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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Advice to Youth, About
Mark Twain
Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of talk I ought to make. They said it should be something suitable to youth-something didactic, instructive, or something in the nature of good advice. Very well. I have a few things in my mind which I have often longed to say for the instruction of the young; for it is in one’s tender early years that such things will best take root and be most enduring and most valuable. First, then. I will say to you my young friends—and I say it beseechingly1, urgingly—
Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don’t, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition2 than you can by acting3 on your own better judgment4.
Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any, also to strangers, and sometimes to others. If a person offend you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional5 or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick. That will be sufficient. If you shall find that he had not intended any offense6, come out frankly7 and confess yourself in the wrong when you struck him; acknowledge it like a man and say you didn’t mean to. Yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charity and kindliness8, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite9 to the low and unrefined.
Go to bed early, get up early- this is wise. Some authorities say get up with the sun; some say get up with one thing, others with another. But a lark10 is really the best thing to get up with. It gives you a splendid reputation with everybody to know that you get up with the lark; and if you get the right kind of lark, and work at him right, you can easily train him to get up at half past nine, every time—it’s no trick at all.
Now as to the matter of lying. You want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught. Once caught, you can never again be in the eyes to the good and the pure, what you were before. Many a young person has injured himself permanently11 through a single clumsy and ill finished lie, the result of carelessness born of incomplete training. Some authorities hold that the young out not to lie at all. That of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain , and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate12 in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance13, and precision which alone can make the accomplishment14 graceful15 and profitable. Patience, diligence, painstaking16 attention to detail—these are requirements; these in time, will make the student perfect; upon these only, may he rely as the sure foundation for future eminence17. Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice, experience, went to the equipment of that peerless old master who was able to impose upon the whole world the lofty and sounding maxim18 that “Truth is mighty19 and will prevail”—the most majestic20 compound fracture of fact which any of woman born has yet achieved. For the history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sewn thick with evidences that a truth is not hard to kill, and that a lie well told is immortal21. There is in Boston a monument of the man who discovered anesthesia; many people are aware, in these latter days, that that man didn’t discover it at all, but stole the discovery from another man. Is this truth mighty, and will it prevail? Ah no, my hearers, the monument is made of hardy22 material, but the lie it tells will outlast23 it a million years. An awkward, feeble, leaky lie is a thing which you ought to make it your unceasing study to avoid; such a lie as that has no more real permanence than an average truth. Why, you might as well tell the truth at once and be done with it. A feeble, stupid, preposterous24 lie will not live two years—except it be a slander25 upon somebody. It is indestructible, then of course, but that is no merit of yours. A final word: begin your practice of this gracious and beautiful art early—begin now. If I had begun earlier, I could have learned how.
Never handle firearms carelessly. The sorrow and suffering that have been caused through the innocent but heedless handling of firearms by the young! Only four days ago, right in the next farm house to the one where I am spending the summer, a grandmother, old and gray and sweet, one of the loveliest spirits in the land, was sitting at her work, when her young grandson crept in and got down an old, battered26, rusty27 gun which had not been touched for many years and was supposed not to be loaded, and pointed28 it at her, laughing and threatening to shoot. In her fright she ran screaming and pleading toward the door on the other side of the room; but as she passed him he placed the gun almost against her very breast and pulled the trigger! He had supposed it was not loaded. And he was right—it wasn’t. So there wasn’t any harm done. It is the only case of that kind I ever heard of. Therefore, just the same, don’t you meddle29 with old unloaded firearms; they are the most deadly and unerring hings that have ever been created by man. You don’t have to take any pains at all with them; you don’t have to have a rest, you don’t have to have any sights on the gun, you don’t have to take aim, even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A youth who can’t hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three quarters of an hour, can take up an old empty musket30 and bag his grandmother every time, at a hundred. Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armies had been boys armed with old muskets31 supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had been composed of their female relations. The very thought of it make one shudder32.
There are many sorts of books; but good ones are the sort for the young to read. remember that. They are a great, an inestimable, and unspeakable means of improvement. Therefore be careful in your selection, my young friends; be very careful; confine yourselves exclusively to Robertson’s Sermons, Baxter’s Saint’s Rest, The Innocents Abroad, and works of that kind.
But I have said enough. I hope you will treasure up the instructions which I have given you, and make them a guide to your feet and a light to your understanding. Build your character thoughtfully and painstakingly33 upon these precepts34, and by and by, when you have got it built, you will be surprised and gratified to see how nicely and sharply it resembles everybody else’s.
1 beseechingly | |
adv. 恳求地 | |
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2 superstition | |
n.迷信,迷信行为 | |
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3 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
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4 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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5 intentional | |
adj.故意的,有意(识)的 | |
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6 offense | |
n.犯规,违法行为;冒犯,得罪 | |
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7 frankly | |
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说 | |
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8 kindliness | |
n.厚道,亲切,友好的行为 | |
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9 dynamite | |
n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
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10 lark | |
n.云雀,百灵鸟;n.嬉戏,玩笑;vi.嬉戏 | |
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11 permanently | |
adv.永恒地,永久地,固定不变地 | |
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12 temperate | |
adj.温和的,温带的,自我克制的,不过分的 | |
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13 elegance | |
n.优雅;优美,雅致;精致,巧妙 | |
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14 accomplishment | |
n.完成,成就,(pl.)造诣,技能 | |
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15 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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16 painstaking | |
adj.苦干的;艰苦的,费力的,刻苦的 | |
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17 eminence | |
n.卓越,显赫;高地,高处;名家 | |
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18 maxim | |
n.格言,箴言 | |
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19 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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20 majestic | |
adj.雄伟的,壮丽的,庄严的,威严的,崇高的 | |
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21 immortal | |
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
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22 hardy | |
adj.勇敢的,果断的,吃苦的;耐寒的 | |
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23 outlast | |
v.较…耐久 | |
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24 preposterous | |
adj.荒谬的,可笑的 | |
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25 slander | |
n./v.诽谤,污蔑 | |
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26 battered | |
adj.磨损的;v.连续猛击;磨损 | |
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27 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
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28 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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29 meddle | |
v.干预,干涉,插手 | |
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30 musket | |
n.滑膛枪 | |
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31 muskets | |
n.火枪,(尤指)滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 ) | |
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32 shudder | |
v.战粟,震动,剧烈地摇晃;n.战粟,抖动 | |
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33 painstakingly | |
adv. 费力地 苦心地 | |
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34 precepts | |
n.规诫,戒律,箴言( precept的名词复数 ) | |
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