Advice-to-youth.docx

Note: Novelist Mark Twain(1835-1910), the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is one of America's great humorists and social critics. In "Advice to Youth," a talk he delivered to a group of young girls, Twain turns the conventional moral lecture on its head.
英文原文：The Norton Reader.
中文译文：杨自伍译，选自《美国文化选本》(上)，华东师范大学出版社。
Advice to Youth
by Mark Twain
Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of a 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 ----
Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in long run, because if you don’t, they will make you do. 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 you own better judgment.
Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any, also to strangers, and sometimes to others. If a person offends 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 stuck him; acknowledge it like a man and say you didn’t mean to. Yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charity and kindness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and the unrefined.
Go to bed early, get up early--- this is wise. Some authorities say get up with the sun; some others say get up with one thing, some 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 a 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 is no trick at all.
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 of the good and 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 ought 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. Practice, diligence, painstaking attention to detail –these are requirements; these, in time, will make the student perfect; upon these, and 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 sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and a lie told well 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—excepted 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 should have known how.
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 farmhouse 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 unloaded. 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 things 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 makes one shudder.
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, an 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 Rest, and The innocent abroad, and works of that kind.
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.

中文译文：
给青年人的忠告
杨自伍译
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人的话题――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要说的；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，我的年轻的朋友们说的是――我恳切的，迫切的要说的是――
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，他们也非要你服从。大多数家长认为比你们懂的多，一般说来你们迁就那种迷信的话们，比起你们根据自以为是的判断行事，你们会建树大些。
对待上司要尊重，要是你们有上司；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，不要采取极端的作法；只要看好机会用砖头打他一下，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；像个男子汉人个错，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。
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合的云雀，在它身上花点功夫，你就很容易把它调教到九点半起床，每次都是――这可决不是欺人之谈。
接着来谈谈说谎的问题。你们可是要非常谨慎的对待说谎；否则十有八九会被揭穿。一旦揭穿，在善良和纯洁的看来，你就再也不会是过去的你了。多少年轻人，因为一次拙劣难园的谎言，那是由于不完整的教育而导致的的轻率结果，使得自己永远蒙受损害。有些权威认为，年轻人根本不应该说谎。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，只有这三点才能使说谎的本领无伤大雅，带了好处。耐性，勤奋，细致入微――这些是必要素质；这些素质日久天长就能使学生变得完善起来；凭借这些，只有凭借这些，他才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地素养，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地格言――这是关于事实地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，都深深的埋下了这样的证据：一个真理不难扼杀，一个说得巧妙的谎言则历史不衰。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，这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？哎！错哉！听众们，纪念碑是用坚硬材料建造成的，而它所晓示的谎言却将比它持久百万年。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――从现在作起。要是我早些作起，我就会学会门道了。
切莫随便摆弄枪支。年轻人无知而又冒失的摆弄枪支，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，一个祖母，年老花白一团和气，当地最可爱的一个人物，坐着干活，这时她的小孙儿悄悄的进屋，取下一把破烂生锈的旧枪，多年无人碰过，以为没装子弹，把枪瞄准她，哈哈笑了吓唬着要开枪。她惊骇得边跑边叫求饶，朝屋子对面的门口跑去；可是经过身边的时候，小孙儿几乎把枪贴着她的胸口上，扣动了扳机！他以为枪里没子弹。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，你们可不要动没装子弹的旧枪支；他们是人所创造的最致命的没发必中的家伙。你们不必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有。算了，你们就挑个相似的东西，砰砰打几枪，他肯定能打中。三刻钟内用加特林机枪在三十码处不能击中一个大教堂的年轻人，却可以站在百米开外，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，倘若有一只旧火枪武装取来的童子军，大概没有装上子弹，而另一支部队由他们的女亲戚们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。
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。好书是伟大的无价，无言的自我完善工具。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。
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。