英语经典美文
在平时的学习、工作或生活中，大家或多或少都接触过美文吧？网络文化是一种开放、自由的文化，给美文的概念也赋予了更多的开放自由的元素，用通俗的讲法，写的好的文章，就是美文。为了帮助大家更好的了解美文，以下是小编为大家收集的英语经典美文，供大家参考借鉴，希望可以帮助到有需要的朋友。
英语经典美文1
When you read an English book, you often come across new words. You might try to guess what the words mean from the words you know, but when you cannot guess the meanings of new words at all, what should you do?巴士英语www.xiao84.com
You have a good friend then. From him you can learn what a word means, how to pronounce a word, how to use a word, and so on. This friend can always be with you, and you can always ask him to help you. Do you know who this friend is?
It is a dictionary. You can learn some important things about words from it, so you must know how to use it.
中文译文
朋友
当你读英语书时，你经常会碰到新单词。你可能试着从你知道的词中猜这些词的意思，但是当你无法猜出这些词的'意思时，你该怎么办呢？
这时你有一个好朋友。从他那里你可以学到单词的意思、发音及用法等。这个朋友可以经常伴你左右，你可以经常请他帮忙。你知道这个朋友是谁吗？
他就是字典。你可以从他那里学习有关词汇的众多重要知识，所以你必须学会如何使用字典。
Vocabulary
come across 碰到 guess 猜测
英语经典美文2
密友与普通朋友Real and Simple Friend
Anyone can stand by you when you are right, but a friend will stand by you when you are wrong.
当你一帆风顺时,任何人都可能跟你站在一边,但只有真正的朋友会在你遇到困难时跟你站在一起。
A simple friend identifies himself when he calls. A real friend doesn’t have to.
普通朋友给你打电话时会先说自己是谁,密友用不着这么做。
A simple friend opens a conversation with a full news bulletin on his life.duanwenw.com A real friend says, "What’s new with you?"
普通朋友总是一开口就谈自己近来的生活情况,而密友会问:"你最近怎么样?"
A simple friend thinks the problems you complain about are recent. A real friend says, "You’ve been complaining about the same thing for years."
普通朋友会认为你抱怨的问题是近期遇上的,但密友会说:"这事你已经念叨很久了。"
A simple friend has never seen you cry. A real friend has shoulders wet from your tears.
普通朋友永远不会见到你流泪,你只会靠在密友肩头痛哭。
A simple friend doesn’t know our parents ’first names.duanwenw.com A real friend has their phone numbers in his address book.
普通朋友不会知道你父母的.名字,密友连你父母的电话号码都有。
A simple friend brings a bottle of wine to your party.A real friend comes early to help you cook and stays late to help you clean.
普通朋友参加聚会时会带来一瓶酒,密友却会早早赶到帮你做饭,会为了帮你收拾残局而很晚离开。
A simple friend hates it when you call after he has gone to bed. A real friend asks you why you take so long to call.
普通朋友睡觉时接到你的电话会很反感,而密友会问你为什么这么晚才来电话。
A simple friend seeks to talk with you about your problems. A real friend seeks to help you with your problems.
普通朋友总是跟你讨论你遇上的问题,密友则会努力帮你解决问题。
英语经典美文3
Ever since I can remember, I"ve been fascinated by beauty. As a young girl surrounded by the numbing sameness of all those cornfields around Indianapolis, the glamorous worlds of fashion and cosmetics were a magnificent escape for me. Every time I looked at the advertisements in women"s magazines - all those gorgeous models with flawless skin and expertly applied makeup, their statuesque bodies adorned with incredible designer outfits - I was whisked away to exotic places I could only revisit in dreams.
The Revlon ads were especially wonderful. But there was only one problem - not one ad in those days featured a woman of color like me. Still, there was a "whisper of wisdom" inside me, telling me that someday my dream would come true and I would have a career in the cosmetics industry.
Very few companies bothered to market cosmetics to women of color in those days, but my inspiration came from C. J. Walker, the first African-American woman to become a millionaire. She started out with two dollars and a dream, right in my own hometown. She earned the fortune at the turn of the century, with her own line of hair-care products just for women like herself.
I graduated from college with a degree in public health education. Before long I got a job with a leader in the pharmaceuticals industry - and became the first African-American woman to sell pharmaceuticals in Indiana. People were shocked that I took the job because a woman of color selling encyclopedias in my territory had just been killed. In fact, when I started, the physicians I dealt with looked at me as if I had two heads.
But eventually my uniqueness worked to my advantage. The doctors and nurses remembered me. And I reversed the negative halo effect by doing the job better than other people. Along with pharmaceuticals, I sold them Girl Scout cookies and helped the nurses with their makeup. They began to look forward to my coming, not just for the novelty, but because we enjoyed such heartwarming visits.
Within two years, I"d broken numerous sales records and was recognized as a Distinguished Sales Representative, formerly an all-white male club. I was looking forward to some hard-earned commission checks when suddenly, the company decided to subdivide the region and hired a handsome blond man to take my place. He would enjoy the fruits of my labor, while I was reassigned to another area that needed a lot of work. At this point, my dream of that cosmetics career with Revlon seemed a million miles away.
Discouraged and disenchanted, I picked up and moved to Los Angeles. Then one Sunday, as I searched longingly through the ads in the Los Angeles Times, there it was: a classified ad for a regional manager job with Revlon. I lit up completely and dove for the phone first thing Monday morning. The voice at the other end said that due to overwhelming response, Revlon was taking no more résumés.
I was devastated. But then a dear friend said to me, "Marilyn, I know you aren"t going to let this job slip through your fingers. Go on down there anyway." Suddenly inspired and determined to turn the challenge into an adventure, I drove down to the Marriott where they were conducting interviews. When I arrived, a desk clerk curtly informed me that there was no way I could get an interview, nor would Mr. Rick English take my résumé. I walked away, smiling. At least I now had the name of the man I needed to see.
I decided to have lunch to listen for the whisper of wisdom that would provide me with a new strategy. Sure enough, the idea came to me to explain my situation to the cashier as I was about to leave the restaurant. She immediately picked up the phone to find out what room Mr. English was in. "Room 515," she said turning to me. My heart began to pound.
I stood outside room 515, said a prayer, and knocked on the door. The minute he opened the door I said, "You haven"t met the best person for the job because you haven"t talked to me yet."
He looked stunned and said, "Wait a minute until I finish this interview and I"ll speak to you." When I entered the room, I was clear and firm that this job was for me, and I got the job.
My first day at Revlon was like a dream come true. They hired me to market a new line of hair-care products designed especially for people of color. And by the time I"d worked there three years, the public was beginning to demand natural, cruelty-free products.
With public sentiment on my side, here was my chance! Once again listening to the whisper of wisdom inside me, I opened my own cosmetics company, which to this day continues to give me a sense of fulfillment impossible to describe.
I truly believe we should never give up on our hopes and dreams. The path may be rocky and twisted, but the world is waiting for that special contribution each of us was born to make. What it takes is the courage to follow those whispers of wisdom that guide us from inside. When I listen to that, I expect nothing less than a miracle.
英语经典美文4
Battle of the Blockbusters
Cinema goers in the UK are licking their lips in anticipation of the films to be released in time for the Christmas holidays. And this year it looks like they will be spoiled for choice as fantasy films continue to dominate the Christmas market.
The latest Harry Potter adventure, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, has already become the most successful film in UK cinema history, earning over ￡14 million (130 million RMB) in the first three days of its release. Fans of the franchise have been flocking to cinemas all over the country to watch Harry's progress.
But if Harry thinks he's going to have it all his own way this year, he may be in for a surprise. That's because a new blockbuster saga is on its way to UK cinema screens.
Based on the classic novels of CS Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe poses a threat to the dominance of the Harry Potter films. The film follows the adventures of three children who discover a gateway to the magical world of Narnia. Once they have entered Narnia they become involved in a war between good and evil.
The producers of the Narnia films will be hoping to emulate the success of the Lord of the Rings films which topped the Christmas box office between 20xx and 20xx. Since the Narnia novels have sold more than 65 million copies worldwide, it seems likely that the films will also be a runaway success.
