評論
打印
As a general thing, I would not give a great deal for the fair words of a critic, if he is himself an author, over fifty years of age.
一般而言，我不會給予一位批評家相當多溢美之詞，如果他本人就是一位作家，年齡超過五旬的話。
At thirty, we are all trying to cut our names in big letters upon the walls of this tenement of life;
在三十歲時，我們都力求將我們的名字以大號字體刻在生活這間出租屋的墻上；
twenty years later, we have carved it, or shut up our jackknives.
二十年后，我們已經化掉這些字，或者收起我們的折疊刀。
Then we are ready to help others, and care less to hinder any, because nobody's elbows are in our way.
然后，我們準備幫助他人，不再在意什么阻礙，因為沒有誰能為我們指引道路。
So I am glad you have a little life left; you will be saccharine enough in a few years.
于是，我很高興你還有余生，在未來幾年時間里你會故作多情。
Some of the softening effects of advancing age have struck me very much in what I have heard or seen here and elsewhere.
隨著年齡增長一些變得不那么明顯的感受，對我在這兒或別的地方聽到或看到的產生了很大的影響。
I just now spoke of the sweetening process that authors undergo.
我現在提到的是作家經歷過的變得溫和的過程。
Do you know that in the gradual passage from maturity to helplessness the harshest characters,
你知道在從成熟到無能為力這個逐漸發展的階段里，哪怕是最嚴厲的人
sometimes have a period in which they are gentle and placid as young children?
有時也有個像小孩子那樣溫柔和溫和的階段嗎？
I have heard it said, but I can not be sponsor for its truth, that the famous chieftain, Lochiel, was rocked in a cradle like a baby, in his old age.
我聽人這么說過，但我不敢保證是不是確有道理，著名的部落首領洛希爾在老年時，還像嬰兒似的躺在搖籃里讓人來回推著呢。
An old man, whose studies had been of the severest scholastic kind, used to love to hear little nursery stories read over and over to him.
上了年紀的人，他的研究屬于最嚴肅的學者那類，總是樂于聽小孩愿意聽的故事，一遍又一遍地聽也不煩。
