英语专业晨读美文-哲理篇 5 About Youth

[00:00.74]About Youth

[00:03.80]No young man believes he will ever die.

[00:08.29] It was a saying of my brother's, and a fine one.

[00:12.23]There is a feeling of eternity 1 in youth,

[00:14.30]which makes us amend 2 for everything.

[00:16.71]To be young is to be as one of the immortal 3 Gods.

[00:19.77] One half of time indeed is flown—

[00:22.40]the other half remains 4 in store for us with all its countless 5 treasures,

[00:26.77]for there is no line drawn 6,

[00:28.63]and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes.

[00:31.48]We make the coming age our own—the vast,

[00:34.98]the unbounded prospect 7 lies before us.

[00:38.36]Death, old age are words without a meaning

[00:41.65]that pass by us like the idea air which we regard not.

[00:45.59]Others may have undergone,

[00:47.55]or may still be liable to them—we "bear a charmed life",

[00:52.15] which laughs to scorn all such sickly fancies.

[00:55.21]As in setting out on delightful 8 journey,

[00:57.72] we strain our eager gaze forward—bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail!

[01:02.75]And see no end to the landscape,

[01:05.16]new objects presenting themselves as we advance.

[01:08.33]So, in the commencement of life,

[01:10.63]we set no bounds to our inclinations 9,

[01:13.58]nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifying them.

[01:17.30]We have as yet found no obstacle,

[01:19.81] no disposition 10 to flag; and it seems that we can go on so forever.

[01:24.96] We look round in a new world, full of life, and motion,

[01:28.35]and ceaseless progress;

[01:29.65]and feel in ourselves all the vigor 11 and spirit to keep pace with it,

[01:34.47]and do not foresee from any present symptoms

[01:37.42]how we shall be left behind in the natural course of things,

[01:41.25] decline into old age, and drop into the grave.

[01:44.86] It is the simplicity 12,

[01:46.50]and as it were abstractedness of our feelings in youth,

[01:50.11] that identifies us with nature,

[01:52.08]and deludes 13 us into a belief of being immortal like it.

[01:56.02] Our short lives connexion with existence we fondly flatter ourselves

[02:00.28] is an indissoluble and lasting 14 union—

[02:03.56]a honeymoon 15 that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation.

[02:08.16] As infants smile and sleep,

[02:10.89]we are rocked in the cradle of our wayward fancies,

[02:14.50] and lulled 16 into security by the roar of the universe around us

[02:18.66]—we quaff 17 the cup of life with eager haste without draining it,

[02:22.70]instead of which it only overflows 18 the more objects press around us,

[02:27.63]filling the mind with their magnitude and

[02:30.35] with the strong of desires that wait upon them,

[02:33.31]so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.