Advice to Youth, About 1882

Mark Twain

　　Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of talk I ought to make. They said it should be something suitable to youth-something didactic, instructive, or something in the nature of good advice. Very well. I have a few things in my mind which I have often longed to say for the instruction of the young; for it is in one's tender early years that such things will best take root and be most enduring and most valuable. First, then. I will say to you my young friends—and I say it beseechingly, urgingly—

　　Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don't, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.

　　Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any, also to strangers, and sometimes to others. If a person offend you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance and hit him with a brick. That will be sufficient. If you shall find that he had not intended any offense, come out frankly and confess yourself in the wrong when you struck him; acknowledge it like a man and say you didn't mean to. Yes, always avoid violence; in this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined.

　　Go to bed early, get up early- this is wise. Some authorities say get up with the sun; some say get up with one thing, others with another. But a lark is really the best thing to get up with. It gives you a splendid reputation with everybody to know that you get up with the lark; and if you get the right kind of lark, and work at him right, you can easily train him to get up at half past nine, every time—it's no trick at all.

　　Now as to the matter of lying, you want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught. Once caught, you can never again be in the eyes to the good and the pure, what you were before. Many a young person has injured himself permanently through a single clumsy and ill finished lie, the result of carelessness born of incomplete training. Some authorities hold that the young out not to lie at all. That of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance, and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable. Patience, diligence, painstaking attention to detail—these are requirements; these in time, will make the student perfect; upon these only, may he rely as the sure foundation for future eminence. Think what tedious years of study, thought, practice, experience, went to the equipment of that peerless old master who was able to impose upon the whole world the lofty and sounding maxim that "Truth is mighty and will prevail"—the most majestic compound fracture of fact which any of woman born has yet achieved. For the history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sewn thick with evidences that a truth is not hard to kill, and that a lie well told is immortal. There is in Boston a monument of the man who discovered anesthesia; many people are aware, in these latter days, that that man didn't discover it at all, but stole the discovery from another man. Is this truth mighty, and will it prevail? Ah no, my hearers, the monument is made of hardy material, but the lie it tells will outlast it a million years. An awkward, feeble, leaky lie is a thing which you ought to make it your unceasing study to avoid; such a lie as that has no more real permanence than an average truth. Why, you might as well tell the truth at once and be done with it. A feeble, stupid, preposterous lie will not live two years—except it be a slander upon somebody. It is indestructible, then of course, but that is no merit of yours. A final word: begin your practice of this gracious and beautiful art early—begin now. If I had begun earlier, I could have learned how.

　　Never handle firearms carelessly. The sorrow and suffering that have been caused through the innocent but heedless handling of firearms by the young! Only four days ago, right in the next farm house to the one where I am spending the summer, a grandmother, old and gray and sweet, one of the loveliest spirits in the land, was sitting at her work, when her young grandson crept in and got down an old, battered, rusty gun which had not been touched for many years and was supposed not to be loaded, and pointed it at her, laughing and threatening to shoot. In her fright she ran screaming and pleading toward the door on the other side of the room; but as she passed him he placed the gun almost against her very breast and pulled the trigger! He had supposed it was not loaded. And he was right—it wasn't. So there wasn't any harm done. It is the only case of that kind I ever heard of. Therefore, just the same, don't you meddle with old unloaded firearms; they are the most deadly and unerring hings that have ever been created by man. You don't have to take any pains at all with them; you don't have to have a rest, you don't have to have any sights on the gun, you don't have to take aim, even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A youth who can't hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three quarters of an hour, can take up an old empty musket and bag his grandmother every time, at a hundred. Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armies had been boys armed with old muskets supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had been composed of their female relations. The very thought of it make one shudder.

　　There are many sorts of books; but good ones are the sort for the young to read. Remember that. They are a great, an inestimable, and unspeakable means of improvement. Therefore be careful in your selection, my young friends; be very careful; confine yourselves exclusively to Robertson's Sermons, Baxter's Saint's Rest, The Innocents Abroad, and works of that kind.

　　But I have said enough. I hope you will treasure up the instructions which I have given you, and make them a guide to your feet and a light to your understanding. Build your character thoughtfully and painstakingly upon these precepts, and by and by, when you have got it built, you will be surprised and gratified to see how nicely and sharply it resembles everybody else's.

雖然他的財富不多，卻無損他高超的幽默、機智與名氣，稱美國最知名人士之一。其交友廣闊，威廉·迪安·豪威爾士、安德魯·卡內(nèi)基、布克·華盛頓、尼古拉·特斯拉、海倫·凱勒、亨利·羅杰諸君，皆為其友。他曾被譽為：文學史上的林肯。海倫·凱勒曾言：“我喜歡馬克·吐溫——誰會不喜歡他呢？即使是上帝，亦會鐘愛他，賦予其智慧，并于其心靈里繪畫出一道愛與信仰的彩虹。”威廉·福克納稱馬克·吐溫為“第一位真正地美國作家，我們都是繼承他而來”。其于1910年四月二十一日去世，享年七十五，安葬于紐約州艾瑪拉。 　　

    寫作風格：融幽默與諷刺一體，既富于獨特的個人機智與妙語，又不乏深刻的社會洞察與剖析，既是幽默辛辣的小的杰作，又是悲天憫人的嚴肅。他的代表作是《百萬英鎊》，在小學5年級人教版語文書第二學期時會學到的，是24課名叫《金錢的魔力》。 　　

   “馬克·吐溫”是其最常使用的筆名，一般認為這個筆名是源自其早年水手術語，馬克·吐溫的意思是：水深12英尺，薩繆爾（即“馬克·吐溫”）曾當過領航員，與其伙伴測量水深時，他的伙伴叫道“Mark Twain !”，意思是“兩個標記”，亦即水深兩潯（1潯約1.1米），這是輪船安全航行的必要條件。 　　

    還有一個原因是，他的船長塞勒斯，曾是位德高望重的領航員，不時為報紙寫些介紹密西西比河掌故的小品，筆名“馬克·吐溫”。

    1859年，塞勒斯船長發(fā)表了一篇預測新奧爾良市將被水淹沒的文章。調(diào)皮的薩繆爾決定拿他開個玩笑，就模仿他的筆調(diào)寫了一篇非常尖刻的諷刺小品。誰知這篇游戲文章竟深深刺痛了老船長的心，老船長從此棄筆不寫，“馬克·吐溫”這個筆名也從此在報紙上銷聲匿跡了。 　　四年后，當上記者的薩繆爾得悉塞勒斯船長謝世的噩耗，為自己當年的惡作劇追悔不已，決心彌補這一過失，于是他繼承了“馬克·吐溫”這個筆名，并以此開始了他的寫作生涯。 　　

    但亦有一說，指其在西部流浪時，經(jīng)常在酒店買酒兩杯，并要求酒保在帳單上記“兩個標記”。然而，孰真孰假，或兩者皆虛，則無從稽考。他的真名叫“薩繆爾·蘭亨·克萊門”

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