A young man is so strong, so mad, so certain, and so lost. He has everything and he is able to use nothing. He hurls the great shoulder of his strength forever against phantasmal barriers, he is a wave whose power explodes in lost mid-oceans under timeless skies, he reaches out to grip a fume of painted smoke; he wants all, feels the thirst and power for everything, and finally gets nothing. In the end, he is destroyed by his own strength, devoured by his own hunger, improvised by his own wealth. Thoughtless of money or the accumulation of material possessions, he is none the less defeated in the end by his own greed—a greed that makes the avarice of King Midas seem paltry by comparison.
And that is the reason why, when youth is gone, every man will look back upon that period of his life with infinite sorrow and regret. It is the bitter sorrow and regret of a man who knows that once he had a great talent and wasted it, of a man who knows that once he had a great treasure and got nothing from it, of a man who knows that he had strength enough for everything and never used it.
年轻与年老
Youth and Age
罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森 / Robert Louis Stevenson
罗伯特·路易斯·史蒂文森(1850—1894)，英国著名小说家、诗人与旅游作家，也是英国文学新浪漫主义的代表之一。 史蒂文森是最多产的作家之一。他的浪漫冒险小说是自《沃尔特·斯科特爵士》问世以来英国最受公众喜爱的作品。小说《金银岛》是其代表作，是关于寻找海盗宝藏的故事，也是他的浪漫小说中最受欢迎的一部，同时还是最受欢迎的英语儿童书籍之一。
在我们渐渐变老的过程中，一种平淡而缓慢的感觉替代了强烈的爱憎沉浮；同样的感觉让我们收敛自己的希望，抚慰我们的忧惧。如果说快乐能少几分激情，那么烦恼也变得更加微不足道，更能够忍受。总之，在这段时间里，我们需要储备一切，以备不时之需。在整个生命的历程中，这段时间是最丰富多彩、最闲适、最幸福的。不仅如此，通过管理自己的行为，跟随快乐的灵感而动，年轻人在竭尽全力赋予自己的时代以安逸的成分。充实、忙碌的青年时代是独立、自由的晚年生活的前奏；那些不能完成这些的人，其晚年生活不可避免是令人厌烦的。这个世界上，约翰逊博士并不多，在64岁的时候才开始他们的第一次浪漫之旅。如果我们想要丈量勃朗峰，或是穿着潜水服潜水，或是坐着热气球升天，就必须趁着年轻去做，不要等到变得谨小慎微、腿脚不便的时候才想着去做。那样的话，人们就会问我们：“怎么这么不安分？”无论是脑力还是体力上，青年时代都是周游世界的时期。去领略不同国家的人文风情；去聆听午夜的钟声；去观看城市与乡村的日出；去虔诚悔过；去统览玄学，编写牵强的诗句，跑远路去看篝火，还为了给《艾那尼》 喝彩而在剧院等上一天。
As we grow old, a sort of equable jog-trot of feeling is substituted for the violent ups and downs of passion and disgust; the same influence that restrains our hopes, quiets our apprehensions; if the pleasures are less intense, the troubles are milder and more tolerable; and in a word, this period for which we are asked to hoard up everything as for a time of famine, is, in its own right, the richest, easiest, and happiest of life. Nay, by managing its own work and following its own happy inspiration, youth is doing the best it can to endow the leisure of age. A full, busy youth is your only prelude to a self-contained and independent age; and the muff inevitably develops into the bore. There are not many Doctor Johnsons, to set forth upon their first romantic voyage at sixty-four. If we wish to scale Mont Blanc or go down in a diving dress or up in a balloon, we must be about it while we are still young. It will not do to delay until we are clogged with prudence and limping with rheumatism and people begin to ask us: “What does Gravity out of bed?” Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body; to try the manners of different nations; to hear the chimes at midnight; to see sunrise in town and country; to be converted at a revival; to circumnavigate the metaphysics, write halting verses, run a mile to see a fire, and wait all day long in the theatre to applaud HERNANI.
热爱生活
Love Your Life
亨利·大卫·梭罗 / Henry David Thoreau
不管你的生活有多卑微，面对它吧，把生活进行下去，不可逃脱，也不能报以恶言，生活还不及你坏哩。你最富的时候，它反而最贫瘠。人若爱找茬儿，天堂也能被他挑出毛病。哪怕贫穷，你也要热爱生活。快活、激动和光荣的时光甚至在济贫院里也享受的到。反射在那里窗上的落日光芒，和照在有钱人家窗上的阳光是一样的亮堂，门前的积雪也同样都是在早春融化。在我的眼里，一个心态平和的人，他思想乐观，处世泰然，居住在济贫院里就像居住在皇宫里一样。在我看来，镇上的穷人们往往过着最独立自在的生活。他们一定足够伟大，不然岂能欣然接受。大多数人以为自己不依靠城镇养活，认为自己超凡脱俗，但情况往往是，他们利用不正当的手段作为谋生之计，这些让他们更加名声狼藉。像圣人那样，对待贫穷就像对待园子里的草木，耕耘它吧！不要自找麻烦地去寻求新事物、新朋友或者是新衣服。去找旧的，回归旧有之物。万物并没有改变，变的是我们。衣帽可以卖掉，但思想应该保留。
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault, finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town’s poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
阳光下的时光
Hours in the Sun
约翰·布莱德利 / John Bradley
写这句话时，梭罗想起孩提时代的瓦尔登湖。
当时伐木者和火车尚未严重破坏湖畔的美丽景致。小男孩可以走向湖中，仰卧小舟，自一岸缓缓漂向另一岸，周遭有鸟儿戏水，燕子翻飞。梭罗喜欢回忆这样的艳阳天和夏日，“这时，慵懒是最迷人也是最具生产力的事情！”
我也曾经是热爱湖塘的小男孩，拥有无数艳阳天与夏日。如今阳光、夏日依旧，男孩和湖塘却已改变。那男孩已长大成人，不再有那么多时间泛舟湖上，而湖塘也为大城市所并。曾有苍鹭觅食的沼泽，如今已枯竭殆尽，上面盖满了房舍。睡莲静静漂浮的湖湾，现在成了汽艇的避风港。总之，男孩所爱的一切都已不复存在——只留在人们的回忆中。
有些人坚持认为只有今日和明日才是重要的，可是如果真的照此生活，我们将是何其可怜！许多今日我们做的事是徒劳不足取的，很快就会被忘记。许多我们期待明天将要做的事情却从来没有发生过。
过去是一所银行，我们将最可贵的财产——记忆珍藏其中。记忆赐予我们生命的意义和深度。
真正珍惜过去的人，不会悲叹旧日美好时光的逝去，因为藏于记忆中的时光永不流失。死亡本身无法止住一个记忆中的声音，或擦除一个记忆中的微笑。对现已长大成人的那个男孩来说，那儿将有一个池塘不会因时间和潮汐而改变，可以让他继续在阳光下享受安静时光。
"...I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days."
——Henry David Thoreau
When Thoreau wrote that line, he was thinking of the Walden. Pond he knew as a boy.
Woodchoppers and the Iron Horse had not yet greatly damaged the beauty of its setting. A boy could go to the pond and lie on his back against the seat of a boat, lazily drifting from shore to shore while the loons dived and the swallows dipped around him. Thoreau loved to recall such sunny hours and summer days “when idleness was the most attractive and productive business.”