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Sesame and Lilies-Part13_John Ruskin(1819-1900)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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the convenient neighbourhood of the steeple under which that

Immaculate and final verity would be beautifully proclaimed. Do not



think it, child; it is not so. This, on the contrary, is the fact,-

-unpleasant you may think it; pleasant, it seems to ME,--that you,



with all your pretty dresses, and dainty looks, and kindly thoughts,

and saintly aspirations, are not one whit more thought of or loved



by the great Maker and Master than any poor little red, black, or

blue savage, running wild in the pestilent woods, or naked on the



hot sands of the earth: and that, of the two, you probably know

less about God than she does; the only difference being that she



thinks little of Him that is right, and you much that is wrong.

That, then, is the first thing to make sure of;--that you are not



yet perfectly well informed on the most abstruse of all possible

subjects, and that if you care to behave with modesty or propriety,



you had better be silent about it.

The second thing which you may make sure of is, that however good



you may be, you have faults; that however dull you may be, you can

find out what some of them are; and that however slight they may be,



you had better make some--not too painful, but patient--effort to

get quit of them. And so far as you have confidence in me at all,



trust me for this, that how many soever you may find or fancy your

faults to be, there are only two that are of real consequence,--



Idleness and Cruelty. Perhaps you may be proud. Well, we can get

much good out of pride, if only it be not religious. Perhaps you



may be vain; it is highly probable; and very pleasant for the people

who like to praise you. Perhaps you are a little envious: that is



really very shocking; but then--so is everybody else. Perhaps,

also, you are a little malicious, which I am truly concerned to



hear, but should probably only the more, if I knew you, enjoy your

conversation. But whatever else you may be, you must not be



useless, and you must not be cruel. If there is any one point

which, in six thousand years of thinking about right and wrong, wise



and good men have agreed upon, or successively by experience

discovered, it is that God dislikes idle and cruel people more than



any others:- that His first order is, "Work while you have light;"

and His second, "Be merciful while you have mercy."



"Work while you have light," especially while you have the light of

morning. There are few things more wonderful to me than that old



people never tell young ones how precious their youth is. They

sometimes sentimentally regret their own earlier days; sometimes



prudently forget them; often foolishlyrebuke the young, often more

foolishlyindulge, often most foolishlythwart and restrain; but



scarcely ever warn or watch them. Remember, then, that I, at least,

have warned YOU, that the happiness of your life, and its power, and



its part and rank in earth or in heaven, depend on the way you pass

your days now. They are not to be sad days: far from that, the



first duty of young people is to be delighted and delightful; but

they are to be in the deepest sense solemn days. There is no



solemnity so deep, to a rightly-thinking creature, as that of dawn.

But not only in that beautiful sense, but in all their character and



method, they are to be solemn days. Take your Latin dictionary, and

look out "solennis," and fix the sense of the word well in your



mind, and remember that every day of your early life is ordaining

irrevocably, for good or evil, the custom and practice of your soul;



ordaining either sacred customs of dear and lovely recurrence, or

trenching deeper and deeper the furrows for seed of sorrow. Now,



therefore, see that no day passes in which you do not make yourself

a somewhat better creature: and in order to do that, find out,



first, what you are now. Do not think vaguely about it; take pen

and paper, and write down as accurate a description of yourself as



you can, with the date to it. If you dare not do so, find out why

you dare not, and try to get strength of heart enough to look



yourself fairly in the face in mind as well as body. I do not doubt

but that the mind is a less pleasant thing to look at than the face,






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