激情晨读英语美文 第五章 青春永恒:青春

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Chapter Five  Eternity of Youth
There is a feeling of Eternity in youth,
which makes us amend for everything.
To be young is to be as one of the Immortal Gods.
One half of time indeed is flown —
the other half remains in store for us
with all its countless treasures;
for there is no line drawn,
and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes.
We make the coming age our own — the vast,
the unbounded prospect lies before us.
——William Hazlitt
Youth
By 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 will, a quality of 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 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 spirit 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.