However, there is one other fictional heavyweight who could challenge Harry Potter's hold over the Christmas audience. King Kong roars his way back onto the silver screen on 14th December. Directed by Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson, this film is a big-budget remake of the 1933 classic. The giant ape has been recreated digitally and is more life-like and terrifying than ever.
So whether you are a fan of monster monkeys, schoolboy wizards or enchanted worlds, it looks like this Christmas will be a great time for going to the movies.
英语经典美文5
It was a bitterly cold Denver morning. The weather was unpredictable. First, a warming trend gave the snow a chance to melt and run away, slipping from sight into the storm drains or running silently along the curbs, across side yards and under fences to the low-lying areas where it completed its vanishing act. Then the cold returned with a vengeance, bringing yet another coat of the white powdered precipitation, freezing what little remained from winter"s previous blast and hiding it, an icy trap for street people.
This was a day for staying home, for having a cold and waiting for Mom to bring a cup of soup. It was a day for listening to the all-news radio and imagining the possibility of being snowbound without being too inconvenienced. That was the way the day was supposed to be.
I had a job speaking at the Denver Convention Center to a couple hundred other people who, like me, were unable to have the sniffles and stay home for Mom to bring us soup. Instead, we gathered at the convention center, unable to do more about the weather than to talk about it.
I needed a battery for my wireless microphone. What a lousy time to have gotten lazy. . . I had failed to pack a spare. There was no choice, really. I needed a battery. So I headed into the wind, head bowed, collar up, shuffling in too-thin dress shoes.
Each step brought my thin suit pants close to my backside. The material was cold and reminded me that my mother would have never let me out of the house had she known I had dressed so foolishly.
Around the corner, I spotted a small sign announcing that a 7-Eleven convenience store was within sight. If I walked quickly and lengthened my stride, I could reach the front door and shelter from the brisk wind without drawing a breath of lung-burning air. People who live in Denver like to play with outsiders by telling them that winter in Denver means enduring a pleasant kind of cold. "It"s a much drier kind of cold," report the Denver folks, when their relatives ask how they like life in the Mile-High city. Drier, my foot! It"s cold enough to give the famous brass monkey reason to move. And humidity, or the lack of it, doesn"t seem all that important when gusts of 40-mile-an-hour Arctic reminders are blowing against your backside.
Inside the 7-Eleven were two souls. The one behind the counter wore a name badge saying she was Roberta. Judging by her appearance, Roberta probably wished that she were home bringing hot soup and soothing words to her own little one. Instead, she was spending her day manning an outpost for commerce in a nearly abandoned, downtown Denver. She would be a beacon, a refuge for the few who were foolish enough to be out and about on a day so cold.
The other refugee from the cold was a tall, elderly gentleman who seemed comfortable with his surroundings. He was in absolutely no hurry to step back through the front door and risk sailing through town at the mercy of the wind and ice-covered sidewalks. I couldn"t help but think that the gentleman had lost his mind or his way. To be out on such a day, shuffling through the merchandise of a 7-Eleven, the man must be completely daft.
I didn"t have time to be concerned with an old man who had taken leave of his senses. I needed a battery, and there were a couple hundred important people who had things left to do with their lives waiting for me back at the convention center. We had a purpose.
The old man somehow found his way to the counter ahead of me. Roberta smiled. He said not a single word. Roberta picked up each of his meager purchases and entered each amount into the cash register. The old man had dragged himself into the Denver morning for a lousy muffin and a banana. What a sorry mistake that was!
For a muffin and a banana, a sane man could wait until spring and then perhaps enjoy the opportunity to saunter the streets when they had returned to reasonableness. Not this guy. He had sailed his old carcass into the morning as if there were no tomorrow.
Perhaps there would be no tomorrow. After all, he was pretty old.
When Roberta had figured the total, a tired, old hand fished deep into the trench coat pocket. "Come on," I thought, "You may have all day, but I have things to do!"
The fishing hand caught a change purse as old as the man himself. A few coins and a wrinkled dollar bill fell onto the counter. Roberta treated them as though she were about to receive a treasure.
When the meager purchases had been placed into a plastic bag, something remarkable happened. Although not a word had been spoken by her elderly friend, an old, tired hand slowly extended over the counter. The hand trembled, then steadied.
Roberta spread the plastic handles on the bag and gently slipped them over his wrist. The fingers that dangled into space were gnarled and spotted with the marks of age.
Roberta smiled larger.
She scooped up the other tired, old hand and in an instant, she was holding them both, gathered in front of her brown face.
She warmed them. Top and bottom. Then sides.
She reached and pulled the scarf that had flown nearly off his broad but stooped shoulders. She pulled it close around his neck. Still he said not a single word. He stood as if to cement the moment in his memory. It would have to last at least until the morrow, when he would once again shuffle through the cold.
Roberta buttoned a button that had eluded the manipulation of the old hands.
She looked him in the eye and, with a slender finger, mockingly scolded him.
"Now, Mr. Johnson. I want you to be very careful." She then paused ever so slightly for emphasis and added sincerely, "I need to see you in here tomorrow."
With those last words ringing in his ears, the old man had his orders. He hesitated, then turned, and one tired foot shuffling barely in front of the other, he moved slowly into the bitter Denver morning.
I realized then that he had not come in search of a banana and a muffin. He came in to get warm. In his heart.
I said, "Wow, Roberta! That was really some customer service. Was that your uncle or a neighbor or someone special?"
She was almost offended that I thought that she only gave such wonderful service to special people. To Roberta, apparently, everyone is special.
英语经典美文6
I have a friend named Monty Roberts who owns a horse ranch. He has let me use his house to put on fund-raising events. The last time I was there he introduced me by saying: “I want to tell you a story. It all goes back to a story about a young man who was the son of an itinerant horse trainer who would go from stable to stable, race track to race track, farm to farm and ranch to ranch, training horses. As a result, the boy’s high school career was continually interrupted. When he was a senior, he was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.
我有一个朋友叫蒙蒂?罗伯茨，他拥有一座养马场。他让我用他的房子作为举办筹集基金活动的地点。上次我在他那儿时，他跟我说：“我想给你讲一个故事。这要追溯到一个年轻人身上发生的故事，他是一位巡回驯马师的儿子，他的驯马师父亲从马厩到赛马场，从农庄到牧场，负责训练那里的马匹。结果，这个男孩的中学生涯就不断地被中断。当他成为一名高年级学生的时候，老师要求他写一篇文章，内容有关他长大后想成为什么人以及想做些什么。
“That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing his goal of someday owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail and he even drew a diagram of a 200-acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. Then he drew a detailed floor plan for a 4,000-square-foot house that would sit on a 200-acre dream ranch.
“那天夜里，他写了长达七页的文章，描述了自己将来有一天能拥有一座养马场的目标。他极其详细地介绍了自己的这个梦想，甚至还画出了一幅200英亩牧场的示意图，在上面标出所有建筑、马厩和跑道的具体位置。然后他又画了一幅面积达4,000平方英尺的房屋平面图，这栋房子会坐落在200英亩的梦想牧场上。
“He put a great deal of his heart into the project and the next day he handed it in to his teacher. Two days later he received his paper back. On the front page was a large red F with a note that read, ‘See me after class.’
“他在这个项目上投入了很多心血，第二天，他把文章交给了老师。两天后，他收到了自己的文章。在第一页上，有一个大大的`红色F，并带有一条批注：‘课后来见我。’
“The boy with the dream went to see the teacher after class and asked, ‘Why did I receive an F?’ The teacher said, ‘This is an unrealistic dream for a young boy like you. You have no money. You come from an itinerant family. You have no resources . Owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. You have to buy the land. You have to pay for the original breeding stock and later you’ll have to pay large stud fees . There’s no way you could ever do it.’ Then the teacher added, ‘If you will rewrite this paper with a more realistic goal, I will reconsider your grade.’
