"You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family," “你除了打猎枪、玩狗、捉老鼠，什么都不挂在心上。你将丢你自己和整个家族的脸。”

his father wrote in a line that nearly always appears just about here in any review of Darwin's early life. 他父亲有一次曾经这样写道。凡是回顾查尔斯幼年生活的时候，几乎总是要引用他父亲的这句话。

Although his inclination was to natural history, 尽管达尔文感兴趣的是自然史。

for his father's sake he tried to study medicine at Edinburgh University but couldn't bear the blood and suffering. 可是在父亲的坚持下，他还是勉强到爱丁堡大学学医。然而，他一见到血就犯晕，一碰到病人痛苦就神经高度紧张。

The experience of witnessing an operation on an understandably distressed child—this was in the days before anesthetics, of course—left him permanently traumatized. 有一次，他亲眼目睹了一位小孩的手术，小孩声嘶力竭的惨状——那时还未发明麻醉药——给他的精神造成了永远也无法抹去的创痛。

He tried law instead, but found that insupportably dull and finally managed, more or less by default, to acquire a degree in divinity from Cambridge. 他试着转学法律，但很快发现这门学科极其枯燥，实在令他难以忍受。最后，他并不十分顺利地从剑桥大学获得了一个神学学位。

A life in a rural vicarage seemed to await him when from out of the blue there came a more tempting offer. 乡村牧师的生涯似乎正在前面等着他，就在这时，一个更具诱惑力的机会不期而然地出现在了他的面前。

Darwin was invited to sail on the naval survey ship HMS Beagle, essentially as dinner company for the captain, Robert FitzRoy, 海军探测船“贝格尔”号船长罗伯特·菲茨罗伊邀请达尔文一同去远航，

whose rank precluded his socializing with anyone other than a gentleman. 菲茨罗伊的身份决定了他非得跟有教养的人交往——实际上是作为船长的餐桌伙伴。

FitzRoy, who was very odd, chose Darwin in part because he liked the shape of Darwin's nose. 菲茨罗伊十分古怪，他挑选达尔文是因为他喜欢达尔文的鼻子的形状。

(It betokened depth of character, he believed.) （他认为这是性格坚强的体现。）

Darwin was not FitzRoy's first choice, but got the nod when FitzRoy's preferred companion dropped out. 达尔文并不是菲茨罗伊的首选，但是最终还是得到他的认可，因为他更中意的人选跑掉了。

From a twenty-first-century perspective the two men's most striking joint feature was their extreme youthfulness. 以今天的观点来看，两个人最显著的共同点莫过于他们都非常年轻。

At the time of sailing, FitzRoy was only twenty-three, Darwin just twenty-two. 在他们出发时，菲茨罗伊年仅23岁，达尔文只有22岁。