名篇背诵：It's Never Too Late for Success 大器晚成

It's Never Too Late for Success 大器晚成

查尔斯·D. 赖斯(Charles D. Rice)

You and your parents can stop worrying — Pasteur, Edison, Darwin and lots more were far from being geniuses in their teens.

History books seldom mention it, but the truth is that many of our greatest figures were practically “beatniks ” when they were teenagers. They were given to daydreaming, indecision, hebetude (plain dullness), and they showed no promise of being doctor, lawyer or Indian chief.

So, young men and women, if you suffer from the same symptoms , don't despair. The world was built by men and women whose parents worried that they would “never amount to a hill of beans ”. You don't hear too much about their early failure because parents prefer to cite more inspiring examples.

So it goes. You have the Wright brothers, who were brilliant at engineering in their early teens, and you have Thomas Alva Edison, whose teacher tried to get him out of the class because his brain was “addled ”. You have the Nobel Prize physicist Enrico Fermi, who at 17 had read enough mathematics to qualify for a doctor's degree. And you have the great Albert Schweitzer, who wavered between music and the church until he was 30. Then he started his medical studies.

Charles Darwin's early life was a mess. He hated school, and his father once shouted:“You care for nothing but shooting dogs and rat catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family!” He was sent to Glasgow to study medicine, but he couldn't stand the sight of blood. He was sent to divinity school and barely managed to graduate. Whereupon he chucked the whole business and shipped to the South Seas on the famous exploring ship Beagle. On that voyage, one of history's greatest scientists was born. It was here that he collected the material for the book that would revolutionize biological science — The Origin of the Species .

And added to all the aforementioned paradoxes you have a small army of child prodigies who were graduated from college when they were 15, and are now obscure clerks in accounting departments. And you have a small army of men who were too stupid or indolent to get into or finish college and who are today presidents of the firms that hire the prodigies.

So who's to say what about youth? Any young boy or girl who knows what he wants to do in life is probably the better off for it. But no teenager need despair of the future.He has that one special advantage over the greatest man alive — time!

- beatnik [ˈbiːtnɪk] n. 垮掉的一代

- hebetude [ˈhebɪtjuːd] n. 愚鲁迟钝，笨头笨脑

- symptom [ˈsɪmptəm] n. 病症

never amount to a hill of beans 一钱不值，毫无用处

- addled [ˈædld] n. 笨蛋

- waver [ˈweɪvə] vi. 踌躇，摇曳

- chuck [tʃʌk] vt. 丢弃，驱逐

- prodigy [ˈprɒdɪdʒɪ] n. 奇事，奇观

- indolent [ˈɪndələnt] a. 懒惰的

你和你的父母可以不再担忧了——巴斯德、爱迪生、达尔文和许多其他伟人在青少年时期远不是什么天才。

史书很少提到这一点，但事实上，我们许多最伟大的人物青少年时期实际上都是“垮掉的一代”没出息的样子。他们老在做白日梦，犹豫不决，一副愚笨相（明显迟钝），没有希望当医生、律师或是印第安部落酋长。

因此，少男少女们，如果你患有同样的症状，不要绝望。这个世界是由那些父母们担心会“一无所成”的男男女女建成的。你很少听说他们早年遭受的失败，因为他们的父母们更乐于举出更鼓舞人的例证。

事情就是这样。莱特兄弟，十三四岁就在工程制造方面出类拔萃；而托马斯·阿尔瓦·爱迪生，他的老师因他的脑子“一团糟”要把他逐出课堂。诺贝尔物理奖得主费米，17岁时就因对数学进行的深入研究而获得博士学位；而伟大的阿尔贝特·施韦泽，直到30岁时还在学音乐还是当牧师之间举棋不定，而后才开始了他的医学研究。

查尔斯·达尔文的早年生活是一团糟。他讨厌学校，他父亲有一次冲着他嚷道：“你只喜欢猎狗，捉老鼠，你对自己和全家都会是耻辱！”他被送到格拉斯哥学医，但他看到血就受不了。他被送到神学院，只是勉强毕了业。随后，他辞掉了所有事务，乘坐著名的考察船“比格尔”号去了南太平洋。在那次航行中，人类历史上伟大的科学家之一诞生了。正是在这里，他为那本使生物科学发生革命性变革的书——《物种起源》——收集了材料。

除了上述多个似乎矛盾的例证，还有一小部分神童，15岁就大学毕业，可现在还是财务部门里默默无闻的小职员。还有一小部分人，他们太愚钝或太懒惰，大学门都进不了，或大学毕不了业，而如今却是雇用那些当年神童的公司总裁。

所以谁能说得清青年时期是怎么回事呢？任何有生活目标的男青年或女青年，或许会因此有利一些。但青少年都没有必要对未来泄气。他比当今最伟大的人有一项特别优势——时间！

查尔斯·D. 赖斯（Charles D. Rice）是一位著名的美国病毒学家，以其在丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）研究领域的贡献而闻名。2020年，他与哈维·阿尔特（Harvey J. Alter）和迈克尔·霍顿（Michael Houghton）共同获得了诺贝尔生理学或医学奖，以表彰他们在发现丙型肝炎病毒方面的决定性贡献。他们的研究揭示了剩余慢性肝炎病例的病因，并使血液检测和新药成为可能，挽救了数百万人的生命。

赖斯的工作特别集中在理解丙肝病毒的复制机制以及如何抑制病毒复制。他的研究帮助科学家们对HCV病毒特征、生活周期、以及可作为药物治疗靶点的致命弱点有了清晰的认识，并在实验室成功培养出丙肝病毒，为抗病毒药物的开发奠定了坚实基础。这些研究成果推动了可针对丙肝临床治愈率接近100%的药物的开发。