Writings of Shakespeare
莎士比亚戏剧精选四段
(1)
Twelfth Night
II.iv.103-117
[DUKE OF ILLYRIA]
What dost thou know?
[VIOLA]
Too well what love women to men may owe.
In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
My father had a daughter loved a man
As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
I should your lordship.
[DUKE OF ILLYRIA]
And what抯 her history?
[VIOLA]
A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i抰h抌ud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought;
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
We men may say more, swear more; but indeed
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows but little in our love.
男人的爱与女人的爱
[伊利里亚公爵]
您深知的是什么?
[薇奥拉]
深知女人可以如何热爱男人。
真的，她们象我们一样真心。
当年我爹有个女儿爱上个郎，
正如，假如我是女的，也许我会爱上爵爷您。
[伊利里亚公爵]
结果她的遭遇呢?
[薇奥拉]
是片空白。她没有透露她的爱意，
却让这秘密，象蓓蕾中的害虫，
吃她淡红的面颊来养生。哀思中憔悴了，
带着又绿又黄的忧郁，
她如墓碑般有耐性，坐着，
看着悲伤微笑。那还不是真爱吗?
我们男的说更多话、发更多誓；实际上却虚饰多于真情；
常见誓言夸张， 情意有限。
【作者简介】
威廉飞勘妊牵河⒐飞希酥潦澜缋飞献钗按蟮南肪绱笫ΑＫ 1564年出生于英国中部的斯特拉夫镇.十三四岁时因家庭破产而辍学。之后，他先后当过士兵、教师、剧院的杂役、演员和剧团股东。传说他出生的日期为四月二十三日。莎士比亚的语言异常凝美，内涵也无比丰富。
【注释】
dost[D8KC]:【古】do的第二人称单数现在式(主词为thou)
thou[J>7]:【古】(第二人称单数主格)汝,尔,你
damask[\D3P:KE]:淡红色的,粉红色的 melancholy[\P
[SPEED]
Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms like a malcontent, to relish a love-song like a robin-red-breast, to walk alone like one that had the pestilence, to sign like a schoolboy that had lost his A B C, to weep like a young wench that had buried her grandam, to fast like one that takes diet, to watch like one that fears robbing, to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walked, to walk like one of the lions; When you fasted, it was presently after dinner; when you looked sadly, it was for want of money. And now you are metamorphosed with a mistress, that when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master.
哟，您怎知我患了相思病?
[史比德]
哎呀，就是从这些特殊的迹象嘛：首先，你学会了，与普洛帝斯少爷 一样，像个不满现状的人般盘着双臂；学会了象只知更鸟般唱着情歌；学会了独来独往，象个染了瘟疫的人；学会了叹息，象个丢了启蒙课本的学生哥儿；学会了哭泣，象埋葬了老奶奶的小姑娘；学会了节食，象需要节制饮食的人；学会了废寝，象担心盗窃的人；学会了啼哭着说话，象万圣节的叫化子。原来嘛，您大笑起来，象雄鸡打鸣儿；走起路来象狮子；刚吃饱才会禁食；没钱才会没精打采。现在嘛，有了心上人您也全变了，使得我看着您，却险些儿想不起您是我的主子。
【注释】
wreathe[T0:J]:缠绕 malcontent[\P3SE:Q]C
metamorphose[P
metamorphose[P
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.
Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
And to the nightingale抯 complaining notes
Tune my distresses and record my woes.
O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall
And leave no memory of what it was.
情 歌
人总会习与性成哩!棗
这荫翳无人之地、荒僻的丛箐，
我乐意接受，甚于熙攘的都城。
这里我可以单个儿坐着，都无人见，
陪着那夜莺的哀怨歌声，
咏出我的苦恼，唱出我的悲愁。
啊，您这栖身在我胸怀中的人儿，
不要让这房子这么长久空旷，
惟恐它破坏了会倒下，
使得无人记起它昔日的光华。
【注释】
doth [D8I]:【古】【诗】=does
nightingale[\Q>0C0R]F<0S]夜莺
A Midsummer Night抯 Dream
[HIPPOLYTA]
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold:
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen抯 beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet抯 eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet抯 pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy,
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
《仲夏夜之梦》[忒修斯]
疯子、情人、墨客，
全都是幻想造的。
那人见的鬼，无垠的地狱也装不下：
那就是疯子。情人，极度狂乱，
在黑姑娘的脸上，他看见海伦的面相。
诗人的眼睛，激扬一转，
就扫视了人间天上，天上人间；
正如幻想人不可思议的事物的
具体呈现，诗人的笔管
给它们形状，使如烟的无，
化作栖身有地的有。
丰富的幻想，会耍这些戏法，
所以每想起什么欢乐，
就替欢乐补上个原因；
有时在夜里，幻想着什么惶恐，
好容易把一棵矮树看作人熊!
Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to ro mance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of laborers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs cheeks, the nasal chanting of streetsingers, who sang a come-all-you about O扗onovan Rosa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the footer. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. Buttery body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.
One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: 揙 love! O love! many times.
即使是在最不可能勾起浪漫之情的境地里，她的形象也始终陪 伴着我。星期六晚上，我婶婶要上街去买东西，我得跟着去帮她拿购买的物品，灯火通明的大街上熙熙攘攘，我和婶婶在醉汉和讨价还价的妇人们中间挤来挤去。苦力们在咒骂着；年轻的店员们站在装着猪头肉的木桶边上，一边看护着货物，一边尖声地招揽生意；街头的歌手们反复单调地哼着一首有关“奥唐纳凡·萝莎”的，叫做“你们都来吧”的歌曲，或者唱根据我们当地人的忧愁而编成的民歌；在我心目中，这各色各样的声响汇成了一股生活的激情：我想象着自己捧着圣餐酒杯，安全通过了一大群敌人的包围。有时候，我在祈祷时连自己也不知道在念些什么，可是她的名字却跳到了嘴边。泪水常常充满我的眼眶(我也说不出是何原故)。有时，我内心一阵激动，泪水如潮，似乎从心脏涌流遍了整个胸膛。我很少想到未来，也不知道是否会与她交谈；即使与她交谈，我又如何向她倾吐我对她敬慕的复杂矛盾的心情呢?然而，我的身子仿佛是一把竖琴，她的言行举止就象是手指，拨动着我的心弦。
一天傍晚，我来到了教士去世的那间后客厅。这是一个阴雨绵绵、漆黑的夜晚。整幢房子一片寂静。透过一块破碎的窗玻璃，传来了雨水着地的声响。连绵的细雨犹如行行绣针，洒向湿透的花圃。低头望去，远处不知是路灯还是住家的灯火在闪烁着光芒。看不到什么东西反使我感到欣慰。我的全部感官似乎都愿与外界隔绝，便把手掌紧合在一起，直到双手微微颤动起来，嘴里多次喃喃念着：“啊，爱情!啊，爱情!”
the shrill litanies of shop-boys: litanies原意为宗教中的祈祷，这里转意指商店雇员在招揽生意时反复连续地叫喊的词句。shop-boys中的boys 指年轻的店员们，不是男小孩。
These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: sensation意“激情”，这里作者用来描绘当时周围的一切生活喧闹声使他感到一阵激动。
I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes: chalice意为“圣餐酒杯”，这里指男主角
心中所爱慕的少女。
jostle[\DN5KS]:挤;推 harp[O4:A]:竖琴 impinge[0P\A0QDN]:打;撞;冲突
sodden [\K5DQ]:湿透的 incessant[0Q\K
詹姆斯·乔埃斯(1882－1941)，著名小说家，名作有《尤利西斯》。本文节选自其短篇小说《初恋》。
Turning-point of our Life
My father was, I am sure, intended by nature to be a cheerful, kindly man.
Until he was thirty-four years old he worked as a farm-hand for a man named Thomas Butterworth whose place lay near the town of Biddable, Ohio. He had then a horse of his own and on Saturday evenings drove into town to spend a few hours in social intercourse with other farm-hands. In town he drank several glasses of beer and stood about in Ben Head's saloon-crowded on Saturday evenings with visiting farm-hands. Songs were sung and glasses thumped on the bar. At ten o'clock my father drove home along a lonely country road, made his horse comfortable for the night and himself went to bed, quite happy in his position in life. He had at that time no notion of trying to rise in the world.
It was in the spring of his thirty-fifth year that father married my mother, then a country schoolteacher, and in the following spring I came wriggling and crying into the world. Something happened to the two people. They became ambitious. The American passion for getting up in the world took possession of them.
It may have been that mother was responsible. Being a schoolteacher she had no doubt read books and magazines. She had, I presume, read of how Garfield, Lincoln, and other Americans rose from poverty to fame and greatness and as I lay beside her---in the days of her lying-in---she may have dreamed that I would some day rule men and cities. At any rate she induced father to give up his place as a farm-hand, sell his horse and embark on an independent enterprise of his own. She was a tall silent woman with a long nose and troubled Grey eyes. For herself she wanted nothing. For father and myself she was incurably ambitious.
【注释】
lying-in:产期，分娩
生活的转折点
舍伍德·安德生
我相信父亲天生就是一个快活、和善的人。他当过农场雇工， 在俄亥俄州比德韦尔镇附近为一个名叫托马斯·马特活斯的人干活，一直干到三十四岁。那时他自己有一匹马。星期六晚上，他总要骑着它到镇上去，跟其他雇工们一起聊上几个小时。在镇上，他总泡在本·黑兹酒 吧间里，喝上几杯啤酒。每适星期六晚上，酒吧间里总是挤满了前来消遣的雇工，到处是歌声和酒杯碰击酒吧的声音。一到十点，父亲就沿着一条人迹稀少的乡间小道骑马回家。安顿好马以后，自己也就上床睡觉了。他对他所处的地位是相当满意的。那时他还没有要在这个世道上向上爬的念头。
在他三十五岁那年的春天，他和我母亲结婚了。当时母亲是乡村学校的一名教师。第二年春天，我就呱呱坠地了。从那时起，他俩也发生了变化，开始变得雄心勃勃了。美国人的那种要出人头地的强烈欲望占据了他们的心灵。
可能这要怪我母亲。她是一个教师，肯定读过一些书和杂志。我猜想，她读过有关伽菲尔德、林肯和其他一些美国人是怎样从穷苦人变成有声望的伟人的书籍；或许，在她的产期里，她也梦想过躺在她身边的我，有朝一日也会去统治人们和城市。不管怎么说，是她劝说父亲辞掉雇工工作，卖掉那匹马，去从事一项独立的事业。她个子挺高，沉默寡言，长长的鼻子，一双灰眼睛，流露出忧郁的神情。她为她自己并无所求，可为父亲和我，却有着无法遏制的勃勃野心。
【作者简介】
舍伍德·安德生(1876—1941)，美国小说家，著名作品有《俄亥俄州温涅斯堡镇》。本文节选自短篇小说《蛋》。
The Charm
By the time they at last came to speech they were alone in one of the
rooms-remarkable for a fine portrait over the chimneyplace-out of which their friends had passed, and the charm of it was that even before they had spoken they had practically arranged with each other to stay behind to talk, The charm, happily, was in other things too-partly in there being scarce a spot at Weathered without something to stay behind for. It was in the way the autumn day looked into the hilt windows as it waned; the way the red light, breaking at the close from under a low somber sky, reached out in a long shaft and played over old wainscots, old tapestry, old gold, old color. It was most of all perhaps in the way she came to him as if ,since she had been turned on to deal with the simpler sort, he might, should he choose to keep the whole thing down, just take her mild attention for a part of her general business. As soon as he heard her voice, however, the gap was filled up and the missing link supplied, the slight irony he divined in her attitude lost its advantage. He almost jumped at it to get there before her. "I met you years and years ago in Rome. I remember all about it." She confessed to disappointment---she had been so sure he didn't; and to prove how well he did he began to pour forth the particular recollections that popped up as he called for them. Her face and her voice, all at his service now, worked the miracle---the impression operating like the torch of a lamplighter who touches into flame, one by one, a long row of gas jets.
【注释】
hilt [\O0SC]:柄 wane[V<0Q]: 变暗淡;变小;减少,衰落
somber[\K5PB:]:昏暗的;阴沉的 tapestry[\C3A0KCT0]:装饰
divine[D0\H>0Q]:推测
妙
亨利·詹姆斯
到了他们最后开始对话时，一间屋子里只有他们
两个人——壁炉架上着一幅精美的画像，显得很别致——他们的朋友都走出屋子了，妙就妙在他们还没有讲话，实际上双方已约定要留下来谈谈。妙的是妙处不仅于此，部分妙处还在于韦瑟恩德没有一处不是值得留下来的。还妙在秋日西斜，那样照在高高的窗子上；还妙在红霞在低低的、暗淡的上空尽头断裂，化成一长道光泽，在年代悠久的护壁和挂毯上，在陈旧的镶金和色彩上闪动。最最妙的是她向他走来的样子，她既然被用来应付比较简单的游客，如果他想把整个事情遮掩过去，他满可以把她对他的适度的照顾当作她一般职责的一部分。然而，他一听到她的声音，空白就填满了，失去的那一环也补足了，他觉察到她态度中带有的轻微的嘲弄成分也不起作用了。他几乎对她的嘲弄感到欣尉，这样好先开口。“好多好多年前，我在罗马见到过您，这一切我都记得。”她承认她很失望——她一直肯定他不记得了；为了证明他记得清清楚楚，他开始滔滔不绝地讲一桩桩召之即来的具体的回忆。她的脸、她的声音，现在都听从他的使唤，出现了奇迹——其效果就象点灯人所用的火炬，把一长排的煤气喷嘴一个个地点燃了。
【作者简介】
亨利·詹姆斯(1843—1916)，美国文学家，后移居伦敦。重要作品有：《美国人》(1877)，《戴西·米勒》(Daisy Miller)等等。本文节先自其小说《丛林中的野兽》。
Nothing but an Assumption
As I walked home in a pensive mood, my vanity got the better of
my pity. I could not but highly plume myself on my masterly management in getting rid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to any dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to consist in its perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying,no bravado of any sort, no choleric hectoring, and striding to and fro across the apartment, jerking out vehement commands for Bartleby to bundle himself off with his beggarly traps. Nothing of the kind. Without loudly bidding Bartleby depart as an inferior genius might have done I assumed the grown that depart he must; and upon that assumption built all I had to say. The more I thought over my procedure, the more I was charmed with it. Nevertheless, next morning, upon awakening, I had my doubts I had somehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One of the coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning. My procedure seemed as sagacious as ever but only in theory. How it would prove in practice---there was the rub. It was truly a beautiful thought to have assumed Bartleby's departure; but, after all, that assumption was simply my own, and none of Bartleby's. The great point was, not whether I had assumed that he would quit me, but whether he would repress so to do. He was more a man of preferences than assumptions.
不过是个设想
赫尔曼·梅尔维尔
我走在回家的路上，沉思着，我的虚荣 心胜过了怜悯之心。我撵走巴特比，安排得十分高明到家，禁不住自鸣得意起来。我称之为高明到家，任何不带偏见看问题的人也定然抱有同感。整个过程的妙处似乎就在于绝对的心平气和。没有低级庸俗的持强欺弱，没有任何形式的虚张声势，没有怒气冲冲的威胁恐吓，也没有在室内大步踱来踱去，气势汹汹地嚷着，命令巴特比连同他那叫化子般的随身物一同滚蛋。这样的事儿丝毫没有。我没有高声命令巴特比走——才能低下一点的就可能那么干了——我的假设是他非走不可，我讲的每一句话都是以这一假设为依据的。对于这个过程，我越想越觉得陶醉其中了。但是，第二天早晨我一醒就感到怀疑——不知怎的，这一觉睡走了那虚荣心的迷雾。一个人最冷静最明智的时刻就是早晨刚刚醒来以后。我的做法似乎仍象以前一样高超精明——但那只是从理论上讲。实践证明如何呢——定会有冲突。认为巴特比已离去，这确实是一个很美的想法；但这毕竟是我自己的设想，不是巴特比的。根本的问题不在于我是不是假设他愿意离开我，而是他愿不愿这样做。 他是一个凭意愿办事的人，而不是一个凭假设办事的人。
【作者简介】
赫尔曼·梅尔维尔(1819—1891)，美国小说家，名作有《莫比—迪克》。本文节选自其小说《缮写员—华尔街的一个故事》。
Under the Power of Nature
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung up pressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher . I knew not how it was---but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic , sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible, I looked upon the scene before me---upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the vacant eye-like windows, upon a few randy sedges, and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees---with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the afterdream of the reveler upon opium; the bitter lapse into everyday life ,the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed torture into ought of the sublime. What was it I paused to think what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forded to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth.
【作者简介】
埃德加·爱伦坡(1809—1849)，美国作家，其诗歌和小说受到推崇。本文节选自其短篇小说《厄谢尔宅第的倒塌》。
在自然威力之下
埃德加·爱伦坡
那年秋天某日，天气阴沉、昏暗而又寂静，云层
低压，令人窒息。整整一天，我独自一人策马行进，穿过一条异常沉闷的乡间小路；暮色降临时分，我已经不知不觉来到那幢举目可望的凄凉的厄谢尔宅第这个地方。但是，不知怎的——头一眼望见这幢房子，就被一种令人难以忍受的阴郁窒闷住我的心。我说难以忍受，那是因为即使人们看到最最严峻、荒凉或可怕的自然景象时，头脑里通常还有某种由景象的富有诗意所产生的几分快感，但此情此景却丝毫引不起此种感情。我看着眼前的情景——宅第本身，房子周围单调的景象，光秃秃的墙壁，空空的、眼睛窟窿似的窗户，几丛杂乱的菅茅，几株灰白的枯树——心情十分沮丧，同人世间任何心情相比，把它比作过足鸦片烟瘾的人，从梦幻中醒来，回到现实生活里的痛苦心情，最为适当了。心中一凉，只觉得往下沉，难受极了。还有一种不可驱除的凄凉之感，无论作何设想也不能激起我的兴致。那么，究竟是什么——我停下来考虑——究竟是什么使我在凝望厄谢尔宅第时如此心烦意乱呢?这完全是一个无法解答的谜；在我考虑的时候，我脑海里充满了模模糊糊的想法，却无法弄清是怎么回事。我只好回到那个不能令人满意的结论上来，即：尽管一些非常简单的自然景物结合在一起，也无疑具有影响我们的威力，但要分析这种威力却超过了我们思考的深度。
【注释】
pensive[\A
bravado[BT:\H4:D:7]:虚张声势 choleric[\E5S:T0E]:易怒的,暴躁的
vehement[\H0:0P:QC]:感情激烈的;热烈的 sagacious[K:\F<0M:K]:睿智的;聪慧的
dreary[\DT0:T0]:沉闷的,阴郁的 melancholy[\P
the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible:荒凉或可怕的自然景象中最为严峻的
sedge[K
the veil:是比喻用法，不是指真的面纱，而是指梦幻状态中的朦胧意识
unredeemed[\8QT0\D0:PD]:没有解除的 sublime[K:\BS>0P]崇高的,十足的
unnerve[\8Q\Q::H]:使失去勇气;使气馁 ford[G5:D]:涉过
Accepting The Command of The Army
From A Letter to His Wife, 1775 by George Washington
You may believe me, when I assure you in the most solemn manner that, so far from seeking this employment, I have used every effort in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trusty too great for my capacity; and I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prespect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years. But as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose...
I shall rely confidently on that Providence which has heretofore preserved and been bountiful to me, not doubting but that I shall return safe to you in the fall. I shall feel no pain from the toil or danger of the campaign; my unhappy pines will flow from the uneasiness I know you will feel from being left alone. I therefore beg that you will summon your whole fortitude, and pass your time as agreeably as possible. Nothing will give me so much sincere satisfaction as to hear this, and to hear it from your own pen.
【注释】
solemn[\K5S:P]:严肃的;庄重的 destiny[\D
toil[C50S]:辛苦,劳累 fortitude[\G5:C0CU7:D]:坚忍;刚毅
受命统率全军
乔治·华盛顿
你可以相信我，我极其庄严地向 你保证我根本没有追求过这项任命，而是竭尽全力，千方百计地回避它。这不仅是因为我不愿意同你以及全家人分别，而且因为我深知责任重大，非我力所能及。另外，倘若我出门数十载寻求前景非常遥远的幸福，那还比不上在家中与你相聚一个月那样真正幸福。但是，既然命运已赋予我这个使命，我希望，安排我来承担这个任务是为了使我有所建树......
