The Golden Age黄金时代

I see that Dean Inge1 has been lamenting that he did not live a couple of generations ago. He seems to think that the world was a much more desirable place then， that it has been going to the dogs2 ever since， and that the only comfortable thought that we can cultivate in this degenerate time is that we shall soon be out of it. Assuming for the moment that the world was a happier place fifty or sixty years ago， I doubt whether it follows that the Dean would have been happier in it than he is in our world today. The measure of personal happiness is fortunately not dependent on external circumstances. It is affected by them， of course. Most of us are more agreeable people when we have dined than when we are hungry， when we have slept well than when we have not slept at all， when our horse or our party has won than when it has lost， when things go right than when things go wrong. No philosophy is an anodyne for the toothache， and the east wind3 plays havoc with the feelings of the best of us. In these and a thousand other ways we are the sport of circumstance， but in this respect we are no better and no worse off than our forebears fifty years ago or five hundred years ago， or than our descendants will be fifty or five hundred years hence.

我看英奇教长一直在哀叹自己没能生活在两代人之前。（剩余5904字）