“这个怀揣梦想的男孩课后去见那位老师，他问：‘为什么我得了一个F?’老师回答说：‘对于像你这样的小男孩来说，这是一个不切实际的梦想。你没钱。你出身于一个居无定所的家庭。你也没什么才智谋略。要拥有一座养马场需要很多钱。你得买地。你还得为原有的种畜付钱，之后，你将要支付大笔的种马费。你是永远也无法做到的。’随后，老师又补充道：‘如果你针对一个更为实际的目标重写这篇文章的话，我会重新考虑你的成绩的。’
“The boy went home and thought about it long and hard. He asked his father what he should do. His father said, ‘Look, son, you have to make up your own mind on this. However, I think it is a very important decision for you.’ Finally, after a week, the boy turned in the same paper, making no changes at all. He stated, ‘You can keep the F and I’ll keep my dream.’ ”
“这个男孩回家苦苦思索了很久，他问自己的父亲他该做些什么。父亲回答说：‘哎，儿子，你必须要在这件事上自己下定决心。不过，我认为这对你来说是一个非常重要的决定。’最终，男孩在一周后交上了同样一篇文章，他根本没做任何更改。他表明：‘你可以保留这个F，而我将继续怀有我的这个梦想。’”
Monty then turned to the assembled group and said, “I tell you this story because you are sitting in my 4,000-square-foot house in the middle of my 200-acre horse ranch. I still have that school paper framed over the fireplace.” He added, “The best part of the story is that two years ago that same schoolteacher brought 30 kids to camp out on my ranch for a week. When the teacher was leaving, he said, ‘Look, Monty, I can tell you this now. When I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer. During those years I stole a lot of kids’ dreams. Fortunately you had enough gumption not to give up on yours.’ ”
然后，蒙蒂转向聚集的人群说：“我告诉你们这个故事，是因为你们目前正坐在我4,000平方英尺的房子里，它就坐落在我这200英亩的养马场中心。我依然留着那份学校论文，把它装在镜框里，挂在壁炉的上方。”他补充道：“这个故事里最精彩的部分是，就在两年前，同一位老师带着30个孩子在我的牧场上露营了一周的时间。当那位老师离开时，他说：‘喂，蒙蒂，我现在可以对你说这些了，当我做你老师的时候，我其实有点儿像一个偷梦人。在那些岁月里，我偷走了很多孩子的梦想。但幸运的是，你有足够的魄力，没有放弃自己的梦想。’”
“Don’t let anyone steal your dreams. Follow your heart, no matter what,” Monty at last concluded.
“不要让任何人偷走你的梦想。无论怎样都要跟随你自己的心，”蒙蒂最后总结道。
英语经典美文7
E. M. Forster was a member of the Bloomsbury Group—writers, artists, and philosophers living in London who helped shape the modernist movement of the first half of this century. Forster was born in London, but was raised in the countryside of Herforshire. While studying at King’s College, Cambridge, he became deeply interested in cultures other than his own and later traveled widely. In 1912 he sailed with two friends to India where his observations and experiences provided him with the materials from which he later created his highly acclaimed novel A Passage to India (1924), the book to which he refers in the first paragraph of “My Wood.” His fiction often dealt with the effects of social conventions on the natural course of human relationships. Forster’s other major novels are Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), A Room With a View (1908), Howards End (1910), Maurice (1914). Forster acquired a well-deserved reputation as a social and literary critic, as well as a short story writer.
“My Wood” is part of Forster’s 1936 Essay, Abinger Harvest. In this essay, Forster explains the effects produced by owning property. With wit and humor, Forster suggests that purchasing land may not bring the uncomplicated happiness we might expect.
A few years ago I wrote a book which dealt in part with the difficulties of the English in India. Feeling that they would have had no difficulties in India themselves, the Americans read the book freely. The more they read it the better it made them feel, and a cheque to the author was the result. I bought a wood with the cheque. It is not a large wood—it contains scarcely any trees, and it is intersected, blast it, by a public footpath. Still, it is the first property that I have owned, so it is right that other people should participate in my shame, and should ask themselves in accents that will vary in horror, this very important question: What is the effect of property upon the character? Don’t let’s touch economics; the effect of private ownership upon the community as a whole is another question—a more important question, perhaps, but another one. Let’s keep to psychology. If you own things, what’s their effect on you? What’s the effect on me of my wood?
In the first place, it makes me feel heavy. Property does have this effect. Property produces men of weight, and it was a man of weight who failed to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. He was not wicked, that unfortunate millionaire in the parable, he was only stout; he stuck out in front not to mention behind, and as he wedged himself this way and that in the crystalline entrance and bruised his well-fed flanks, he saw beneath him a comparatively slim camel passing through the eye of a needle and being woven into the rob of God.[1] The Gospels all through couple stoutness and slowness. They point out what is perfectly obvious, yet seldom realized: that if you have a lot of things you cannot move about a lot; that furniture requires dusting, dusters require servants, servants require insurance stamps, and the whole tangle of them makes you think twice before you accept an invitation to dinner or go for a bathe in the Jordan. Sometimes the Gospels proceed further and say with Tolstoy that property is sinful; they approach the difficult ground of asceticism here, where I cannot follow them. But as to the immediate effects of property on people, they just show straightforward logic. It produces men of weight. Men of weight cannot, by definition, move like the lightning from the East unto the West, and the ascent of a fourteen-stone bishop into a pulpit is thus the exact antithesis of the coming of the Son of Man.[2] My wood makes me feel heavy.
In the second place, it makes me feel it ought to be larger.
The other day I heard a twig snap in it. I was annoyed at first, for I thought that someone was blackberrying, and depreciating the value of the undergrowth. On coming nearer, I saw it was not a man who had trodden on the twig and snapped it, but a bird, and I felt pleased. My bird. The bird was not equally pleased. Ignoring the relation between us, it took fright as soon as it saw the shape of my face, and flew straight over the boundary hedge into a field, the property of Mrs. Henessy, where it sat down with a loud squawk. It had become Mrs. Henessy’s bird. Something seemed grossly amiss here, something that would not have occurred had the wood been larger. I could not afford to buy Mrs. Henessy out, I dared not murder her, and limitations of this sort beset me on every side. Ahab[3] did not want that vineyard—he only needed it to round off his property, preparatory to plotting a new curve—and all the land around my wood has become necessary to me in order to round off the wood. A boundary protects. But—poor little thing—the boundary ought in its turn to be protected. Noises on the edge of it. Children throw stones. A little more and then a little more, until we reach the sea. Happy Canute.[4] Happier Alexander![5] And after all, why should even the world be the limit of possession? A rocket containing a Union Jack, will, it is hoped, be shortly fired at the moon. Mars. Sirius. Beyond which… But these immensities ended by saddening me. I could not suppose that my wood was the destined nucleus of universal dominion—it is so very small and contains no mineral wealth beyond the blackberries. Nor was I comforted when Mrs. Henessy’s bird took alarm for the second time and flew clean away from us all, under the belief that it belonged to itself.
In the third place, property makes its owner feel that he ought to do something to it. Yet he isn’t sure what. A restlessness comes over him, a vague sense that he has a personality to express—the same sense which, without any vagueness, leads the artist to an act of creation. Sometimes I think I will cut down such trees as remain in the wood, at other times I want to fill up the gaps between them with new trees. Both impulses are pretentious and empty. They are not honest movements towards money-making or beauty. They spring from a foolish desire to express myself and form an inability to enjoy what I have got. Creation, property, enjoyment form sinister trinity in the human mind. Creation, property, enjoyment are both very, very good, yet they are often unattainable without a material basis, and at such moments property pushes itself in as a substitute, saying, “Accept me instead—I’m good enough for all three.” It is not enough. It is, as Shakespeare said of lust, “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame”: it is “Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.” Yet we don’t know how to shun it. It is forced on us by our economic system as the alternative to starvation. It is also forced on us by an internal defect in the soul, by the feeling that in property may lie the germs of self-development and of exquisite or heroic deeds. Our life on earth is, and ought to be, material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly; they are still entangled with the desire for ownership, where (in the words of Dante) “Possession is one with loss.”
And this brings us to our fourth and final point: the blackberries.
