前言：接前一篇，我在四点多敲完准备发送，接着收到一条推送，长者去矣。🕯️🕯️🕯️
我虽非活在他的时代，但过去十年，他却活在我的生活中。回顾那些传播甚广的片段，我却对以下这段印象深刻──
……
「你知道这是谁说的吗？」一个学生打断了他。
「当然，我怎么会不知道呢？」他反驳道，「这是 1863 年 11 月 19 日，美国第 16 任总统亚伯拉罕·林肯在其著名的葛底斯堡演讲中所说的。」
「现在让我问你们一个问题，」他向观众们提出了反问，「你们有谁能背诵整篇演讲？」
没等学生回答，他就开始用英语背诵葛底斯堡演讲，就像上海市长变成了一部关于美国内战的戏剧中的演员。他用其出色的演说技巧——对语速和语调良好的把握——饰演着林肯总统，赋予了每个字句以意义与情感。
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate－we can not consecrate－we can not hallow－this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us－that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion－that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain－that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom－and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
──《The Gettysburg Address》 ABRAHAM LINCOLN
八十七年前，我们的国父们在这块土地上创建一个新的国家，乃基于对自由的坚信，并致力于所有人皆生而平等的信念。
当下吾等被卷入一场伟大的内战，以考验是否此国度，或任何肇基于和奉献于斯者，可永垂不朽。吾等现相逢于此战中一处浩大战场。而吾等将奉献此战场之部分，作为这群交付彼者生命让那国度勉能生存的人们最后安息之处。此乃全然妥切且适当而为吾人应行之举。
但，于更大意义之上，吾等无法致力、无法奉上、无法成就此土之圣。这群勇者，无论生死，曾于斯奋战到底，早已使其神圣，而远超过吾人卑微之力所能增减。这世间不曾丝毫留意，也不长久记得吾等于斯所言，但永不忘怀彼人于此所为。吾等生者，理应当然，献身于此辈鞠躬尽瘁之未完大业。吾等在此责无旁贷献身于眼前之伟大使命：自光荣的亡者之处吾人肩起其终极之奉献—吾等在此答应亡者之死当非徒然—此国度，于神佑之下，当享有自由之新生—民有、民治、民享之政府当免于凋零。
──《葛底斯堡演说》 亚伯拉罕·林肯
起于此，而终于此。此不可言。