青春

介绍：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，镜框里是篇文章，名为《青春》。这篇文章一直伴随着他，也跟着他到了日 本。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，只要有成就者，没有哪一个不熟知不应 用这篇美文的，就连松下电器的创始人松下幸之助几十年来也把《青春》当作他的座右铭。

还有这么一件趣事，足以证明《青春》在日本的魅力。一天，美国影片销售协会主席罗森菲尔德参加日本实业界的聚会，晚宴之前的谈话，他随意说了一句：“《青春》的作 者，便是我的祖父。”在座的各位实业界领袖大为惊讶，其中有一位一边激动地说“我 一直随身带着它呢”，一边从口袋里掏出了《青春》。

《青春》是怎样的一篇文章，它怎就这么神奇？

Comments by 鱼化石：强烈建议将该文背诵，无论英文和译文。后附的译文是我见过的
译文中最美的，可谓与原文互为辉映，令人赞叹不已。如此佳作，不敢私藏，献与诸位
共赏。可惜不知译作者为何人，引为撼事。我在网上还曾经看到过一些类似的译文，是
某些好事者在该译文的基础上根据自己对原文的理解自作聪明地进行了一些改动，却往
往词不达意，破坏了原译文的意境，犹如无瑕的白璧上非要镶一块金子，以显该人的富
足，不伦不类，令人啼笑皆非，后来者慎之。

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.