Of Studies

　　这是英国语言大师培根（1561～1626）的一篇随笔，文字精炼，含义深邃。

　　Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business.

　　读书足以怡情，足以傅彩，足以长才。其怡情也，最见于独处幽居之时；其傅彩也，最见于高谈阔论之中；其长才也，最见于处世判事之际。

　　For expert and execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best form those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar.

　　练达之士虽能分别处理细事或一一判别枝节，然纵观统筹，全局策划，则舍好学深思者莫属。读书费时过多易惰，文采藻饰太盛则矫，全凭条文断事乃学究故态。

　　They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

　　读书补天然之不足，经验又补读书之不足，盖天生才干犹如自然花草，读书然后知如何修剪移接，而书中所示，如不以经验范之，则又大而无当。

　　Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.

　　有一技之长者鄙读书，无知者羡读书，唯明智之士用读书，然书并不 以用处告人，用书之智不在书中，而在书外，全凭观察得之。

　　Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

　　读书时不可存心诘难读者，不可尽信书上所言，亦不可只为寻章摘句，而应推敲细思。

　　Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things.

　　书有可浅尝者，有可吞食者，少数则须咀嚼消化。换言之，有只需读其部分者，有只须大体涉猎者，少数则须全读，读时须全神贯注，孜孜不倦。书亦可请人代读，取其所作摘要，但只限题材较次或价值不高者，否则书经提炼犹如水经蒸馏，淡而无味。

　　Reading maketh a full man;conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little， he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

　　maketh: make的第三人称用法；ready: 即ready-witted，指敏于思考的能力；doth: do的第三人称单数用法。

　　读书使人充实，讨论使人机智，笔记使人准确。因此不常做笔记者须记忆力特强，不常讨论者须天生聪颖，不常读书者须欺世有术，始能无知而显有知。

　　Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able tocontend. Abeunt studia in morse.

　　读史使人明智，读诗使人灵秀，数学使人周密，科学使人深刻，伦理学使人庄重，逻辑修辞之学使人善辩；凡有所学，皆成性格。

　　Nay there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he is not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

人之才智但有滞碍，无不可读适当之书使之顺畅，一如身体百病，皆 可借相宜之运动除之。滚球利睾肾，射箭利胸肺，慢步利肠胃，骑术利头脑，诸如此类。如智力不集中，可令读数学，盖演题需全神贯注，稍有分 散即须重演；如不能辩异，可令读经院哲学，盖是辈皆吹毛求疵之人；如不善求同，不善以一物阐证另一物，可令读律师之案卷。如此头脑中凡有缺陷，皆有特效可医。

Rush，匆匆

Zhu Ziqing

　　Swallows may have gone, but there is a time of return; willow trees may have died back, but there is a time of regreening; peach blossoms may have fallen, but they will bloom again. Now, you the wise, tell me, why should our days leave us, never to return? - If they had been stolen by someone, who could it be? Where could he hide them? If they had made the escape themselves, then where could they stay at the moment?

　　燕子去了，有再来的时候；杨柳枯了，有再青的时候；桃花谢了，有再开的时候。但是，聪明的，你告诉我，我们的日子为什么一去不复返呢？--是有人偷了他们罢：那是谁？又藏在何处呢？是他们自己逃走了：现在又到了哪里呢？

　　I don't know how many days I have been given to spend, but I do feel my hands are getting empty. Taking stock silently, I find that more than eight thousand days have already slid away from me. Like a drop of water from the point of a needle disappearing into the ocean, my days are dripping into the stream of time, soundless, traceless. Already sweat is starting on my forehead, and tears welling up in my eyes.

