Luck
by Mark Twain
《運氣》一書，給我們講解了從倒霉蛋到幸運兒的魔法歷程：它的第一層含義是“運其所能”，即調動個人最大的積極性，挖掘個人最大的潛力;第二層寓意是“運籌帷幄”，即認真做好統籌規劃、決勝千里。正如書中所說，偶然和運氣是完全不同的兩個概念，好運是可以由我們自己操縱的。幸運不是與生俱來的。創造好運是一種技能，是一種可以掌控的生活態度。如果“偶然”總是在一些人身上發生，那么他一定是掌握了操縱運氣的秘密。在《運氣》中，就有“運氣”制造的種種秘訣，如保持好奇心、找到自己想要的、成為時間的主人、讓自己像個幸運者、不要樹敵、讓施與受保持平衡、善用直覺等。
[NOTE--This is not a fancy sketch. I got it from a clergyman who was an instructor at Woolwich forty years ago, and who vouched for its truth. -- M. T.]
It was at a banquet in London in honour of one of the two or three conspicuously illustrious English military names of this generation. For reasons which will presently appear, I will withhold his real name and titles, and call him Lieutenant-General Lord Arthur Scoresby, Y. C., K. C. B., etc., etc., etc. What a fascination there is in a renowned name! There say the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so many thousands of times since that day, thirty years before, when his name shot suddenly to the zenith from a Crimean battlefield, to remain forever celebrated. It was food and drink to me to look, and look, and look at that demi-god; scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance; the simple honesty that expressed itself all over him; the sweet unconsciousness of his greatness--unconsciousness of the hundreds of admiring eyes fastened upon him, unconsciousness of the deep, loving, sincere worship welling out of the breasts of those people and flowing toward him.
The clergyman at my left was an old acquaintance of mine--clergyman now, but had spent the first half of his life in the camp and field and as an instructor in the military school at Woolwich. Just at the moment I have been talking about a veiled and singular light glimmered in his eyes and he leaned down and muttered confidentially to me--indicating the hero of the banquet with a gesture:
"Privately--his glory is an accident-- just a product of incredible luck."/---he’s an absolute fool.
This verdict was a great surprise to me. If its subject had been Napoleon, or Socrates, or Solomon, my astonishment could not have been greater. Two things I was well aware of: that the Reverand was a man of strict veracity and that his judgment of men was good. therefore I knew, beyond doubt or question, that the world was mistaken about this hero: he was a fool. so I meant to find out, at a convenient moment, how the Reverend, all solitary and alone, had his discovered the secret.