我将信赖一直保佑我和降福于我的上帝，深信到秋天我将平安地回到你身边。对出征所带来的艰辛和危险，我不会感到痛苦；使我难过的是我知道你独自一人留在家中必然感到焦虑不安。因此，我恳求你鼓起全部勇气，尽量愉快地过日子。没有什么比听到你过得愉快的消息——并且是从你的笔下听到这消息，能使我感到更大的欣慰了。
【作者简介】
乔治·华盛顿：出生于1732年2月22日，美国第一届总统（1789年4月－1797年3月）。
Letter to Lord Chesterfield
February 7,1755 一七五五年二月七日
My Lord:
I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the Public, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honor, which, being very little accustomed to fervors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.
When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address; and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre; －that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of fervor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before.
The shepherd in Virgule grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.
Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the Public should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, my Lord.
Your Lordship's most humble,
most obedient servant,
Samuel Johnson
【注释】
proprietor[AT:\AT>0:C:]:所有人;业主
distinguished[D0\KC0RFV0MC]:卓越的;著名的
forbear[G5:\B2:]:克制;忍耐
uncourtly [\8Q\E5:CS0]不适于朝廷的;无礼的
repulse[T0\A8SK]:击退;驱逐
encumber[0Q\E8PB:]:塞满;阻塞
solitary[\K5S0C:T0]:单独的,独自的
cynical[\K0Q0E:S]:愤世嫉俗的
asperity[3K\A
exultation[]
致切斯特菲尔德伯爵书
塞缪尔·约翰逊
伯爵大人：
"世界杂志"业主最近告诉我，两篇向公众推荐我所编词典的文章是大人的手笔。承蒙如此推崇，不胜荣幸。只是我素来不惯于贵人的恩赐，实在不知该如何领情，或以何言词来答谢。
当初，受到些许鼓励，造访大人时，我一如其余万民百姓，为您富有魅力的谈吐所折服，不禁奢望能自诩"世界征服者的征服者"；——我虽然目睹举世之人为博得大人眷顾，竞相争斗，却仍不免奢望自己或可身受大人关切；不料晋谒之后，竟未得丝毫鼓励，自尊自惭之心，不容我再次登门。我是个闲散书生，不善奉承，以前当众向大人致意时，实已竭尽了取宠之能事。我已做了所能做的一切；然而倾全力而遭冷遇，世上是决不会有人引以为乐的，即使你所做的微乎其微。
伯爵大人，自我在府上外房恭候，或被拒之门外以来，七年已经逝去；在此期间，我自披斩棘，坚持编纂工作，艰苦备尝，说也无益。而今，词典出版在即，我未领受一次资助，未听到一句鼓励之辞，未看到一丝赞赏的微笑。这类厚赐我本未指望，因为我从不曾有过任何庇护人。
维吉尔笔下的牧童终于认清了爱神，发现他原来是蛮荒野人。
伯爵大人，如果有人在落水者拼死挣扎时袖手旁观，落水者上岸后才给以援手，这样的人可以称为恩人吗?您现在对我的辛勤劳动所表示的关注，倘来得早些，我怎不领情?可惜为时过晚，我已无动于衷，无从消受；我已孓然一身，无法与人共享；况且我已成名，无需大人关注了。我未受恩典，无须承情；上帝助我独立完成工作，我自不愿公众以为有庇护者相助；这总不致被看作刻薄无礼吧!
我未领受任何关怀学术者的恩情，便把工作推进到今日的局面，所以在这项工作行将结束时，自然不会因为丝毫不能得到恩情而感到失望，因为我早已从希望的梦想中清醒过来——在那梦想中我曾一度扬扬自得，自诩为大人您。
最卑顺的仆人
塞缪尔·约翰逊
【作者简介】
塞缪尔·约翰逊（1709-1784）：英国散文家、文艺评论家、词典编撰家。
Letter to Mrs. Bixby
Executive Mansion, Washington,
Nov. 21, 1864
Mrs. Bixby,
Boston, Massachusetts,
Dear Madam,
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be Yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln
by Abraham Lincoln
【注释】
beguile[B0\F>0S]:欺骗, 使(时间)过得愉快 consolation[]E5QK:\S<0M:Q]:安慰,慰藉
assuage[:\KV<0DN]:缓和,减轻 anguish[\3RFV0M]:极度的痛苦;苦恼
bereavement[B0\T0:HP:QC]:丧亲;丧友 altar[\5:SC:]:圣坛,祭坛
致比克靳比夫人的信
亚伯拉罕·林肯 华盛顿总统府
一八六四年十一月二十一日
马萨诸塞州，波士顿
比克斯比夫人
亲爱的夫人：
在送我批阅的陆军部档案中，我看到一份马萨诸塞州陆军副官长写的报告，说您便是有五个儿子光荣牺牲在战场上的那位母亲。我深深感到，无论我企图用什么言词，来排遣如此巨大的损失给您带来的悲痛，都一定是无力和徒劳的。但我还是抑制不住要向您表示慰问，这种慰问体现在您的儿子们献身拯救的共和国对您的感谢之中。我祈求我们的天父减轻您的丧子之痛，使您只怀有对于已故亲人的美好回忆和庄严的自豪感，您有这种自豪感是理所当然的，因为您在自由的祭坛上献出了代价如此昂贵的牺牲。
您最诚挚的亚伯拉罕·林肯敬启
【作者简介】
亚伯拉罕·林肯（1809-1865）美国第十六任总统（1861-1865），共和党人。
The Literature of Knowledge And The Knowledge of Power
All the literature of knowledge builds only groundnuts, that are swept away by sloops, or confounded by the plow; but the literature of power builds nests in aerial altitudes of temples sacred from violation, or of forests inaccessible to fraud. This is a great prerogative of the power literature, and it is a greater which lies in the mode of its influence. The knowledge literature, like the fashion of this world, passes away. An encyclopaedia is its abstract ;and ,in this respect, it may be taken for its speaking symbol---that before one generation has passed, an encyclopaedia is superannuated; for it speaks through the dead memory and unimpassioned understanding, which have not the repose of higher faculties, but are continually enlarging and varying their phylacteries.But all literature properly so called---literature par excellence---for the very reason that it is so play, and the combinations into which the poetry of this planet has thrown our human passions of love and hatred, of admiration and contempt, exercise a power for bad or good over human life that cannot be contemplated, when stretching through many generations, without a sentiment allied to awe.
【注释】
confound[E:Q\G>7QD]:挫败;毁坏 fraud[GT5:D]:欺骗
prerogative[AT0\T5F:C0H]:特权 encyclopaedia[
speaking symbol: 活生生的象征 superannuate[\KU7:A:\T3QU7<0C]:淘汰,废弃
repose[T0\A:7L]:歇息;睡眠 phylactery[G0\S3EC:T0]:经匣
literature par excellence: 优秀的文学 awe [5:]:敬畏;畏怯
知识的文学与力量的文学
德·昆西
一切知识的文学都在地面上筑巢，结 果不被洪水所冲堤，就被耕犁所掀翻；只有力量的文学在那巍巍苍穹间的圣殿之内，或在那高入云际的森林之巅营造自己的安身之处，那是神圣不可侵犯、也是欺诈所无法企及的。这是力量的文学所独有的重大特权，而它影响于人类的方式尤为特殊。知识的文学，如时尚一样，与时俱逝。百科全书正是此种文学的缩影，从这方面来看，似乎可以说是它活生生的象征：一个世代尚未过去，一部百科全书就陈旧过时了；因为，在它那里面所讲的不外是虽然存留在记忆中、却已失去新意的东西，以及不带任何感情色彩的推理，因此，犹如经匣中的教条，即使补充几句、略变花样，仍无法使得人的高尚精神恬然宁息。但是，一切当之无愧的文学——最优秀的文学——由于它比知识的文学更能垂之永久，它的影响与此形成相应比例，也就远为深邃，而象电光石火一般无孔不入。一方面，我们这个星球上的悲剧培养着人的感情，使之朝着某些方向发展；另一方面，我们这个星球上的诗歌又把人的爱与憎、赞美与鄙薄等激情组成种种的结合；这样共同形成强大的力量，对人类生活产生了或消极、或积极的作用，而这些作用往往会延续许许多多世代，令人考虑之下不能不感到肃然起敬。
【作者简介】
德·昆西（1785-1859），英国浪漫主义散文名家，其代表作为《一个英国吸鸦片者的陈述》。本文节选自其文章《知识的文学与力量的文学》。
The Power Is Unlimited
Besides which, there is a rarer thing than truth-namely power, or deep sympathy with truth. What is the ef-fect, for instance, upon society, of children? By the pity, by the tenderness, and by the peculiar modes of admiration which connect themselves with the helplessness, with the innocence, and with the simplicity of children, not only are the primal affections strengthened and continually renewed, but the qualities which are dearest in the sight of heaven---the frailty, for instance, which appeals to forbearance, the simplicity which is most alien from the worldly---are kept up in perpetual remembrance, and their ideals are continually refreshed. A purpose of the same nature is answered by the higher literature, viz., the literature of power. What do you learn from Paradise Lost? Nothing at all .What do you learn from a cookery-book? Something new, something that you did not know before, in every paragraph. But would you therefore put the wretched cookery-book on a higher level of estimation than the divine poem? What you owe to Milton is not any knowledge, of which a million separate items are still but a million of advancing steps on the same earthly level; what you owe is power---that is ,exercise and expansion to your own latent capacity of sympathy with the infinite, where every pulse and each separate influx is a step upward, a step ascending as upon a Jacob's ladder from earth to mysterious altitudes above the earth. All the steps of knowledge, from first to last, carry you further on the same plane, but could never raise you one foot above your ancient level of earth; whereas the very first step in power is a flight---is an ascending movement into another element where earth is forgotten.
which:指上面说的关于真理的议论 frailty[\GT<0SC0]:脆弱,虚弱
most alien from the worldly:与世俗之事格格不入 the divine poem:指"Paradise Lost"一诗
influx[\0QGS8EK]:涌进;汇集 Jacob's ladder:雅各的天梯，据《旧约·创世纪》第二十八章经十二节，雅各做梦看见有一梯子从地面上通天上，在梯上有天使来来往往 element[\
德·昆西
此外，还有一种东西比真理更为神奇——那就是力量，或者说，对真理的深切感应。譬如，想一想儿童对于社会的影响吧。由于儿童的幼弱无依、天真无邪、纯朴无伪而引起的种种特殊的赞叹怜爱之情，不仅使人的至情至性不断地得到巩固和更新，而且，由于脆弱唤醒了宽容，天真象征着天堂，纯朴远离开世俗，因此，这些在上帝面前最可宝贵的品质也就经常受到忆念，对它们的理想便可不断地重温。高级的文学，即力量的文学，作用与此相类。从《失乐园》你能学到什么知识呢?什么也学不到。 从一本食谱里又能学到什么呢?从每一段都能学到你过去所不知道的某种新知识。然而，在评定甲乙的时候，难道你会因此就把这本微不足道的食谱看得比那部超凡入圣的诗篇还高明吗?我们从弥尔顿那里学来的并不是什么知识，因为知识，哪怕有一百万条，也不过是在尘俗的地面上开步一百万次罢了；而弥尔顿所给予我们的是力量——也就是说，运用自己潜在的感应能力，向着无际的领域扩张，在那里，每一下脉动，每一次注入，都意味着上升一步，好似沿着雅各的天梯，从地面一步一步登上那奥秘莫测的苍穹。知识的一切步伐，从开始到终结，只能在同一水平面上将人往前运载，但却无法使人从原来的地面上提高一步；然而，力量所抬出的第一步就是飞升，就是飞向另一种境界——在那里，尘世的一切全被忘却。
【作者简介】
德·昆西（1785-1859），英国浪漫主义散文名家，其代表作为《一个英国吸鸦片者的陈述》。本文节选自其文章《知识的文学与力量的文学》。
Aesthetic Criticism
To see the object as in itself it really is , "has been justly said to be the
aim of all true criticism whatever; and in aesthetic criticism the first step towards seeing one's object as it really is, is to know one's own impression as it really is, to discriminate it, to realize it distinctly. The objects with which aesthetic criticism deals---music, poetry, artistic and accomplished forms of human life---are indeed receptacles of so many powers or forces: they possess like the products of nature, so many virtues or qualities. What is this song or picture, this engaging personality presented in life or in a book, to me ? What effect does it really produce on me ? Does it give me pleasure? And if so, what sort or degree of pleasure? How is my nature modified by its presence, and under its influence? The answers to these questions are the original facts with which the aesthetic critic has to do; and ,as in the study of light, of morals, of number, one must realize such primary data for one's self, or not at all. And he who experiences these impressions strongly, and drives directly at the discrimination and analysis of them, has no need to trouble himself with the abstract question what beauty is in itself, or what its exact relation to truth or experience---metaphysical questions, as unprofitable as metaphysical questions elsewhere. He may pass them all by as being, answerable or not, of no interest to him.
【注释】
discriminate[D0\KET0P0Q<0C]:区别,辨别 receptacles[T0\K
metaphysical[]P
审美批评
沃尔特·佩特
“发现某一事物本身的确切内容”，曾被人恰当地说成是一切真正的批评的目标；而在审美批评中，要想发现自己评论对象的确切内容，第一步必须了解个人印象的确切内容，必须对它加以辨别，对它清晰地认识。审美批评所讨论的对象——音乐，诗歌，人类生活的种种艺术的、完美的表现形式——实际上都是纷纷纭纭、各种动力和力量的凝聚，它们象大自然的一切产物那样，具备着各种不同的美质和特性。这么一首短歌，这么一幅图画，生活中或书本上出现的这么一个引人喜爱的人物，对我自己来说究竟意味着什么呢?它究竟在我身上产生了什么样的影响?它是否给我提供了乐趣?如果提供了，那么，又是哪一类和何等程度的乐趣?另外，由于它的出现，并在它影响下，我自己的性情又受到了怎样的陶冶?——对于这些问题的答案便是审美批评家所要讨论的根本事实；而且，正象对于光、对于伦理、对于数字的研究那样，我们首先必须了解上述那些原始材料，否则，就等于什么也不了解。一个人只要强烈地感受着这种种印象，并且直截了当地对它们加以辨别和分析，就不必再为了“什么是美”或者“它与真理或经验的确切关系如何”这一类抽象的问题而去费神——因为，这些形而上学的问题，如同其他的形而上学问题一样，都是不实际的。对它们答复与否无关宏旨，可以统统放过不管。
【作者简介】
沃尔特·佩特（1839-1894），英国文艺批评家其成名之作《文艺复兴史研究》贯穿唯美主义思想。本文便节选自此书。
Change Makes Life Beautiful
To regard all things and principles of things as inconstant modes or fashions has more and more become the tendency of modern thought. Let us begin with that which is without-our physical life. Fix upon it in one of its more exquisite intervals, the moment，for instance, of delicious recoil from the flood of water in summer heat. What is the whole physical life in that moment but a combination of natural elements to which science gives their names? But these elements, phosphorus and lime and delicate fibers, are present not in the human body alone : we detect them in places most remote from it. Our physical life is a perpetual motion of them ---the passage of the blood, the wasting and repairing of the lenses of the eye , the modification of the tissues of the brain under every ray of light and sound---processes which science reduces to simpler and more elementary forces. Like the elements of which we are composed, the action of these forces extends beyond us: it rusts iron and ripens corn.Far out on every side of us those elements are broadcast, driven in many currents; and birth and gesture and death and the springing of violets from the grave are but a few out of ten thousand resultant combinations. That clear, perpetual outline of face and limb is but an image of ours, under which we group thema design in a web, the actual threads of which pass out beyond it . This at least of flame---like our life has, that it is but the concurrence, renewed from moment to moment, of forces parting sooner or later on their ways.
【注释】
fix upon:选择 exquisite[\
concurrence[E:Q\E8T:QK]:赞同;协力;意见一致
生命美于变化
沃尔特·佩特
将一切事物和事物的原则统统看作经常变化着的形态或风尚，日益成为近代思想界的趋势。让我们从表面的事情——我们的生理活动说起。譬如说，选取这么一个微妙的时刻，即在酷暑中猛然浸入滔滔清流的那一刹那和极其愉快的感觉。在那一刹那间的全部生理活动，难道不是具有科学名称的各种元素的一种化合作用吗?不过，这些元素，象磷、石灰、微细的纤维质，不仅存在于人体之中，而且在与人体毫不相干的地方也能检查出它们的存在。我们的生理活动——血液的流通，眼睛中水晶体的消耗和恢复，每一道光波、每一次声浪对于脑组织所引起的变异——都不外是这些元素的永久的运动，而科学把这些运动过程还原为更为简单和基本的力量的作用。正象我们身体所赖以构成的元素一样，这些力量在我们身体以外也同样发挥着作用——它可以使铁生锈，使谷物成熟。这些元素，在种种气流吹送之下，在我们身外向四面八方传播：人的诞生，人的姿态，人的死亡，以及在人的坟头上生长出紫罗兰——这不过是成千上万化合结果的点滴例子而己。人类那轮廓分明、长久不变的面颜和肢体，不过是一种表象，在它那框架之内，我们好把种种化合的元素凝聚一团——这好象是蛛网的纹样，那织网的细丝从网中穿出，又引向他方。在这一点上，我们的生命有些象那火焰———它也是种种力量会合的结果，这会合虽不断延续，那些力量却早晚要各自飘散。
【作者简介】
沃尔特·佩特（1839-1894），英国文艺批评家，其成名之作《文艺复兴史研究》贯穿唯美主义思想。本文便节选自此书。
Breaking Habit
To burn always with this hard , gem-like flame, to maintain this
ecstasy, is success in life. In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for , after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the dye that makes any two persons, things, situations, seem alike, While all melts under our feet, we may well grasp at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colors, and curious odors, or work of the artist's hands, or the face of one's friend. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendor of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch. What we have to do is to be for ever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions, never acquiescing in a facile orthodoxy of Comet, or of Hegel, or of our own . Philosophical theories or ideas, as points of view, instruments of criticism, may help us to gather up what might otherwise pass unrecorded by us. "Philosophy is the microscope of thought".
【注释】
ecstasy[\
splendor[\KAS
打破习惯
沃尔特·佩特
闪耀着宝石般的光焰炽烈地燃烧，
并且不断保持着这种精神亢奋的状态，乃是生命的胜利。在某种意义上，甚至可以说：一旦形成某种习惯，即意味着自己的失败。因为，归根结底，习惯总附于一个定了型的事态，而在粗疏的眼光下，两个人、两件事、两种情境常常会被看得彼此相似。只有当一切在我们脚下熔化，我们才能看清种种强烈的激情，种种似乎能提高人的眼界、使人精神豁然开朗的知识进步，种种感官的刺激，例如奇色异彩，奇香异味，以及艺术家的匠艺，或者自己某位朋友的面容。我们与周围的人们相处，在任何时刻，如果一点看不出某种受激情支配的姿态，从人们的光辉才华中竟然看不出某种力量分配方面的悲剧，那么，在我们这既有冰霜、又有阳光的短暂时日中，就意味着不待黄昏来临便昏昏睡去。感到了人生经验的五色缤纷及倏忽无常，我们拼出全部力气进行观察和接触，哪里还有时间去为自己观察和接触到的事物制订出一套一套的理论?我们必需做的，是要不断地检验新的意见、博取新的印象，而无论如何不能轻易接受不管是康德、黑格尔或是我们自己的什么泛泛的正统学说。哲学理论、哲学概念，作为立论观点、批评工具，可以帮助我们把那些可能习焉不察、轻轻放过的事物进行搜集、纳入眼底。因为，“哲学是思想的显微镜”。
【作者简介】
沃尔特·佩特（1839-1894），英国文艺批评家，其成名之作《文艺复兴史研究》贯穿唯美主义思想。本文便节选自此书。
Tragedy
To make a tragedy the artist must isolate a single element out of the totality of human experience and use that exclu sively as his material. Tragedy is something that is separated out from the Whole Truth, distilled from it, so to speek, as an essence is distilled from the living flower. Tragedy is chemically pure. Hence its power to act quickly and intensely on our feelings. All chemically pure art has this power to act upon us quickly and intensely. It is because of its chemical purity that tragedy so effectively performs functions of catharsis. It refines and corrects and gives a style to our emotional life, and does so swiftly, with power. Brought into contact with tragedy, the elements of our being fall, for the moment at any rate, into an ordered and beautiful pattern, as the iron filings arrange themselves under the influence of the magnet.Through all its individual variations, this pattern is always fundamentally of the same kind. From the reading or the hearing of a tragedy we rise with the feeling that:
Our friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind;
With the heroic conviction that we too would be unconquerable if subjected to the agonies, that in the midst of the agonies we too should continue to love, might even learn to exult. It is because it does these things to us that tragedy is felt to be so valuable. What are the values of Wholly Truthful art? What does it do to us that seems worth doing? Let us try to discover.