　　我不知道他们给了我多少日子；但我的手确乎是渐渐空虚了。在默默里算着，八千多日子已经从我手中溜去；象针尖上一滴水滴在大海里，我的日子滴在时间的流里，没有声音也没有影子。我不禁头涔涔而泪潸潸了。

　　Those that have gone have gone for good, those to come keep coming; yet in between, how swift is the shift, in such a rush? When I get up in the morning, the slanting sun marks its presence in my small room in two or three oblongs. The sun has feet, look, he is treading on, lightly and furtively; and I am caught, blankly, in his revolution. Thus--the day flows away through the sink when I wash my hands, wears off in the bowl when I eat my meal, and passes away before my day-dreaming gaze as reflect in silence. I can feel his haste now, so I reach out my hands to hold him back, but he keeps flowing past my withholding hands. In the evening, as I lie in bed, he strides over my body, glides past my feet, in his agile way. The moment I open my eyes and meet the sun again, one whole day has gone. I bury my face in my hands and heave a sigh. But the new day begins to flash past in the sigh.

　　去的尽管去了，来的尽管来着，去来的中间，又怎样的匆匆呢？早上我起来的时候，小屋里射进两三方斜斜的太阳。太阳他有脚啊，轻轻悄悄地挪移了；我也茫茫然跟着旋转。于是--洗手的时候，日子从水盆里过去；吃饭的时候，日子从饭碗里过去；默默时，便从凝然的双眼前过去。我觉察他去的匆匆了，伸出手遮挽时，他又从遮挽着的手边过去，天黑时，我躺在床上，他便伶伶俐俐地从我身边跨过，从我脚边飞去了。等我睁开眼和太阳再见，这算又溜走了一日。我掩着面叹息。但是新来的日子的影儿又开始在叹息里闪过了。

　　What can I do, in this bustling world, with my days flying in their escape? Nothing but to hesitate, to rush. What have I been doing in that eight-thousand-day rush, apart from hesitating? Those bygone days have been dispersed as smoke by a light wind, or evaporated as mist by the morning sun. What traces have I left behind me? Have I ever left behind any gossamer traces at all? I have come to the world, stark naked; am I to go back, in a blink, in the same stark nakedness? It is not fair though: why should I have made such a trip for nothing!

　　在逃去如飞的日子里，在千门万户的世界里的我能做些什么呢？只有徘徊罢了，只有匆匆罢了；在八千多日的匆匆里，除徘徊外，又剩些什么呢？过去的日子如轻烟却被微风吹散了，如薄雾，被初阳蒸融了；我留着些什么痕迹呢？我何曾留着象游丝样的痕迹呢？我赤裸裸来到这世界，转眼间也将赤裸裸地回去罢？但不能平的，为什么偏要白白走这一遭啊？

　　You the wise, tell me, why should our days leave us, never to return

　　你聪明的，告诉我，我们的日子为什么一去不复返呢？

Kids will be kids' is no excuse

孩子就是孩子

　　In the seventh grade, all the girls loved Mr. C. He had freckles, sandy hair, twinkly blue eyes and two adorable little girls whose pictures he kept on his desk. The most popular and best students among us got to baby -sit for his daughters on weekend nights. Mr. C was a social studies teacher, a graduate of the local high school, and the girls' track and soccer coach. He was every body's favorite.

　　In Mr. C's class. I hung out with a group of girls w ho like to think of ourselves as Mr. C's favorite students. We had designer jeans with pinstripes, we matched our socks with our purses and we got good grades, too.

　　But we were not always nice- to other kids, or to each other. Maybe it was because we were making the transition from elementary school to junior high, each trying to hide our acne (粉刺) and baby fat under the shimmering purple eye shadow and fruit-flavored lip gloss we saw in teen magazines. Maybe it was because boys were suddenly becoming more interesting to us than field hockey or soccer. Instead of competing for points on the field, we were competing for boys in the hallways by acting tough or cool.

　　Whatever the reasons, we often had fights among us, and every semester, one girl would get " kicked out", left to find new friends to sit with in the cafeteria (自助餐厅) and on the bus, not to mention to hang out with after school.

