斯宾塞伯爵在戴安娜王妃葬礼上的演讲(转载)
(2007-10-07 20:36:23)
uk
Princess Diana Speech by Earl Charles Spencer
I stand before you today the reprentative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning before a world in shock. We are all united not only in our desire to pay our respects to Diana but rather in our need to do so. For such was her extraordinary appeal that the tens of millions of people taking part in this rvice all over the world via television and radio who never actually met her, feel that they too lost someone clo to them in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer her today.
Diana was the very esnce of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of lfless humanity. All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of
the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.
Today is our chance to say thank you for the way you brightened our lives, even though God granted you but half a life. We will all feel cheated always that you were taken from us so young and yet we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now that you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without and we want you to know that life without you is very, very difficult.
We have all despaired at our loss over the past week and only the strength of the message you gave us through your years of giving has afforded us the strength to move forward.
There is a temptation to rush to canoni your memory, there is no need to do so. You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities not to need to be en as a saint. Indeed to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being, your
wonderfully mischievous n of humour with a laugh that bent you double.
Your joy for life transmitted where ever you took your smile and the sparkle in tho unforgettable eyes. Your boundless energy which you could barely contain.
But your greatest gift was your intuition and it was a gift you ud wily. This is what underpinned all your other wonderful attributes and if we look to analy what it was about you that had such a wide appeal we find it in your instinctive feel for what was really important in all our lives.
Without your God-given nsitivity we would be immerd in greater ignorance at the anguish of Aids and HIV sufferers, the plight of the homeless, the isolation of lepers, the random destruction of landmines.
Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected.
And here we come to another truth about her. For all the status, the glamour, the applaus
e, Diana remained throughout a very incure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could relea herlf from deep feelings of unworthiness of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom.
The world nd this part of her character and cherished her for her vulnerability whilst admiring her for her honesty.
The last time I saw Diana was on July 1, her birthday in London, when typically she was not taking time to celebrate her special day with friends but was guest of honour at a special charity fundraising evening. She sparkled of cour, but I would rather cherish the days I spent with her in March when she came to visit me and my children in our home in South Africa. I am proud of the fact apart from when she was on display meeting President Mandela we managed to contrive to stop the ever-prent paparazzi from getting a single picture of her - that meant a lot to her.
