经典英语美文 （90）艰辛的人生
A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as an individual.
We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious efforts,
the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the present merely meansthat there has been effort stored up in the past. A man can be freed from the necessity of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him have worked to good purpose. If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and the man still does actual work, though of a different kind, whether as a writer or a general, whether in the field of politics or in the field of exploration and adventure,
he shows he deserves his good fortune.
But if he treats this period of freedom from the need of actual labor as a period, not of preparation, butof mere enjoyment, even though perhaps not of vicious enjoyment, he shows that he is simply a cumberer on the earth’s surface; and he surely unfits himself to hold his own place with his fellows, if the need to do so should again arise. A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world.
As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. It is a base untruth to say that happy is the nation that has no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much,because they live in the gray twillight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
一种怠惰安逸的生活，一种仅仅是由于缺少追寻伟大亊物的渴望或能力而导致的悠闲生活，这对国家与个人都是毫无价值的。
我们不欣赏那种怯懦安逸的人。我们钦佩那种表现出奋力向上的人，那种永不屈待邻人，能随时帮助朋友，但是也具有那些刚健的品质，足以在现实生活的严酷斗争中获取胜利的人。失败是难以忍受的，但更为糟糕的是从来不去努力争取成功。在人的这一生中，任何的收获都要通过努力去得到。目前不作任何的努力，只不过意味着在过去有过努力的积储。一个人不必工作,除非他或其先辈们曾经努力工作过，并取得了丰厚的收获。假如他能够把获得的这种自由加以正确地运用，仍然做些实际的工作，尽管那些工作是属于另一类的，不论是做一名作家还是将军,不论是在政界还是在探险和冒险方面做些亊情，都表明了他没有事负自己的好运。
但是,假如他未将这段需要从亊实际工作的自由时期用于准备，而仅仅是用于享乐（即使他所从亊的或许并非不良的享乐），那也就表明了他只是地球表面上的一个赘疣；而且如果那种需要再度出现的话，他肯定无法在间僚之中维持自己的地位。一种纯粹安逸的生活终究并不是一种令人很满意的生活，而且，最主要的是，过那种生活的人最终肯定没有能力担当起世上之重任。
对于个人是如此，对于国家也是这样。有人说一个没有历史的国家是得天独厚的，这是根本错误的。一种得天独厚的优越感来源于一个国家所具有的光荣历史。敢于挑战非比寻常的事物，去贏得光辉的胜利，即使其中掺杂着失败，那也远胜子与那些既没有享受多大快乐也没有道受多大痛苦的平庸之辈为伍，因为他们生活在一个既享受不到胜利也不会道遇挫败的灰暗的境界中。