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As a general thing, I would not give a great deal for the fair words of a critic, if he is himself an author, over fifty years of age.
一般而言，我不会给予一位批评家相当多溢美之词，如果他本人就是一位作家，年龄超过五旬的话。
At thirty, we are all trying to cut our names in big letters upon the walls of this tenement of life;
在三十岁时，我们都力求将我们的名字以大号字体刻在生活这间出租屋的墙上；
twenty years later, we have carved it, or shut up our jackknives.
二十年后，我们已经化掉这些字，或者收起我们的折叠刀。
Then we are ready to help others, and care less to hinder any, because nobody's elbows are in our way.
然后，我们准备帮助他人，不再在意什么阻碍，因为没有谁能为我们指引道路。
So I am glad you have a little life left; you will be saccharine enough in a few years.
于是，我很高兴你还有余生，在未来几年时间里你会故作多情。
Some of the softening effects of advancing age have struck me very much in what I have heard or seen here and elsewhere.
随着年龄增长一些变得不那么明显的感受，对我在这儿或别的地方听到或看到的产生了很大的影响。
I just now spoke of the sweetening process that authors undergo.
我现在提到的是作家经历过的变得温和的过程。
Do you know that in the gradual passage from maturity to helplessness the harshest characters,
你知道在从成熟到无能为力这个逐渐发展的阶段里，哪怕是最严厉的人
sometimes have a period in which they are gentle and placid as young children?
有时也有个像小孩子那样温柔和温和的阶段吗？
I have heard it said, but I can not be sponsor for its truth, that the famous chieftain, Lochiel, was rocked in a cradle like a baby, in his old age.
我听人这么说过，但我不敢保证是不是确有道理，著名的部落首领洛希尔在老年时，还像婴儿似的躺在摇篮里让人来回推着呢。
An old man, whose studies had been of the severest scholastic kind, used to love to hear little nursery stories read over and over to him.
上了年纪的人，他的研究属于最严肃的学者那类，总是乐于听小孩愿意听的故事，一遍又一遍地听也不烦。