【注释】
distill [D0K\C0S]:蒸馏;提炼 filings[\G>0S0RL]:锉屑
catharsis[E:\I4:K0K]:(通过文艺的影响作用而引起的)感情净化
悲 剧
奥尔德斯·赫胥黎
为了做成一部悲剧，艺术家就得把某种单一的元素从人
类经验的总体中分解出来，并且把它当作独一无二的材料来使用。悲剧，是从全面的真实中分离出来，或者说，从那里提炼出来，就象从鲜花中提炼的香精来。悲剧是有化学纯度的东西，所以它才能具备那种迅速而强烈地影响我们的力量。一切有化学纯度的艺术都具备这种迅速而强烈地影响我们的力量。——正是由于悲剧的这种化学纯度，它才非常有效地完成着它那净化感情的作用。它迅速而有力的澄清着、矫正着我们的感情生活，赋予它以一种正当的模式。一旦与悲剧相接触，我们生命中的种种因素，至少在这短短时刻，便纳入一种井然有序、异常美好的规范之中，正如铁屑在磁体的吸引下聚拢起来一样。尽管会有各种特殊变化，这个规范从分配上说总是保持不变的。读罢或看完一部悲剧，我们心里恍然大悟，觉得——
极大的欢欣、强烈的痛苦都变成良友，
爱情和不可征服的人心也分外亲切。
我们豪迈地相信：一旦自己身遭苦难，同样也是不可征服的；处在苦难之中，我们仍应胸怀热情，甚至还要效法前人，意气昂扬。正因为悲剧能对我们起到这些作用，我们才觉得它非常宝贵。那么，什么又是具有全面真实性的艺术的价值呢?它究竟能对我们起到什么作用，才显出它的价值呢?让我们来尝试着考察一下。
【作者简介】
奥尔德斯·赫胥黎（1894-1963），英国著名文学家。本文节选自其文章《悲剧与全面的真实性》。
Suit Is Best
The proper force of words lies not in the words themselves, but in their application. A word may be a fine sounding word, of an unusual length, and very imposing from its learning and novelty, and yet in the connection in which it is introduced may be quite pointless and irrelevant, It is not pomp or pretension, but the adaptation of the expression to the idea, that clenches a writer's meaning: as it is not the size or glossiness of the materials, but their being fitted each to its place, that gives strength to the arch; or as the pegs and nails are as necessary to the support of the building as the larger timbers, and more so than the mere showy, unsubstantial ornaments. I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth. I hate to see a load of bandboxes go along the street, and I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them. A person who dews not deliberately dimples of all his thoughts alike in cumbrous draperies and flimsy disguises may strike out twenty varieties of familiar everyday language, each coming somewhat nearer to the feeling he wants to convey, and at last not hit upon that particular and only one which may be said to be identical with the exact impression in his mind. This would seem to show that Mr. Cobalt is hardly right in saying that the first word that occurs is always the best. It may be a very good one ; and yet a better may present itself on reflection or from time to time . It may be suggested naturally, however, and spontaneously, from a fresh and lively conception of the subject .
【注释】
pomp[A5PA]:华丽;壮观 bandbox[\B3QD]B5EK]:圆筒形硬纸盒
cumbrous[\E8PBT:K]:讨厌的,笨重的 flimsy [\GS0PL0]:脆弱的;浅薄的
适合的才是最好的
词汇的力量不在词汇本身，而在词汇的应用。一个音节嘹亮的长字，就其本身的学术性和新奇感来说，可能是令人叹赏的，然而，把它放在某句上下文之中，说不定倒会牛头不对马嘴。这是因为要确切表达作者的意思，关键并不在文词是否华丽，堂皇，而在于文词是否切合内容；正象在建筑中，要使拱门坚固，关键不在于材料的大小和光泽，而在于它们用在那里是否恰好严丝合缝。因此，在建筑物中，砂木钉有时竟与大件木料同等重要，而其支撑作用肯定远远胜过那些徒有其表、不切实用的装饰部件。我讨厌那些白占地方的东西，讨厌一大堆空纸盒装在车上招摇过市，也讨厌那些写在纸面上的大而无实际内容的字眼。一个人写文章，只要他不是立志要把自己的真意用重重锦绣帐幔、层层多余伪装完全遮掩起来，他总会从熟悉的日常用语中想出一二十种说法，一个比一个更接近他所要表达的情感，只怕到了最后，他竟会拿不定主意要用哪一种说法才能恰如其分地表达自己的心意哩！如此说来，考拜特先生所谓最先闪现脑际之词自然是最好的说法未必可靠。这样出现的字眼也许很好，然而经过一次又一次推敲，还会发现更好的字眼。这种字眼，要经过围绕内容进行清醒而活泼的构思，才能够自自然然的想到。
【作者简介】
威廉·赫兹里特(1778—1830)，十九世纪初英国著名的浪漫主义散文家。本文节选自其名篇《论平易的文体》。
Ignorance Make One Happy
The average man who uses a telephone could not explain how a
telephone works. He takes for granted the telephone, the railway train, the linotype ,the airplane, as our grandfathers took for granted the miracles of the gospels. He neither questions nor understands them. It is as though each of us investigated and made his own only a tiny circle of facts. Knowledge outside the day's work is regarded by most men as a gewgaw. Still we are constantly in reaction against our ignorance. We rouse ourselves at intervals and speculate. We revel in speculations about anything at all---about life after death or about such questions as that which is said to have puzzled Aristotle,"why sneezing from noon to midnight was good, but from night to noon unlucky." One of the greatest joys known to man is to take such a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge. The great pleasure of ignorance is, after all, the pleasure of asking questions. The man who has lost this pleasure or exchanged it for the pleasure of dogma, which is the pleasure of answering, is already beginning to stiffen. One envies so inquisitive a man as Jewell ,who sat down to the study of physiology in his sixties. Most of us have lost the sense of our ignorance long before that age. We even become vain of our squirrel's hoard of knowledge and regard increasing age itself as a school of omniscience. We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom not because he was omniscient but because he realized at the age of seventy that he still knew nothing.
【注释】
linotype[\S>0Q:C>0A]:铸造排字机
the miracles of the gospels:福音书里的奇迹(如说耶稣在宴会上把水变成酒，用手摸一下就可以使人的病痊愈，等等)。
made his own:掌握，通晓 gewgaw[\FU7:F5:]::花哨无用的小东西
revel [\T
无知常乐
罗伯特·林德
普通人只会使用电话，却无法解释电话的工作原理。他把电话、火车、铸造排字机、飞机都看作当然之事，就象我们的祖父一代把福音书里的奇迹故事视为理所当然一样。对于这些事，他既不去怀疑，也不去了解。我们每个人似乎只对很小范围内的某几件事才真正下工夫去了解、弄清楚。大部分人把日常工作以外的一切知识统统当作花哨无用的玩意儿。然而，对于我们的无知，我们还是时时抗拒着。我们有时振作起来，进行思索。我们随便找一个什么题目，对之思考，甚至入迷——关于死后的生命，或者关于某些据说亚里士多德也感到大惑不解的问题，例如：“打喷嚏，从中午到子夜则吉，从子夜至中午则凶，其故安在?”为求知识而陷入无知，这是人类所欣赏的最大乐事之一。归根结底，无知的极大乐趣即在于提出问题。一个人，如果失去了这种提问的乐趣，或者把它换成了教条的答案，并且以此为乐，那么，他的头脑已经开始僵化了。我们羡慕象裘伊这样的勤学好问之人，他到了六十多岁居然还能坐下来研究生理学。我们多数人不到他这么大的岁数就早已丧失了自己无知的感觉了。我们甚至对自己一点点浅薄的知识感到沾沾自喜，而把与日俱增的年龄看作是培养无所不知的天然学堂。我们忘记了：苏格拉底之所以以智慧名垂后世，并非因为他无所不知，而是因为他到了七十高龄还能明白自己仍然一无所知。
【作者简介】
罗伯特·林德（1879-1949），英国随笔作家。本文节选自其名篇《无知常乐》。
The Arts of Informal Essay Writers
We may follow any mood, we may look at life in fifty different ways---the only thing we must not do is to despise or deride,because of ignorance or prejudice, the influences which affect others; because the essence of all experience is that we should perceive something which we do not begin by knowing, and learn that life has a fullness and a richness in all sorts of diverse ways which we do not at first even dream of suspecting.
The essayist, then, is in his particular fashion an interpreter of life, a critic of life. He does not see life as the historian, or as the philosopher, or as the poet, or as the novelist, and yet he has a touch of all these. He is not concerned with discovering a theory of it all, or fitting the various parts of it into each other. He works rather on what is called the analytic method, observing, recording, interpreting, just as things strike him, and letting his fancy play over their beauty and significance;the end of it all being this; that he is deeply concerned with the charm and quality of things, and gentlest light, so that at least he may make others love life a little better, and prepare them for its infinite variety and alike for its joyful and mournful surprises.
【注释】
deride[D0\T>0D]:嘲笑;嘲弄 a touch of：少许，一点儿
as things strike him: as things come to his mind(根据事物在他心中留下的印象)
letting his fancy play over their beauty and significance:让他借助于自己的想象去体会种种事物的美妙和意义。
随笔作家的艺术
亚瑟·克里斯托夫·本森
我们可以遵循任何一条思绪， 也可以从几十个角度来看待人生——但千万不可由于无知和偏见而鄙视或嘲笑别人所接受的种种影响；因为，全部人生经验的精髓即在于：我们要想了解什么事物，总要从不知道开始 ；而且，还要知道，我们原来从未梦想过的千变万化的生活方式，恰恰体现了人生的充实和丰满。
因此，随笔作家以其特殊的方式充当了人生的解说员，人生的评论家。他观察人生，不象历史家，不象哲学家，不象诗人，也不象小说家，然而这些人的特点他又都有一点儿。他所关切的并非发现全部人生的哲理，或者把人生各个不同的方面凑在一起，进行装配。他工作时所采用的是所谓分析的方法，即按照事物在自己心里留下的印象，观察着，记录着，解说着。随着兴之所至去体察万事万物的美好和意义，而这一切又是为了这样一个目的：随笔作家所深切关心的乃是事物的魅力和特性，并想把它呈现在最明净、最柔和的光亮之下，好使得别人更加热爱人生，并对于人生当中无穷的变化在思想上有所准备，不管那是意外的欢乐或是意外的悲伤。
【作者简介】
亚瑟·克里斯托夫·本森（1862-1925），英国作家。本文节选自其散文《随笔作家的艺术》。
Open Your Eyes
He who has much looked on at the childish satisfaction of other people in their hobbies, will regard his own with only a very ironical indulgence. He will not be heard among the dogmatists. He will have a great and cool allowance for all sorts of people and opinions. If he finds no out -of -the- way truths, he will identify himself with one very burning falsehood.His way takes him along a by-road, not much frequented, but very even and pleasant, which is called Commonplace Lane, and leads to the Belvedere of Common-sense. Thence he shall command an agreeable, if no very noble prospect; and the Sunrise, he will be contentedly aware of a sort of morning hour upon all sublunary things ,with an army of shadows running speedily and in many different directions into the great daylight of eternity. The shadows and the generations, the shrill doctors and the plangent wars, go by into ultimate silence and emptiness; but underneath all this, a man may see, out of the Belvedere windows, much green and peaceful landscape; many fire-lit parlors; good people laughing, drinking , and making love as they did before the Flood or the Errant Revolution; and the old shepherd telling his tale under the hawthorn.
【注释】
dogmatist [\D5FP:C0KC]:教条主义者 burning falsehood:极大的谬误
Belvedere[\B
shrill doctors:脾气执拗的学者 plangent wars: 喧嚣的战乱
你能看到一切
罗伯特·路易斯·斯蒂文森
一个人如果常常观察别人对 于个人兴趣爱好所流露出的孩子气般的满足，那他也会以一种幽默的宽容态度来对待自己的兴趣爱好。这样的人不会变成一个教条主义者。他对于各种人、种种意见都会采取一种宽容大度的体谅态度。尽管他发现不出什么石破天惊的真理，他也不会去附和什么荒谬绝伦的错误。他的一生走的是一条虽非熙来攘往、但却平坦愉快的偏僻小路——它叫做平凡无奇之小巷，通向普通常识的望楼。从那里，他虽看不到什么宏伟的壮观，却能俯瞰一片赏心的小景。当别人都在观看东方与西方、恶魔之王与黎明之神，他却怡然自得地注意：当清晨降于大地万物，大群阴暗的幽灵都向着四面八方仓皇逃入永恒的白昼之中。那些阴暗的幽灵，已逝的世代，尖声叫喊的博士，轰轰烈烈的战争，都匆匆过去，永远消失。然而，我们从望楼的窗口中，透过这一切还看到了一片青葱的和平景象，看到灯火辉煌的客厅；看到象在洪水到来之前或是法国革命前夕那样善良的人们在欢笑、在饮酒、在求爱；也看到了牧羊老人在山楂树下讲述着他自己的故事。
【作者简介】
罗伯特·路易斯·斯蒂文森（1850-1894），英国著名小说家和诗人。本文节选自其文章《为闲人一辩》。
Sadie And Maud
沙娣和茉德
Gwendolyn Brooks
格温多琳·布鲁克斯
Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed at home.
Sadie scraped life
with a fine-tooth comb.
She didn't leave a tangle in.
Her comb found every strand.
Sadie was one of the livingest chits
In all the land.
Sadie bore two babies
Under her maiden name.
Maud and Ma and Papa
Nearly died of shame.
When Sadie said her last so-long
Her girls struck out from home.
(Sadie had left as heritage
Her fine-tooth comb.)
Maud, who went to college.
Is a thin brown mouse.
She is living all alone
In this old house.
茉德上大学，
沙娣留在家。
沙娣用细齿梳
把生活来梳扒。
梳理得多光滑，
不留一个疙瘩。
沙娣是这一带的
最活泼的小毛丫。
她生了两个孩子，
全都没有爸。
这可羞死了
茉德和爹妈。
当沙娣说完临终的话,
她的女儿也离开了家。
(沙娣留下的遗产就是那细齿梳一把。)
上过大学的茉德
现在又黑又干巴。
她孤零零住在
又老又旧的家。
【作者简介】
格温多琳·布鲁克斯，当代杰出的黑人女作家，1917年生于芝加哥威尔逊学院，1950年获普利策诗歌奖，在美国文坛享有较高的赞誉。
Kitchenette Building
Grendolyn Brooks
We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan.
Grayed in, and gray." Dream" make a giddy sound, not strong Like "rent", feeding a wife", "satisfying a man".
But could a dream send up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday's garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, of sing an aria down these rooms
Even if we were willing to let it in,
Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,
Anticipate a message, let it begin?
We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bath room now,
We think of lukewarm water, hope to get into it.
【注释】
dry hours:枯燥乏味的钟点，指生活在这所公寓的人们，大都长时间从事机械性的枯燥工作，很少能有什 么精神享受。involuntary plan:非自愿的计划，指穷困的人们被迫选择很差的住房以及生活用品，他们的 安排和计划并不是自己乐意做出的。
grayed in, and gray:前面两个字表示灰色的环境使我们也变成灰色。后面表示自己灰溜溜地生活着。
giddy[\F0D0]:晕眩的,眼花的 aria[\4:T0:]:咏叹调;抒情调
Number Five:住在五号房间的住户。廉价公寓的浴洗间为许多户人家共用，热水只能定时供应。所以为 了争取个温吞水的洗澡机会，住户们必须充分利用空隙时间，不敢耽误。
lukewarm[\S7:E\V5:P]:微温的,微热的
廉价公寓
格温多琳·布鲁克斯
我们是一批物品，属于枯燥钟点和非自愿的计
划，被变成灰色，灰溜溜，"梦"发出晕眩的弱声，比不上"房钱"，"养活老婆"，"满足男人欲望"响亮。
可是，难道梦能够穿过洋葱的臭气
发出纯白和紫色?难道梦斗得过油炸土豆
以及昨天留在门厅里腐烂发酵的垃圾?
难道梦能够在这些房间里飘扬，引吭高唱?
这都做得到吗? 即便我们愿意放梦进来。
有足够时间温暖着它，使它非常干净，
等待着一个信息，让梦开始活动吗?
我们正在沉思。但是不好了!一分钟也不能想下去了!
现在五号房客刚从浴室里出来，
我们惦记着温水，希望快进去呢。
Near The Old People's Home
Howard Nemerov
The people on the avenue at noon,
Sharing the sparrows and the wintry sun,
The turned-off fountain with its basin drained
And cement benches etched with checkerboards,
Are old and poor, most everyone of them
Wearing some decoration of his damage,
Bandage or crutch or cane, and some are blind,
Or nearly, tap-tapping along with white wands,
When they open their mouths, there are no teeth,
All the same, they keep on talking to themselves
Even while bending to hawk up spit or blood
In gutters that will be there when they are gone.
Some have the habit of getting hit by cars
Three times a year; the ambulance comes up
And away they go, mumbling even in shock
The many secret names they have for God.
【注释】
checkerboard[\CM
老人院附近
霍华德·奈美洛夫
中午时大街上的那些人
分享着冬日，陪伴着庥雀，
呆在喷泉已关闭的干涸的池边，
坐在刻上了棋盘的水泥凳上。
他们是年老的穷人，差不多
每人都带着衰病的标志：
绷带、撑杖、拐杖；眼瞎了或快瞎了，
靠白色棍子敲着走路。
他们张开嘴时看不见牙齿。
但他们总是不断自言自语，
同时，弯腰把痰和血吐在沟中，
脏东西在他们死后还留在那里。
有些人常被汽车撞倒，
一年撞三次，救护车开来，
他们被运走了，在休克中还
嘟囔着呼唤上帝的各种秘密名字。
【作者简介】
霍华德·奈美洛夫，1920年生于纽约，毕业于哈佛大学。他的诗风很独特，往往以哲理见长，擅写讽刺性和抒情性的诗歌，曾在1988年被推举为第三位美国桂冠诗人，是一位声望卓著的诗坛元老式人物。
Two Voices in A Meadow
Ricard Wilbur
A Milkweed
Anonymous as cherubs
Over the crib of God,
White seeds are floating
Out of my burst pod.
What power had I
Before I learn to yield?
Shatter me, great wind:
I shall posses the field.
A Stone
As casual as cow-dung
Under the crib of God,
I lie where chance would have me,
Up to the ears in sod.
Why should I move? To move
Befit a light desire.
The sill of Heaven would founder,
Did such ad I aspire.
【注释】
milkweed[\P0SEV0:D]:几种含乳状草汁的野草的通称
crib[ET0B]:既有"牛棚，"也有"摇篮"的意义。根据本诗两段不同的上下文，应该分别译为"上帝的摇篮"(第一段第二行)和"上帝的牛棚"(第二段第二行)。
草场上两个声音
理查德·威尔伯
野草好似无名小天使
飞翔在上帝的摇篮前，
白色种子
飘出我张开的荚
如果我不会生育
我怎么会有力量
伟大的风啊，吹我吧，
我将占有这草场。
石头
我偶然躺在这里，
像一堆牛粪；
埋在上帝的牛棚下，
我躺在运气肩上，
污泥齐我的耳根。
我何必要移动呢?
移动是轻浮的意愿，
动摇了天国的栋梁
要引起天塌地陷。
【作者简介】
理查德·威尔伯，1921年生于纽约，毕业于阿默斯特学院。在当代诗人当中，他是唯一坚持以传统形式写诗而获得巨大成功的一位。他的诗歌风格以观察细致，情调温文尔雅著称。
Snowflakes
H.W.Longfellow
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the wood lands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
【注释】
countenance[\E>7QC0Q:QK]:面容,脸色;表情 syllable[\K0S:BS]:音节
hoard[O5:D]:贮藏,聚藏;隐藏
雪 花
亨利·瓦兹华斯·朗费罗
从太空的胸膛，
从飘动着她的长袍的云层，
雪花纷纷扬扬，
轻盈、缓慢、悄然无声，
降落在昏黄、萧疏的森林，
降落在荒废的农田。
即使我们飘忽的幻念
突然以神圣的方式中辍，
即使那苦恼的心灵
在苍白的面目中忏悔，
但苦恼的天空依旧
显示它感受的忧愁。
这是一首太空的诗歌，
以沉默的音符谱就，
这是一个失望的奥秘，
久久在多云的胸襟勾留，
如今它低声细语，
向森林和原野倾诉。
【作者简介】
亨利·瓦兹华斯·朗费罗（Henry WadsworthLongfel1ow， 1807一1882），美国诗人。他的诗音韵优美，雅俗共赏，具有温和的民主主义者和人道主义者的思想倾向。《雪花》借景抒情，表达作者内心的惆怅与忧闷。
Eldorado
Allan Poe
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old---
This knight so bold---
And over his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow---
“Shadow ,” said he ,
“Where can it be---
This land of Eldorado"
“Over the Mountains
Of the Moon.
