音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.33]Passage 68 The Pain of Youth(Ⅱ)

[00:05.69]There is no test of character more severe or difficult to bear than the suspense of waiting.

[00:14.66]The man who can act eases his soul under the greatest calamities;

[00:20.79]but he who is compelled to wait, unless he be of hardy fibre, eats his heart out in a futile despair.

[00:30.75]If the troops were compelled to halt under the relentless guns of masked batteries,

[00:37.75]they would be caught up in the stir of charge.

[00:41.47]It will lead to the demoralisation and scatter of the troop, which would result in great loss.

[00:49.90]Now, the characteristic trial of youth is this experience of waiting at a moment

[00:58.42]when the whole nature craves expression and the satisfaction of action.

[01:03.90]The greater the volume of energy in the man who has yet to find his vocation and place,

[01:12.32]the more trying the ordeal.

[01:14.73]There are moments in the life of the youth

[01:18.23]when it seems impossible to realise any of its dreams

[01:22.83]and the splendour of the dreams filled the young soul with despair.

[01:27.53]The clearer the consciousness of the possession of the power,

[01:32.34]the stronger the fear that he could not find ways to contribute to the society.

[01:38.58]The reality of this crisis in spiritual experience

[01:43.84]—the adjustment between the personality and the physical,

[01:48.43]social, and industrial order in which it must find its place and task

[01:54.67]—is the measure of its possible painfulness.

[01:58.27]His pain has its roots in his ignorance of his own powers and of the world.

[02:06.04]He strives again and again to put himself in touch with organised work;

[02:14.03]he takes up one task after another in a fruitless endeavour to succeed.

[02:20.48]He does not know what he is fitted to do,

[02:24.31]and he turns helplessly from one form of work for which he has no faculty

[02:30.77]to another for which he has less.

[02:33.94]His friends begin to think of him as a ne'er-do-well;

[02:37.99]and, more pathetic still, the shadow of failure begins to darken his own spirit.

[02:45.65]And yet it may be that in this halting, stumbling, ineffective human soul,

[02:52.70]vainly striving to put its hand to its task,

[02:57.18]there is some rare gift, some splendid talent,

[03:01.71]waiting for the ripe hour and the real opportunity!

[03:05.83]In such a crisis sympathetic comprehension is invaluable,

[03:11.58]but it is rarely given,

[03:13.77]and the youth works out his problem in isolation.