭配波特酒和马德拉酒。

The Victorians loved drinking and drank a lot by modern standards.

维多利亚时代的人热爱饮酒，按照现代标准来看，他们喝得很多。

Men drank more than women, but women drank a good deal too: one conduct guide noted that ‘young ladies seldom drink more than three glasses of wine at dinner but married ladies, professional ladies, and those accustomed to society, and habits of affluence, will habitually take five or even six, whether in their own homes or at the tables of their friends’.

男人比女人喝酒多，但女人也喝得很多：一本行为指南指出，“年轻女士在晚餐时很少喝超过三杯酒，但已婚女士、职业女士以及那些习惯社交和富裕习惯的人，无论是在自己家里还是在朋友的餐桌上，都会习惯性地喝五杯甚至六杯”。

For about five months a year, between February and July, the elite of Victorian Britain congregated in London for what was called ‘the Season’, essentially a sequence of parties and social events.

每年大约有五个月，即二月至七月之间，维多利亚时代的英国精英聚集在伦敦，参加所谓的“季节”，本质上是一系列聚会和社交活动。

They usually owned or rented houses in Mayfair and Belgravia, two small neighborhoods that face each other across Hyde Park, meaning that the bulk of the ruling class would live literally within walking distance of one another.

他们通常在梅费尔和贝尔格莱维亚拥有或租用房屋，这两个小社区隔着海德公园面对面，这意味着大多数统治阶级实际上都居住在步行距离之内。

Parallel institutions existed in most Western countries at the time – the social seasons in Paris, Vienna, St Petersburg and New York were famous – but the London Season had a particularly dominant role in the national life because it coincided with the Parliamentary session, making it a forum for political networking as well as elite matchmaking and court rituals.

当时大多数西方国家都存在平行机构——巴黎、维也纳、圣彼得堡和纽约的社交季很出名——但伦敦季在国民生活中发挥着特别主导的作用，因为它与议会开会时间一致，使其成为政治网络以及精英牵线搭桥和宫廷仪式的论坛。

During the Season, the upper-class evening continued long beyond dinner.

在季节期间，上流社会的晚会在晚餐后持续很长时间。

Balls were the flagship evening entertainment.

舞会是晚间的主要娱乐活动。

They started late, at nine or ten, and guests would filter in gradually, with the dance floor really full from about 11pm.

他们开始得很晚，九点或十点开始，客人们逐渐涌入，从晚上 11 点左右开始，舞池里就挤满了人。

Around midnight a meal called ‘supper’ appeared, comprising soups, salads, cold meats, shellfish, fruit, and ice cream.

午夜左右，出现了一种被称为“晚餐”的餐点，包括汤、沙拉、冷肉、贝类、水果和冰淇淋。

The beverage most associated with balls was ‘negus’, a hot drink made of port, spices, sugar and oranges or lemons.

与球最相关的饮料是“negus”，一种由波特酒、香料、糖和橙子或柠檬制成的热饮。

Lemonade, tea and coffee were on hand throughout the evening, and champagne, hock, port and sherry were served at supper.

整个晚上都有柠檬水、茶和咖啡，晚餐时提供香槟、霍克、波特酒和雪利酒。

In addition, an 1867 guide for aspiring ball hosts observed , ‘Bottled pale ale and stout are quite permissible – in fact, they have become indispensable’.

此外，1867 年的一份针对有抱负的舞会主办方的指南指出，“瓶装淡色啤酒和黑啤酒是相当允许的——事实上，它们已经变得不可或缺”。

After supper, dancing recommenced; a good ball peaked after 1am.

晚饭后，舞蹈又开始了。凌晨1点后，一个好球达到顶峰。

Guests gradually returned home in the small hours, and the most determined might continue until dawn.

凌晨时分，客人陆续回家，最有决心的人可能会一直持续到天亮。

It was good form to slip out quietly, and there was no requirement even to say goodbye to the hostess.