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride , ”
The shade replied, ---
“If you seek for Eldorado !”
黄金之乡
爱伦·坡 一位勇敢的骑士，
身穿华服，
无论天晴还是下雨，
走在遥远的路上，
口中歌儿吟唱，
寻找黄金之乡。
他已经老了——
真勇敢的骑士——
他心头掠过阴影，
当他发现
没有一个地方
看上去像黄金之乡。
日子一久，
他终于筋疲力尽，
这时遇见一位朝圣的幽灵——
“幽灵，”他问，
“请问什么地方——
才是黄金之乡？”
“在月宫上，
翻过那里的高山，
穿过幽灵居住的山谷。
骑下去，勇敢地骑下去，”
幽灵回答他——
“如果你想找到黄金之乡。”
【作者简介】
爱伦·坡（Allan Poe，1809一1849），美国小说家，诗人，有“鬼才”之称，他的诗抒发忧郁、阴暗的心理状态，追求一种病态的美，对现代派诗歌有很大影响。《黄金之乡》以童话的描写手法讽刺了不讲实际的空想家。
I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing
W. Whitman
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss bung down
from the branches ,
Without any companion it grew there uttering
joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made
me think of myself,
But I wondered how it could utter joyous
leaves standing alone there without its
friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number
of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends ,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them, )
Yet it remains to me a curious token,
it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, end though the live-oak glistens
there in Louisians solitary in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a
friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
【注释】
Louisiana[]S7:0:L0\3Q:]: 美国一州名 live-oak: 栎树
moss[P5K]:苔藓;地衣 twig[CV0F]:小枝，嫩枝
glisten[\FS0KQ]:闪烁
我在路易斯安那看见一棵栎树在生长
瓦尔特·惠特曼
我在路易斯安那看见一棵栎树在生长，
它孑然而立，枝条上挂满青苔，
它没有伴侣，深绿色的叶子却长得欢天喜地，
那狂放、不屈、快活的神情使我想到自己，
但我诧异它孤零零站着，身边没有朋友，却能长
出欢快的叶子，因为我知道我做不到如此，
我攀下一段小枝，上面长着许多叶子，周围附着
少许青苔，
我把它带回家，放在房里显眼的位置，
我不需要它来提醒我有亲密的朋友，
（我相信最近除了他们我很少想到别的事，）
但它对于我仍是个奇妙的象征，它使我想起高
尚的爱情；
尽管如此，这栎树在路易斯安那一片空旷的平
地上孤独地闪烁，
附近没有一个朋友和爱人照样一年年长出欢乐的叶子，
但我知道我做不到。
【作者简介】
瓦尔特·惠特曼（Walt Whitman，1819一1892），美国著名诗人。他的诗形同欧文，无拘无束，一泻千里，热情奔放犹如脱缰的野马，表现出一种原始而粗犷的美。《我在路易斯安那看见一棵栎树在生长》礼赞栎树战胜孤独，在逆境中奋发向上的精神。《敲吧！鼓！敲吧！》声音激越高亢，具有极大的蛊惑性。
Beat! Beat! Drums!
W. Whitman
Beat! Beat! Drums! Blow! Bugles! Blow!
Through the windows---through doors---burst
like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet---no happiness
must he have now with his bride.
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing
his field or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums---so
shrill your bugles blow.
Beat! Beat! Drums! Blow! Bugles! Blow!
Over the traffic of cities---over the rumble of
wheels in the streets:
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the
Houses? No sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers' bargains by day---no brokers
or speculators---would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? Would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his
case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums---you bugles wilder blow.
Beat！Beat！Drums!---Blow! Bugles! blow！
Make no parley---stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid---mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child's voice be heard, nor the mother's entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump terrible drums---so loud you bugles blow.
【注释】
congregation []E5RFT0\F<0M:Q]:集合，集会 whirr[OV::]:呼呼地转动
parley[\A4:S0]:商议 expostulation[0EK\A5KCU7\S<0M:Q]: 劝戒，忠告
beseech[B0\K0:CM]:恳求 trestle[\CT
敲吧！鼓！敲吧！
惠特曼
敲吧! 敲吧！鼓！吹吧！号角！吹吧！
穿过窗户——穿过房门——像无情的力量爆发，
进入庄严的教堂，驱散聚集的人群，
进入学者研读的学校；
让新郎不得安宁——此刻决不能让他和他的新娘享受幸福，
让喜欢安静的农夫得不到安静，无法耕种田地或收获粮食，
你这鼓就这样猛烈地敲——你这号角也这样嘹亮地吹。
敲吧！敲吧！鼓！——吹吧！号角，吹吧！
声音盖过城市的车辆——盖过大街上车轮的轰隆声；
房屋里供人睡觉的眠床是否搭起？不能让睡眠者在床上入睡,
不能让生意人白天做生意--不该有经纪人或
投机者——他们还想自行其事？
侈谈者还想侈谈？歌手仍然想歌唱？
法院的律师仍然要站起身子，在法官面前陈述案情？
那么，把鼓敲得更快，更猛——把号角吹得更尖锐。
敲吧！敲吧！鼓！——吹吧！号角，吹吧！
没有商量的余地——用不着停下来规劝，
别在乎胆怯的——别在乎哭泣的或祷告的，
别在乎老年人向年青人求情，
别去听孩子的声音，别去听母亲的哀求，
要敲得等待入殓的死人的棺木都震颤起来，
就这样猛烈地敲，哦，可怕的鼓——就这样嘹亮地吹，号角！
Swimming
C. Scollard
When all the days are hot and long
And robin bird has ceased his song,
I go swimming every day
And have the finest kind of play.
I've learned to dive and I can float
As easily as does a boat;
I splash and plunge and laugh and shout
Till daddy tells me to come out.
It's much too soon; I'd like to cry
For I can see the ducks go by,
And Daddy Duck---how I love him
He lets his children swim and swim!
I feel that I would be in luck
If I could only be a duck.
白昼炎热而漫长，
知更鸟停止了歌唱，
我每天出去游泳，
将最美好的消遣亲躬。
我学会了潜水和浮游，
轻松自若像一叶小舟；
我溅水、跳水，又笑又喊，
直到父亲叫我上岸。
为时太早了！我真想哭，
因为我看见鸭子在身边畅浮，
那鸭爸爸——我多么爱他——
他让孩子一直游啊游啊！
如果我能变成一只鸭子，
那时我该有多么幸福！
【简介】
克林顿·斯各勒德（Clinton Scollard， 1860一1932），美国诗人，汉密尔顿大学教授。他一生诗风多变，有时写一些极通俗的大众歌曲，有时也写具有神秘色彩、宣扬泛神论的诗歌作品。
《游泳》是一首十四行诗，文字浅显如儿歌，却讨论了一个十分严肃的主题：人与自然之间所存在的差异究竟在哪里？
The Mountains Are A Lonely Folk
H. Garland
The mountains they are silent folk;
They stand a far--alone,
And the clouds that kiss their brows at night
Hear neither sigh nor groan.
Each bears him in his ordered place
As soldiers do, and bold and high
They fold their forests round their feet
And bolster up the sky.
山岳是沉默的勇士哈姆林·加兰
山岳是沉默的勇士；
他们远远站着——孑然一身，
云霞在夜间跟他们亲吻。
从来听不到叹息或呻吟。
每座山都坚守自己的岗位，
像士兵一样勇敢而庄严，
他们将森林环抱在脚下，
并高高地撑起苍穹。
【简介】
哈姆林·加兰（1860-1940），美国小说家，作品多以现实主义手法反映美国中西部农民的生活。《山岳是沉默的勇士》是对山岳伟大而沉默精神的礼赞。
Night in The Open World
From Travels with a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson
Night is a dead and monotonous period under a roof
; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest she turns and smiles; and there is one stirring hour, unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet. It is then that the cock first crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding the course of night. Cattle awake on the meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy hill-sides, and change to a new lair among the ferns; and houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night.
【注释】
under a roof: 在屋顶下，指在室内。
in the open world: 在露天世界，指在室外(野外)。
What seems ... walls and curtains: 主语从句，其中choked between ... 为分词短语，修饰 the people.
she: 指 Nature.
all the outdoor world are on their feet: all the outdoor world 指室外的万物，所以动词用 are, 代词用their; (be) on one's feet: 站起来。
break their fast: 开斋；吃早饭。
露天世界的夜晚
罗伯特·路易斯·斯蒂文森
在室内，夜是死气沉 沉、单调乏味的时刻。但是在露天世界里，有星星，有露珠，还有芬芳的香气；黑夜轻快地流逝，而大自然的面貌却在夜里时刻变化着。禁锢在室内的帘后的人们觉得夜似乎是短暂的死亡；而露宿野外的人却觉得夜只是一场充满生机的微睡。他整夜能听见大自然深沉的、自由自在的呼吸。大自然即使在休息时也在转动和微笑。当沉睡着的半球出现苏醒迹象的时候，室外的万物都起来了，那种忙碌的时刻是居住在室内的人所不知道的。雄鸡最先啼鸣，这时不是报晓，而是象欢乐的更夫在催黑夜快走。草地上牛群醒来；露珠晶莹的山坡上羊群在进早餐，并且在羊齿植物丛中改换新的羊窝；与禽鸟共眠的无家可归的人们睁开了惺松的双眼，观赏美丽的夜色。
【作者简介】
罗伯特·路易斯·斯蒂文森（1850-1894）：英国小说家、散文家和诗人。
Happy Life at A Tavern
From The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
We dined at an excellent inn at Chapelhouse, where Dr. Johnson expatiated on the felicity of England in its taverns and inns, and triumphed over the French for not having, in any perfection, the tavern life. "There is no private house," said he, "in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern.” Let there be ever so great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should be easy, in the nature of things it cannot be: there must always be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are anxious to bearable to him; and no man but a very impudent dog indeed can as freely command what is in another's house as if it were his own. Whereas at a tavern there is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome; the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the more welcome you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are excited with the prospect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, sir; there is nothing which has as yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."
【注释】
tavern[\C3H:Q]: 英国乡村中供给酒菜的小客栈
Chapelhouse: 查普尔壕斯，英国伦敦附近的一个小村镇 expatiate[
Let there be ever so ...:此句中 Let 表示假设 alacrity[:\S3ET0C0]:活泼;敏捷;轻快
an immediate reward: 能立即到手的报酬，意即小费 contrive[E:Q\CT>0H]:发明;设计
小客栈的乐趣
詹姆斯·鲍斯韦尔
我们在查普尔壕斯一家极好的小客栈里吃饭，约翰逊博
士在那儿详细叙述了英格兰的小客栈和小旅馆的妙处，得意洋洋地指出法国人没有任何这等完美的小客栈生活。"任何私人住宅，"他说，"都不能使人们象在一家顶好的小客栈里那样舒适愉快。＂尽管那里好东西应有尽有，尽管屋宇是那样的宏伟，陈设是那样的雅致，尽管主人一心一意要让每个人都感到自由自在，而实际上这是不可能实现的。相反，那里总是有着某种程度的顾虑和急切的心情。屋主人要小心地招待客人，客人要留神地迎合主人。除了非常无礼的鲁莽家伙，决没有人在别人的屋子里会象在自己家里那样可以随心所欲，颐指气使。然而在小客栈里就根本没有这种顾虑了。在这里，你肯定是受欢迎的，你嗓门越大，你越添麻烦，你要的好东西越多，你就越受欢迎。没有一个仆人会象受到小费刺激的店倌那样殷勤地侍候你，因为店倌的侍候越中意，你给小费就越慷慨。没有的，先生；在人类迄今所创造的一切事物中，没有什么能象一家优美的乡村小客栈或者小旅馆那样给人们提供那么多的乐趣。"
【作者简介】
詹姆斯·鲍斯韦尔（1740-1795）：苏格兰律师和作家。
About Reading Books
by Virginia Woolf
It is simple enough to say that since books have classes- fiction, biography, poetry---we should separate them and take from each what is right that each should give us. Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. If you hang back, and reserve, and criticize at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist, and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite. The thirty-two chapters of a novel---if we consider how to read a novel first---are an attempt to make something as formed and controlled as a building: but words are more impalpable than bricks, reading is a longer and more complicated process than seeing. Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write, to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties of words. Recall, then, some event that has left a distinct impression on you---how at the corner of the street, perhaps, you passed two people talking, A tree shook, an electric light danced, the tone of the talk was comic, but also tragic, a whole vision, an entire conception, seemed contained in that moment.
【注释】
blur[BS::]:模糊;使模糊不清
banish [\B3Q0M]:流放,放逐
preconception[AT0:E:Q\K
steep[KC0:A]:陡峭的
acquaint yourself with…，使（你）自己认识（了解）…
impalpable[0P\A3SA:BS]:无形的
contained[E:Q\C<0QD]:从容的
谈 读 书
维吉尼亚·吴尔夫
既然书籍有不同的门类，如小说、传记、
诗歌等，我们就应该把它们区分开来，并从每种中汲取它应当给我们提供的正确的东西;这话说起来固然容易，然而，很少有人要求从书籍中得到它们所能提供的东西，通常我们总是三心二意地带着模糊的观念去看书：要求小说情节真实，要求诗歌内容虚构，要求传记阿谀奉承，要求历史能加深我们自己的偏见。如果我们读书时能抛弃所有这些成见，那将是一个极可贵的开端。我们对作者不要指手划脚，而应努力站在作者的立场上，设想自己在与作者共同创作。假如你退缩不前，有所保留并且一开始就批评指责，你就在妨碍自己从你所读的书中得到最大的益处, 然而，如果你能尽量敞开思想，那么，书中开头几句迂回曲折的话里所包含的几乎难以觉察的细微的迹象和暗示，就会把你引到一个与众不同的人物的面前去。如果你深入下去，如果你去认识这个人物，你很快就会领悟作者正在给你或试图给你某些明确得多的东西。倘若我们首先考虑怎样读小说，那么，一部小说中的三十二章就是企图创造出象一座建筑物那样既有一定的形式而各部分又受到控制的东西，不过词句要比砖块难以捉摸，阅读的过程要比看一看更费时、更复杂。理解小说家创作工作的各项要素的捷径也许并不是阅读，而是写作，而是亲自试一试遣词造句中的艰难险阻。那么，回想一下给你留下鲜明印象的某些事——比如，你怎样在大街的拐角处从两个正在交谈着的人身边走过，树在摇曳、灯光在晃动，谈话的语气既喜又悲；这一瞬间似乎包含了一个完整的想象，一个整体的构思。
【作者简介】
维吉尼亚·吴尔夫（1882-1941），英国小说家，在她的小说里，缩小作者作为叙述者或评论者的作用。她同时也是一位公认的评论家。
A Little Girl
From Alyson by Theodore Watts-Duncan
Sitting on a grassy, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back, she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was she in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation seemed addressed, that she did not observe me when I rose and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy cloud was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she was uncommonly lovely. Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I did not take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed to me a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my overset dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me.
【注释】
with her head bent back: with +名词或代词宾格+分词(或形容词、介词短语等)作状语，表示伴随情况。
So completely absorbed was she...that...：这是一个so...that...结构的主从复合句，其中主句采用全倒装语序。address...to：对......说话。这里是指对着云彩歌唱或念念不休。that引导的是一个本身带有时间状语从句的结果状语从句。
in rivalry(with)：与......比高低、争雄、斗艳、等等。
at another violet: = at another moment (seemed) violet: 一会儿又象是紫罗兰色的。
Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look...that fascinated me, melted me：not so much...as 作"与其说......不如说......"解释。It was...that...用作强调结构。melted me：融化了我，即：使我陶醉。
小 女 孩
西奥多·瓦茨·邓顿
在教堂的一扇窗下,长满绿草的坟堆 上，坐着个小女孩。她仰着头，望着天空，唱着歌儿。她的小手指点着一朵飘浮在她头顶的金色羽毛般的小彩云。突然间，阳光显得格外灿烂，照在她光泽的头发上，给她涂上一层金属似的光彩；很难说出它究竟是什么颜色，是深褐色，还是黑色。她是那么全神贯注地望着彩云，她那奇妙的歌声，或可说是喃喃自语，似乎是对着那彩云而发的。因而她没有注意到我站起身来朝她走去。在她上空高高的蓝天里，一只展翅飞向那朵轻盈透明的彩云的云雀也在歌唱，似乎在与她赛歌。我慢步向小女孩走去，她那在阳光下如同珍珠一样圆润的前额，特别是她那肤色，使我感到她真是异常可爱。她那黑黑的长睫毛非常别致地朝后弯曲着，掩映着一双一会儿象是蓝灰色的、一会儿又象是紫罗兰色的眼睛。她的长睫毛同她的眉毛和头发色泽调和，披拂在她娇嫩的脖子上的发绺，在阳光里轻轻飘动。我并没有马上领略到这一切，因为我一开始只注意了那双闪闪发光、富于表情、盯着我看的眼睛。我伫立在一边默默地注视着她，才渐渐地看清了她容貌的其他部分，特别是那张灵敏而又丰满的小嘴。呈现在我眼前的这一美的形象似乎比我在最美好的梦境中所见过的更美。然而，与其说是她的美丽，不如说是她朝我看的那种眼神，更使我着迷，更使我陶醉。
【作者简介】
西奥多·瓦茨·邓顿(1832-1917):英国评论家和诗人。
A Curious Decision
Anonymous
A poor chimney-sweeper, who had not enough money to buy a meal,
stopped one hot summer day at noon before an eating-house, and remained regaling his nose with the smell of the victuals. The master of the shop told him several times to go away, but the sweep could not leave the savory smell, though unable to purchase the taste of the food. At last the cook came out of the shop, and taking hold of the sweep, declared that, as he had been feeding upon the smell of his victuals, he should not go away without paying half the price of a dinner. The poor fellow said that he neither could nor would pay, and that he would ask the first person who should pass, whether it was not an unreasonable and unjust demand.
The case was referred to a policeman, who happened to pass at that moment. He said to the sweep: "As you have been feasting one of your senses with the odor of this man's meat, it is but just you should make him some recompense; therefore you shall, in your turn, regale one of his senses, which seems to be more insatiable than your appetite. How much money have you?"
"I have but two pence in all the world, sir, and I must buy me some bread."
"Never mind," answered the officer, "take your two pence between your hands; now rattle them loudly."
The sweep did so, and the officer, turning to the cook, said, “Now, sir, I think he has paid you: the smell of your victuals regaled his nostrils; the sound of his money has tickled your ears."
This decision gave more satisfaction to the bystanders than to the cook, but it was the only payment he could obtain.
【注释】
the sweep: 扫烟囱的工人。
feed upon(on)...：以......为食物。
The case was referred to a policeman: 此事提交警察处理。to refer... to：把... 提交。
meat: 这里作"食物"解。
you shall: shall 用于陈述句的第二、第三人称时，表示说话者的意向、命令、允诺、警告等。这里作"应该"解。在现代英语中，表示这种意思时，一般都用should代替shall。
奇妙的裁决
佚名
有一个贫穷的扫烟囱工人，穷得 连一顿饭也买不起。一个炎热的夏天中午，他在一家餐馆前停了下来，站在那儿用鼻子贪婪地嗅着食物的香味。餐馆老板几次叫他走开，但他虽然没有能力买食物来尝尝，却又舍不得离开这令人馋涎欲滴的香味。最后，厨师从店堂内走了出来，一把抓住那个扫烟囱工人，说他闻饱了菜肴的香味，硬要他付一半饭钱，不然，就不放他走。那个穷汉子说他既付不起，也不愿意付!并且提出要请第一个过路人来评一评这样的要求是否公道合理。
这时候，一个警察碰巧从旁边经过，这事就告到了他那里。警察对扫烟囱工人说："既然你的一个感官享受了这人烹调的食物的香味，你就应该给他一定的报酬，这是公平合理的 ；所以现在该轮到你使他的一个感官得到享受，他的这一感官看来比你的胃口更难以满足。你身上有多少钱?"
