新视角研究生英语3第8章 How to Grow Old课文和翻译

How to Grow Old

In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off. A great-grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants. My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow devoted herself to women’s higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to relate how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She inquired the cause of his melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren. “Good gracious,” she exclaimed, “I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a dismal existence!” “Madre snaturale,” he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and

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activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable brevity of your future.

尽管采用了上述标题，本文实际内容是关于怎样才不变老的问题，这个问题对于像我这把岁数的老人来说才是一个更为重要的主题。我的第一个忠告是慎重地选择你的祖辈。虽然我的双亲都早逝，而我在选择其他先辈这一方面，还是做得不错的。我的外祖父固然是盛年夭折于67岁，但是我的其他三位祖父母却都活到80岁以上。在更早的一些先辈当中，我只能发现一位未曾活到高龄，而他死于现时罕见的一种病症，即被砍了头。我的一位曾祖母，他是吉本的朋友，活到92岁，直到她生命的最后一天始终是她所有子孙后代惧怕的对象。我的外祖母所生孩子中有9个存活下来，一个死于襁褓中，而且还有许多次流产。随后，当她开始守寡时，就献身于妇女高等教育事业。她曾经是格顿学院创始人之一，而且致力于使医疗职业向妇女开放。她曾常常谈起如何在意大利碰见一位年过半百的绅士，这位绅士看起来很悲哀。她询问他忧郁的原因，这位绅士回答说，他的两个孙儿刚刚离开他的身边。我的外祖母喊道：“天哪！我有72个孙子孙女，如果我和其中每一位分别时都伤感，那我将生活在痛苦之中。”他回答说：“没有人性。”不过作为他的72个孙辈之一，我喜欢她这种做法。她年过80以后，发现入睡有些困难，所以她习惯于从半夜至凌晨3时阅读科普读物来消磨时间。我不相信她会有时间去察觉她自己正在变老。我想这是保持年轻的好办法。如果你具有广泛和浓厚的兴趣，并且参加那些你还能有效参与的活动，你便没有理由去想你已经活了多少岁，那只不过是一个统计数字罢了，更不用去理会可能来日无多。

As regards health, I have nothing useful to say since I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that（以…为理由，根据…）it is good for health,

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though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.

关于健康问题，我说不出多少有益的话，因为我很少有患病的经历。我喜欢吃喝什么就吃喝什么，困了就睡，我从来不专门为了有益健康而做任何事，不过事实上我喜欢做的事大多是有利于健康的。

Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One’s thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done.

从心理上说，老年时期要防止两种危险。其一是过分缅怀于过去。生活于回忆之中，为以往的好时光而抱憾，或因朋友作古而悲伤，这些皆无济于事。人的思想必须面向未来，面向还可以有所作为的事情。

This is not always easy; one’s own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one’s emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one’s mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

这并非总是容易做到；因为一个人的过去是一份不断加重的负担。人们容易认为自己的感情，过去比现在丰富，自己的思想，过去比现在敏锐。如果这是事实，就应该忘掉它。如果它被忘掉，那它也许不是事实。

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The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigor from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous. I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one’s interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young, as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.

另一件要避免的事是依附于年轻人，希望从他们的生机中吸取活力。当你的孩子们已经长大，要过他们自己的生活时，如果你还是像他们小时候那样对他们关心备至，你就可能成为他们的包袱，除非他们特别冷漠无情。我不是说你对他们应该毫不在意，但是你所给予的关心应当是思想上的，如果可能的话，还应该解囊相助，而不应该过于感情用事。动物在自己的后代一旦能够生活自理时，便不再给予关怀，但是人类，由于婴儿时期太长，很难做到这一点。

I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive. It is no use telling grownup children not to make mistakes, both because they will not believe you, and because mistakes are an essential part of education. But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be empty unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren. In that case you must realize that while you can still render them material services, such as

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making them an allowance or knitting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.

我想一个人能做到对合适的与个人无关的活动兴趣盎然，那么，他就极易享有成功的晚年。在这一方面长期积累的经验可以结出累累硕果。在这一方面由经验产生的智慧既有用武之地，而又不会强加于人。叫已经长大成人的孩子不要犯错误是没有用处的，因为他们不会相信你，同时也因为犯错误是接受教育的重要一部分。但假如你是一个除了个人之事而别无其他爱好的人，那么，不将心放在儿孙身上，你便会觉得生活空虚无望。假使如此，你必须明白：虽然你还能给他们物质上的帮助，诸如给他们点补贴或为他们织几件毛衣，但你千万不要指望他们会喜欢和你在一起。

Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it – so at least it seems to me – is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of

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death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

有些老人由于恐惧死亡而感到压抑。在年轻人身上有这种恐惧，那倒无可厚非。年轻人有理由害怕战死沙场；当他们想到遭欺骗丧失了生命所能给予的美好生活，他们有理由愤愤不平。但对于一个备尝人生甘苦，也已完成该做的一切的老人来说，怕死就显得有点怯懦可鄙了。克服这种恐惧的最好方法是——至少在我看来如此——使你的兴趣逐渐扩大，越来越超出个人范围之外，最终你的自我之墙将一点一点地后退，你的生命将越来越和全人类的生命融合在一起。一个人的一生应该像一条河——起初很小，被在狭窄的两岸之间，它猛烈地冲过岩石，越过瀑布。河流逐渐地变宽了，两岸后退了，河水更为平静地流淌着。到最后，见不到任何阻断，河水就和大海汇合在一起，毫无痛苦地失去它自身的存在。一个在老年能这样看待生命的人，将不会感到死的恐惧，因为他所关心的事物将继续下去。如果由于体力的衰退，倦意日增，安息的想法也许不是不受欢迎的。我希望我能死于工作之时，临终时能知道别人将继续做我不能再做的工作，同时能为自己已完成力所能及的一切而死而无憾了。

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