晨读英语美文 Advice to a Young Man

Advice to a Young Man

[00:12.53]Remember, my son, you have to work. 

[00:18.11]Whether you handle a pick or a pen, 

[00:21.16]a wheel-barrow or a set of books, 

[00:23.91]digging ditches or editing a paper, 

[00:27.07]ringing an auction bell or writing funny things, 

[00:30.89]you must work. 

[00:32.21]If you look around you will see the men 

[00:34.85]who are the most able to live the rest of their days without work 

[00:38.67]are the men who work the hardest. 

[00:41.18]Don't be afraid of killing yourself with overwork. 

[00:45.25]It is beyond your power to do that on the sunny side of thirty. 

[00:49.61]They die sometimes, 

[00:52.01]but it is because they quit work at six in the evening, 

[00:55.41]and do not go home until two in the morning. 

[00:58.58]It's the interval that kills, my son. 

[01:02.29]The work gives you an appetite for your meals; 

[01:05.47]it lends solidity to your slumbers; 

[01:08.53]it gives you a perfect and grateful appreciation of a holiday.

[01:12.57]There are young men who do not work, 

[01:15.64]but the world is not proud of them. 

[01:18.04]It does not know their names; 

[01:20.68]even it simply speaks of them as old so-and-so's boy. 

[01:25.49]Nobody likes them; 

[01:27.77]the great, busy world doesn't know that they are there. 

[01:31.18]So find out what you want to be and do, 

[01:34.78]and take off your coat and make a dust in the world. 

[01:38.06]The busier you are, the less harm you will be apt to get into, 

[01:42.87]the sweeter will be your sleep, 

[01:45.17]the brighter and happier your holidays, 

[01:47.56]and the better satisfied will the world be with you.