マッカーサーの愛誦詩「青春」『リーダーズ・ダイジェスト』版の「青春」
『リーダーズ・ダイジェスト』版の「青春」
この岡田訳のもとになっているリーダーズ・ダイジェスト版は
ウルマンの原文をある程度読みやすく，わかりやすく手直しした
もので，この方がアメリカでも広く知られているようである。
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Youth Samuel Ullman
― Revised by John Lewis in The Reader's Digest
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind. It is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years;people grow old only by deserting their ideals.Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair--these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.
Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what's next, and the joy and the game of life.
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt;
as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear,
as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
So long as your heart receives message of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from men and from the Infinite so long as you are young.
When the wires are all down and all the central place of your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then you are grown old indeed and may God have mercy on your soul.
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John Lewis氏はコーネル大学教授でマッカーサー元帥の友人と紹介される。
（村田 年）