Rudyard Kipling

每次看都要让我落泪的《英国病人》中最幽默的一场戏就是男主角，一个匈牙利地理学家教一个印度士兵念Kipling。

今天，是Rudyard Kipling的生日，这位行遍四海的浪漫主义作家曾经谢绝了英女王的骑士册封和桂冠诗人的称号，但是1907年他接受了瑞典科学院颁发的诺贝尔文学奖。时年42岁，是当时最年轻的诺贝尔文学奖得主，也是第一位获此殊荣的英语作家。

Kipling的一生是传奇的一生，无论是非洲、印度、喜马拉雅山还是新西兰都留下了他的身影，而他也把旅行的经验融入自己的作品。这里附上Kipling最脍炙人口的If一诗：

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man my son!

遗憾的是，今天，这些诗篇不再被人吟诵，美德不再被人推崇。如果你搜索Kipling，你得到的居然是一个比利时的时尚品牌，我们世界对精神生活的忽视已经到了无耻的程度。