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Ten days ago my husband went to a reunion at Eton College for the leavers of 1974. About 150 men crowded into the 15th-century chapel to belt out a quick “Praise my Soul the King of Heaven” before settling down to eat, drink and reminisce about schoolboy pranks while quietly trying to work out who had done best in the 40 years since then. 十天前，我丈夫去参加伊顿公学(Eton College)1974届毕业生的重聚会活动。约150人挤进那座15世纪的教堂，快速地大声唱过《我心应当来称颂主》(Praise my Soul the King of Heaven)之后，坐下来享用可口的饮食，缅怀孩提时代的恶作剧，同时默默合计一下毕业后40年里谁混得最好。 Afterwards he made two observations. The first was how good they all looked. These men, blessed by breeding, education and money, still look at 57 and 58 easily recognisable as their teenage selves. 结果他发现了两个现象。第一个现象是他们看上去都如此神采奕奕。由于教养、教育及金钱的缘故，这些57到58岁的人仍然很容易认出少年时代的样子。 The second was how relatively undistinguished their careers had turned out to be. Apart from one senior politician and one former newspaper editor, they were a middling group of lawyers, property investors and fund managers, rich by national standards, but disappointing if you consider their start in life. They arrived at that school at 13, clever and mostly from wealthy families, to spend five years wearing tailcoats and becoming members of one of the world’s most elite networks. Yet there they were, in their prime, and it had amounted to not very much at all. | 
