Too early and too late
太早和太晚
Punctuality is a necessary habit in all public affairs in civilized society. Without it, nothing could ever be brought to a conclusion; everything would be in state of chaos. Only in a sparsely-populated rural community is it possible to disregard it. In ordinary living, there can be some tolerance of unpunctuality. The intellectual, who is working on some abstruse problem, has everything coordinated and organized for the matter in hand. He is therefore forgiven if late for a dinner party. But people are often reproached for unpunctuality when their only fault is cutting things fine. It is hard for energetic, quick-minded people to waste time, so they are often tempted to finish a job before setting out to keep an appointment. If no accidents occur on the way, like punctured tires, diversions of traffic, sudden descent of fog, they will be on time. They are often more industrious, useful citizens than those who are never late. The over-punctual can be as much a trial to others as the unpunctual. The guest who arrives half an hour too soon is the greatest nuisance. Some friends of my family had this irritating habit. The only thing to do was ask them to come half an hour later than the other guests. Then they arrived just when we wanted them.
If you are citing a train, it is always better to be comfortably early than even a fraction of a minted too late. Although being early may mean wasting a little time, this will be less than if you miss the train and have to wait an hour or more for the next one; and you avoid the frustration of arriving at the very moment when the train is drawing out of the station and being unable to get on it. An even harder situation is to be on the platform in good time for a train and still to see it go off without you. Such an experience befell a certain young girl the first time she was traveling alone.
She entered the station twenty minutes before the train was due, since her parents had impressed upon her that it would be unforgivable to miss it and cause the friends with whom she was going to stay to make two journeys to meet her. She gave her luggage to a porter and showed him her ticket. To her horror he said that she was two hours too soon. She felt inhere handbag for the piece of paper on which her father had written down al the details of the journey and gave it to the porter. He agreed that a train did come into the station at the time on the paper and that it did stop, but only to take on mail, not passengers. The girl asked to see a timetable, feeling sure that her father could not have made such a mistake. The porter went to fetch one and arrive back with the station master, who produced it with a flourish and pointed out a microscopic 'o' beside the time of the arrival of the train at his station; this little 'o' indicated that the train only stopped for mail. Just as that moment the train came into the station. The girl, tears streaming down her face, begged to be allowed to slip into the guard's van. But the station master was adamant: rules could not be broken and she had to watch that train disappear towards her destination while she was left behind.
準時是文明社會中進行一切社交活動時必須養(yǎng)成的習慣。不準時將一事無成，事事都會陷入混亂不堪的境地。只有在人口稀少的農(nóng)村，才可以忽視準時的習慣。在日常生活中人們可以容忍一定程度的不準時。一個專心鉆研某個復(fù)雜問題的知識分子，為了搞好手頭的研究，要把一切都協(xié)調(diào)一致，組織周密。因此，他要是赴宴遲到了會得到諒解。但有些人不準時常常因為掐鐘點所致，他們常常受到責備，精力充沛、頭腦敏捷的人極不愿意浪費時間，因此他們常想做完一件事后再去赴約。要是路上沒有發(fā)生如爆胎、改道、突然起霧等意外事故，他們決不會遲到。他們與那些從不遲到的人相比，常常是更勤奮有用的公民。早到的人同遲到的人一樣令人討厭。客人提前半小時到達是令人討厭的。我家有幾個朋友就有這有令人惱火的習慣。唯一的辦法就是請他們比別的客人晚來半小時。這樣，他們可以恰好在我們要求的時間到達。
如果趕火車，早到總比晚到好，哪怕早到一會兒也好。雖然早到可能意味著浪費一點時間，但這比誤了火車等上一個多小時坐下班車浪費的時間要少，而且可以避免那種正好在火車駛出站時趕到車站，因上不去車而感到的沮喪。更難堪的情況是雖然及時趕到站臺上，卻眼睜睜地看著那趟火車啟動，把你拋下。一個小姑娘第一次單獨出門就碰到了這種情況。
在火車進站20分鐘前她就進了車站。因為她的父母再三跟她說，如果誤了這趟車，她的東道主朋友就得接她兩趟，這是不應(yīng)該的。她把行李交給搬運工并給他看了車票。搬運工說她早到了兩個小時，她聽后大吃一驚。她從錢包里摸出一張紙條，那上面有她父親對這次旅行詳細說明，她把這張紙條交給了搬運工。搬運工說，正如紙條所說，確有一趟火車在那個時刻到站，但它只停站裝郵件，不載旅客。姑娘要求看到時刻表，因為她相信父親不能把這么大的事弄錯。搬運工跑回去取時刻表，同時請來了站長。站長拿著時刻表一揮手，指著那趟列車到站時刻旁邊一個很小的圓圈標記。這個標記表示列車是為裝郵件而停車。正在這時，火車進站了。女孩淚流滿面，央求讓她不聲不響地到押車員車廂里去算了。但站長態(tài)度堅決，規(guī)章制度不能破壞，姑娘只得眼看那趟火車消逝在她要去的方向而撇下了她。
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