"总共只有两个便士，我还要买面包吃呢，先生。"
"不要紧，"警察回答道，"把你的两个便士用双手捂着；现在使劲把它们咔嗒咔嗒地摇出声音来。"
扫烟囱的工人这样做了。于是警察转身对厨师说："先生，我想现在他给了你报酬了；你那食物的香味给了他鼻子以享受；他那钱币的响声也饱了你的耳福."
这一裁决使旁观者大为满意，厨师虽然不满意，但他也只能得到这样的报酬了。
Oliver Goldsmith
By Washington Irving
There are few writers for whom the reader feels such per
sonal kindness as for Oliver Goldsmith, for few have so eminently possessed the magic gift of identifying themselves with their writings. We read his character in every page and grow into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless benevolence that beams throughout his works; the whimsical, yet amiable views of human life and human nature; the unforced humor, blending so happily with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melancholy; even the very nature of his mellow, and flowing and softly tinted style, ---all seem to bespeak his moral as well as his intellectual qualities, and make us love the man at the same time that we admire the author. While the productions of writers of loftier pretension and more resounding names are suffered to molder on our shelves, those of Goldsmith are cherished and laid in our bosoms. We do not quote them with ostentation, but they mingle with our minds, sweeten our tempers, and harmonize our thoughts; they put us in good humor with ourselves and with the world, and in so doing they make us happier and better men.
An acquaintance with the private biography of Goldsmith lets us into the secret of his gifted pages. We there discover them to little more than transcripts of his own heart and picturing of his fortunes. There he shows himself the same kind, artless, good-humored, excursive, sensible, whimsical, intelligent being that he appears in his writings.
Scarcely an adventure or character is given in his works, that may not be traced to his own party-colored story. Many of his most ludicrous scenes and ridiculous incidents have been drawn from his own blunders and mischances, and he seems really to have been buffeted into almost every maxim imparted by him for the instruction of his reader.
奥利弗·哥尔德斯密斯
华盛顿·欧文
象奥利弗·哥尔德斯密斯那样，使读者倾心爱
慕其人品的作家，实属屈指可数，因为极少作家具有他那种把自己融化在作品之中的奇才。在他的每一页作品中，我们都可看到他的性格，因此在阅读的过程中对他越来越了解，越来越感亲切。他的全部作品中闪烁着赤诚的慈悲之心；他对人生和人性的看法虽离奇却不乏温情；他的幽默毫不勉强，揉入了美好的感情与良知理性，是那么恰如其分，有时夹杂一丝宜人的忧郁感，更是独具一格；还有，他的风格醇厚、流畅、色彩柔和——这一切似乎都表明了他的道德品质与智慧，使我们不仅因他是作家而钦佩他，同时还对他本人产生爱慕之情。在我们听任自命不凡和名声更大的作家的作品躺在书架上发霉的同时，哥尔德斯密斯的作品却被我们棒在怀中，视若至宝。这不是因为我们想引用他的作品以示卖弄，而是它们已融入了我们的心灵，陶冶了我们的性情，融洽了我们的思想；它们使我们对己、对人都胸怀开朗，并因而使我们更幸福，更完美。
熟悉哥尔德斯密斯的个人身世使我们得以了解他那些一页又一页的天才作品的秘密。我们发现他的作品不过是他内心的表白，是他个人命运的写照。他自己就是他作品中所描写的那个仁慈、朴实、快活、散漫、明智、充满奇想和聪明的人。
他的作品中几乎没有一桩事件或一个人物不是取材于他本身丰富多彩的生活经历。他的许多最滑稽的情节和最可笑的插曲都是来自他自己做过的蠢事和不幸遭遇，看来他传授给读者并借以教育读者的每一句箴言，都是他在生活中磨练出来的。
Oliver Goldsmith: 奥利弗·哥尔德斯密斯（1730？－1774）英国诗人、剧作家、散文家及小说家，主要作品有小说《韦克菲尔德牧师传》（Vicar of Wakefield）.
personal kindness: 这里解为"对作家本人及其人格品性的爱慕"。
put us in a good humor with...: 使我们心绪开朗，不会对......轻易生气。
lets us into the secret: 使我们分享秘密。
party-coloured = parti-coloured: 变化多的；杂色的。
【作者简介】
华盛顿·欧文（1783-1859）：美国文学史上最早的著名作家。他的散文和故事以亲切的幽默感和优美的文笔著称。
A Summer Day
By Charles Dickens
One day thirty years ago Marseilles lay in the burning sun. A blazing sun
upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France than at any other time before or since. Everything in Marseilles and about Marseilles had stared at the fervid sun, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there. Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their loads of grapes. These did occasionally wind a little, as the hot air barely moved their faint leaves.
The universal stare made the eyes ache. Towards the distant blue of the Italian coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds of mist slowly rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it softened nowhere else. Far away the dusty vines overhanging wayside cottages, and the monotonous wayside avenues of parched treks without shade, dropped beneath the stare of earth and sky. So did the horses with drowsy bells, in long files of carts, creeping slowly towards the interior; so did their recumbent drivers, when they were awake, which rarely happened; so did the exhausted laborers in the fields. Everything that lived or grew was oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing swiftly over rough stone walls, and cicada, chirping its dry hot chirp, like a rattle. The very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered in the atmosphere as if the air itself were panting.
Blinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to deep out the stare. Grant it but a chink or a keyhole, and it shot in like a white-hot arrow.
out of countenance: 感到难堪或局促不安。
the blue: 天空，有时也指海洋。
So did...;so did...;so did...: 这里so did 代替dropped beneath the stare of earth and sky.
Grant it but a chink or a keyhole, and it...: 那怕只给它一条小缝或者一个钥匙孔，它就会......。Grant 解作"给予"，it 指 the stares 。此句结构为"祈使句+ and +陈述句"，含义上相当于"条件从句+主句"。
夏 日
查尔斯·狄更斯
三十年前的一天，马赛躺在烈日之下。 在法国南部，八月炎热的日子里赤日当空，在那时以前或以后都不是什么罕见的事。马赛范围内以及马赛周围的一切都凝视着灼热的太阳，而太阳反过来也凝视着这一切；久而久之，在马赛普遍形成一种耀眼的色彩。白色的房屋，白色的街道，一段段干旱的大路，草木晒得枯死的小山都十分耀眼象在瞪着眼瞧人似的，使初到此地的人们手足无措。能看到的唯一不是老瞪着眼使人眼花缭乱的，只有坠着串串葡萄的葡萄藤；热空气微微吹动着萎缩的藤叶时，葡萄确实也偶而眨眨眼。
这种普遍的耀眼的色彩令人眼睛发痛。说实在的，要远到意大利沿海蔚蓝的天空，由于海水蒸发冉冉升起的缕缕薄雾，这耀眼的色彩才不致那么强烈，但是除此之外别的地方，它一点也不曾柔和下来。远处，耀眼的大路，上面积着很厚的尘土，沿着山坡盯着人看，穿过山谷盯着人看，横过一望无际的平原盯着人看。远处，悬挂在路旁小屋上蒙着尘土的葡萄藤，还有路旁单调的成行的晒焦了不能遮荫的树木，都在大地和天空的凝视下耷拉着脑袋。长长的大车队中，发出催人欲睡的铃铛声的马匹也耷拉着脑袋，慢慢地向内地爬行着；斜靠在车上的车夫们醒来时，也耷拉着脑袋，不过他们也难得醒；田野里筋疲力尽的农夫们耷拉着脑袋。一切动物和植物都受到这耀眼光芒的压抑；例外的只是在那凹凸不平的石墙上敏捷爬行的蜥蜴和拔浪鼓似地发出强烈鸣声的蝉儿。连那尘土都被炙烤成褐色了，大气中似乎也有什么东西在颤抖，仿佛空气本身也在气喘吁吁。
竹帘子、百叶窗、窗帘、遮篷全都拉拢了，把这耀眼的光芒挡在外面。那怕只露出一条小缝或者一个钥匙孔，它就会象一支白热的箭直射进来。
【作者简介】
查尔斯·狄更斯（1812-1870），英国小说家，以《匹克威克外传》（1837）一举成名。
Hints for Those That Would Be Rich
by Benjamin Franklin
The Use of Money is all the Advantage there is in having
Money. For ￡6 a Year you may have the Use of ￡100 if you are a Man of known Prudence and Honesty.
He that spends a Grout a day idly, spends idly above ￡6 a year, which is the Price of using ￡100.
He that wastes idly a Grout's worth of his Time per Day, one Day with another, wastes the Privilege of using ￡100 each day.
He that idly loses 5 Grouts’worth of time, loses 5 Grouts. and might as prudently throw 5 Grouts. in the River.
He that loses 5 Grouts. not only loses that Sum, but all the Advantage that might be made by turning it in Dealing, which, by the time that a young Man becomes old, amounts to a comfortable Bag of Money.
Again, He that sells upon Credit, asks a Price for what he sells equivalent to the Principal and Interest of his Money for the Time he is likely to be kept out of it: therefore He that buys upon Credit, pays Interest for what he buys. And he that pays Ready Money, might let that Money out to Use; so that He that possesses any Thing he has bought, pays Interest the Use of it.
Consider then when you are tempted to buy any unnecessary Household stuff, or any superfluous thing, Whether you will be willing to pay Interest, and interest upon Interest for it as long as you live; and more if it grows worse by using.
Yet, in buying goods, it is best to pay Ready Money, because, He that sells upon Credit, expects to lose 5 per Cent by Bad Debts; therefore he charges, on all he sells upon Credit, an Advance that shall make up that deficiency.
Those who pay for what they buy upon Credit, pay their Share of this Advance.
He that pays Ready Money, escapes or may escape that Charge.
A Penny saved is Twopence clear,
A Pin a Day is a Grout a Year.
【注释】
might as prudently: 结构与一般常用的 might as well 相同。might as well 含有"反正一样"、"倒不如"的意思。
to be kept out of it: it代表money, to be kept out of...解作"受到阻碍不能享有......"
advance:通常解作"预付款"，这里作"涨价"或"加码"解。其涵义是，商人赊卖后很可能有一部分账款不能收回，因此对每个顾客多开价百分之五，以弥补将来必然会发生的倒账损失。
clear: 十足的，整整的；相当于without any deduction。
在商业上订立的契约和其他重要法律文件中常把要紧的术语以大写字母开始，或整个词中的字母都大写。这篇文章也仿照这个习惯做法，主要名词或词组都用大写，含有幽默之意。
致富之道
本杰明·富兰克林
有钱的唯一好处就在于用钱。 如果 你是一个节俭而诚实的人，一年六英镑就可以当一百英镑的钱使用。
一天消费四便士的人，一年就消费六个多英镑，而六英镑相当于一百英镑的使用价值。
每天虚度值一便士的时间的人，日复一日，等于消费了每天使用一百英镑的权利。
一个游手好闲而损失了价值五先令时间的人，就是失去了五个先令，他还不如把五先令扔进河里的好。
一个失去五先令的人，不仅失去了那笔钱，还失去了把钱用于经商可能带来的好处，而一个年轻人到年老的时候这笔钱就会等于一笔可观的财产。
还有，一个赊帐出售物品的人，对他所售货物要求的价格相当于货物的本钱加上他暂时不能利用的那笔钱的利息。因此，一个赊帐购买的人，要为他所买的货物支付利息。而一个用现金购买的人，如果不买的话，是可以把那笔钱借给别人使用的。所以，一个拥有任何买来的东西的人，都要为使用这东西而支付利息。
当你感到一种引诱，想要买任何并不急需的家用品，或任何不必要的东西的时候，你就要好好考虑一下，你是否愿意为它支付利息，并且终身为它利上加利；如果这东西是会用坏的，那末还要付得更多。
然而，在买东西时，最好还是付现金，因为赊帐售物的人，估计由于吃倒帐会损失百分之五，所以把赊售的所有货物都要加码，以弥补这笔损失。
那些赊帐购物的人，得支付他们所应分担的这笔加码的价款。
而用现金购物的人，则不需或可能不需支付这笔钱。
省下的一便士是不折不扣的两便士，
每天节约一丁点儿一年就是一大笔。
【作者简介】
本杰明·富兰克林（1706-1790）：美国政治家和科学家。
A Wet Sunday in A Country Inn
by Washington Irving
A wet Sunday in a country inn! Whoever has had the luckto experience one can alone judge of my situation. The rain pat tered against the casements; the bells tolled for church with a melancholy sound. I went to the windows in quest of something to amuse the eye; but it seemed as if I had been placed completely out of the reach of all amusement. The windows of my bed-room looked out among tiled roofs and stacks of chimneys, while those of my sitting-room commanded a full view of the stable yard. I know of nothing more calculated to make a man sick of this world than a stable yard on a rainy day. The place was littered with wet straw that had been kicked about by travelers and stable-boys. In one corner was a stagnant pool of water, surrounding an island of muck; there were several half-drowned fowls crowded together under a cart, among which was a miserable, crest-fallen cock, drenched out of all life and spirit; his drooping tail matted, as it were, into a single feather, along which the water trickled from his back; near the cart was a halfdozing cow, chewing her cud, and standing patiently be rained on, with wreaths of vapor rising from her reeking hide; a wall-eyed horse, tired of the loneliness of the stable, was poking his spectral headset of a window, with the rain dripping on it from the eaves; an unhappy cur, chained to a dog-house hard by, uttered something every now and then between a bark and a yelp; a drab of a kitchen wench tramped backwards and forwards through the yard in patens, looking as sulky as the weather itself; everything, in short, was comfortless and forlorn, excepting a crew of hardened ducks, assembled like boon companions round a puddle and making a riotous noise over their liquor.
【注释】
judge of: 对......作出评价。
looked out: (房间等)面朝。
commanded a full view of... 俯瞰......的全景；居高临下，可以全部看见...。
wreaths of vapor: wreath 是烟、云作螺旋状的涡圈，这里的 wreath of vapor 指缭绕升起的水气涡圈。
wall-eyed: 眼白特别大的；两眼珠向外斜视的。
a drab of a kitchen wench: 一个邋遢厨娘。drab:不整洁的女人，邋遢女人。英语中常用a...of a...这种名词结构来描写人或物，如a fool of a man (一个呆子般的男人)，a beast of a place (一个很脏的地方)等等。
乡村客栈一个阴雨的星期天
华盛顿·欧文
乡村客栈一个阴雨的星期天!凡
有幸度过这样一天的人，都能体会我现在的处境。雨点子噼噼啪啪地打在窗子上；教堂里传来沉重的钟声，召唤人们去做礼拜。我走到窗前，想找一些赏心悦目的东西；但看来我已完全被摒于一切欢乐之外。从卧室的窗口望出去，是一片砖瓦的屋顶和林立的烟囱；而从起居室的窗口往下看，则能望见整个马厩院子。我觉得再也没有比雨天的马厩院子更令人厌烦的了。遍地是淋湿了的稻草，被旅客和小马倌们踢得凌乱不堪。在院子的一角，一潭污水围着孤岛似的粪堆 ；几只几乎被雨水淋透的鸡簇拥在一辆马车底下，其中一只可怜的公鸡，倒垂着鸡冠，被淋得没精打彩，毫无生气 ；它那耸拉着的尾巴粘结在一起，仿佛只成了一根羽毛，雨水顺着它从背脊往下直淌，离马车不远处，有一头睡眼惺松的奶牛，嘴里嚼着反刍的食物，默默地站在那里，任凭雨水打在身上，湿淋淋的背上冒出缭绕的水气 ；一匹眼珠小而眼白特大的马厌倦了马厩里的寂寞，把它那幽灵似的脑袋从窗口探了出来，屋檐上的雨水滴沥滴沥地落在它头上 ；一只不幸的杂种狗被链条拴在近旁的狗窝里，时时发出似吠似嗥的声音 ；一个邋遢厨娘拖着木屐，迈着沉重的步子在院子里进进出出， 她那郁郁不乐的神色，就象阴沉的天气一样 ；总之，除了一群饱经风雨的鸭子，象饮酒作乐的朋友那样聚集在污水潭的四周呷呷嬉水而外，这儿的一切都令人感到凄凉和沮丧。
【作者简介】
华盛顿·欧文（1783-1859）：美国文学史上最早的著名作家。他的散文和故事以亲切的幽默感和优美的文笔著称。
Crossing The Rubicon
From Thirty More Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
The march to Italy was begun. The soldiers were even more enthusiastic than
Caesar himself. They climbed mountains, waded rivers, endured fatigue, faced all kinds of danger for the sake of their great leader.
At last they came to a little river called the Rubicon. It was the boundary line of Caesar's Province of Gaul; on the other side of it was Italy. Caesar paused a moment on the bank. He knew that to cross it would be to declare war against Pompey and the Roman Senate; it would involve all Rome in a fearful strife, the end of which no man could foresee.
But he did not hesitate long. He gave the word, and rode boldly across the shallow stream.
"We have crossed the Rubicon," he cried as he reached the farther shore. "There is now no turning back." Soon the news was carried to Rome: "Caesar has crossed the Rubicon;" and there was great dismay among those who had plotted to destroy him. Pompey's soldiers deserted him and hastened to join themselves to Caesar's army.The Rome senators and their friends made ready to flee from the city.
"Caesar has crossed the Rubicon !" was shouted along the roads and byways leading to Rome; and the country people turned out to meet and hail with joy the conquering hero.
The word was carried a second time to the city: "Caesar has crossed the Rubicon," and the wild flight began. Senators and public officers left everything behind and hurried away to seek safety with Pompey. On foot, on horseback, in litters, in carriages, they fled for their lives —all because Caesar had crossed the Rubicon. Pompey was unable to protect them. He hurried to the seacoast, and, with all who were able to accompany him, sailed away to Greece.
Gasser was the master of Rome.
【注释】
the Rubicon: 卢比孔河，在意大利北部。 Cross the Rubicon有“破釜沉舟”之意。
Caesar:恺撒（公元前100一44年），古罗马统帅和政治家，与庞培、克拉苏结成前三头政治联盟，率军侵略海外，屡建奇功。公元前49年初，元老院与庞培联合，解除其军权并召之回国，同年恺撒率军越过卢比孔河，进占罗马。庞培偕大批元老院议员出奔希腊。公元前46年，恺撒在征服了海外很多国家后，返回罗马建立独裁政权，公元前44年3月15日遇刺身亡。
made ready：解作“准备好”，后面常接动词不定式短语或介词for所引导的短语。
turn out:出动。
越过卢比孔河
詹姆斯·鲍德温
向意大利的进军开始了。士兵 们甚至比恺撒本人还要热情旺盛。
为了他们的伟大领袖，他们跋山涉水，不顾疲劳，面临各种艰难险阻而毫无惧色。
最后，他们来到了一条叫做卢比孔的小河边。这条小河是恺撒管辖的高卢省的边界线，河那边就是意大利。恺撒在岸边停留了片刻。他知道超过这条河就是对庞培和罗马元老院宣战，就会使整个罗马卷入一场可怕的战争，其结局是没有人能够预料的。
但是，他没有犹豫多久。他下了命令，并且无畏地策马渡过了这条浅流。
“我们已经越过卢比孔河了，”他到达河的对岸时喊道，“现在只有前进，决不后退。”
“恺撒越过卢比孔了，”这一消息很快就传到了罗马，在那些曾经密谋消灭他的人中间引起了极大的惊慌。庞培的部下纷纷叛离，急忙投奔恺撒的部队。罗马元老院的议员们和他们的朋友都准备逃离罗马了。
“恺撒越过卢比孔河了！”在通往罗马的大道和小路上到处都呼喊着。乡村里的人们都奔走欢呼，准备迎接这位胜利的英雄。
消息第二次传到罗马：“恺撒越过卢比孔河了。”于是大家仓惶出逃，一片慌乱。元老和政府官员们扔下了一切，急急忙忙逃到庞培那里去避难。他们或徒步，或骑马，或坐轿子，或乘马车，纷纷逃命——只因为恺撒越过了卢比孔河。庞培无力保护他们。他匆匆赶到海边，带着所有能够伴随他的人，坐船逃往希腊去了。
恺撒成了罗马的主宰。
What Is Immortal
To see the golden sun and the azure sky, the outstretched ocean, to
walk upon the green earth, and to be lord of a thousand creatures, to look down giddy precipices or over distant flowery vales, to see the world spread out under one's finger in a map, to bring the stars near, to view the smallest insects in a microscope, to read history, and witness the revolutions of empires and the succession of generations, to hear of the glory of Simon and Tire, of Babylon and Susan, as of a faded pageant, and to say all these were, and are now nothing, to think that we exist in such a point of time ,and in such a corner of space, to be at once spectators and a part of the moving scene, to watch the return of the seasons, of spring and autumn, to hear---
The stock dove plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustles to the sighing gale.