　　When it was my turn to get " kicked out", my semester to find new friends or spend my weekends reading Seventeen alone, I longed for an adult at school-like Mr. C - to sympathize.

　　But as my friends continued to visit his desk during homeroom, talking about their weekends, talking about me, I knew that Mr. C had taken sides with them, and turned against me, too.

　　He didn't joke with me in the malls anymore. He didn't ask me to baby-sit for his kids. Apparently Mr. C did not feel the need to intervene, or to show disapproval for my friends' behavior. Instead, he went along playing favorites. Only I was no longer one of the chosen few.

　　Do kids just have to " get tough"? like some adults , Mr. C probably believed that adults need to step aside and let kids fight it out for themselves. The strong survive. Better to teach them that now. We did, after all , read Lord of the Flies in English class that year.

　　My overprotective mother, on the other hand, believed in swift intervention. Once, she called the mother o f the girl down the block when she learned that the girl had physically prevented me from sitting where I wanted to sit on the bus. I thought the incident was no big deal, and my mother's phone call embarrassed me. But s he was determined to make sure that this would not happen again.

　　The other girl's mother was less than accommodating. "Well," she told my mother, " girls will be girls." Obviously, this mother felt that she had no obligation t o stop her daughter's behavior. Her daughter was only doing what normal kids did, and I was the one who had to "get tough" and deal with it myself.

　　But getting tough can be hard for kids, especially when they are up against a group of their peers-tacitly encouraged by adults who see no need to step in. For so me reason, I saw evidence of this particularly during m y transitions between schools.

Kids will be kids' is no excuse. My first year of high school, I recall my heart racing and my stomach turning inside-out every time I walked through the Common s-a hallway outside the cafeteria. In the Commons, the surfer kids played hacky-sack; the ' fun bunch,' or popular kids, sat on the bleachers (运动场的露天看台) and talked; and the jocks stood on the bleachers, holding up sings with numbers 1 through 10, rating female students as the y walked by.

　　It wasn't enough that I had a body maturing in all different ways and a set of emotions lagging behind, or that I spent hours despairing over my inability to look like one of the models in the teen magazines. Now I had a bunch of lacrosse (长曲棍球) players who had the nerve to reduce me to a number based on my looks.

　　I wondered why some teacher or administrator (管理员) couldn't make it stop. Didn't they see what these boys were doing? But I had learned that this kind of thing just happened. Boys would be boys, girls would be girls, and there was nothing I could do about it. So I didn't walk that way anymore.　

YOUTH

Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of
rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a
quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of
the deep springs of life.

Youth means a tempera-mental predominance of courage over timidity, of the
appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of
60 more than a boy of 20.　Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.　We
grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spring back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder,
the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of
living.　In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless
station: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and
power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism
and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as
your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die
young at 80.



青春

塞缪尔·厄尔曼

青春不是年华，而是心境；青春不是桃面、丹唇、柔膝，而是深沉的意志，恢宏的想
象，炙热的恋情；青春是生命的深泉在涌流。

青春气贯长虹，勇锐盖过怯弱，进取压倒苟安。如此锐气，二十后生而有之，六旬男子
则更多见。年岁有加，并非垂老，理想丢弃，方堕暮年。

岁月悠悠，衰微只及肌肤；热忱抛却，颓废必致灵魂。忧烦，惶恐，丧失自信，定使心
灵扭曲，意气如灰。

无论年届花甲，拟或二八芳龄，心中皆有生命之欢乐，奇迹之诱惑，孩童般天真久盛不
衰。人人心中皆有一台天线，只要你从天上人间接受美好、希望、欢乐、勇气和力量的
信号，你就青春永驻，风华常存。

一旦天线下降，锐气便被冰雪覆盖，玩世不恭、自暴自弃油然而生，即使年方二十，实
已垂垂老矣；然则只要树起天线，捕捉乐观信号，你就有望在八十高龄告别尘寰时仍觉
年轻。

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