悄悄溜出去是有礼貌的，连女主人都不用告别。

‘The great thing is to avoid making your departure felt as a suggestion for breaking up the party, as you have no right to hint by your movements that you consider the entertainment has been kept up long enough’, an etiquette guide notes .

一位礼仪指南指出，“最重要的是避免让你的离开被视为是在建议解散聚会，因为你没有权利通过你的动作暗示你认为娱乐活动已经持续了足够长的时间”。

Balls naturally had special significance for people in the marriage market.

舞会对于婚姻市场上的人来说，自然有着特殊的意义。

Arranged marriage in the strict sense had largely died out by the nineteenth century, but upper-class young people and their parents still hoped they would make advantageous matches, and balls furnished opportunities to do so.

严格意义上的包办婚姻在十九世纪基本上已经消失，但上流社会的年轻人和他们的父母仍然希望他们能够进行有利的婚姻，而舞会提供了这样做的机会。

It would be quite wrong, however, to think that balls were simply mass dating events.

然而，如果认为舞会只是大规模约会活动，那就大错特错了。

Courtiers, bankers, judges, and cabinet ministers would have shared the dance floor with debutantes.

朝臣、银行家、法官和内阁部长会与初次登台的新人共享舞池。

In fact, with some exceptions like club lunches, the social events of the Victorian elite were notable for their lack of segregation by age or sex.

事实上，除了俱乐部午餐等一些例外之外，维多利亚时代精英的社交活动以不按年龄或性别划分而闻名。

A Society ball discharged the functions of both a teenage house party and a business networking convention: in fact, it was both a teenage house party and a business networking convention.

社交舞会同时履行了青少年家庭聚会和商业社交大会的功能：事实上，它既是青少年家庭聚会又是商业社交大会。

Unmarried young people (and their unfortunate parents) might go to three or four balls per week, while other Society members would go to one or two.

未婚的年轻人（以及他们不幸的父母）可能每周参加三到四次舞会，而其他协会成员只会参加一两次。

But the other nights were scarcely less busy.

但其他晚上也同样忙碌。

Opera, theatre and concerts were important, especially opening or gala nights.

歌剧、戏剧和音乐会很重要，尤其是开幕式或晚会。

The bread and butter of the Season was soirées, card parties, conversazione , receptions and less formal dances, as well as midnight ‘supper parties’, all mostly hosted in private homes.

这个季节的主要内容是晚会、卡片派对、谈话、招待会和不太正式的舞会，以及午夜的“晚餐派对”，这些活动大多在私人住宅中举办。

These elements were modular.

这些元素是模块化的。

An MP might miss dinner for a late sitting of Parliament, but still drop into a soirée at 10.30pm, turn up to a supper party at 11.45pm, and then arrive at a ball at 1am.

国会议员可能会因议会开会较晚而错过晚餐，但仍会参加晚上​​ 10.30 的晚会，参加晚上 11.45 的晚宴，然后在凌晨 1 点参加舞会。

From February to July, the Victorian upper class led a remarkably nocturnal existence, with bedtimes in the small hours and the mornings something of a write-off.

从二月到七月，维多利亚时代的上流社会过着一种非常夜间的生活，他们的就寝时间是在凌晨，而早上则有些不规律。

By one definition, then, elite Victorians did remarkably little work: they could easily spend just four or five hours a day actually in the office.

那么，根据一种定义，维多利亚时代的精英所做的工作非常少：他们每天很容易在办公室里呆上四五个小时。

But by another definition, they were working all the time.

但根据另一个定义，他们一直在工作。

Lunches, balls, and dinners were certainly fun, but they were not just fun.

午餐、舞会和晚餐当然很有趣，但不仅仅是有趣。

In the words of the historian Leonore Davidoff, these social occasions provided ‘access to a vast information network: information about jobs, investment possibilities, secret political decisions’.