---to traverse desert wilderness, to listen to the dungeon's gloom, or sit in crowded theatres and see life itself mocked, to feel heat and cold, pleasure and pain, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, to study the works of art and refine the sense of beauty to agony, to worship fame and to dream of immortality, to have read Shakespeare and Beloit to the same species as Sir Isaac Newton; to be and to do all this, and then in a moment to be nothing, to have it all snatched from one like a juggler's ball or a phantasmagoria……
【注释】
1. to bring the stars near:指使用望远镜观测星辰。
2. Sidon, Tyre, Babylon, Susa: 四个古代国名和地名。
3.引自十八世纪英国诗人汤姆逊的诗《懒散的城堡》"The Castle of indolence"
4. see life itself mocked: mock 一词兼有“模仿”和“嘲笑”二意。这句话可比较我国过
去的谚语，“戏台小天地，天地大戏台”。
5. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)， 英国大科学家。作者如此说，是因为在十八世纪牛顿由于并非显贵
出身而曾受到贵族人士轻视。
何为不朽
威廉·赫兹里特
我们看到金色的太阳，蔚蓝的天空，广阔的海
洋 ；我们漫步在绿油油的大地之上， 做万物的主人 ；我们俯视令人目炫心悸的悬崖峭壁，远眺鲜花盛开的山谷 ；我们把地图摊开，任意指点全球 ；我们把星辰移到眼前观看，还在显微镜下观察极其微小的生物 ；我们学历史，亲自目睹帝国的兴亡、时代的交替；我们听人谈论西顿、推罗、巴比伦和苏撒的勋业，如同听一番往昔的盛会，听了以后，我们说：这些事确实发生过，但现在却是过眼云烟了；我们思考着自己生活的时代、生活的地区 ；我们在人生的活动舞台上既当观众、又当演员 ；我们观察四季更迭、春秋代序 ；我们听见了——
野鸽在浓密的树林中哀诉，
树林随微风的叹息而低语 ；
我们横绝大漠；我们倾听子夜的歌声 ；我们光顾灯火辉煌的厅堂，走下阴森森的地牢，或者坐在万头攒动的剧院里观看生活本身受到的摹拟 ；我们亲身感受炎热和寒冷，快乐和痛苦，正义和邪恶，真理和谬误 ；我们钻研艺术作品，把自己的美感提高到极其敏锐的程度 ；我们崇拜荣誉，梦想不朽 ；我们阅读莎士比亚，或者把自己和牛顿爵士视为同一族类 ；——正当我们面临这一切、从事这一切的时候，自己却在一刹那之间化为虚无，眼前的一切，象是魔术师手中的圆球，象是一场幻影，一下子全都消失得无影无踪.....
【作者简介】
威廉·赫兹里特(1778—1830)：十九世纪初英国浪漫主义散文家。本文节选自其名篇《论青年的不朽》。
Way to Read
Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before
you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which, who listens, had need bring docile thoughts, and purged ears.
Winter evenings---the world shut out---with less of ceremony， the gentle Shakespeare enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale.
These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud---to yourself, or (as it chances) to some single person listening. More than one, and it degenerates into an audience.
Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incident, are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness.
A newspaper, read out , is intolerable. In some of the Bank offices it is the custom (to save so much individual time ) for one of the clerks, who is the best scholar, to commence upon the Times, or the Chronicle, and recite its entire contents aloud pro bone publics. With every advantage of lungs and elocution, the effect is singularly vapid. In barbers' shops and public houses a fellow will get up, and spell out a paragraph which he communicates as some discovery. Another follows with his selection. So the entire journal transpires at length by piece-meal. Seldom-readers are slow readers, and without this expedient, no one in the company would probably ever travel through the contents of a whole paper.
【注释】
solemn[\K5S:P]:严肃的;庄重的 degenerate[D0\DN
pro bone publics(拉丁文):for the public good. elocution[]
读书之道
查尔斯·兰姆
开卷读弥尔顿的诗歌之前，最好能有人为你演奏一曲庄严的宗教
乐章。不过弥尔顿自会带来他自己的音乐。对此，你要摒除杂念，洗耳恭听。
严冬之夜，万籁俱寂，温文尔雅的莎士比亚不拘形迹地走进来了。在这种季节，自然要读《暴风雨》或者他自己讲的《冬天的故事》。
对这两位诗人的作品，当然忍不住要朗读——独自吟哦或者(凑巧的话)读给某一知己均可。听者超过二人——就成了开朗诵会了。
为了一时一事而赶写出来、只能使人维持短暂兴趣的书，很快浏览一下即可，不宜朗读。时新小说，即便是佳作，每听有人朗读，我总觉讨厌之极。
朗读报纸尤其要命。在某些银行的写字间里，有这么一种规矩：为了节省每个人的时间，常由某位职员(同事当中最有学问的人)给大家念《泰晤士报》或者《纪事报》，将报纸内容全部高声宣读出来，“以利公众”。然而，吊着嗓子、抑扬顿挫地朗诵的结果，却是听者兴味索然。理发店或酒肆之中，每有一位先生站起身来，一字一句拼读一段新闻——此系重大发现，理应告知诸君。另外一位接踵而上，也念一番他的“选段”——整个报纸的内容，便如此这般零敲碎打地透露给听众。不常读书的人读起东西速度就慢。如果不是靠着那种办法，他们当中恐怕难得有人能够读完一整张报纸。
【作者简介】
查尔斯·兰姆(1775—1834)，英国著名的文学家，其代表作有《伊利亚随笔》(1823)。本文节选自其文章《读书漫谈》。
Andrew抯 Rulds to Be Rich
The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Freeport, a merchant
of great eminence in the city of London, a person of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has usually some sly way of jesting, which would make on great figure were he not a rich man) he calls the sea the British Common. He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms; for true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue, that if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one nation; and of another, from another. I have heard him prove that diligence made more lasting acquisitions than Valero, and that sloth has ruined more nations than the sowed. He abounds in several frugal maxims, among which the greatest favorite is, "A penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He has made his fortunes himself, and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men ; though at the same time I can say this of him, that there is not a pointing the compass but blows home a ship in which he is an owner.
【注释】
indefatigable[]0QD0\G3C0F:BS]:不倦的;不屈不挠的 jest[DN
frugal[\GT7:F:S]:节约的,俭朴的 perspicuity[]A::KA0\EU7:0C0]:明晰;简明
安德鲁的致富之道
理查德·斯梯尔
下一个要说的重要人物是伦敦市有
名的富商安德鲁·弗利波特爵士——这是一位具有坚强理智、丰富经验、而又孜孜不倦的事业家。他对于贸易颇有一些恢宏大度的看法，而且，有钱人都爱说句俏皮话(他们若不是富翁，别人恐怕也就看不出那俏皮话到底有何出色之处)，他把海洋叫做英国的公共领地。有关商业的种种事务他都精通，常常说 ：武力不过是主权扩张的一种愚蠢而野蛮的方式，真正的权力是靠着工业、技术而赢得的。他常发议论说 ：只要我国在某一方面的贸易充分发展起来，就会从甲国那里赚钱，在另一方面发展，又会从乙国获利。他亲口对我说：作战勇敢，不如勤奋获利长远 ；又说 ：懒惰足以亡国，其害甚于刀剑。他肚子里装了许许多多关于节俭的格言，最爱说的一句是 ：“一便士不花，等于一便士挣下。”跟一个普通的聪明商人打交道，比跟一个普通学者打交道要愉快得多。别人说话机智俏皮，叫人高兴 ；安德鲁爵士说话直来直去，发表什么意见明明白白，同样叫人觉得愉快。他的家私是靠自己挣来的。他说 ：英国只要采用他自己那一套简简单单的致富办法，便可以比其他国家富裕。关于安德鲁爵士，我不妨再说一句 ：不管罗盘针指着哪一个方向，都会有属于他的船只给英国运来财富。
【作者简介】
理查德·斯梯尔(1672—1729)是十八世纪初具代表性的英国随笔作家，与阿狄生合办刊物《旁观者》。本文便节选自该刊物。
A Little Boy
How I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion,
with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out---sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me---and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, ---and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew-trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which were good for nothing but to look at ---or in lying about upon the fresh grass, with all the fine garden smells around me---or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth-or in watching the dace that darted to and Fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskiness, ---I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavors of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits of children.
【注释】
tapestry[\C3A0KCT0]:绣帷;挂毯 nectarine[\Q
fir-apples:枞树的一种圆锥形果实 dace[D<0K]:鲦鱼
dart[D4:C] :猛冲,飞奔 impertinent[0P\A::C0Q:QC]:不切题的
一个小男孩
查尔斯·兰姆
我在那所很大很大的宅院里满世界地跑，从来不 知什么是疲倦：那里有许许多多又大又空的房间和破破烂烂的帷帐，墙上的幔子还随风飘动，橡木雕花嵌板上的金粉却已剥落了——我常常到那座古老的大花园里去玩，那花园简直叫我一个人独占了，偶尔才碰上一个孤零零的老园丁——那园子里，油桃和桃子垂在墙头上，我根本不去碰它，因为那是禁果，除非偶然一回两回——因为，我更高兴在那些带着忧郁神情的老水松树或者枞树之间跑来跑去，从地上捡那么几颗红浆果，几只枞果，而那些枞果只能看，不能吃——有时候，我随便躺在嫩草地上，让自己完全沉浸在满园子的芳香之中——要不然，我就在桔子园里晒太阳，晒得暖洋洋的，一边想象自己跟那些桔子、好些菩提树一同成熟起来——再不然，我就到花园深处，看那些鲦鱼在鱼池里穿梭般游来游去，不定在哪里还会发现一条很大的梭子鱼冷冷落落地停在深水之间，一动不动，好象对于那些小鱼们的轻狂样儿暗中表示鄙夷，——我喜欢的是诸如此类无事忙的消遣，而对于象桃子呀，油桃呀，桔子呀等等这些普通的小孩子们的诱饵，碰也不去碰它。
【作者简介】
查尔斯·兰姆（1775-1834），英国著名文学家。本文节选自其散文《梦幻中的小孩子（一段奇想）》。
The Man in Black
Though fond of many acquaintances, I desire an intimacy
only with a few. The Man in black, whom I have often mentioned, is one whose friendship I could wish to acquire, because he possesses my esteem. His manners, it is true, are tinctured with some strange inconsistencies; and he may be justly termed a humorist in a nation of humorists. Though he is generous even to profusion, he affects to be thought a prodigy of parsimony and prudence; though his conversation be replete with the most sordid and selfish maxims, his heart is deleted with the most unbounded love. I have known him profess himself a man-hater, while his cheek was glowing with compassion; and ,while his looks were softened into pity, I have heard him use the languages; of the most unbounded ill-nature. Some affect humanity and tenderness, others boast of having such dispositions from Nature; but he is the only man I ever know who seemed ashamed of his natural benevolence. He takes as much pains to hide his feelings, as any hypocrite would to conceal his indifference; but on every unguarded moment the mask drops off , and reveals him to the most superficial observer.
【注释】
The Man in Black:这篇文章是《世界公民》 "Letters from a Citizen of the World"中
的第二十六封信，原有标题： The Character of the Man in Black; With Some Instances of His Inconsistent Conduct(黑衣人的性格；他言行矛盾的若干事例)。
esteem[0K\C0:P]尊重,尊敬 tinctured[\C0RECM:]着色于,染
humorist[\OU7:P:T0KC]:滑稽者;滑稽演员 profusion[AT:\GU7:N:Q]:慷慨
prodigy [\AT5D0DN0]:奇迹,奇事;奇观 parsimony[\A4:K0P:Q0]:吝啬;过于俭省
replete[T0\AS0:C]:充满的,装满的 sordid[\K5:D0D]:肮脏的,污秽的
benevolence[B0\Q
黑 衣 人
奥里弗·哥尔斯密斯
我虽然广爱交友，却只愿跟少数知己亲密来
往。我常常提起的那位黑衣人，就是因为我敬重他的为人，这才愿意同他做朋友的。自然，他做起事情来顾前不顾后，有些古怪，在一个专出滑稽人物的民族当中算得一个地地道道的滑稽人物。他的脾气本来是慷慨大方到了挥金如土的地步，却爱在人前装出一副特别吝啬小气的样子；他心里对人们充满着无限的热爱，满嘴里说的却是卑鄙自私的口头禅。我曾经见他嘴里一边说自己那么厌恶人类，脸上却因为同情别人而涨得通红，而当他的面容现出一派温柔悲悯的表情的时候，嘴里说的却是性情恶毒的人才能说出的话。有的人假装仁慈厚道，还有的人生怕暴露自己天生的仁爱心肠。伪君子掩饰自己的冷漠无情不遗余力，他却竭力掩饰自己的真情实意；不过，不定什么时候他一不小心，假面具掉下来，再粗心大意的人也能看出他的本来面目。
【作者简介】
奥里弗·哥尔斯密斯（1728-1774），十八世纪中叶的著名英国作家。本文节选自其短文《黑衣人》。
What Should We Do in Our Lives
Augustus, a few minutes before his death, asked his friends who
stood about him, if they thought he had acted his part well; and upon receiving such an answer as was due to his extraordinary merit, 'Let me then,' says he, 'go off the stage with your applause;' using the expression with which the Roman actors made their exit at the conclusion of a dramatic piece. I could wish that men, while they are in health, would consider well the nature of the part they are engaged in, and what figure it will make in the minds of those that leave behind them, whether it was worth coming into the world for; whether it be suitable to a reasonable being : in short, whether it appears graceful in this life, or will turn to advantage in the next.Let the sycophant or the buffoon, the satirist or the good companion, consider with himself, when his body shall be laid in the grave, and his soul pass into another state of existence, how much it will redound to his praise to have it said of him, that no man in England ate better, that he had an admirable talent at turning his friends into ridicule, that nobody outdid him at an ill-natured jest, or that he never went to bed before he had dispatched his third bottle. These are, however, very common funeral orations, and eulogies on deceased persons who have acted among mankind with some figure and reputation.
Augustus (奥古斯都)[5:\F8KC:K] ：屋大维 (Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus 63 B.C--14 A.D)凯撒大将的侄孙，罗马帝国的第一个皇帝，在位时期文治武功甚盛。
in the next：in the next life(根据基督教信抑，人死后，到最后审判时还要复活，由上帝赏善罚恶。所以作家这样说)。
sycophant[\K0E:G:QC]:谗言者;食客 buffoon[B8\G7:Q]:丑角;滑稽剧演员
satirist[\K3C:T0KC]:讽刺作家 redound[T0\D>7QD]:起作用;有助于(+to)
oration[5:\T<0M:Q]:演说,演讲 eulogy[\U7:S:DN0]:颂词;悼词
decease[D0\K0:K]:死亡
奥古斯都在去世前几分钟，问他左右的
亲信，对他在一生中所扮演的角色，他们觉得如何?在得到了与他的丰功伟绩相适应的答复之后，他使用了罗马演员在演出结束就要下场时常用的一句台词，说：“那么，就让我在你们的喝采声中下台吧!”我希望人们在身强力壮的时候最好想一想他们究竟在扮演着什么样的角色，为了这个，是否值得到世上走这么一趟；一旦他们离开人世，究竟会给后人留下一个什么样的印象；跟一个有理性的动物是否相称——一句话，在今生是否光彩，到来世是否有利。那些趋炎附势之徒，嘻嘻哈哈的混混儿，讽刺人的专家，吃吃喝喝的酒肉朋友，最好都能自思自想一番：将来，他的躯体埋入坟墓，他的灵魂进入另一种存在状态，要是别人提起他来，只说全英国再没有别人比他更会吃喝，他那挖苦别人的本领实在叫人佩服，在开恶毒玩笑方面没有人能够赛得过他，他不灌完三瓶酒绝不上床睡觉。然而，不少故世的人却也只能得到这样的悼词和赞语，尽管他们在社会上也曾经出头露面，声闻遐迩。
【作者简介】
阿狄生 (1672—1719)是十八世纪初具代表性的英国随笔作家，与理查德·斯梯尔合办刊物《旁观者》。本文便节选该刊物。
Two Women
In externals, they were two unobtrusive women; a per-fectly secluded life
gave them retiring manners and habits. In Emily's nature the extremes of vigor and simplicity seemed to meet. Under an unsophisticated culture, inartifical tastes, and an unpretending outside, lay a secrecy power and fire that might have inflamed the brain and kindled the veins of a hero; but she had no worldly wisdom: her powers were unaccepted to the practical business of life : she would fail to defend her most manifest rights, to consult her most legitimate advantage. An interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world. Her will was not very flexible, and it generally opposed her interest. Her temper was magnanimous, but warm and sudden; her spirit altogether unbending.
Anne's character was milder and more subdued; she wanted the power, the fire ,the originality of her sister, but was well endowed with quite virtues of her own. Long suffering, self-denying, reflective, and intelligent, a constitutional reserve and taciturnity placed and kept her in the shade, and covered her mind, and especially her feelings, with a sort of nun-like evil, which was rarely lifted. Neither Emily nor Anne was learned; they had no thought of filling their pitchers at the well-spring of other minds; they always wrote form the impulse of nature, the dictates of intuition, and from such stores of observation as their limited experience had enabled them to amass. I may sum up all by saying, that for strangers they were nothing, for superficial observers less than nothing; but for those who had known them all their lives in the intimacy of close relationship, they were genuinely good and truly great.
【注释】
unobtrusive[\8Q:B\CT7:K0H]:不引人注目 secluded[K0\ES7:D0D]:与世隔绝的;隐退的
she had no worldly wisdom:她不知世故为何物 her most manifest rights:她自己最明显的权利。
magnanimous[P3F\Q3Q0P:K]:宽大的;有雅量的 warm and sudden:热情而激烈
subdued[K:B\DU7:D]:被制服的;顺从的 constitutional reserve:热情而激烈
taciturnity[]C3K0\C::Q0C0]:沉默寡言;缄默 intuition[]0QCU7:\0M:Q]:直观(能力),直觉
两个女人
夏洛蒂·勃朗特
从表面看，她们是两个毫不引人注 目的姑娘，久处穷乡僻壤使她们养成了腼腆的态度和缄默的习惯。在艾米莉身上，刚强的魄力与质朴的性格似乎汇合在一起了。在她那天真无邪的情性、质朴无华的爱好与坦白率真的态度之下，隐藏着一股魄力，一团烈火——那是足以激励着英雄头脑、点燃起英雄的热血的。然而，对于处世之道她却一无所知，她的聪明才智在生活的实际事务上毫无用处——她不懂得怎样保护自己最明显的权利，也不知道如何去考虑她最合法的利益。在她和社会之间，经常需要有那么一个解说人员。她的决心是不容易改变的，而这决心又往往违背着她自己的利益。她的脾气既宽宏大量，又热情激烈。她的性格是宁折不弯的。
安恩的性格却是温和而柔顺。她缺乏她姐姐的那种气魄、热情和独创性，然而她自有她自己那种文静的美德。她聪明，然而总是忍耐、克制、冥思苦想。气质上的含蓄内倾，沉默寡言，总是把她摆到一个不引人注意的地位；她的思想,尤其是她的感情，似乎被一幅修女的面纱遮盖着——这面纱很少揭开。不论艾米莉或安恩都不是博学之士——她们无意到别人的思想源泉那里充实自己的思想。她们写作，总是根据自己内心的冲动，根据自己感受的指使，根据自己那有限经验所容许她们贮存的观察所得。概括一句，我可以这么说：对于陌生者，她们是微不足道的人；对于浅薄的人，也许不值一顾；然而，对于那些了解她们生平的亲人来说，她们是真正优秀的人，也是真正伟大的人。
【作者简介】
夏洛蒂·勃朗特（1816-1855），十九世纪英国作家，其名著有《简·爱》。本文节选自回忆录《艾里斯·贝尔与阿克顿·贝尔生平纪》。
About Sleep
Care-worn people, however, might refresh themselves oftener
with day-sleep than they do; if their bodily state is such as to dispose them to it. It is a mistake to suppose that all care is wakeful. People sometimes sleep, as well as wake, by reason of their sorrow. The difference seems to depend upon the nature of their temperament; though in the most excessive cases, sleep is perhaps Nature's never-failing relief, as swooning is upon the rack. A person with jaundice in his blood shall lie down and go to sleep at noonday, when another of a different complexion shall find his eyes as uncloseable as a statue's, though he has had no sleep for nights together. Without meaning to lessen the dignity of suffering, which has quite enough to do with its waking hours, it is this that may often account for the profound sleeps enjoyed the night before hazardous battles, executions, and other demands upon an overexcited spirit.
