随性而至 = The vagrant mood

《随性而至》是一部风格多样、精彩迭出的随笔集，也是毛姆备受推崇的一部文艺批评的代表作，笔下的人物和主题从哲学大师康德到硬汉侦探小说家钱德勒，从西班牙巴洛克画家苏巴朗的传说到西方侦探小说的艺术，从政治家伯克到游记和回忆录作家奥古斯都·海尔，"纯文学"作家当中则有对亨利·詹姆斯、H·G·威尔斯、阿诺德·本涅特以及伊迪丝·华顿等剑走偏锋而又妙不可言的描述。毛姆以其塑造小说人物的洞察力和讲述故事的高超技巧，既生动有趣又入木三分地活画出这些著名人物的性格、气质、怪癖乃至于灵魂，实在是打通了记人随笔和文艺批评两个不同领域的不可多得的妙文。(The Vagrant Mood is a essay with variety of styles and splendidness, and is a highly praised representative work of literary criticism of Maugham, the characters and themes were from philosophy great master Kant to detective novelist Chandler, from the legend of Spain Baroque artist Zurbaran to art of western detective stories, from politician Burke to travel notes and memoirs writer Augustus Haier, there were fantastic and wonderful description of Henry James, H·G·Wales, Arnold Bennett and Edith Wharton in "polite letters" writers. Maugham not only vividly and interestingly described the characters, temperament, eccentricity even soul of these famous people with insight to create figure of novel and superb skill to tell stories, which was really the rare excellent novel that gets through essays of people and literary criticism these two different fields.)