Blacberries are not plentiful in this meagre grove, but they are easily seen from the public footpath which traverses it, and all too easily gathered. Foxgloves, too—people will pull up the foxgloves, and ladies of an educational tendency even grub for toadstools to show them on the Monday in class. Other ladies, less educated, roll down the bracken in the arms of their gentlemen friends. There is paper, there are tins. Pray, does my wood belong to me or doesn’t it? And, if it does, should I not own it best by allowing no one else to walk there? There is a wood near Lyme Regis, also cursed by a public footpath, where the owner has not hesitated on this point. He had built high stone walls each side of the path, and has spanned it by bridges, so that the public circulate like termites while he gorges on the blackberries unseen. He really does own his wood, this able chap. Dives in Hell did pretty well, but the gulf dividing him from Lazarus[6] could be traversed by vision, and nothing traverses it here. And perhaps I shall come to this in time. I shall wall in and fence out until I really taste the sweets of property. Enormously stout, endlessly avaricious, pseudo-creative, intensely selfish, I shall weave upon my forehead the quadruple crown of possession until those nasty Bolshies come and take it off again and thrust me aside into the outer darkness.
Questions for Comprehension and Consideration
1. What are the four effects Forster describes as resulting from his purchase of the wood? Explain briefly some of the details Forster uses to explain each of these four effects.
2. In the opening section of the essay, Forster describes the response of Americans to a book he wrote. Why does he emphasize the reaction of Americans? What relationship does the opening paragraph have to the rest of the essay?
3. Forster uses many allusions (references to works or events outside the essay itself) to explain his ideas. Research several of these allusions and explain how these contribute to the central idea of the essay. (For example, in the second paragraph Forster refers to the Gospel of Matthew, 19:24, and to Leo Tolstoy’s views on property.)
4. In the fifth paragraph, Forster begins with specific examples from his own wood and his response to it and ends with generalizations. As he moves from the concrete to the abstract, his tone changes. Analyze the change in tone and explain how Froster uses personal 阿experience as a way to exemplify his general thesis concerning the effects of ownership.
5. In this essay, Forster uses his own experience with ownership to generalize about society’s materialism. Do you consider yourself materialistic? In what ways? Do you consider it a positive or negative trait in yourself or others? Think of something you have purchased after wanting it for a long time. In an essay explain the two or three main ways in which owning this item has affected your life.
[1] See Matthew, XIX, 23-24. (Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
[2] Son of Man Jesus Christ
[3] See 1 Kings, XXI, 1-8. (Now Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And after this Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; and I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” But Naboth said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no food. But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said to him, “Why is your spririt so vexed that you eat no food?” And he said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite, and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if it please you, I will give you another vineyard for it; and he answered, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’ ” And Jezebel his wife said to him, “Do you now govern Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let your heart be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal, and she sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who dwelt with Naboth in his city.
[4] Canute (Cnut) (c. 995—1035) King of England, Denmark and Norway. He invaded Scotland in about 1027, and conquered Norway in 1028. His emire broke up after his death.
[5] Alexander III of Macedon (356-323B.C.) the Great king
[6] See Luke XVI, 19-28 (“There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, Desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ ”)
英语经典美文8
The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming.
在一场船难中，唯一的幸存者随着潮水，漂流到一座荒无人烟的小岛上。他焦躁不安地祈祷上帝能够救他。每天他都注视着海上是否有可搭救他的人，但似乎没有人前来。
Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions.
感觉筋疲力尽，他最终决定用浮木造一个简陋的小木屋，以保护他在这险恶的环境中生存，并且保存他所剩无几的东西。
But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky.
但有一天，在他搜寻完食物回到小屋时，却发现他的小屋陷入熊熊烈火之中，滚滚浓烟不断向天上窜。
The worst had happened: everything was lost.
最糟糕的是:他所有的一切通通化为乌有。
He was stunned with grief and anger. "God, how could you do this to me!" he cried.
他既悲痛又愤怒，茫然不知所措，怒喊道:“神啊！你怎么可以这样对我！”
Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him.
第二天一早，他被一艘正向小岛驶近的船只的鸣笛声吵醒。那是来救他的.。
How did you know I was here? he asked the weary man of his rescuers.
“你们怎么知道我在这里？”他问那些船员中一个充满倦意的人。
We saw your smoke signal, they replied.
“我们看到了你发出的烟雾信号。”他们回答说。
It is easy to get discouraged when things are going bad. But we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering.
人处于困境时，很容易变得沮丧。但我们不应失去信心，因为上帝一直在我们的生活中做着工作，甚至在我们遭遇疼痛和苦难时也是这样。
Remember, next time your little hut is burning to the ground, it just may be a smoke signal that summons the grace of God. For all the negative things we have to say to ourselves, God has a positive answer for it.
记住：当下一次你的小木屋烧毁时，那可能只是召唤上帝美妙恩典的烟雾信号而已。在所有我们认为负面的事情，上帝都有正面的答案。
英语经典美文9
A Temporary Solution
Orly Castel-bloom
Danny Brava was a rich, handsome man. His millions gave him special class which demanded a high standard of behaviour, and prevented him from getting involved in conversations which didn’t lead anywhere and which he called p r o m i l l e conversations.
The serious expression he wore on his face was the result of calculation and self control, and without it he would probably not have got where he was: an office in the north of the city with thirty two employees where he was: an office in the north of the city with thirty two employees where he was: an office in the north of the city with thirty two employees and sixty clients, twenty of them heavy and to the point.
Even though he dealt with large sums of money he didn’t forget to be fair to his employees, and paid them high salaries. They, who were unable to pay him back in money, stayed overtime without financial compensation, and thus they also found a way to thank him for the lunches he subsidized at “Who’s Who”, on condition they didn’t exceed twenty-five shekel a dish, which was enough for tehina, pickles, a decent sized fillet steak and a cold drink.
Brava hated flattery. Anyone who dared to flatter him openly would be interrupted rudely with the question: What do you want?
Thus he forced his interlocutor to retreat to one of two corners: either to forgo any wish he might have had immediately and to withdraw into himself, or to say what he wanted immediately, short and to the point, without any frills.
The friend, although he was already quite careful, sometimes tripped up and flattered him, in which case he would choose the first alternative. He would keep quiet, let Brava feel the sharp, clear boundaries of his personality, and quickly change the subject. Only after talking of some marginal subject, not connected to Brava and his wealth, did he dare to speak of Danny’s difficult years from 1976 to 1981, how he had overcome his difficulties and learnt to turn them to his advantage, or else to ask him:
“Tell me, Danny, how did it go with those tractor guys today?”
Sometimes it would work, and Danny would cooperate with him. But when the attempt at flattery was too blatant things would get a little complicated. Danny would turn his eyes away from the friend and say something like:
“You stupid idiot, why don’t you shut up and leave me alone?”
Then the friend would shut up and rack his brains for a different subject. But Danny for the most part didn’t need to talk to anyone and certainly not to the friend, for Danny Brava, after all, had a firm personality of his own.
Evenings like this would end with the friend going limply home after he and Danny had not exchanged a single word, and after the friend had smoked half a packet of cigarettes and Danny not even one.
In the early years the friend would suffer agonies during the long silences, but after the third year he learnt to find himself special thoughts for these silences. Thoughts, since actual actions were out of the question. When Danny turned his eyes away from him, or stood up and went about his business, he would learn by heart the place of all the objects around him, so that next time he came to see Danny he would be able to tell by the changes what Danny had been doing in the meantime and who had been to visit him. When this amusement paled, he would stare without moving at a point on the white wall and try to force himself to think pleasant thoughts, about lakes in Switzerland, for instance, which he had never seen in his life.
With Brava too there had been developments over the years, and he permitted himself to retire to other rooms, to hold long telephone conversations, to cook himself light meals, to pour himself a drink. The more Brava isolated himself, the more difficult it became for the friend to exercise his imagination, and he searched urgently for new views, buildings, country landscapes. Always inanimate and always in daylight. If he failed to find any such picture he would simply count sheep, and sometimes he would ring the changes and count cows, or amuse himself and count snakes hiding in the rocks and waiting to pounce on innocent bathers on the sea shore.