用历史学家莱昂诺尔·大卫杜夫的话说，这些社交场合提供了“访问庞大信息网络的途径：有关就业、投资可能性、秘密政治决策的信息”。

Many Victorians were intensely ambitious and drove themselves hard: sleep deprivation, exhaustion and burnout were familiar companions.

许多维多利亚时代的人都雄心勃勃，对自己要求很高：睡眠不足、精疲力尽和倦怠是常见的症状。

The distinctive feature of elite Victorian lifestyles was not laziness, but an extreme weighting toward what we might call team building and professional networking, and the near-total fusion of personal and professional life.

维多利亚时代精英生活方式的显着特征不是懒惰，而是极端重视我们所谓的团队建设和职业网络，以及个人和职业生活几乎完全融合。

The sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies famously distinguished Gemeinschaft – community, held together by ties of sentiment and tradition – from Gesellschaft – society, held together by explicit laws and contracts.

社会学家费迪南德·汤尼斯 (Ferdinand Tönnies) 曾将“Gemeinschaft”（通过情感和传统纽带结合在一起的社区）与“Gesellschaft”（通过明确的法律和合同结合在一起的社会）区分开来。

As societies grow more complex, he thought, Gesellschaft tends to replace Gemeinschaft .

他认为，随着社会变得更加复杂，Gesellschaft 往往会取代 Gemeinschaft。

But the Victorian elite was a little Gemeinschaft at the apex of an enormous Gesellschaft , an intimate community bound together by ties of common culture, shared memory, intense status competition, loyalty, and love.

但维多利亚时代的精英是一个巨大的社会顶端的小团体，是一个通过共同文化、共享记忆、激烈的地位竞争、忠诚和爱的纽带联系在一起的亲密社区。

Its members strove for one another’s envy, esteem and gratitude, and to achieve this they would go far beyond what was contractually obligated or financially advantageous.

其成员努力争取彼此的嫉妒、尊重和感激，为了实现这一目标，他们将远远超出合同义务或经济上有利的范围。

It is not altogether fanciful to think of the Victorian elite as functioning like a big premodern village, though its members were geographically dispersed across the kingdom and its vast empire.

认为维多利亚时代的精英就像一个前现代的大村庄一样运作并不完全是异想天开，尽管其成员在地理上分散在整个王国及其庞大的帝国各地。

All the practices I have described in this article helped to maintain this emotional village.

我在本文中描述的所有做法都有助于维持这个情感村庄。

The ruling class were educated together from an early age, in schools and universities designed to inculcate shared values, a common identity, and ties of mutual loyalty.

统治阶级从小就在学校和大学接受共同教育，旨在灌输共同的价值观、共同的身份和相互忠诚的纽带。

As adults they congregated every year in an area of central London that actually was village-sized, where they spent every night in one another’s company.

成年后，他们每年都会聚集在伦敦市中心一个实际上有村庄大小的地区，在那里他们每晚都在彼此的陪伴下度过。

Young members of the Victorian elite tended to meet their future spouses during these glittering evenings, so that the elite came to form, to some extent, a literal family.

维多利亚时代精英的年轻成员往往在这些闪闪发光的夜晚遇见他们未来的配偶，因此精英们在某种程度上形成了一个真正的家庭。

Maintaining this community required a lot of time and effort, which obviously had opportunity costs.

维护这个社区需要大量的时间和精力，这显然是有机会成本的。

All else being equal, rich and powerful Victorians must have been less productive for spending four hours a day in the office rather than twelve.

在其他条件相同的情况下，富有而有权势的维多利亚人每天在办公室呆四个小时而不是十二个小时，其生产力肯定较低。

But the creation of a single ruling Gemeinschaft may have had compensatory advantages.

但单一统治联盟的创建可能具有补偿性优势。

One of these was unity.

其中之一就是团结。

In some ways, rich Victorians were quite diverse.

在某些方面，富有的维多利亚时代是相当多元化的。

They came from every part of the British Isles.

