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Sometimes, of course, our markings may, be simply a matter of aesthetics（美学）. Popping in a comma can be like slipping on the necklace that gives an outfit quiet elegance（娴静优雅）, or like catching the sound of running water that complements as it completes the silence of a Japanese landscape. When V.S. Naipaul, in his latest novel, writes, “He was a middle aged man, with glasses,"the first comma can seem a little precious（道貌岸然的；矫揉造作的）. Yet it gives the description a spin, as well as a subtlety, that it otherwise lacks, and it shows that the glasses are not part of the middle-agedness, but something else.
Thus all these tiny scratches give us breadth and heft（分量） and depth. A world that has only periods is a world without inflections（不同）. It is a world without shade. It has a music without sharps and fats（升降调）. It is a martial music It has a jackboot（暴政） rhythm. Words cannot bend and curve. A comma, by comparison, catches the gentle drift of the mind in thought, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling and returning along the course of its own sweet river music; while the semicolon brings clauses and thoughts together with all the silent discretion of a hostess arranging guests around her dinner table.
Punctuation, then, is a matter of care. Care for words, yes, but also, and more important, for what the words imply. Only a lover notices the small things: the way the afternoon light catches the nape of a neck, or how a strand of hair slips out from behind an ear, or the way a finger curls around a cup. And no one scans a letter so closely as a lover, searching for its small print, straining to hear its nuances, its gasps（叹息）, its sighs and hesitations, poring over(钻研） the secret messages that lie in every cadence（抑扬顿挫）. The difference between "Jane (whom I adore)” and “Jane, whom I adore," and the difference between them both and "Jane- whom I adore-” marks all the distance between ecstasy and heartache.“No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put at just the right place," in Isaac Babel's lovely words; a comma can let us hear a voice break, or a heart. Punctuation, in fact, is a labor of love. Which brings us back in a way to gods.
当然有时，使用标点只是出于美学目的。比如句子中加入逗号就好似为服装悄然配上一副项链，令其更加娴静优雅；又如在日本某僻静之处听闻到的潺潺流水声，补全了景色的幽静。奈保尔在其最新的小说中写到：“他是个中年人，带着眼镜”。这里的逗号似乎有些矫揉造作，但让表达婉转且微妙，如若不然，则全然丧失了意境。当然逗号在这里还表示：眼镜不是人到中年就非戴不可，而是别有其意。
所有这些一撇一点赋予我们广度、分量和深度。所以只有句号的世界是千篇一律的、没有区别的世界；是一首没有升降调的歌曲；是一首整齐划一的军歌；是一段禁止变化的旋律。词语不会自己弯曲变化。相较下，逗号捕捉到意识长河中的涓涓细流，顺流而行又周而反复，伴着自己甜美的湖之曲回溯翻腾；而分号则将分句和主体思想融为一体就好似女主人悄无声息地为客人安排好晚宴桌席。
标点是一种关心。关心词语，更关心词语表达的含义。正如只有情人才会注意到恋爱中的点滴琐碎：午后的阳光照在脖颈处；一缕发丝被捋在耳根后；修长的手指缠住杯子。只有情人才会那么仔细地读信，寻觅一点点印迹，倾听一丝丝差异、喘气、叹息和犹豫，钻研抑扬顿挫间的秘密讯息。“简（我深爱她）”，“简，我深爱她”，“简——我深爱她——”这三句话表达的差异，足已在欢喜和心痛之间划下不可逾越的鸿沟。巴别尔有句话说得好：“句号用得其所可刺穿人心，非刀枪棍棒所能及”。逗号可让人声咽，也可让人心碎。标点心甘情愿的工作，若使用得当可助我们重回主宰。
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