At a certain stage in the evening, when Brava showed obvious signs of impatience, the friend would rise from his seat and say:
“Bye, I’m going.”
Danny would turn to look at him reflectively, and wave his big hand in farewell.
A moment before he reached the door he would shout after him good night, a salutation to which the friend never responded. He liked leaving the luxurious apartment with a slam of the door.
One Tuesday, exactly on the day when they showed the programme on television about what would happen to Tel Aviv if an atom bomb was dropped on it, the friend came late. Brava sat opposite the colour screen, drank beer, watched the programme and sniggered. It amused him to see the places long familiar to him being blown to smithereens. The explosion, said the usually smiling commentator, who was looking serious in honour of the programme, had been simulated by means of amazing and expensive technology, specially imported for the production of the programme from Japan, where they had shown a similar programme about Tokyo a few months before.
Danny felt safe. Perhaps because he knew that it was all special effects, and perhaps because he was so often out of town. Five times a year to New York, four times to professional conferences in the capitals of Europe, and four absolutely unavoidable times to Frankfurt, in order to invest the money which he didn’t want to leave in the banks in Israel.
The pathos in the voice of the commentator increase when he recited the figures of the damage to life and property which the bomb was likely to cause. After this, the programme began to repeat itself boringly, and Danny switched off the seat.
With one big gulp he finished the beer and threw the empty can out of the window. The can traveled eight floors and landed on the pavement. Sometimes Danny would throw things from the balcony which even if they hit someone on the head wouldn’t have done any great harm, certainly not fatal.
The friend, if he had been there now, would have burst into loud laughter, clapped his hands and run to hide behind the big plants on the balcony to see if the can had hit anyone, and to report back to Danny, looking at him with a smile from his seat.
Brava opened another can of beer, switched on the television and watched the end of the programme. As soon as it was over the telephone rang.
“What’s up?” said Danny, who was sure that it was the friend.
“Danny?” he heard his sister Tirza’s voice and was sorry he had answered the phone.
She asked him if he had watched the programme. “No,” he said, because he couldn’t stand members of his family knowing what he did. Especially not Tirza, who shot her mouth off to everyone after wards. She was divorced, and in past he had rescued her from the legal tangle between herself and her husband. He had paid for her lawyer, and she was grateful to him. Ever since she had felt obliged to phone her younger brother every day, and try to amuse him with all kinds of funny stories from her place of work. At the end of the conversation she would reveal an interest. Usually she wanted the male point of view on a new man she had met. This time she asked him about her ten year old son’s private tutor in arithmetic.
“Tell me, is it true what I think?” she asked. “That he’s trying to start with me? He put his hand on my shoulder when he saw me to the door, and left in there until the last minute. In other words, until I left. How can I be sure…”
Yes, he was definitely trying to come on to her, her brother interrupted her, maybe he was even in love with her, who knows? He thought of how transparent and boring his sister was and he wanted to be rid of her. Tirza said he was a real honey and put the phone down on the excuse of not wanting to stop him from watching the news on television.
Danny stood on the cool balcony and wiped the sweat which had collected on his forehead away with his fingers.
The lights of the meaningless city twinkled in the distance The place where he had chosen to live was perfect, in spite of the noise of the aeroplanes which he had learnt to live with. The airport even soothed him. It reminded him of his trips abroad, which he had missed for the past six months. A small civilian plane was about to take off for a destination inside the country. Brava looked at its shadow. The little plane took off, and on a momentary impulse Brava threw the half-full can of beer at it. The can did not hit the plane. On the long way down the liquid parted from its respectable.
The bus stop where the friend was supposed to get off was deserted. Danny went downstairs and leaned against the bus-stop pole. In the distance a figure approached. He decided not to bawl the friend out. But it wasn’t the friend at all. It was only Shmulik, a parasite and a donkey who lived at the expense of his parents, Danny’s neighbours.
“Hy, Danny,” said Shmulik.
“Hy,” Danny grunted.
Shmulik coughed and went on walking.
“Have you got a cigarette?” Danny called after him.
Shmulik offered him the white pack. After Danny pulled a cigarette from it Shmulik went on walking to his parents’ place, to squeeze a few more pennies out of them.
Brava smoked and remembered how once ha had come late to a date with the friend. It was in the winter of that year. He had a meeting with a good chance of half a million clear profit a year, and he didn’t want to miss it. For six hours he sat in his office opposite the customers, two fifty year old brothers with a coffee import company, and negotiated with them, while telling them witty jokes to reduce the tension.
While he mixed them cocktails in his office and described what they were made of, he worked out that in the light of what he had in front of him here it was no big deal if the friend waiter half an hour in the rain. A calculation that proved to be quite right.
When he got home the friend was wet. He was afraid to wait for Danny in the stairwell in case the neghbours got suspicious and called the police.
When he saw Danny his eyes expressed intense hatred. He was stinking too. And Brava felt a little disgusted by him. The two of them hurried up to the apartment because they couldn’t wait any longer. Nevertheless Danny asked the friend to take a shower. He well remembered the slap he gave the friend when he came out of the shower wearing the bathrobe he had brought back from Singapore.
“You’ve got big eyes,” he said and slapped him in the face.
The friend took the robe off indifferently.
The conscienceless Shmulik walked past Brava again. Brava ignored him, and Shmulik too pretended not to know Brava. After the quarter of an hour that he had allocated himself he went upstairs, took his car keys and drove at high speed to Bat-Yam.
“He’s not home,” said the friend’s mother.
Brava pushed her gently aside and saw the friend lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t shift his gaze even when Danny approached him.
“Are you coming?” asked Danny.
The friend’s mother walked past them with a tub full of wet washing.
The friend smiled a forced smile.
Danny sat down on an armchair and sulked.
“Then give it to me,” he ordered angrily.
After a short silence the friend stretched out his hand and took a little plastic bag secured with an elastic band out of his pocket and threw it onto the table.
Brava snatched the bag and left. Passersby looked admiringly at his magnificent racing car.
At home he clumsily performed all the necessary operations and cursed the friend, who always did them while he himself looked on like a king and corrected him.
His mood improved beyond recognition. He lay on the sofa and floated.
After twenty minutes the friend knocked on the door. Brava, who was sunk in colourful hallucinations, didn’t hear the knocking. The friend was alarmed, because it occurred to him that Danny might have taken too much, and he went on knocking harder than before. After ten minutes of continuous knocking Danny realized that it wasn’t a passing train going choo-choo. He got up and approached the door.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
Outside the door the friend wondered whether to identify himself or not. Brava asked again, who’s there. The friend pressed the button for the lift. Brava moved slowly away from the door and lay down on the inviting sofa again. The friend heard the heavily receding footsteps. So Danny had managed by himself, he thought resentfully. The lift arrived and continued on its way without him.
He knocked on the door again. Brava grunted a tired who’s there without getting up.
The friend called: “Open up!”
Danny opened the door. The friend came in. Danny lay on the sofa in silence. The friend didn’t have the strength for these silences any longer and he tried to make conversation. He described something he had seen on the way.
“Don’t ask what an accident I saw on the way. A bus was driving down Herzl and turned right into Balfour. One second after it turned into Balfour a woman crossed the road. The bus didn’t see the woman. I think she saw it but she was too late to get out of the way. I heard her scream. It was terrible. I ran away. I can’t stand the sight of blood. I just can’t stand it. I ran as fast as I could to stop a taxi. The screams of the people in the bus and all that. It was ghastly, I’m telling you,” he concluded and looked at Danny.
Danny lay on the sofa with his eyes closed and muttered unintelligibly. On second thoughts the friend decided that he was singing. He tried in vain to guess what song it was. He longed to stroke Danny’s smooth cheek, but he didn’t dare approach him.
In the end, on an impulse, he sat down beside him. There was no room on the sofa for them both, and Danny got up and went to the kitchen. The friend wanted to take the transistor radio standing on the sideboard and smash it on the wall, but instead he followed Danny.
