Advice to Youth, About 1882
Mark Twain | 1882
给青年的忠告
(中英双语)
［美］马克•吐温，杨自伍译

马克·吐温   虽然他的财富不多，却无损他高超的幽默、机智与名气，称美国最知名人士之一。其交友广阔，威廉·迪安·豪威尔士、安德鲁·卡内基、布克·华盛顿、尼古拉·特斯拉、海伦·凯勒、亨利·罗杰诸君，皆为其友。他曾被誉为：文学史上的林肯。海伦·凯勒曾言：“我喜欢马克·吐温——谁会不喜欢他呢？即使是上帝，亦会钟爱他，赋予其智慧，并于其心灵里绘画出一道爱与信仰的彩虹。”威廉·福克纳称马克·吐温为“第一位真正地美国作家，我们都是继承他而来”。其于1910年四月二十一日去世，享年七十五，安葬于纽约州艾玛拉。

　　Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of 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—
     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想说的；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、我的年轻朋友们说的是──我恳切地、迫切地要说的是──

　　Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don’t, they will make you. 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 your own better judgment.
       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，他们也非要你们服从。大多数家长认为比你们懂得多，一般说来你们迁就那种迷信的话，比起你们根据自以为是的判断行事，你们会建树大些。

　　Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any, also to strangers, and sometimes to others. If a person offend 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 struck him; acknowledge it like a man and say you didn’t mean to. Yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined.
        对待上司要尊重，要是你们有了上司；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，不要采取极端的做法；只要看好机会用砖块打他一下，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；像个男子汉认个错，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。

　　Go to bed early, get up early- this is wise. Some authorities say get up with the sun; some say get up with one thing, others 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 the 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’s no trick at all.
   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。其实跟着云雀起床才是再好不过的。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当的云雀，在它身上花些功夫，你就很容易把它调教到九点半起来，每次都是──这可决不是欺人之谈

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 to the good and the 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 out 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. Patience, diligence, painstaking attention to detail—these are requirements; these in time, will make the student perfect; 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 sewn thick with evidences that a truth is not hard to kill, and that a lie well told 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—except 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 could have learned how.  
        接着来谈谈说谎的问题。你们可要非常谨慎地对待说谎；否则十有八九会被揭穿。一旦揭穿，在善良和纯洁的眼光看来，你就再也不可能是过去的你了。多少年轻人，因为一次拙劣难圆的谎言，那是由于不完整的教育而导致的轻率的结果，使得自己永远蒙受损害。有些权威认为，年轻人根本不该说谎。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，只有这三点才能使得说谎的本领无伤大雅，带来好处。耐性、勤奋、细致入微──这些是必要素质；这些素质日久天长便会使学生变得完善起来；凭借这些，只有凭借这些，他才可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的素养，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的格言──这是关于事实的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，都深深地埋下了这样的证据：一个真理不难扼杀，一个说得巧妙的谎言则历久不衰。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，那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？唉，错哉，听众们，纪念碑是用坚硬材料建造的，而它所晓示的谎言却将比它持久百万年。一个笨拙脆弱而有破绽的谎言是你们应该不断学会避免的东西；诸如此类的谎言比起一个普通事实来，决不具有更加真实的永恒性。嗨，你们倒不如既讲真话又和真理打交道。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──从现在做起。要是我早些做起，我就能学会门道了。