他们来自不列颠群岛的各个地方。

They included landed aristocrats and urban bourgeois, with the latter steadily superseding the former over the course of the century.

他们包括土地贵族和城市资产阶级，后者在本世纪中稳步取代前者。

Most landowners were Anglicans, but many of the new rich were Nonconformists (non-Anglican Protestants), and some were Jews or Catholics.

大多数地主是英国圣公会教徒，但许多新富是非国教徒（非英国圣公会新教徒），还有一些是犹太人或天主教徒。

With the conspicuous exception of the Irish Catholics, all these people were successfully folded into a single British elite, rather than forming hostile counter-elites working to overthrow the social order.

除了爱尔兰天主教徒之外，所有这些人都成功地融入了一个英国精英阶层，而不是形成敌对的反精英阶层，致力于推翻社会秩序。

This obviously had advantages for Britain.

这显然对英国有利。

The elites of the American South had a very different identity to those of the North, and ultimately led the country into civil war.

美国南方的精英与北方的精英有着截然不同的身份，并最终导致该国陷入内战。

Spain, Italy and France suffered from incessant conflicts between urban bourgeois and rural nobility.

西班牙、意大利、法国等国城市资产阶级与乡村贵族之间的冲突不断。

Germany was riven with strife along geographical, religious, and class lines.

德国因地理、宗教和阶级的冲突而四分五裂。

Some of these tensions existed in Britain, but except in Ireland, the elite finessed them peacefully.

英国也存在一些紧张局势，但除了爱尔兰之外，精英们都以和平的方式解决了这些紧张局势。

A Nonconformist Manchester businessman probably supported the Liberal Party rather than the Conservatives, but the idea of violently seceding from Britain to form a Methodist Republic of the North would never have occurred to him.

一位不信奉国教的曼彻斯特商人可能支持自由党而不是保守党，但他绝不会想到以暴力方式脱离英国，成立北方卫理公会共和国。

Maybe the Victorian elites also had advantages relative to elites today.

也许维多利亚时代的精英相对于今天的精英也有优势。

One strength of all Gemeinschaften is that they can reward their members with prestige rather than money, which is useful in contexts where adequate financial rewards are for some reason impossible.

所有Gemeinschaften的优势之一是他们可以用声望而不是金钱来奖励其成员，这在由于某种原因不可能获得足够的经济奖励的情况下非常有用。

This might be an important advantage sometimes.

有时这可能是一个重要的优势。

For political reasons, most modern societies pay politicians and civil servants vastly less than they pay people with a similar level of responsibility in the private sector.

出于政治原因，大多数现代社会向政治家和公务员支付的工资远低于私营部门中承担类似责任的人员的工资。

As a result, they struggle to persuade their most talented people to enter and remain in public life.

因此，他们很难说服最有才华的人进入并留在公共生活中。

The Victorians did not have this problem.

维多利亚时代的人没有这个问题。

Until the 1880s, most local government roles in Britain were conducted on a completely unpaid basis by local landowners.

直到 1880 年代，英国的大多数地方政府职责都是由当地土地所有者完全无偿履行的。

They also administered the rudimentary welfare system, sat as magistrates in the lower courts, and staffed the boards of most schools and hospitals.

他们还管理基本的福利制度，担任下级法院的治安法官，并在大多数学校和医院的董事会中担任工作人员。

A landowner who ignored these responsibilities would suffer no material consequences, but he would be diminished and resented in the eyes of his peers, and for most, that was inducement enough.

忽视这些责任的地主不会遭受任何物质后果，但他会在同侪眼中受到贬低和怨恨，对大多数人来说，这已经是足够的诱因了。

Something similar applied to Parliament.

类似的情况也适用于议会。

Nineteenth-century MPs were unpaid and covered most of their own election expenses.

十九世纪的议员没有工资，大部分选举费用由他们自己承担。

In the 1880 General Election , the average Parliamentary candidate bore about £150,000 of expenses in an urban constituency and £450,000 in a rural one (in today’s money).