As soon as he reached the kitchen Danny emerged from it with his mouth full of food. The friend found himself in the kitchen, with Danny in the living room. After a moment in the kitchen the friend pulled his face and returned to the living room too. Danny sniggered. The friend sat on the armchair. Suddenly Danny got up and went to his room. He left the door half open on purpose. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked through the crack between the door and the doorpost at the hesitant profile of the friend. When he saw the friend stand up he laughed maliciously.
The friend knocked lightly on the half-open door.
“Who’s there?” asked Danny.
The friend cleared his throat.
“It’s me, darling, maybe you can give me a little money before I go?”
“How much do you need?” called Danny from the other side of the door.
“Do I know?” said the friend. “A thousand five hundred will be enough.”
“Take it from my coat pocket,” said Danny, “count seven hundred and fifty and take it.”
The friend lingered a moment and returned to the living room. He looked at Danny’s coat, which was lying on one of the armchairs, and took a neatly folded bundle of banknotes out of the pocket. He quickly counted five thousand and put them in his pocket. On the way out his eyes encountered those of a Japanese woman standing stuck to the wall. He ripped her from the wall and crumpled her up.
Because what is reality, said Brava mockingly to himself after he heard the door slam loudly behind the friend. What is it, if not someone telling you something, and afterwards he says to you, listen, that was a lie, and corrects himself, and a few minutes later he says again, listen, that was a lie too and corrects himself, and afterwards he says, sorry, that was a lie too. And so on endlessly until you don’t know what to think any more. Either you go mad or you become like me.
英语经典美文10
There are about fifty-two weeks in a year. And there are seven days in each week. The first day of a week is Sunday. The other days of a week between SundayandSaturdayare Monday,
英语经典美文11
J. B. Priestley
约翰·博因顿·普里斯特利英国著名小说家
The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbis of old put it this way: “A man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open.”
生活的艺术在于懂得什么时候追求，什么时候放弃。因为生活就是一个矛盾体：它要我们紧紧抓住它赐予我们的生命之礼，然后最终又让它们从我们手中跑掉。老先生们说：“人们紧握着拳头来到这个世界上，离开这个世界时却摊开了双手。”
Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God’s own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.
当然我们应该紧紧把握生活，因为它美妙得不可思议，充满了从上帝的每个毛孔里蹦出来的美。我们都清楚这一点，但我们常常只有在回首往事时才会想去过去，才会突然意识到过去永远地消逝了，才会承认这个道理。
We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.
我们都记得美的.褪去，爱的老去。但我们更痛苦地记得美正艳时，我们却没有发现，爱正浓时，我们却没有回应。
Here then is the first pole of life’s paradoxical demands on us: Never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.
这就是生活对我们自己自相矛盾要求的第一步：永远不要因为忙碌而忽略了它的奇妙和庄严。对即将到来的每一天，我们都要心怀敬意，拥抱没一小时，抓住每一分钟。
Hold fast to life… but not so fast that you cannot let go. This is the second side of life’s coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.
抓住生活，但不要抓得太紧，以至你放不下手。这就是生活像硬币一样也有另一面，也是生活矛盾的另一极：我们必须接受放弃，并且学会怎样让它过去。
This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can, nay, will, be ours. But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surely this truth dawns upon us.
学会这些并非易事。特别是年少轻狂的时候，我们自认为是世界的主宰者，认为只要充满激情地全力追求，就可以得到一切。然而，事实并非如此。只有在面对种种现实时，我们才会渐渐没明白这个道理。
At every stage of life we sustain losses—and grow in the process. We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter. We enter a progression of schools, then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. We get married and have children and then have to let them go. We confront the death of our parents and our spouses. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our strength. And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves as it were, all that we were or dreamed to be.
在人生的各个阶段，我们都会蒙受损失——并且在这一过程中成长。只有在脱离母体。失去庇护所时，我们才会开始独立的生活。我们不断地升学，接着又离开父母，离开儿时的故乡。继而，我们结婚生子，然后又放手让自己的子女出去闯荡。随着父母和配偶的相继离世，我们也逐渐或者很快衰老。最终，正如双手张开与紧握这一寓言所说，我们必须面对自身的死亡，失去原来的自我，失去我们拥有过或者憧憬过的一切。
英语经典美文12
Every life coheres around certain fundamental core ideas whether we realize it or not。 If I were asked to state the ideas around which my life and my life's work have been built it would seem that they were very simple ideas。
无论我们能否认识到这点，每个人的人生都与某种基础的核心思想密切相连的。
An old professor of mine used to say that "effort counts。" "The surest thing in the world，" he would say， "next to death is that effort counts。" This I believe with all my heart。
倘若有人问我，我的生命与工作基于何种观念？我觉得它们非常简单。“一分耕耘，一分收获。”这是我的一位老教授过去常说的话。他说：“除了死亡之外，世界上最确切的事就是‘一分耕耘，一分收获’。”我对此深信不疑。
We seldom realize the sense of glow， the sense of growing self—esteem， the sense of achievement， which can come from doing a job well。 Just working at a thing with enthusiasm and with a belief that the job may be accomplished， however uncertain the outcome， lends zest to life。
我们很少能意识到工作带给我们的乐趣，对我们自尊心的培养，以及给予我们的成就感。只要带着热情去做一件事情，并坚信一定可以完成，无论最终会有怎样的结果，它都会为我们的生活带来激情。
If I were to start life again， I think I would do just what I have done in the past—this past having been done by mere chance。 I would start at some task which very much needed to be done。 I would start in a place which was run down and I would believe with all my heart that if the thing needed to be done and if effort were put into it， results would come for human good。
如果再给我一次生命，我想我仍会做过去所做的事——虽然过去所做的一切纯属偶然。我会从急需去做的事情做起，从破损之处做起;我会由衷地相信，只要是必须做的事，只要付出努力，就一定会获得对人类有益的结果。
Too， from the outset， my wife and I have had the feeling that no matter what else we did in life， we had to devote our best thinking and our best living to our children。
并且，我和妻子从一开始就认为，无论生活中还有任何什么别的事等待我们去做，我们都必须全身心为孩子们提供最好的生活。
Now that they are all grown， we have sincere satisfaction in the fact that trying to do ajob and trying to earn a living did not take away from us this urgency to be and do so that our children could have a feeling of the importance of integrity， honesty and straightforwardness in life。
如今，他们都已长大成人。我们感到无比满足，我们为生计奔波，努力工作，但都不曾忽略孩子，这样孩子们才能真正明白生活中正直、诚实和坦率的重要性。而我觉得，人们通常都忽略了这些。为了在社会中生存，人们不得不去工作，于是忽略了自己的`孩子。
It seems to me far too often this is overlooked。 We people in public life do the jobs we have to do and fail to save our own children。 This second thing is important— doing the task you have to do but beginning at home to bring peace， love， happiness and contentment to those whom God has given you。
然而，后者更为重要——做你必须做的事，但先要把和平、爱心、幸福和满足感带给家中的那些上帝恩赐与你的孩子们。
The third idea， around which I have tried to live and work， is that there is an overshadowing Providence that cares for one。 Ofttimes struggles are too intense， too "eager beaverish" when， as a matter of fact， time and God can solve many problems。
上天始终眷顾着我，这是维系我的生活与工作的第三个观念。有时，我们会过于积极，过于“急功近利”，而事实上，上帝和时间会解决很多问题。
Never in my life have I gotten away from the idea that God cares and that He provides that the forces of good in the world are greater than the forces of evil and that if we will lend ourselves to those forces， in the long run we have greater joy and happiness in the thing which we try to achieve。
上帝眷顾着我们，他让我们懂得世界上善的力量总大于恶的力量，只要我们追随着善，就一定会从我们努力成就的事业中获得更多的快乐与幸福，这正是我在一生中都不曾背离的一种观念。它们是我儿时时从母亲那里学到的。
This I learned from my mother as a boy。 Although she was ill and although we were poor—as poor as people can be—I do not now recall a moment of discouragement in her presence。 There was always an overpowering belief that God was in His heaven and that， as Joe Louis said， "God is on our side。"
虽然母亲染病在身，虽然我们的生活一贫如洗，但是在我的记忆中，母亲从未有过一刻的气馁。她始终坚信，正如乔路易斯所说：“上帝与我们同在。”上帝就在天堂。
These things I believe with all my heart。
对于这些观念，我是由衷地相信的。
英语经典美文13
乡 愁
NOSTALGIA
文/翻译：余光中 | 朗读：孟飞Phoenix
When I was young,
Nostalgia was a tiny, tiny stamp,
Me on this side,
Mother on the other side.
