翻譯考試優秀短文的中英譯文

Newspaper apologies nearly always seem inadequate. The most audacious one I know was brought back from America by the artist Edward Burne-Jones to show his friend Lady Homer of Mells. It read: "Instead of being arrested as we stated, for kicking his wife down a flight of stairs, and hurling a lighted kerosene lamp after her, the Revd. James P. Wellman died unmarried four years ago." This sentence is remarkable for the enormity of the error and the succinctness of the correction — not, be it noted, an apology, for the law of libel, in the United States as in England, offers no redress to a dead person. I suspect the extract is from the New York World when it was a sensational paper owned by Pulitzer. For reasons which a recent biography of him does not clarify, he had a particular hatred for clergymen of all denominations, and frequently exaggerated or invented discreditable news items about them. He also discovered that such items invariably put on circulation.

報社的道歉幾乎從來是不到位的。據我所知，最爲厚顏的一次是藝術家愛德華·伯恩 — 瓊斯從美國帶回來，讓他的友人麥爾斯莊園的洪納夫人看的，曰：“詹姆士·P. 維爾曼神甫沒有像我們所述說的那樣，因爲將妻子一腳踹下了樓梯，隨後又將一支點燃的煤油燈朝她擲去而被逮捕，而是於四年之前過世，從未婚娶。”對於如此之大的錯誤，而更正又如此之簡短，這一句話可謂妙矣也哉——請注意，這算不上是“賠禮道歉”，因爲在美國(正如在英國一樣)，根據誹謗法，是不給死人糾錯的'。我猜想這條剪報取自《紐約世界報》，曾是一家轟動的報紙，由普利策擁有。不知何故(最近有關普氏的傳記並未澄清)他尤其痛恨各個教派的教士們，經常將一些詆譭他們的新聞段子加以渲染，或是編造出一些這樣的段子。他還發現此類新聞段子總是會使發行量劇增。