The most complete and healthy sleep that can be taken in the day is in summer-time, out in a field. There is, perhaps, no solitary sensation so exquisite as that of slumbering on the grass or hay, shaded from the hot sun by a tree, with the consciousness of a fresh but light air running through the wide atmosphere, and the sky stretching far overhead upon all sides. Earth, and heaven, and a placid humanity seem to have the creation to themselves. There is nothing between the slumbered and the naked and glad innocence of nature.
【注释】
temperament[\C
exquisite [\
睡眠小议
亨特
人在忧虑之中往往不能成眠，其实 他们大可以通过白天睡觉来恢复一下精神，只要他们的身体状况许可他们这么做的话。认为有忧愁一定不能睡觉，是一种误解。忧患有时促人清醒，有时催人睡眠。这种差别似乎由于人的气质不同而产生。不过，在一些最最极端的场合下，睡眠或许是造物主赐给人的一种永远不变的慰藉, 正如人到了拷问台上就要晕倒,一个血液中有了黄疸病的人一到中午倒头便能入睡；相反，具有另外一种气质的人，哪怕一连几夜未眠，却仍象一尊雕像似的，苦于不能合眼。笔者无意抹煞受苦受难的庄严性， 因为人在清醒的时候所遭到的苦难已经足够叫他烦恼，然而这也正好说明了人处在凶险鏖战或死刑处决的前夜，以及其他迫使精神过度兴奋的状态之中，为什么还能够酣然沉睡。
最美满、最身心舒畅的睡眠，只有当炎夏时节的白天，在那辽阔的田野上才能得到：躺在青草或者干草上面安然入睡，一片树荫为你遮蔽着骄阳，你感觉到一种清新、爽快的微风在大气之间回荡，高高的天空环抱着自己，向四面八方伸延——什么能比得上这样美妙的感受?大地、苍穹、和平的人类似乎充塞了整个的宇宙。在酣睡的人和赤条条、欢天喜地的大自然之间不存在任何隔阂。
【作者简介】
亨特（1784-1859），十九世纪英国著名散文家。
The Arts of Informal Essay Writers
An essay is a thing which someone does himself; and the point of
the essay is not the subject, for any subject will suffice, but the charm of personality. It must concern itself with something "jolly", as the school boys say, something smelt, heard, seen, perceived, invented, thought; but the essential thing is that the writer shall have formed his own impression, and that it shall have taken shape in his own mind; and the charm of the essay depends upon the charm of the mind that has conceived and recorded the impression. It will be seen, then, that the essay need not concern itself with anything ; it need not have an intellectual or philosophical or a religious or a humorous motive; but equally none of these subjects are ruled out. The only thing necessary is that the thing or the thought should be vividly apprehended, enjoyed, felt to be beautiful, and expressed with a certain gusto. It need conform to no particular rules. All literature answers to something in life, some habitual form of human expression. The stage imitates life, calling in the services of the eye and ear; there is a narrative of a teller of tales or the minstrel; the song the letter, the talk-all forms of human expression and communication have their anti-types in literature. The essay is the reverie, the frame of mind in which a man says, in words of the old song, "Says I to myself, says I ."
【注释】
suffice [K:\G>0K]:足够,使满足 humorous[\OU7:P:T:K]:幽默的,诙谐的;滑稽的
ruled out:被排除 gusto[\F8KC:7]:爱好
narrative[\Q3T:C0H]:叙事的;叙事体的 minstrel [\P0QKCT:S]:吟游诗人，艺人
anti-type:对应类别 reverie[\T
亚瑟·克里斯托夫·本森
随笔，是某个人自己的 手笔；随笔的妙处并不在于题目(任何题目都可涉笔成趣)，而在于个性的魅力。随笔自然要写出某种(象小学生常说的)“有意思的”东西，某种可供嗅察、听到、看见、感知、想象、思考的东西；但是最根本一点，作者必须有自己的看法，这看法又必须在他自己的心灵中自然形成，而随笔的魅力即依靠着酝酿和记录下这看法的心灵的魅力。由此可知：随笔不必有什么固定的内容，也不必有什么知识性的、哲学性的、宗教性的或什么滑稽性的目的——然而，对这种种题目也并不一概排除。唯一不可缺少的东西却是那内容或思想必须经过活泼的理解，受到作者喜爱，对其妙味有所会心，并把它富有情趣地表达出来。这也不必遵循什么特定的规则。文学本来不外是生活中某种事物的反响，人类某种表达习惯的再现。例如，戏剧演出便是借助于视觉和听觉来摹拟生活；此外，还有说书人或民间歌手的说唱，歌谣，信札，谈话——人类的一切表达形式、交流形式在文学当中无不可以找出自己的相应类别。而作者在随笔中所要表达的那种感想，那种心情，若用古歌谣中的词句来说，就是：“我对我自己说道——我说。”
【作者简介】
亚瑟·克里斯托夫·本森（1862-1925），英国作家。本文节选自其散文《随笔作家的艺术》。
About Abrasion on Earth
An object which is placed in the sunshine becomes hot and heat causes most
materials to become slightly bigger-that is, to expand. An iron bar, for example, whose ordinary length is 5 feet becomes about 1/2 inch longer when it is made red-hot. The sun, of course, does not make rocks on the earth's surface red-hot, but rocks which are not protected by soil and plants do become quite warm in the sunshine. The surface of the rock expands very slightly, but the inside of the rock, which is not heated, does not expand. This causes a little crack, and gradually little pieces of the rock break away.
The wind causes much wearing of rocks, particularly if sand and dust are blown along by it. If the wind blows over sandy country, such as deserts and beaches, it picks up quite a lot of sand and carries it along. The particles of sand rub, scratch and cut the rocks against which they are blown. Soft rocks may be gradually worn away and harder rocks are rubbed so that they become smooth and shiny. Sometimes a rock is made into a very strange shape because softer parts are worn away and harder parts are left. The wind near the ground carries most sand with it and so wears the lower parts of big masses of rock most. The lower part of a cliff may be worn away and then, in time, the upper part falls down.
Sooner or later, the sand and the particles of rock drop from the wind to the ground. In sandy places you can often see heaps of sand forming little hills. They are called “sand dunes”. Sand is blown along near the ground and some forms a little pile against a small bush, some grass, of a small rock. The pile grows and forms a sand dune. Sand may be carried many miles by the wind. A dry wind called the Harmattan, which blows from the Sahara desert over Ghana and Nigeria, carries much sand and dust. The dust falls to the ground as a fine powder.
wearing[\V2:T0R]:磨损的 pick up:卷起
worn away:磨碎，磨损 dune[DU7:Q]:沙丘
放在阳光下的物体会晒热，而热能使大多 数材料稍微变大，也就是发生膨胀。例如，一根铁棒，原长六英尺，经加热到赤热状态时，就会长出约半英寸来。当然，太阳不会把地球表面上的岩石晒到赤热状态。但是，没有土壤和植物掩蔽的岩石，在阳光下的确会变得相当热。岩石的表面会微微地膨胀，而未受热的岩石内部则并不膨胀。这就产生小裂缝，逐渐地就有岩石碎片剥落下来。
风使岩石遭到很大磨蚀，风里裹着砂土和尘土吹来的时候尤其如此。如果风从沙漠和海滩等多砂地带吹过，它就会卷走大量砂土。风吹到岩石上面，砂粒就磨蚀、刮削这些岩石。
硬度低的岩石逐渐被磨碎，坚硬的则磨得锃光滑溜。有时一块石头被弄成奇形怪状，因为质地不硬的部分被磨掉，坚硬的部分留了下来。贴近地面的风带走砂土最多，因此大块岩石下部磨蚀得最为厉害。一个悬崖的底部可能被磨蚀掉，于是，总有一天崖顶将会倒塌下来。砂土和岩石的碎粒迟早会从风里落到地面上。在多砂的地区，你常常可以看到形成小山般的一堆堆砂土。这些小山叫做“砂丘”。砂土是贴着地面被吹走的，在碰到小灌木、草丛或小块石头的地方形成了小砂堆。砂堆越来越大，就形成了砂丘。砂土可以被风带到许多英里以外的地方。一种叫做“哈麦丹”(Harmattan)的干风，从撒哈拉大沙漠吹过加纳和尼日利亚，它带走很多砂粒和尘土。这些尘土就象很细的粉末一样落到地面上。
【作者简介】
W.E.FLOOD,M.A., Ph.D.:弗拉德博士是位资历很深的大学讲师和科普作家。本文选自他所著的《The Earth on Which We Live》一书。
Two Exceptions
Temperature is measured by means of a thermometer. One general form
of thermometer depends upon the fact that most solids and liquids expand as their temperature rises. There are one or two exceptions. There is, for instance, a kind of steel called invar (from“invariable”) which does not change its dimensions as temperature changes; it is valuable for making pendulums, since, if the length of a pendulum changes, its time of vibration changes. It is also used for making very accurate measuring scales. In both cases, then, changes of atmospheric temperature have no effect if invar is used.
Another exception is that very odd liquid, water, which has many strange properties. As water gets colder it contracts, which is ordinary behaviour, until it reaches the temperature of 30C. above freezing point. After that, as it gets colder, it expands. This is fortunate---for consider the freezing of a pond. As the water on top gets colder, it shrinks; and so, volume for volume, it becomes heavier and sinks. This goes on until all the pond is at 30C, but after that, as the water becomes colder it expands. Therefore the colder water stays on top and freezes, covering the pond with ice. If the water went on contracting down to the freezing point, the pond would become a solid block of ice in the end. This would not worry people who live in hot climates, but it would be very serious for those who live in cold climates, especially for those who want to break the ice and catch fish which live in the clod water beneath.
【注释】
thermometer [I:\P5P0C:]:温度计 pendulum[\A
两个例外
爱德华·内维尔
温度是用温度计测量的。大多数固体和液体，在温度升
高时就膨胀，普通的温度计就是以这种原理作为依据的。不过也有一两个例外，例如有一种钢叫做殷钢(从“invariable”一词而来)，在温度变化时它的大小尺寸不变；这种钢对于制造钟摆很有价值，因为如果摆长改变，摆动的周期就改变。殷钢还可用来制造非常精密的量具。在制造钟摆和制造量具时，如果使用殷钢，气温的变化对上述两种情况就不会产生任何影响。
另一个例外是水，一种很古怪的液体，它具有很多奇特的性质。在水温降到冰点以上30C之前，水逐渐变冷，它就逐渐收缩，这是普通的性质。但以后水再变冷却膨胀起来。考虑到池塘封冻，这倒是一件幸运的事。池塘上面的水遇冷便收缩，这样，水就一块接一块地变重下沉。这种变化一直持续到整个池塘中的水温降到30C 为止。但在此之后，当水温再下降时，它便膨胀了。所以，较冷的水留在上面冻结，用冰来覆盖整个池 。假如池塘里的水在冰点以上都不断收缩下沉，那么，整个池塘最后就会变成一个固体冰块。这个情况并不使生活在热带地区的人们烦恼，但对于那些生活在寒冷地区的人们来说，特别是对于那些需要破冰捕获冷水下层鱼类的人们来说，却是非常严重的问题。
【作者简介】
PROFESSOR E.N.da C.ANDRADE, 本文选自爱德华·内维尔编著的《Physics for the Modern World》 (1951)爱德华·内维尔(1776-1961)是大英百科全书的物理学编辑，他还是伦敦大学物理学教授。
Three Physical States
Most people would describe water as a colourless liquid. They would know
that in very cold conditions it becomes a solid called ice, and that when heated on a fire it becomes a vapor called steam. But water, they would say, is a liquid.
We have learned that water consists of molecules composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen, which we describe by the formula H2O.But this is equally true of the solid called ice and the gas called steam. Chemically there is no difference between the gas, the liquid, and the solid, all of which are made up of molecules with the formula H2O.And this is true of other chemical substances; most of them can exist as gases or as liquids or as solids. We may normally think of iron as a solid, but if we heat it in a furnace it will melt and become a liquid, and at very high temperatures it will become a gas. We normally think of air as a mixture of gases, but at very low temperatures it becomes a liquid, and at lower temperatures still it becomes a white solid.
Nothing very permanent occurs when a gas changes into a liquid or a solid. Everyone knows that ice, which has been made by freezing water, can be melted again by being warmed; and that steam can be condensed on a cold surface to become liquid water. In fact it is only because water is such a familiar substance that different name are used for the solid, liquid, and gas. For other substances we have to describe these different states directly. Thus for air we talk about liquid air and solid air. We could also talk about gaseous air, but, since this is the normal thing, we usually just describe it as air.
formula[\G5:PU7S:]:分子式 to be true of:附合与......，对......成立
三种物理状态
乔治·波特
大多数人总是把水说成是无色液体。他们大概都
知道，水在十分寒冷的环境中会变成叫做冰的固体，而把水放到炉火上加热时，它就会变成叫做水蒸气的气体。但是人们却总是说，水是液体。
我们知道，水是由两个氢原子和一个氧原子组成的分子，我们用分子式H2O来表示。这对所谓固态的冰和气态水蒸气来说，同样是这样的。水的三种状态(即固态、液态和气态)，在化学性质上彼此没有差别，都是由分子式为H2O 的分子构成的。其它化学物质也如此，它们大多数都可以以气体、液体或固体形态存在。我们通常把铁看成固体，但如果放到熔铁炉内加热，它就会熔化成为液体；而当温度很高时，它又会变成气体。我们通常将空气看作气体的混合物，但在温度极低时，空气就变成液体；温度更低时，它就变成白色固体。
气体变成了液体或固体，并不是永久不变的。大家都知道，由水冻结而成的冰，加热后可以重新融化；水蒸气可以在冷的物体表面上凝结成液态水。事实上，仅仅由于水是极为人们所熟悉的物质，所以对水的固态、液态和气态使用了不同的名称。对于其它物质，我们应该直接描述它们的不同状态。因此，对于空气，我们说液态空气和固态空气。我们还可以说气态空气，但由于这是正常状态，所以通常只说“空气”。
【作者简介】
SIR GEORGE PORTER,乔治·波特爵士生于1910年，1944年任谢菲尔德大学物理化学教授。他曾在利兹大学和剑桥大学学习，担任过许多科学机构的职务。本文选自他1951年首次出版的《Chemistry for the Modern World》一书。
Plastic Technology
Into the ward were carried men with broken faces, with jaw bones that felt
like “sand under your fingers”. Sepsis and bleeding caused numerous deaths. Many of these men could not utter a word, and lay wrapped in yards and yards of bandage. Some could not sleep. Many could not eat, and feeding was a slow business. Mirrors were absolutely forbidden in the ward. Gillies managed to keep up the spirits of these broken people, telling them he would soon have them looking as good as new, and promising he would give them“new”faces.
Late in the sixteenth century we have one of the greatest names in the history of plastic work: Gaspare Tagliacozzi, professor at the university of Bologna. He described the arm-flap graft for nose and ear, which meant that the repair was done by cutting an area of skin out of the arm and using it to cover the damaged nose or ear. “We restore, repair, and make whole those parts of the face which Nature has given, but which Fortune has taken away, not so much that they may delight the eye, but that they may raise up the spirit and help the mind of the sufferer,” wrote Tagliacozzi.
During the first World War explosives of a power hardly dreamed of before were being used. The wounds they caused were more serious than surgeons had ever had to face; they created tremendous opportunities, and tremendous problems. As an artist, Gillies saw the plastic surgeon as a sculptor. His materials, instead of being wood or stone, were living skin, bone fat and muscle. He employed them to remake people. The term“reconstructive surgery”,therefore, describes well what he was trying to do.
【注释】
sepsis[\K
arm-flap graft for nose or ear:臂皮移到鼻子和耳朵上
整形技术
L. J. 路多维奇
面部和颚骨损伤的病人被抬入病房， 损伤部位摸上去“象沙子一样粗糙”。脓毒病和出血造成大量的死亡。许多这样的病人不能说话，缠着长长的绷带躺着。一些人不能入睡。很多病人吃不下东西，只好一点点喂饭。在病房里，镜子是绝对禁止的。吉利斯设法使这些沮丧的人振作精神，告诉他们他会很快使他们好看起来，答应给他们新的面容。
16世纪末，整形史上最伟大的人物之一，就是波伦亚大学教授加斯佩尔·塔格利亚科齐。他记述了把臂皮移植到鼻子、耳朵上的情况。这就是说，修整工作是在手臂上切下一块皮，盖在毁损了的鼻子或耳朵上。塔格利亚科齐写道：“我们修复、整补并使天生就有的但被命运夺去的面颊上的那些部位完整无缺，与其说是为了悦目，倒不如说是为了能使患者打起精神、舒展心情。”
第一次世界大战期间，使用了人们以前梦想不到的烈性炸药。它造成了外科医生前所未见的更加严重的创伤；它提供了一些非凡的机会，也提出一些非同小可的问题。整形术大师吉利斯把整形外科医生看作是雕塑家。他用的材料不是木头和石块，而是活的皮、骨脂肪和肌肉。他用这些整修人体。“整形外科学”这个术语恰如其分地表述了他在努力做的工作。
【作者简介】
L.J.LUDOVICI本文选自Great Moments in Medicine一书。作者L. J. 路多维奇曾在牛津大学学习，以后从事出版工作。战后，他开始写作，曾写过青霉素发明者亚历山大·费莱明和空气专家A.C. 罗(Roe) 等人的传记。
About Temperature on Earth
For the last fifty years, the globe has been warming up. It is true that the
average temperature rise is only about two degrees, but that has been enough to start the glaciers receding in many parts of the world.
A rise of one degree per generation is a large increase. Nature seldom moves as swiftly as this. We may have been helping her. Carbon dioxide(CO2) in the air is mostly responsible for the “greenhouse effect”；it is a gas produced by all our countless fires, furnaces and internal combustion engines.
The end of the short-lived age of fossil fuels is already in sight；soon---in one or two centuries at the most---we will have wasted all the world's resources of oil and coal. This no longer means disaster, for atomic energy has arrived in time to save our civilization from dying through lack of power .We are moving into a brighter and cleaner age, as the smoke of millions of fires and furnaces and automobiles ceases to darken the sky. But for that very reason, it may also be a colder age.
This suggests that it may be easier to affect the climate---the long pattern of temperature and moisture--- than to control the behaviour of the weather, which is a local and short phenomenon. The climate of Earth is determined to no small extent by the immense quantities of ice locked up at the poles, and that ice remains perpetually frozen, in spite of the twenty-four-hour-long summer days, because the Sun's heat is reflected off the blinding white wastes, and has no chance of being absorbed. If that ice could once be removed, it would never reform on the same scale. The darker, exposed soil would collect and keep so much of the Sun's warmth now lost to us, that the general Earth temperature would be at a higher level.