小时候
乡愁是一枚小小的邮票
我在这头
母亲在那头
When I grew up,
Nostalgia was a narrow boat ticket,
Me on this side,
My bride on the other side.
长大后
乡愁是一张窄窄的船票
我在这头
新娘在那头
But later on,
Nostalgia was a lowly grave,
Me on the outside,
Mother on the inside.
后来啊
乡愁是一方矮矮的坟墓
我在外头
母亲在里头
And at present,
Nostalgia becomes a shallow strait,
Me on this side,
Mainland on the other side.
而现在
乡愁是一湾浅浅的`海峡
我在这头
大陆在那头
【 致 橡 树 】
文：舒婷 | 主播：孟飞Phoenix
If I love you
我如果爱你
I won't wind upon you like a trumpet creeper
绝不像攀援的凌霄花
upvalue myself by your height
借你的高枝炫耀自己
If I love you
我如果爱你 ——
I will never follow a spoony bird
绝不学痴情的鸟儿
repeating the monotone song for the green shade
为绿荫重复单调的歌曲
not only like a spring head
也不止像泉源
brings you clean coolness whole year long
常年送来清凉的慰籍
not only like a steepy peak
也不止像险峰
enhances your height,
sets off your straightness
增加你的高度
衬托你的威仪
even sunshine
甚至日光。
and spring rain
甚至春雨。
No, all these are not enough!
不，这些都还不够！
I must be a ceiba by your side
我必须是你近旁的一株木棉，
as a tree standing together with you
做为树的形象和你站在一起。
our roots melt underneath
根，紧握在地下
our leaves merge in clouds
叶，相触在云里
when wind breezes
每一阵风过
we greet each other
我们都互相致意
but no one
但没有人
can understand our peculiar words
听懂我们的言语
you have your strong stem and branches
你有你的铜枝铁干
like knives and swords
像刀，像剑
and like halberds
也像戟
I have my red ample flowers
我有我的红硕花朵
like heavy sighs
像沉重的叹息
and heroic torches as well
又像英勇的.火炬
we partake cold tide,
thunder storm,firebolt
我们分担寒潮、风雷、霹雳
together we share brume,
flowing mist,rainbow
我们共享雾霭、流岚、虹霓
as if we separate all the time
仿佛永远分离
actually we forever rely on each other
却又终身相依
this is great love
这才是伟大的爱情
loyalty lives here
坚贞就在这里：
LOVE
爱
not only your giant body
不仅爱你伟岸的身躯
but also the position you stand，
the earth under your feet
也爱你坚持的位置，脚下的土地
爱是真诚的
A man and his girlfriend were married. It was a large celebration.一个男人和他的女朋友结婚，举行了一场盛大的结婚庆典。
All of their friends and family came to see the lovely ceremony and to partake ofthe festivities and celebrations. All had a wonderful time. The bride was gorgeous in her white wedding gown and the groom was very dashing in his black tuxedo. Everyone could tell that the love they had for each other was true.
所有的朋友和家人都来到结婚典礼上参加欢宴和庆祝活动。大家都过得很开心。穿着白色婚纱的新娘漂亮迷人，穿着黑色礼服的新郎英俊潇洒。每个人都能看出他们彼此的爱是真诚的。
A few months later, the wife came to the husband with a proposal, "I read in a magazine, a while ago, about how we can strengthen our marriage," she offered. "Each of us will write a list of the things that we find a bit annoying with the other person. Then, we can talk about how we can fix them together and make our lives happier together."
几个月后，妻子走近丈夫提议说：“我刚才在杂志上看到一篇文章，说的是怎样巩固婚姻。”她说：“我们两个人都各自把对方的.小毛病列在一张纸上，然后我们商量一下怎样解决，以使我们的生活更幸福。”
The husband agreed. So each of them went to a separate room in the house and thought of the things that annoyed them about the other. They thought about this question for the rest of the day and wrote down what they came up with. The next morning, at the breakfast table, they decided that they would go over their lists.
丈夫同意了。于是他们各自走向不同的房间去想对方的缺点。那一天余下的时间里，他们都在思考这个问题，并且把他们想到的都写下来。第二天早上，吃早饭的时候，他们决定谈谈彼此的缺点。
"I'll start," offered the wife. She took out her list. It had many items on it, enough to fill three pages. In fact, as she started reading the list of the little annoyances, she noticed that tears were starting to appear in her husband's eyes.
“我先开始吧。”妻子说。她拿出她的单子，上面列举了很多条，事实上，足足写满了三页。当她开始念的时候，她注意到丈夫眼里含着泪花。
"What's wrong?" she asked. "Nothing," the husband replied, "keep reading your list."
“怎么啦?”她问。“没什么，”丈夫答道，“继续念吧。”
The wife continued to read until she had read all three pages to her husband. She neatly placed her list on the table and folded her hands over the top of it.
妻子又接着念。整整三页都念完之后她把单子整齐地放在桌上，两手交叉放在上面。
"Now, you read your list and then we'll talk about the things on both of our lists," she said happily.
“现在该你念了，然后我们谈谈所列举的缺点。”她高兴地说。
Quietly the husband stated, "I don't have anything on my list. I think that you are perfect the way that you are. I don't want you to change anything for me. You are lovely and wonderful and I wouldn't want to try and change anything about you." The wife, touched by his honesty and the depth of his love for her and his acceptance of her, turned her head and wept.
丈夫平静地说：“我什么也没写，我觉得像你这样就很完美了，我不想让你为我改变什么。你很可爱迷人，我不想让你改变。”妻子被丈夫的诚实和对她深深的爱和接纳感动了，她转过头去哭起来。
In life, there are enough times when we are disappointed, depressed and annoyed. We don't really have to go looking for them. We have a wonderful world that is full of beauty, light and promise. Why waste time in this world looking for the bad, disappointing or annoying when we can look around us, and see the wondrous things before us?
生命中我们有很多的失望、沮丧和烦恼，我们根本不需要寻找。我们美妙的世界充满了美丽、光明、希望。但是，当我们放眼四周时，为什么浪费时间寻找不快、失望和烦恼，而看不到我们面前的美好事物呢？
雨中的记忆
Run through the rain
She had been shopping with her Mom in Wal-Mart. She must have been 6 years old, this beautiful brown haired, freckle-faced image of innocence. It was pouring outside. The kind of rain that gushes over the top of rain gutters, so much in a hurry to hit the earth, it has no time to flow down the spout.
她和妈妈刚在沃尔玛结束购物。这个天真的小女孩应该6岁大了，头发是美丽的棕色，脸上有雀斑。外面下着倾盆大雨。雨水溢满了檐槽，来不及排走，就迫不及待地涌涨上地面。
We all stood there under the awning and just inside the door of the Wal-Mart. We all waited, some patiently, others irritated, because nature messed up their hurried day. I am always mesmerized by rainfall. I get lost in the sound and sight of the heavens washing away the dirt and dust of the world. Memories of running, splashing so carefree as a child come pouring in as a welcome reprieve from the worries of my day.
我们都站在沃尔玛门口的遮篷下。大家都在等待，有人很耐心，有人很烦躁，因为老天在给他们本已忙碌的一天添乱。雨天总引起我的遐思。我出神地听着、看着老天冲刷洗涤这世界的污垢和尘埃，孩时无忧无虑地在雨中奔跑玩水的记忆汹涌而至，暂时缓解了我一天的焦虑。
Her voice was so sweet as it broke the hypnotic trance we were all caught in, “Mom, let's run through the rain." she said.
小女孩甜美的声音打破了这令人昏昏欲睡的气氛，“妈妈，我们在雨里跑吧。”她说。
"What?" Mom asked.
