雙語對(duì)照 ● It’s Never Too Late For Success　成功之路，永不言遲

It’s Never Too Late For Success　成功之路，永不言遲

◎ Charles D. Rice

You and your parents can stop worrying—Edison, Darwin and lots more were far from being geniuses in their teens.

你和你的父母可以不必?fù)?dān)憂了——愛迪生、達(dá)爾文還有許多其他人在他們年少時(shí)遠(yuǎn)非天才。

History books seldom mention it, but the truth is that many of our greatest figures were practically “beatniks” when they were teenagers. They were given to daydreaming, indecision, hebetude[47](plain dullness), and they showed no promise of being a doctor, lawyer or teacher.

歷史書上很少提到這些，但事實(shí)是：我們?cè)S多偉人在他們青少年時(shí)是“垮掉的一代”。他們也會(huì)做白日夢(mèng)，也會(huì)優(yōu)柔寡斷，也會(huì)犯傻。而且，他們身上也沒有顯現(xiàn)出能夠成為醫(yī)生、律師或教師的潛質(zhì)。

So, young men and women, if you suffer from the same symptoms, don’t despair. The world was built by men and women whose parents worried that they would “never amount to a hill of beans”. You don’t hear too much about their early failures because parents prefer to cite more inspiring examples.

所以，年輕的男女們，如果你們遇到了同樣的狀況，不必絕望。這個(gè)世界就是由那些父母擔(dān)心會(huì)一事無成的男男女女創(chuàng)造的。他們?cè)缒晔〉氖虑?，想必你很少聽說，因?yàn)楦改父矚g引用更多鼓舞人心的例子。

A MAN THEY DON’T TELL YOU ABOUT

他們不向你談起的一個(gè)人

If you take piano lessons and your attitude towards practicing is marked by laziness, your parents might justly complain and flaunt before you the famous picture of little Mozart in his ruffled night-shirt, playing the piano at midnight in the attic. But the point is, your parents would not show you a picture of a certain part who never showed a whit of interest in music during his formative years. In fact he never showed talent in any direction whatever. Finally put to studying law, he barely passed his final exams. It was not until he was 22 that he suddenly became fired with a great passion for music and his name was Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

如果你正在學(xué)鋼琴，可你并不勤于練習(xí)。這時(shí)，你的父母可能會(huì)一邊指責(zé)你，一邊在你面前對(duì)著一張著名的畫盡情夸耀——穿著睡袍的小莫扎特大半夜還在閣樓上練鋼琴?？申P(guān)鍵是，你的父母不會(huì)給你看另外一副畫——少年時(shí)期對(duì)音樂不感興趣的那些人。準(zhǔn)確地說，他從未在任何領(lǐng)域表現(xiàn)出超凡的天賦。最終，他選擇了法律，但期末考試門門不及格。直到22歲那年，他突然對(duì)音樂有了強(qiáng)烈的興趣。他的名字就叫彼得·伊里奇·柴科夫斯基。

EDISON WAS “ADDLED”

愛迪生是“愚蠢”的

In the sciences, there have been hundreds of geniuses who aimed straight at the goal from their earliest years, and hundreds who showed no aptitude at all. So it goes. You have the Wright Brothers, who were brilliant in engineering in their early teens, and you have Thomas Alva Edison, whose teacher tried to get him out of the class because his brain was “addled”. You have the Nobel Prize physicist Enrico Fermi, who at 17 had read enough mathematics to qualify for a doctor’s degree. And you have the great Albert Schweitzer, who wavered between music and the church until he was 30. Then he started his medical studies.

在科學(xué)領(lǐng)域里，有許多天才在早年時(shí)便瞄準(zhǔn)了自己的目標(biāo)，而有的卻從未顯露過自己的天賦。就是因?yàn)檫@樣，我們才有了從小擅長(zhǎng)機(jī)械引擎的萊特兄弟；有了因?yàn)椤坝薮馈倍铧c(diǎn)被老師趕出教室的托馬斯·阿爾瓦·愛迪生；有了17歲便博覽數(shù)學(xué)類書籍并獲得博士學(xué)位的諾貝爾物理學(xué)獎(jiǎng)獲得者恩里科·費(fèi)米；有了30歲之前還在音樂和牧師之間猶豫不決，之后才開始學(xué)醫(yī)的偉大的埃博特·施威茨。

DARW IN HATED SCHOOL

達(dá)爾文討厭上學(xué)

Charles Darwin’s early life was a mess. He hated school, and his father once shouted, “You care for nothing but shooting dogs and rat catching, and you will be a disgrace[48]to yourself and all your family!” He was sent to Glasgow to study medicine, but he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. He was sent to divinity school and barely managed to graduate. Whereupon he chucked the whole business and shipped out to the South Seas on the famous exploring ship Beagle. On that voyage, one of history’s greatest scientists was born. It was here that he collected the material for the book that would revolutionize biological science—The Origin of the Species.

