一些老年人深受死亡恐惧的压迫。
Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death.
对于年轻人来说，这种感受有其正当理由。
In the young there is a justification for this feeling.
那些有理由担心自己会在战场上阵亡的年轻人，想到自己被剥夺了生命所能给予的一切美好，有充分理由感到痛苦与愤懑。
Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer.
但对于一个经历过人间悲欢、并已完成自己力所能及之事业的老年人来说，对死亡的恐惧却多少显得卑微而不体面。
But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble.
克服死亡恐惧的最佳方式——至少在我看来是这样——是使你的兴趣逐渐变得更广泛、更超越自我，直到自我的藩篱一点一点地消退，你的生命日益融入宇宙普遍的生命之中。
The best way to overcome it — so at least it seems to me — is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.
人的个体生命应当像一条河流——起初细小，被堤岸紧紧约束，激情地冲过巨石、越过瀑布。
An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls.
渐渐地，河流变宽，两岸退去，水流趋于平静，最终，不知不觉之间，河水融入大海，毫无痛苦地失去了它个体的存在。
Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.
那个在晚年能以这种方式看待自己生命的人，将不会受到死亡恐惧的折磨，因为他所珍视的事物将会延续下去。
The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue.
而且，若随着活力的衰减，疲倦与日俱增，那么休息的念头也将并非令人不愿接受的。
And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome.
我希望在仍然从事工作时死去，知道他人将继续承担那些我再也无法完成的事，并满足于这样一个想法：凡是力所能及的事，都已经完成了。
I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.