“什么?”母亲问。
"Let's run through the rain!" She repeated.
“我们在雨里跑吧，”她重复。
"No, honey. We'll wait until it slows down a bit." Mom replied.
“不，亲爱的，我们等雨小一点再走。”母亲回答说。
This young child waited about another minute and repeated: "Mom, let's run through the rain."
过了一会小女孩又说：“妈妈，我们跑出去吧。”
"We'll get soaked if we do." Mom said.
“这样的'话我们会湿透的。”母亲说。
"No, we won't, Mom. That's not what you said this morning," the young girl said as she tugged at her Mom's arm."
“不会的，妈妈。你今天早上不是这样说的。”小女孩一边说一边拉着母亲的手。
"This morning? When did I say we could run through the rain and not get wet?"
“今天早上?我什么时候说过我们淋雨不会湿啊?”
"Don't you remember? When you were talking to Daddy about his cancer, you said, If God can get us through this, he can get us through anything!"
“你不记得了吗?你和爸爸谈他的癌症时，你不是说‘如果上帝让我们闯过这一关，那我们就没有什么过不去。’”
The entire crowd stopped dead silent. I swear you couldn't hear anything but the rain. We all stood silently. No one came or left in the next few minutes. Mom paused and thought for a moment about what she would say.
人群一片寂静。我发誓，除了雨声，你什么都听不到。我们都静静地站着。接下来的几分钟没有一个人走动。母亲停了一下，想着应该说些什么。
Now some would laugh it off and scold her for being silly. Some might even ignore what was said. But this was a moment of affirmation in a young child's life. Time when innocent trust can be nurtured so that it will bloom into faith. "Honey, you are absolutely right. Let's run through the rain. If get wet, well maybe we just needed washing." Mom said. Then off they ran.
有人也许会对此一笑了之，或者责备这孩子的不懂事，有人甚至不把她的话放在心上。但这却是一个小孩子一生中需要被肯定的时候。若受到鼓舞，此时孩子单纯的信任就会发展成为坚定的信念。“亲爱的，你说得对，我们跑过去吧。如果淋湿了，那也许是因为我们的确需要冲洗一下了。”母亲说。然后她们就冲出去了。
We all stood watching, smiling and laughing as they darted past the cars and they held their shopping bags over their heads just in case. They got soaked. But they were followed by a few who screamed and laughed like children all the way to their cars. And yes, I did. I ran. I got wet. I needed washing.Circumstances or people can take away your material possessions, they can take away your money, and they can take away your health. But no one can ever take away your precious memories. So, don't forget to make time and take the opportunities to make memories every day!
我们站在那里，笑着看她们飞快地跑过停着的汽车。她们把购物袋高举过头想挡挡雨，但还是湿透了。好几个人像孩子般尖叫着，大笑着，也跟着冲了出去，奔向自己的车子。当然，我也这样做了，跑了出去，淋湿了。我也需要接受洗礼。环境或其他人可以夺去你的物质财富，抢走你的金钱，带走你的健康，但没有人可以带走你珍贵的回忆。因此，记得要抓紧时间，抓住机会每天都给自己留下一些回忆吧
英语经典美文14
heavy shoolwork【课业繁重】
In my opinion, the schoolwork now being assigned to high school students is too heavy. While it is true that students need to study, they need other things as well if they are to grow into healthy and well-rounded adults. High should be allowed more time for play. Plying is not wasting time, as some think. It gives them physical exercise, and also exercise their imagination. Which tends to be stifled by too much study. Finally, the pressure put on high school students by excessive schoolwork can cause serious stress, which is unhealthy physically and mentally. I do not advocate the elimination of schoolwork. I do think, however, that a reduction of the current heavy load would be beneficial to students and to the society as a whole.
我认为目前高中生的课业实在太重了，虽然说学生的确应当念书，但是要想长大成为健全的人，他门还需要一些其它的东西，所以应该给高中生较多从事娱乐的时间。娱乐并不如某些人所想的，是在浪费时间，它可以让学生锻炼身体，发挥被繁重课业扼杀的想象力。此外，繁重的.课业加诸在高中生身上的压力可能引起严重的情绪紧张，这对身心都有害。我并非主张废除学校课业，但是我认为减轻目前繁重的课业对于学生和整个社会都是有益的。
Time【时间】
Lost time is never found again. This is something which I learned very clearly last semester. I spent so much time fooling around that my grades began to suffer. I finally realized that something had to be done. It was time for a change.
Now I have a new plan for using my time wisely. I have set my alarm clock ahead half an hour. This will give me a head start on the day. I have also decided to keep a log of what I do and when I do it. Looking back on what I’ve done will give me some ideas on how to reorganize my time.
时光一去不复返，这是我上学期清楚学到的教训。我浪费很多时间四处游荡，以致于我的成绩开始退步。最后我终于了解到我必须有所作为；该是痛改前非的时候了。
现在我有一个明智运用时间的新方法。我已将闹钟早拨半小时，这将使我这一天的作息提前开始。我也决定将我所做的一切及做这些事的时间记录下来。回顾我所做的事情会启发我如何重新安排我的时间。
Work and Play【工作与娱乐】
Work and play do not contradict each other; in fact, they complement each other. As the saying goes, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." A life burdened with work leads you nowhere, for you would get tired and bored with your daily routine work. On the other hand, proper recreation will relieve the tension and discomfort of our monotonous life because it offers you various ways to let out your pent-up emotions.
What I usually do to relax after school is jogging and seeing movies. Usually I don't spare time for exercise, but I value the physical education class at school. Jogging several rounds in the field certainly relieves the day's pressure. On weekends, I'll catch the morning movie for my visual enjoyment. I feel revived and energetic for another week's work-load.
工作与娱乐并不互相冲突，事实上，它们之间的关系还相辅相成。有句格言说：「整日工作而没有休闲娱乐，会令人变得沉闷乏味。」被工作重担压得喘不过气来的生活，将使你一事无成，因为你将对一成不变的例行公事感到厌烦。由另一方面来说，适度的娱乐活动能提供各种管道，来渲泄你被压抑的情绪，减轻单调生活中的紧张与不悦。
放学之后，我最常做的休闲活动，便是慢跑与看电影。通常我并不特地拨出时间来做运动，但是我很重视学校的体育课。在操场上慢跑几圈，无疑地可以减轻一天的压力。在周末时，我都去看早场电影，享受视觉飨宴。如此一来，我将有如再生般的充沛活力，去面对下一星期的工作量。
英语经典美文15
Friendship is one of the greatest pleasure that people can enjoy.It is very difficult tofind a better definition of friendship.A truefriend does indeed find pleasurein our joy andshare sorrow in our grief.In time of trial,he orshe is always at our side to give us his or her help and Knowing how valuable friendshiis,weshould be very careful in our choice of friend.We must choose someone who has a good character,whose activities are good and who shows kindness of heart.We should avoid those shallow people who are easily changed by adversities ormisfortune.
A true friend can always be trusted,loved and respected.If you tell a friend your secrets,he or she won’t tell anyone else.Friends share each other’s joys and sorrows.They help each other when they are in trouble,and cheer each other up when they are sad.The most important thing is that a friend always understands you.In conclusion,when you have made a good friend,don’t forget him or her .
我们一生中不能没有友谊。它是人们最大的快乐之一。很难给友谊找到一个更好的定义。一个真正的朋友会与我们分享快乐与悲伤。在考验人的时刻,他或她总会站在我们一边,帮助我们，安慰我们。
知道了友谊的珍贵，在择友时我们就应非常谨慎。然而，选择朋友并不容易.我们一定要选择那些性格好、行为好、心地好的`人.应避免选择那些遇到逆境或不幸就很容易改变的人。
一个真正的朋友总是让人信任、喜爱和尊敬的。如果你把自己的秘密告诉了朋友，他不会告诉别人。朋友之间会分享快乐和悲伤。当他们遇到困难时，会互相帮助;当他们悲伤时，会互相鼓励。最重要的是,朋友总是能理解你。最后说一句，当你交到好友时，不要轻易忘记他或她。
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