貼篇年青時英文習作

《TIME》

Time is a never-fatigued traveler proceeding on his endless journey.  He
goes second by second, slowly but steadily to the Eternity, never halting
for a rest.  He brings everything to decay in due season,  however enduring
the thing may be.  Even celestial globes will cease to be, our earth among
them, for it is but a globe,too,in the universe, let alone a poor living
creature. The human life is short at best.  If we look from the height of
Eternity at the human lives below that come into being and then pass out
of existence, they seem to us like flash of sparks that appear and vanish
in a moment.  To a certain individual life is granted but once.  Therefore,
we must make the most use of every minute, and the waste of time is the waste
of life, for time is life.

Then in what way should one spend one's time, or rather, one's life?  Someone
fools it away, walking in the streets and looking at the shopwindows all
day long; someone loses it in a fight for nothing; someone gives it up to
dissipation and merry-making; while others devote theirs for the benefit
of their motherland and the mankind in the field of science, art or literature,
etc.
       
In my early boyhood I began the reading of the novels like Red Chamber
Dream and all that. Books became my daily companions, and also the daily
nourishment for my mind. My reading field was widened with the years. Classics
and poetry were like tough meat for me in my teens, but I chewed them with
perseverance and devoured them one by one. Every book I read seemed to open
for me a new window through which I could peep into the magnificently decorated
rooms in the grand palace of Muses.  My young heart leaped with the thrill
of joy at the beauties of literature.  I decided then that literature should
be my career.

When at school I began to learn English and gave most of my spare time to
the study of it.  I read English novels and poetry, and was greatly fascinated
by the Occidental charms of that literature.  It seemed as if I had got
into another room of that palace----the room of English literature; but I
have found that this room is not so splendidly adorned as that of Chinese
literature.  By thus speaking, I mean not that I love English literature
less, but that I love our Chinese literature more. With what a proud feeling
I read over and over again the books in Chinese dealing with literature;
with what a delight and excitement I recite the famous poems and essays
for their beautiful wording in the description of nature and the expression
of the views on the philosophy of life; and with what an esteem and reverence
I admire the culture of our ancestors that has a history of five thousand
years. How proud I am of being born a Chinese and how wistfully I long to
add something to the storage in the treasure house of literature, and then
I can say with self-satisfaction that my life is not a waste.