在远房的上辈中，我只发现一个人并不长寿，他死于一种现在很罕见的疾病，叫做“脑梗塞”。我的一个曾祖母，是吉朋的朋友。她活到了92岁，临终时所有的后辈都很敬重并爱戴她。我外祖母的孩子，九个存活下来，一个死于婴儿时期，还有许多流产了。此后，她成了寡妇，致力于女子高等教育。

She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to relate how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She inquired the cause of his melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grand-children.

她是格顿女子学院的创立人之一，并为实现女性从事医疗职业而尽心竭力。她曾说过在意大利遇到过一位神情忧伤的年老绅士。问他为什么伤心，老人回答说他刚跟他的两个孙孩儿告别。

"Good gracious," she exclaimed, "I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a dismal existence!" "Madre snaturale," he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a. m. in reading popular science.

“天呐！”我外祖母感叹道，“我有72个孙子孙女，要是每次我向其中一个告别都难掩忧伤的话，我该有一种多么凄凉可怕的生活啊！”“多么伟大的母亲啊！”他答道。但是作为72个孩子之一的我来说，我倒赞成她的想法。80岁之后，外祖母发现自己难以入睡，所以她习惯性地在午夜至三点阅读科普书籍。

I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable brevity of your future.

我相信她没有时间来注意她的衰老。我认为这就是保持年轻的适合之道。如果你有广泛的活动和浓厚的兴趣，并且你能从中受益，那么你去思考你已经活了多少年这种纯粹的统计数据是毫无意义的，去想你还有多少年可活就更荒谬了。

As regards health, I have nothing useful to say since I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.

至于健康，我没有什么好说的，因为我很少生病。我吃喝随意，困了就睡。在做任何事之前，我从不考虑其是否有利于健康。事实上，我喜欢做的事大多是有益健康的。

Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One's thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one's own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one's emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one's mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

在老年时期，心理上有两大威胁值得防范。其中之一就是对往事的过分关注。人不应该活在回忆里，不应该活在对过往的懊悔中，不应该活在对已故好友的悲痛中。相反，人应该向前看，其实还有很多事等着我们去做。但这并不容易，一个人过去的点点滴滴是逐渐累积的重担。我们很容易这么想：现在回首过去，感情不再清晰，思维不再敏锐。如果这是真的，我们应该忘记；如果我们忘记了，可能这未必是真的。

The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigour from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous.

另外要避免的是寄希望于青春的生命力来获得活力。当你的孩子长大，想过他们自己的生活，而你却仍然对小时候的他们念念不忘时，你很可能成为他们的负担，除非他们异常麻木。

I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one's interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult. (to be continued)

我这里并不是说一个人对他们的孩子应该毫不在意，而这种关注应该是默默的，如果可能的话，博爱的，仁慈的，但不是过分感情用事的。动物幼崽只要能够自食其力，那么成年动物就放任不管了。但对人来说，由于婴儿期的漫长，这就很难实现了。返回搜狐，查看更多