假如给我三天光明   （美国：海伦·凯勒）

Three Days to see

All of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes it was as long as a year; sometimes as short as twenty-four hours.

But always we were interested in discovering just how the doomed man chose to spend his last days or his last hours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited.

Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What events, what experiences, what associations should we crowd into those last hours as mortal beings? What happiness should we find in reviewing the past, what regrets?

Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should live each day with a gentleness, a vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before who would adopt the Epicurean motto of “Eat, drink, and be merry,” but most people would be chastened by the certainly of impending death.