Youth
塞缪尔·乌尔曼 / Samuel Ullman
塞缪尔·乌尔曼（1840—1920），犹太人，生于德国，1851年随家人移民到美国密西西比。他虽以教育家和社会活动家而闻名于世，但在文学创作方面也很有才华。
Pre-reading Activities
Read the following questions before reading the article.
1. As an old Chinese saying goes: An idle youth a needy age, if you are given a chance to choose between the two: “Life is all cakes and ale”and“Life is full of hard work and study”, which lifestyle will you choose? And stafe your reasons.
2. What’s the current tendency of most young people’s life style?
3. In your opinion, how can a person always retain his or her youthful vitality?
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 temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. 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 sixty or sixteen, 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 twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
参考译文
青春不是年华，而是心态；青春不是粉面、红唇、柔膝，而是坚强的意志，恢弘的想象，炙热的恋情；青春是生命深处的自在涌流。
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。忧虑、惶恐、丧失自信，定使灵魂扭曲，意气如灰。
无论年届花甲，抑或二八芳龄，心中皆有生命之欢乐，好奇之冲动，孩童般天真久盛不衰。
你我心中都有一台天线，只要你从天上、人间接受美好、希望、欢乐、勇气和力量的信号，你就会青春永驻，风华常存。
一旦天线坠下，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，实则垂垂老矣；然而只要竖起天线，捕捉乐观信号，即使八十高龄，行将告别尘寰，你也会觉得年轻依旧，希望永存。
历史链接
太平洋战争打得正酣之时，麦克阿瑟将军常常从繁忙中抬起头，注视着挂在墙上的镜框，镜框里正是这篇名为《青春》的文章，这篇文章一直伴随着他来到东京。后来，日本人在东京的美军总部发现了它，《青春》便开始在日本流传。
一位资深的日本问题观察家说，在日本实业界，凡有成就之人，几乎都受过这篇美文的激励，松下电器的创始人松下幸之助就一直把《青春》当做他的座右铭。
Chunks in Use
Ｍatch each of the following words with its meaning.
(1) pessimism a. a feeling that good things will happen and that
something will be successful
(2) optimism b. a feeling that bad things will happen and that
something will not be successful
(3) distrust c. very great, impossible to measure
(4) appetite d. a feeling of not being able to trust somebody or
something
(5) infinite e. a strong desire for something
Learning for Better Understanding
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.
这句话是一个用短语“a matter of”贯穿的一个并列句，由此突出了青春高尚的一面。“A matter of”here means a situation that involves something or depends on something. 在这里的意思是“关于……的问题”。
例1：Learning to drive is all a matter of coordination.
学开车主要是靠协调。
例2：Some people prefer pop music to country music, it’s a matter of taste.
有些人喜欢流行音乐而不喜欢乡村音乐，这只是个爱好问题。
例3：A: I think he is the most outstanding president so far.
B: Well, that’s a matter of opinion (= other people may think differently).
A: 我认为他是迄今为止最杰出的总统。
B: 唔，仁者见仁，智者见智嘛。