在 1880 年大选中，城市选区的议员候选人平均承担约 15 万英镑的开支，农村选区的议员候选人平均承担 45 万英镑的开支（按今天的货币计算）。

MPs had to take this massive financial hit repeatedly, every time there was an election.

每次选举时，议员们都必须反复承受这种巨大的财务打击。

They also had to bear all of their costs upon assuming office, including staff, travel, and accommodation in both Westminster and their constituency.

他们还必须承担上任后的所有费用，包括威斯敏斯特及其选区的工作人员、旅行和住宿。

And yet there was no difficulty filling Parliament: many of the richest and most powerful people in England competed fiercely to enter, simply because being an MP was intensely prestigious in their social milieu.

然而，填补议会席位并不困难：英国许多最富有和最有权势的人都激烈竞争进入议会，仅仅是因为成为议员在他们的社会环境中享有极高的声望。

Maybe this identification with the social system affected how politicians behaved in office, too.

也许这种对社会制度的认同也影响了政客在办公室的行为方式。

In The English Constitution the political writer Walter Bagehot noted that parliamentary democracy creates powerful incentives for opposition parties to damage the country by corrosively undermining the government when it makes difficult but necessary decisions.

政治作家沃尔特·白芝浩在《英国宪法》中指出，议会民主为反对党提供了强大的激励，让他们在政府做出困难但必要的决定时腐蚀地削弱政府，从而损害国家。

But in practice, he thought, English politicians did not do this as much as one might expect:

但他认为，实际上，英国政治家并没有像人们想象的那样做到这一点：

In abstract theory these defects in our present practice would seem exceedingly great, but in practice they are not so.

从抽象理论上讲，我们目前实践中的这些缺陷似乎非常严重，但实际上并非如此。

English statesmen and English parties have really a great patriotism; they can rarely be persuaded even by their passions or their interest to do anything contrary to the real interest of England, or anything which would lower England in the eyes of foreign nations.

英国政治家和英国政党确实具有伟大的爱国主义精神。即使他们的热情或兴趣也很少能说服他们去做任何违背英国真正利益的事情，或者做任何有损英国在外国眼中的事情。

And they would seriously hurt themselves if they did.

如果他们这样做的话，他们会严重伤害自己。

It is hard to know how seriously to take claims like this.

很难知道如何认真对待这样的说法。

But it is certainly true that the MPs of both parties overwhelmingly belonged to the community described in this essay, sharing friends, relatives, memories, and values.

但毫无疑问，两党议员绝大多数都属于本文所描述的社区，分享朋友、亲戚、记忆和价值观。

Perhaps the elite village could punish them for defecting from norms in ways that are impossible today, making political life less prone to divisiveness, demagoguery, and brinkmanship.

也许精英村可以以今天不可能的方式惩罚他们背叛规范，从而使政治生活不那么容易出现分裂、煽动和边缘政策。

Would modern societies work better if their local and national government were conducted by a tight-knit community of extremely rich and successful people?

如果地方和国家政府是由极其富有和成功人士组成的紧密联系的社区来管理，现代社会会运转得更好吗？

Maybe not: the downsides are obvious.

也许不是：缺点是显而易见的。

But the problems would be interestingly different from those that they have in reality.

但有趣的是，这些问题与现实中遇到的问题有所不同。

Imagine a San Francisco whose Board of Supervisors featured Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg, each feeling this responsibility to be the greatest glory of his career, each hoping that he might one day attain the greater glory that is the House of Representatives.

想象一下旧金山的监事会由杰夫·贝索斯、拉里·佩奇、萨姆·奥尔特曼和马克·扎克伯格组成，他们每个人都觉得这一责任是他职业生涯中最大的荣耀，每个人都希望有一天能获得众议院的更大荣耀。

It might not be paradise.

这也许不是天堂。

Maybe it would be a disaster.

也许这将是一场灾难。

But it would certainly be interesting.

但这肯定会很有趣。