事业 · 创业者自述
塞缪尔·斯迈尔斯:自助论·摘录 252
塞缪尔·斯迈尔斯《自助论》· Self-Help · 领导
{44} There are, however, other and different accounts. One is to the effect that Lee set about studying the contrivance of the stocking-loom for the purpose of lessening the labour of a young country-girl to whom he was attached, whose occupation was knitting; another, that being married and poor, his wife was under the necessity of contributing to their joint support by knitting; and that Lee, while watching the motion of his wife’s fingers, conceived the idea of imitating their movements by a machine. The latter story seems to have been invented by Aaron Hill, Esq., in his ‘Account of the Rise and Progress of the Beech Oil manufacture,’ London, 1715; but his statement is altogether unreliable. Thus he makes Lee to have been a Fellow of a college at Oxford, from which he was expelled for marrying an innkeeper’s daughter; whilst Lee neither studied at Oxford, nor married there, nor was a Fellow of any college; and he concludes by alleging that the result of his invention was to “make Lee and his family happy;” whereas the invention brought him only a heritage of misery, and he died abroad destitute.
出处:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/935
定位:Excerpt 252 · 核对日期:2026-10-19 · 核验:短摘录
白话
关于李发明织袜机的原因,还有别的说法。一种说他是为了减轻心爱姑娘织袜的辛苦;另一种说他婚后贫穷,妻子靠编织补贴家用,他看妻子手指动作而想到用机器模仿。后一种说法可能出自1715年伦敦的一篇文章,但不可靠,因为该文把李说成牛津某学院研究员,因娶客栈老板女儿被开除,其实李没在牛津读书,也没在那结婚,更不是研究员;该文还说发明让李一家幸福,而实际上发明只给他带来苦难,他最后客死他乡、穷困潦倒。
上下文
塞缪尔·斯迈尔斯《自助》讲述织袜机发明者威廉·李的轶事,辨析不同记载的真伪。
今日一问
面对一个流传很广但来源可疑的成功故事,你会先查证还是先感动?
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