英語(yǔ)原文
Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood would have been Thoreau's idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening one's perception of what is enduring in nature would have been his idea of the high. What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starvation, but he would put into feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him functioning for more important efforts.

Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfaction we get from a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of “The pleasure of taking pains”. The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless.

We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When someone ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.

參考譯文
梭羅所理解的“低層次”，即為了擁有而去擁有，或與所有的鄰居明爭(zhēng)暗斗而致?lián)碛小Ｋ哪恐械摹案邔哟巍?，則是這樣一種積極的人生戒律，即要使自己對(duì)自然界永恒之物的感悟臻于完美。對(duì)于他從低層次上節(jié)省下來(lái)的時(shí)間和精力，他可將其致力于對(duì)高層次的追求。勿庸置疑，梭羅不贊成忍饑挨餓，但他在膳食方面所投入的精力僅果腹而已，只要可確保他能去從事更為重要的事務(wù)，他便別無(wú)所求。

殫精竭慮，全力以赴，便是其精髓所在。除非我們?cè)敢庵泵婺切┬枰覀內(nèi)硇耐度氲钠D難困苦，否則便不會(huì)有幸?？裳?。正如葉芝所言，除卻某些不可能的情形，我們于人生中所獲取的滿足皆取決于我們?cè)诙喔叩木辰缰羞x擇我們所愿意面對(duì)的艱難困苦。當(dāng)羅伯特·弗羅斯特言及“以苦為樂(lè)”時(shí)，他內(nèi)心所思，大體如此。商業(yè)廣告中所宣揚(yáng)的那種幸福觀，其致命的缺陷就在于這樣一個(gè)事實(shí)，即它宣稱，一切幸福皆唾手可得，不費(fèi)吹灰之力。

即便于游戲之中，我們也需要有艱難困苦。我們之所以需要它，因?yàn)樵O(shè)若沒(méi)有困難，便斷無(wú)游戲可言。游戲即是這樣一種方式，為了享受其中的情趣而人為地使事情變得不那么輕而易舉。游戲中的種種規(guī)則，便是將困難武斷地強(qiáng)加于人。當(dāng)有人將情趣摧毀殆盡時(shí)，他總是因?yàn)榫懿话从螒蛞?guī)則行事而使然。這猶如下棋；如果你隨心所欲、心血來(lái)潮地去更改那些全然武斷的游戲規(guī)則，這樣去贏棋當(dāng)然會(huì)更加容易。但下棋的情趣則在于，應(yīng)在規(guī)則的限定范圍內(nèi)贏取勝利。一言以蔽之，沒(méi)有艱難，斷無(wú)情趣。