马克吐温：致青年的忠告(双语）
2013-05-25 16:29阅读：
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 beseechingly, urgingly—
听说期望我来谈谈，我便询问应该发表什么样的谈话。他们说应当宜于青年的话题──教诲性的、启发性的话题，或者实质上是良言忠告之类的话题。好吧。关于开导青年人，我心里倒是有几件事时常想说的；因为正是在人幼小时，这些事最适合扎根，而且最持久、最有价值。那么，首先呢，我要对你们、我的年轻朋友们说的是──我恳切地、迫切地要说的是──
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 superstition than you can by
acting on your own b
etter judgment.
永远服从你们的父母，只要他们在堂的时候。长远看来这是上策，因为你们要是不服从的话，他们也非要你们服从。大多数家长认为比你们懂得多，一般说来你们迁就那种迷信的话，比起你们根据自以为是的判断行事，你们会建树大些。
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 intentional 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 offense, come out frankly 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 kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave
dynamite to the low and unrefined.
对待上司要尊重，要是你们有了上司；对待陌生人，有时还有别人，也要尊重。如果有人得罪了你们，你们要犹豫一番，看看是存心的还是无意的，不要采取极端的做法；只要看好机会用砖块打他一下，那就足够了。如果你们发现他并非故意冒犯，那就坦然走出来，承认自己打他不对；像个男子汉认个错，说声不是故意的。况且，永远要避免动武；处于这个仁慈和睦的时代，此类举动的年代已经过去了。“炸药”留给卑下而无教养的人吧。
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 lark 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.
早睡早起──这是聪明的。有的权威讲，跟着太阳起床；还有的讲，跟着这样东西起床，又有的讲，跟着那样东西起床。其实跟着云雀起床才是再好不过的。这样你就落个好名声，人人都知道你跟着云雀起床；如果弄到一只那种适当的云雀，在它身上花些功夫，你就很容易把它调教到九点半起来，每次都是──这可决不是欺人之谈。
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
permanently 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 temperate in the use of this
great art until practice and experience shall give them that
confidence, elegance, and precision which alone can make the
accomplishment graceful and profitable. Patience, diligence,
painstaking 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 eminence. 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 maxim that “Truth is mighty
and will prevail”—the most majestic 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
immortal. 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 hardy material, but the lie it tells will
outlast 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, preposterous lie will not live two
years—except it be a slander 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.
接着来谈谈说谎的问题。你们可要非常谨慎地对待说谎；否则十有八九会被揭穿。一旦揭穿，在善良和纯洁的眼光看来，你就再也不可能是过去的你了。多少年轻人，因为一次拙劣难圆的谎言，那是由于不完整的教育而导致的轻率的结果，使得自己永远蒙受损害。有些权威认为，年轻人根本不该说谎。当然，这种说法言之过甚，其实未必如此；不过，虽然我可不能把话讲得太过分，我却认定而且相信自己看法正确，那就是，在实践和经验使人获得信心、文雅、严谨之前，年轻人运用这门了不起的艺术时要有分寸，只有这三点才能使得说谎的本领无伤大雅，带来好处。耐性、勤奋、细致入微──这些是必要素质；这些素质日久天长便会使学生变得完善起来；凭借这些，只有凭借这些，他才可能为将来的出类拔萃打下稳固的基础。试想一下，要付出多么漫长的岁月，通过学习、思考、实践、经验，那位盖世无双的前辈大师才具有如此的素养，他迫使全世界接受了“真理是强大的而且终将取胜”这句崇高而掷地有声的格言──这是关于事实的复杂层面道出的最豪迈的话，迄今任何出自娘胎的人都未获得。因为我们人类的历史，还有每个个人的经验，都深深地埋下了这样的证据：一个真理不难扼杀，一个说得巧妙的谎言则历久不衰。波士顿有座发现麻醉法的人的纪念碑；许多人到后来才明白，那个人根本没有发现麻醉法，而是剽窃了另一个人的发现。这个真理强大吗？它终将取胜吗？唉，错哉，听众们，纪念碑是用坚硬材料建造的，而它所晓示的谎言却将比它持久百万年。一个笨拙脆弱而有破绽的谎言是你们应该不断学会避免的东西；诸如此类的谎言比起一个普通事实来，决不具有更加真实的永恒性。嗨，你们倒不如既讲真话又和真理打交道。一个脆弱愚蠢而又荒谬的谎言持续不了两年──除非是对什么人物的诽谤。当然，那种谎言是牢不可破的，不过那可不是你们的光彩。最后说一句：早些开始实践这门优雅美妙的艺术──从现在做起。要是我早些做起，我就能学会门道了。
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, battered, rusty gun which
had not been touched for many years and was supposed not to be
loaded, and pointed 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 meddle 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
musket 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 muskets supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had
been composed of their female relations. The very thought of it
make one shudder.
切莫随便摆弄枪支。年轻人无知而又冒失地摆弄枪支，造成了多少悲伤痛苦。就在四天前，就在我度夏的农庄住家的隔壁人家，一位祖母，年老花发一团和气，当地最可爱的一个人物，坐着在干活，这时她的小孙儿悄悄进屋，取下一把破烂生锈的旧枪，多年无人碰过，以为没装子弹，把枪对准了她，哈哈笑了吓唬着要开枪。她惊骇得边跑边叫边求饶，朝屋子对面的门口过去；可是经过身边的时候，小孙儿几乎把枪贴在她的胸口上，扣动了扳机！他以为枪里没有子弹。他猜对了──没装子弹。所以没有造成什么伤害。这是我听到的同类情况中绝无仅有的。因此呢，同样的，你们可不要乱动没装子弹的旧枪支；它们是人所创造的最致命的每发必中的家伙。你们不必在这些东西上花什么功夫；你们不必搞个枪架，你们不必在枪上装什么准星，你们连瞄准都没有必要。算了，你们就挑个相似的东西，砰砰打个几枪，你肯定能打中。三刻钟内用加特林机枪在三十码处不能击中一个教堂的年轻人，却可以站在百码开外，举起一把空膛的旧火枪，趟趟把祖母当靶子击倒。再试想一下，倘若有一支旧火枪武装起来的童子军，大概没有装上子弹，而另一支部队是由他们的女亲戚组成的，那么滑铁卢战役会是什么结局。只要一想到此，就会令人不寒而栗。
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.、
图书有许多种类；但好书才是年轻人该读的一类。记住这一点。好书是一种伟大、无价、无言的完善自我的工具。因此，要小心选择，年轻的朋友们；罗伯逊的《布道书》，巴克斯特的《圣者的安息》，《去国外的傻瓜》，以及这一类的作品，你们应该只读这些书。
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 painstakingly upon these precepts, 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.
我可是说得不少了。我希望大家会铭记我给你们的言教，让它成为你们脚下的指南和悟性的明灯。
用心刻苦地根据这些规矩培养自己的品格，天长日久，培养好了品格，你们将会惊喜地看到，这种品格
多么准确而鲜明地类似其他每个人的品格。
