J. B. Priestley - The English Humour 汉译

Humour has been well defined as “thinking in fun while feeling in earnest”. The English do not approach life intellectually; they do not demand that it shall conform to some rigid mental plan; they are not convinced that the universe can be penetrated by thought; they are willing to go to work, either in politics or art, without of theory to sustain them; and when they are more practical than other races, it is not—as those races frequently conclude—because they are coldly clear-sighted and unimaginative, but because they do not busy themselves asking reason to find a key when instinct has already shown them that the door is wide open.

幽默被人很巧妙的诠释说：“一面认真地感觉一面滑稽第 思考”。英国人是不肯聪明地去接触人生的。他们并不要求人生应与某种艰苦卓绝的，出自智力的计划一致。他们并不相信这个宇宙是可以用思想去突破的。即令没有支持他们自己的一种理论，他们也愿望去着手于政治上的或艺术上的工作。当他们比别的民族更要实际的时候（例如别的民族惯爱轻易下结论，所以不实际），那并不是因为他们只有冷静的明察力，却缺乏想像力，而是因为当直觉已经明示给他们看那门是打开着的时候，他们仍不肯忙着去让理性找出一把钥匙来。