查爾斯·達(dá)爾文早年的生活就像一團(tuán)亂麻。他討厭上學(xué)。有一次，父親沖他大聲喊道：“除了打狗和追老鼠，你什么都不會(huì)。你會(huì)成為你自己和家人的恥辱！”就這樣，他被送到格拉斯哥學(xué)醫(yī)，可是他一見到血就暈。無奈之下，他又被送到神學(xué)院，可是他卻無法畢業(yè)。于是他拋下一切，乘坐著名的探險(xiǎn)之船——比格——來到南海。歷史上最偉大的科學(xué)家之一就在此次航海中誕生了?！段锓N起源》——這本足以引發(fā)一場(chǎng)生物科學(xué)變革的書，它的素材就是在這次航海中搜集到的。

FAULKNER FAILED IN ENGLISH

?？思{英語考試不及格

Politics offers a familiar example of contrast. Herbert Hoover must have learned administration in the cradle. When he was at school he was drafted as football manager, though he didn’t know the game, and the glee club manager, though he couldn’t sing a note. Whatever he touched went smoothly, glee club or food for a starving Europe.

政界為我們提供了一個(gè)熟悉的反例。赫伯特·胡佛一定在嬰兒時(shí)期便學(xué)會(huì)了行政管理。在學(xué)校，他是校足球隊(duì)隊(duì)長(zhǎng)，盡管他對(duì)足球一竅不通；他也是校合唱隊(duì)的隊(duì)長(zhǎng)，盡管他對(duì)唱歌也是一無所知。凡是他參加的活動(dòng)總能順利開展，不論是組織合唱隊(duì)，還是為歐洲籌集食物。

But one of his successors in the White House had about as checkered a youth as can be imagined. Turned down by West Point because of poor vision, Harry Truman tried a dozen jobs, including in a drugstore, a bank, a bottling works, and a railroad yard. But he got there just the same.

然而，在白宮，他的一位接班人的青年時(shí)代卻充滿了艱辛。因?yàn)橐暳Σ患盐幢晃鼽c(diǎn)軍校錄取的哈里·杜魯門試著做過許多工作，包括在藥店、銀行、裝瓶廠和鐵路換裝場(chǎng)上班。可他終究還是坐上了總統(tǒng)的寶座。

Great writers are supposed to be born, not made, but here again there are many fascinating exceptions. William Faulkner quit school in the fifth grade and rattled around the country as a house painter and a dishwasher.

偉大的作家照理說應(yīng)是天生的，而非后天塑造的。可這兒有許多典型的例外。威廉·?？思{五年級(jí)時(shí)便輟學(xué)了，從此他就穿梭在全國各地，靠給別人油漆房子和洗碗為生。

Once he tried attending college, but failed in freshman English and quit. He wangled a postmaster’s job in a small Mississippi town, and infuriated the populace by getting the mail all mixed up and closing the office whenever he felt like it. Faulkner was 25 before he started the writing career that won him a Nobel Prize.

他曾經(jīng)上過大學(xué)，可在大一的英語考試中，他就考了個(gè)不及格，于是他便輟學(xué)不上了。他用詐騙手段在密西西比亞的小鎮(zhèn)上找到了一份郵遞員的工作?？墒撬燕]件弄得一團(tuán)糟，令民眾激怒不已，并且由著自己的性子想什么時(shí)候收工就什么時(shí)候收工。在?？思{開始那段給自己帶來諾貝爾獎(jiǎng)的寫作生涯時(shí)，他已經(jīng)25歲了。

HOW ABOUT THOSE PRODIGIES

如何解釋這些神童呢？

And added to all the aforementioned paradoxes[49]you have a small army of child prodigies who were graduated from college when they were 15, and are now obscure clerks in accounting departments. And you have a small army of men who were too stupid or indolent to get into or finish college and who are today presidents of the firms that hire the prodigies.

除了前面提到的那些怪才，你也知道不少神童。他們有的15歲便大學(xué)畢業(yè)，可最后卻淪為財(cái)務(wù)部的一名小職員。也有一些孩子，因?yàn)楫?dāng)年太笨或太懶而放棄了大學(xué)，如今卻成了聘請(qǐng)昔日神童的那些公司的總裁。

So who’s to say what about youth? Any young boy or girl who knows what he wants to do in life is probably the better off for it. But no teenager needs despair of the future. He has that one special advantage over the greatest man alive—time! If you don’t think time counts, look at Grandma Moses, she never sold a painting till she was 80.

那么，關(guān)于青春，到底誰說了算呢？任何心中擁有人生目標(biāo)的少男少女都可能處于優(yōu)勢(shì)地位。但任何青少年都無需對(duì)未來感到絕望。和一位尚在人間的偉人相比，他擁有一個(gè)特別的優(yōu)勢(shì)——時(shí)間！如果你覺得時(shí)間算不上什么，那就請(qǐng)你看看摩西奶奶吧！直到80歲她才賣出第一幅畫。

美麗語錄

You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can’t do it. If you want something, go get it.

如果你有夢(mèng)想，守護(hù)它。 當(dāng)人們做不到一些事情的時(shí)候，他們就會(huì)說你也同樣不能。既然有了目標(biāo)，你就要努力實(shí)現(xiàn)。

超多雙語閱讀，盡在聽力課堂