Prose: Youth
Author: 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 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 body 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 spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being's heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like 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 the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
散文：青春
作者：塞繆爾·厄爾曼
翻譯：佚名
青春不是年華，而是心境；青春不是桃麵、丹唇、柔膝，而是深沉的意誌，恢宏的想象，炙熱的戀情；青春是生命的深泉在湧流。
青春氣貫長虹，勇銳蓋過怯弱，進取壓倒苟安。如此銳氣，二十後生而有之，六旬男子則更多見。年歲有加，並非垂老，理想丟棄，方墮暮年。
歲月悠悠，衰微隻及肌膚；熱忱拋卻，頹廢必致靈魂。憂煩，惶恐，喪失自信，定使心靈扭曲，意氣如灰。
無論年屆花甲，擬或二八芳齡，心中皆有生命之歡樂，奇跡之誘惑，孩童般天真久盛不衰。人人心中皆有一台天線，隻要你從天上人間接受美好、希望、歡樂、勇氣和力量的信號，你就青春永駐，風華常存。
一旦天線下降，銳氣便被冰雪覆蓋，玩世不恭、自暴自棄油然而生，即使年方二十，實已垂垂老矣；然則隻要樹起天線，捕捉樂觀信號，你就有望在八十高齡告別塵寰時仍覺希望。 
林貝卡 2009 春 於美國 |
Yeah, I hope so, too.
It reminds me of an article 《Life is about choices》.In the article, the author talks about Michael. Michael is a guy who always stays postive no matter what happens to him.
Each morning Michael wakes up and says to himself:"Mike, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood." He always chooses the positive side of life.
Once "Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling off 60 feet from a communications tower." You can imagine that he was badly injured. Paramedics rused him the hospital and he was wheeled into the operation room . When the nurse asked Michael what he was allegic to, he answered " Gravity." I really admire Michael for his courage and sense of humor. I wish that I could be like him. I am just a too moody woman.
Have a nice weekend,
Rebecca
Hope we would understand it better when we get older, right, Rebecca?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Samuel Ullman (April 13, 1840 – March 21, 1924) was an American businessman, poet, humanitarian. He is best known today for his poem Youth which was a favorite of General Douglas MacArthur.
Born in 1840 at Hechingen, Germany to Jewish parents, Ullman immigrated with his family to America to escape discrimination at the age of eleven. The Ullman family settled in Port Gibson, Mississippi. In 1884, Ullman moved to the young city of Birmingham, Alabama, and was immediately placed on the city's first board of education.
In his retirement, Ullman found more time for one of his favorite passions - writing letters, essays and poetry. His poems and poetic essays cover subjects as varied as love, nature, religion, family, the hurried lifestyle of a friend, and living "young." It was General Douglas MacArthur who facilitated Ullman's popularity as a poet - he hung a framed copy of a version of Ullman's poem "Youth" on the wall of his office in Tokyo and often quoted from the poem in his speeches.