【注释】
combustion[E:P\B8KCM:Q]:燃烧 to die through lack of power:由于缺乏能源而灭亡
谈谈地球上的气温
阿瑟·C·克拉克
在最近的五十年间，地球一直 在转暖。确实，平均气温升高仅二度左右，但这已足以引起世界上许多地区冰川的消退。
每一个世代温度升高一度就是一个很大的升温。大自然象这样急速地发展是罕见的。或许，我们一直在促使大自然的这种进展。空气中的二氧化碳(CO2) 是造成“温室效应”的最主要的原因，而二氧化碳是一种由我们无数炉火、熔炉和内燃机产生的气体。
短暂的矿物燃料时代结束的日子已经在望了；不久——最多一、两个世纪内——我们将耗尽世界上所有的石油和煤炭资源。这并不意味着灾难，因为原子能已经及时来临， 把我们的文明从由于缺乏能源而濒临的毁灭中拯救出来。当无数炉火、熔炉和汽车的烟雾不再使天空变得暗淡无光时，我们就将进入一个更为光明、清洁的时代。但正是由于这一缘故，将来也可能是一个更加寒冷的时代。
这就使人联想到，影响气候(温度与湿度的长期形式)可能要比控制天气的变化(局部的短暂现象)容易一些。地球的气候在很大程度上是由封存在两极的大量冰雪来决定的，尽管那里有长达二十四小时之久的“夏日”，而冰还是永远地处于封冻状态，因为太阳的热辐射被眩目的白色荒原反射出去，没有被吸收的机会。如果那里的冰一旦被搬走，冰绝不会再形成同样的规模。裸露的黑色土壤会把现在太阳传给我们的大量热量集存起来，从而使地球的常温达到更高的水平。
【作者简介】
ARTHUR C.CLARKE，阿瑟·C·克拉克是写天文学专题(包括星际旅行题材)的著名作家。他是理学士和英国皇家天文学会会员。他与斯坦利·库布里克曾合写了小说及电影剧本1001:Space Odyssey。本文取自他的The Challenge of the Spaceship一书，该书于1950年在英国首次出版。
Comets
No account of the solar system would be complete without mention f comets, for these are just as much members of the sun's family as arethe major and minor planets. Quite a large number of comets are discovered every century, but most of them are extremely faint objects, far below the limits of the unaided eye. Comets usually arouse public interest when they are large and bright enough to attract attention and receive mention in the newspapers. But objects of this type are usually few and far between especially so far during the present century. You probably saw the two in 1946, and may be old enough to recall seeing the 1910 appearance of Halley's Comet. I have met quite a lot of people who saw Halley's Comet. Their memory wasn't very good when it came to recalling other things, but they remembered the comet.
If you are fortunate enough to see a comet, don't give it just a casual glance and then vanish indoors. Notice just where it is in relation to the stars and try to plot its path by making nightly observations. At the same time try to judge the brightness of its nucleus (brightest part),and see how far you can trace its tail. Usually the longer you stay in the dark (so allowing the eyes to get adapted to the darkness),the further you should be able to trace the tail. Notice that quite faint stars can be seen through the tail；it must therefore be thinner than the finest cloud. A series of observations like these should show that the comet's tail points away from the sun, and that it usually grows in size and brightness as the comet gets closer to the sun. If it is on its way to the sun, you may even have a chance of seeing it on its return journey.
【注释】
few and far between:稀少 nucleus[\QU7:ES0:K]:(彗)核
彗 星
H.C.金
叙述太阳系时若不提及彗 星，就不是完整的，
因为彗星与大大小小的行星一样，也是太阳家族的成员。每一个世纪都发现相当多的彗星，但大多数彗星都是非常微弱的天体，远不能为肉眼所见。通常是当彗星又大又亮,足以引起注意并刊登在报纸上时，才引起公众的兴趣。但这类彗星平时极为罕见，尤其本世纪以来更如此。你也许看到了1946年的两颗彗星，也许你年龄较大，足以回忆起看到1910年哈雷彗星出现时的情景。我认识相当多见过哈雷彗星的人。他们回忆其他往事时，记忆力并不十分好，但他们都记得那颗彗星。
倘若你有幸看到彗星，不要随意扫一眼就进到屋里去。要注意它与许多星星的相对位置，并通过夜间观测，争取把它的行迹标绘出来。与此同时，还要设法判断彗核(最明亮的部分)的亮度，观察一下彗尾有多远。通常，你在黑暗中呆的时间越久(这样使眼睛适应黑暗)追踪到彗星就越远。请注意，透过彗尾还可以看到暗淡的星星；因此彗星尾一定比最纤细的云朵还要薄。这样一系列的观察会表明，彗尾总是背离太阳方向。当彗星接近太阳时，它的大小和亮度总是增长的。如果彗星正朝太阳方向运动，你甚至有机会在其返回途中再看到它。
【作者简介】
H.C.KING, 本文摘自H.C.金(H.C.King) 所著《Tackle Astronomy This Way》(1951)一书。H.C.金在这本书里，清晰、生动有趣地描述天空的景象。他曾任伦敦天文科学馆馆长。
The Effect of Light Speed
Raising our eyes from the earth to observe the heavenly objects, we find
a really considerable space of time occupied by light in carrying to us information about those distant bodies. From the moon light takes little more than a second and a quarter in reaching us; so that we obtain sufficiently early information of the condition of our satellite. But light occupies more than eight minutes in reaching us from the sun; a longer or shorter interval in travelling to us from Mercury, Venus, and Mars, according to the position of these planets; from about thirty- five to fifty minutes in reaching us from Jupiter; about an hour and twenty minutes on the average in speeding across the great gap which separates us from Saturn; while we receive information from Uranus and Neptune only after intervals twice and three times as great as that which light takes to come from the ringed planet, Saturn.
Thus, if we could at any moment see the whole range of the solar system as distinctly as we see Jupiter or Mars, the scene would not show the real appearance of the solar system at that, or any other definite, instant. The information brought by light about the various members of the solar system belongs to different times. If man had powers of vision which enabled him to watch what is taking place on the different planets of the solar system, it is clear that events of the greatest importance might have happened while yet he remained quite unconscious of their occurrence. Or, to look at it the other way, if an observer on Neptune could see all that is taking place on the earth, he might remain for hours unconscious of an event important enough to affect a whole continent.
【注释】
heavenly[\O
光速的影响
理查德·安东尼·普罗克特
从地球上仰望天体，我们感到光把那些遥远天体的信
息传送给我们时有一段相当大的时间间隔，光从月球到地球要用略多于 1.25 秒的时间；所以我们能及时地得到关于我们这颗卫星(即月亮)状况的信息。但是光从太阳到我们这里需要8分多钟；从水星、金星和火星到我们这里需要多长时间则根据这些行星所在的不同位置而定；从木星到我们这里需要大约35分钟到50分钟；光飞越隔离我们和土星的巨大空间平均约需1小时零20分钟；为使我们收自海王星和冥王星的信息，光在运行中所需要的时间，相当于光从带环的土星到地球所需要的二、三倍的时间。
由此，如果我们能在任一时刻看到整个太阳系，如同看到木星和火星那样清楚，那景色也并不是那一时刻或其他任意一个具体时刻的太阳系的真实情况。光所带来的有关太阳系各个成员的信息，属于不同的时刻。如果人的视力能使他看到太阳系各行星上正在发生的情况，那么很显然，当他尚未感觉到之时，最重要的事件也许已经发生了。或者从另一方面来看，如果海王星上的观测者可以看到地球上正在发生的一切事情，而对于足以影响整个大陆的重要事件，他在几个小时以前却一直不知道哩!
【作者简介】
RICHARD A. PROCTORi理查德·安东尼·普罗克特(1726-1777)是英国天文学家、作家，曾在伦敦大学和剑桥大学就读。理查德·安东尼·普罗克特最伟大的著作是Old and New Astronomy，但生前未完成，而是由阿瑟·兰西德完成的，于1791年出版。本文选自Other Worlds than Ours一书。
Rubber
Here is the story of rubber. From the earliest time it was
common knowledge to the Peruvians that when a cut
was made in the outside skin of a rubber tree, a white liquid like milk came out, and that from this a sticky mass of rubber might be made。This rubber is soft and wax-like when warm，so that it is possible to give it any form. The Peruvians made the discovery that it was very good for keeping out the wet. Then in the early part of the eighteen hundreds, the Americans made use of it for the first time. First they made overshoes to keep their feet dry. Then came a certain Mr. Mackintosh, who made coats of cloth covered with natural rubber. From that day to this we have been coating cloth with rubber as Mr. Mackintosh did, and our raincoats are still named after him.
But these first rubber overshoes and raincoats were all soft and sticky in summer, and hard and unelastic in the winter when it was cold. In fact, they might almost have been made of wax, only they were a bit stronger. But the rubber we have today is not sticky, but soft and elastic, though very strong--even in the warmest summer and the coldest winter. There would be no automobiles such as we have today without it。Long before the start of history, man made the discovery of how to make skins into good leather. But every attempt to make rubber hard and strong came to nothing. The early overshoes and raincoats were simply not good enough, and their makers went out of business.
Goodyear was living near some of these poor men and he got to work on this question of making rubber or "gum" as the Americans say, hard and strong. Once started on this work, he was the sort of man who simply had to go on till he had overcome the trouble. First came the discovery that nitric acid (HNO) made the rubber much better, and in a short time he was doing a small business in rubber shoes produced in this way.
【注释】
Peruvians[A:\T7:H0:Q]:秘鲁的;秘鲁人 come to nothing:没有结果，失败
nitric[\Q>0CT0E]:氮的;硝石的;含五价氮的
橡 胶
H·斯塔福 哈特菲尔德
这是一篇关于橡胶的史话。从远古时起，秘鲁人就都知道，切 开橡胶树的外皮，会有一种牛奶那样的白色液体流出来，用这种白色液体可以制成具有粘性的橡胶块。这种橡胶一遇热就软得象蜡一样，因而能制成任何形状。秘鲁人还发现橡胶具有良好的防水性能。而美国人是到了十九世纪初才第一次利用橡胶。他们先制作套鞋使脚保持干燥。后来，一位叫麦金托什的人，用涂有天然橡胶的布料做了一件外套。从那时到现在，我们一直象麦金托什先生那样在布上涂橡胶。至今，雨衣仍以他的名字来命名。
但是，最早的套鞋和雨衣在夏季都是又软又粘，到冬季天冷时，却又变硬而无弹性。事实上，它们几乎就象蜡做的一样，只不过稍微结实一点罢了。而我们今天所用的橡胶制品，即使在严冬酷暑也一点不粘、很结实，而且质地柔软，富有弹性。严冬酷暑都一样。假如没有橡胶，就不会有象我们今天这样的汽车。早在有史之前一段时间人们就发现了把兽皮制成优质皮革的方法，但是要把橡胶制品做得既坚硬又结实的一切尝试都没有取得任何效果。早期的套鞋和雨衣的质量确实很差。因而，制造商们只得停业。
固特异当时正住在一些可怜的制造商的附近。他开始研究把美国人称之为“树胶”的橡胶变硬变结实的问题。他是这样一种人，只要一开始工作，就一定坚持下去，直到把困难克服为止。首先，他发现硝酸(HNO)会使橡胶质量大为提高。不久，他就经营起用这种方法生产胶鞋的小企业来了。
【作者简介】
H·斯塔福 哈特菲尔德 (H.STAFFORD HATFIELD): 哲学博士，物理学会特别会员。它选自哈特菲尔德博士所著《今日发明》(1929年版)一书。该书是根据作者的几次广播讲话整理而成的。他还著有《发明家与世界》 、《欧洲的科学》等书。
Engine And Plane
Steam engines were the first to be tried in aero-planes, but they were too heavy to be of any real use. One such machine, made in 1773, consisted of a large number of wings one above the other and was driven by a steam engine. It is said to have risen for a moment off the ground. Another rose, but fell and was damaged. It was not until the petrol engine, which is very light for the power it develops, was fitted to a machine that any real success was obtained.
On December 16,1902,Orville Wright, an American, flew safely in a heavier-than-air machine for twelve seconds, He and his brother Wilbur had made a lot of experiments and had taken immense trouble to study the art of flying in gliders before they attempted to fly their aeroplane. Orville came down safely after the first short flight, and on the same day the experiment was repeated three times. The longest of these flights covered a distance of 741feet and lasted 49 seconds. The machine which was used had an engine developing only sixteen horse-power but the aeroplane reached a speed of 24 miles an hour. The two brothers continued their experiments after their first success, and in 1907 Wilbur gave some exhibitions of flying in France which astonished all who saw them.
The Wright brothers laid the foundation of modern flying. Soon others followed in their footsteps. Louis Bleriot, a Frenchman, flew across the English Channel from Calais to Dover in 1909. Prizes were offered for flights from one place to another. Competition increased. The aeroplane improved more and more as its behavior became better understood. More powerful engines were developed. In 1919 sir John Alcovk and Sir Arthur Brown made the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, and in the same year an aeroplane flew from England to Australia. The age of air travel had arrived.
【注释】
glider[\FS>0D:]:滑翔机
发动机与飞机
G·C·索恩利
蒸汽机是人们最先试图用在飞机上的发动机，
但它太重了，实际上不能用。1773年制成了这样一架飞机，它有许多上下重叠的机翼并由蒸汽机驱动。据说，该机确实飞离地面一会儿，而另一次起飞时就坠毁了。直到飞机装上能提供大功率的汽油发动机时飞行才取得了真正的成功，因为这种发动机相对其所发出的功率来说是很轻的。
1902年11月16日，美国人奥维尔·莱特乘坐一架比空气重的飞机安全地飞行了十二秒钟。他和他的兄弟威尔伯在试飞之前进行了多次试验，不辞辛苦地用滑翔机钻研飞行技术。奥维尔在第一次短暂飞行后，安全降落了，同一天这个试验重复了三次。其中最长的一次，飞了741英尺远，持续了49秒钟。他们所使用的飞机有一台功率只有15马力的发动机，但其速度达到24英里／时。兄弟二人在第一次试飞成功后继续试验，1907年威尔伯在法国作了几次飞行表演，这些表演使所有的观众大为惊异。
莱特兄弟为现代飞行事业奠定了基础。不久另外一些人也都跟了上来。1909年，法国人路易斯·布雷里奥从法国加来市飞越英吉利海峡，到达英国的多佛。当时给从一地飞到另一地的人都发奖。竞争加剧了。由于对飞机性能有了更好的了解，飞机得到了不断的改进。功率更大的发动机研制出来。1919年，约翰·奥尔科爵士和阿瑟·布朗爵士第一次飞越大西洋，同年又有一架飞机从英国飞到澳大利亚。航空旅行的时代来到了。
【作者简介】
G·C·索恩利,本文选自《动力与发展》(1940年版)一书，
The Origin of Vaccination
Jenner was very troubled because there were so many diseases for which
no cure had been found, and of which many people died. The worst of them all was smallpox, and every year hundreds of people caught the disease. Of those who recovered had their faces and bodies covered with scars.Jenner longed to find a way of saving people from this terrible disease and he thought about it a great deal and tried to find out all he could about it.
After a time he noticed something very interesting. He found that the girls who were employed to milk cows hardly ever caught smallpox, and he began to wonder why. Many of them caught a disease from the cows called cowpox, which was not serious and from which they recovered quickly. He found that people who had had cowpox seemed to be safe from catching smallpox.
One day a girl came to see him who had a cowpox sore on her hand. Jenner took some of the cowpox from her hand. He then found a little boy of eight called Jimmy Phipps. He made a small scratch on his arm. Into the scratch he put some of the germs of the cowpox. Jimmy caught cowpox and soon got better, but later when he came near people who had smallpox he did not catch it, though other people die.
Jenner was very excited at what he had found. He wrote a paper about it and had it printed for other doctors to read. That was how vaccination was discovered. At first people would not believe that what he had written was true. Many of them thought it was nonsense; and when Jenner offered to vaccinate people they were too much afraid to come forward.Gradually the news spread all over the world and Jenner became a great hero.
【注释】
Smallpox[\KP5:S]A5EK]:天花 cowpox[\E>7]A5EK]:牛痘
sore[K5:]:疥疮,痛的 vaccination[]H3EK0\Q<0M:Q]:种痘，接种
种痘的由来
M·I·波茨
真纳医生非常苦恼，因为有那么多的疾病无法治愈致 使很多人丧命。在这些疾病中为害最大的是天花。每年都有好几百人染上这种疾病。其中许多人死亡；就是那些恢复健康的人，脸上身上都留下很多疤痕。真纳渴望找到一种拯救人们免于这种可怕疾病的方法。他绞尽脑汁，全力以赴地探求这一切。
过了一段时间，他注意到一件很有趣的事情。他发现那些被雇来挤牛奶的姑娘们几乎从未患过天花，于是他开始寻思其原因。她们许多人从牛身上传染上了牛痘，这种病并不严重，恢复的也快。他发现凡患过牛痘的人似乎对于天花具有免疫力。
一天，一位手上长满了牛痘疮的姑娘来看病。真纳从她的手上取下一些牛痘菌，然后找来一个八岁的小男孩，叫吉米菲普斯，在他的臂上划一道伤痕，再把一些牛痘菌放进去。吉米感染了牛痘并且很快就痊愈了。后来，他接触天花患者却不被感染，即使有的人都因患天花而死去。
真纳因他的发现而非常兴奋。他就此写了一篇论文，并把它印出来让其它医生阅读。这就是发现接种牛痘的情况。起初人们不相信他写的是真的，许多人认为这是胡说。当真纳提出给人们接种牛痘疫苗时，他们非常害怕而不敢来。这个消息慢慢的传遍了全世界，真纳也就成为了一个伟大的英雄人物。
【作者简介】
M·I·波茨,选自波茨所写的《人类文明的缔造者》一书(第二册，1941年出版)。作者在非洲从事教育工作多年。
Extracting Oil
We cannot, of course, see the oil which is trapped deep down in the ground.
Men must study the rocks carefully. When they think that the rocks in a certain place may contain oil, a metal tower called a derrick is built. A machine in the tower gradually cuts a narrow hole down into the ground. As the hole is made, a steel pipe is pushed down to stop the sides from falling in, and to keep out water. At last, if the men have judged correctly, the hole reaches the oil. Usually the oil rushes up the pipe with great force, driven by the pressure of the gas in the top of the layer of rock, and it streams high into the air. If this oil should catch a light, there would be a terrible fire. A kind of lid is fixed to the top of the pipe, and the oil is allowed to flow out gently through taps. After a "well" has been used for a long time, it may be necessary to use a pump to get the oil out.
Oil, we see, is obtained more easily than coal. Men must dig coal from a mine, but oil rushes up a pipe. Often several wells are made ,each reaching the same supply of oil in the ground. If a well is made near the middle of the oil-field, gas will be obtained. This may blow out of the well with great force if it is not controlled. In parts of America such gas is sent through pipes to distant towns, and used, like coal gas, in houses and factories.
The oil which comes from a well may be a pale brown, easy-flowing liquid , but more usually it is dark brown, thick and sticky. It is a mixture of many kinds of hydrocarbons. The factories in which the various oils (petrol, kerosene, etc.) are got out of this mixture are often many miles away from the wells; in fact, they may be in another country across the sea. The rock-oil(petroleum)is sent to these places, or to ships at a port, through steel pipes. the pipes may cross hundreds of miles of land, and pumps at various places drive the sticky petroleum along.
【注释】
derrick[\D
开采石油
我们当然看不到深藏在地下的石油。人们得认真
地研究岩石。当认为某处的岩石可能含油时，就在那里树立起一个叫做井架的金属钻塔。塔中的机器从地面逐渐往下钻出井孔。打井孔时，要放入一根钢管，以防孔壁倒塌和地下水流入。最后，如果人们的判断正确，这井孔就会通到油层。通常，石油由于受岩层顶部的气压的压挤，猛烈地沿管子向上喷出，冲向高空。此时，万一石油着火，就会引起一场可怕的火灾。管子的顶端装有一种盖子，迫使石油慢慢从龙头中流出。一口“井”用了很长时间以后，就可能得用泵来抽取石油。
我们看到，开采石油要比采煤容易。人们必须从煤矿中挖煤，但油是从管子里喷出的。通常，都是打上好几口油井，每口井都通到地下同一油源处。如果某一口井打得靠近油田中心，就会得到天然气。如果不加以控制，天然气就会猛烈地冲出油井。在美国的一些地区，这种气体通过管道送往远处城镇，象煤气那样供家庭和工厂使用。
油井喷出的原油可能是淡褐色，容易流动的液体，但更常见的是深褐色，又稠又粘。它是多种碳氢化合物的混合体。把这种混合体分解成各种燃油(汽油、煤油等)的工厂，往往离油井有好多英里远；实际上，有些工厂可能在远隔重洋的外国。石油通过钢管送往这些地方，或送到停泊在港口的船上。输油管可能铺设好成百上千英里，沿途各地的油泵，驱使粘稠的石油不断向前流动。
【作者简介】
W·E·佛朗德: 文学硕士、哲学博士，本文选自佛朗德博士写的《地球的宝藏》一书(1940年版)。
Bee And Color
On our table in the garden we put a blue card, and all around this blue
card we put a number of different grey cards. These grey cards are of all possible shades of grey and include white and black. On each card a watch-glass is placed.
The watch-glass on the blue card has some syrup in it; all the others are empty. After a short time bees find the syrup, and they come for it again and again. Then, after some hours, we take away the watch-glass of syrup which was on the blue card and put an empty one in its place.
Now what do the bees do? They still go straight to the blue card, although there is no syrup there. They do not go to any of the grey cards, in spite of the fact that one of the grey cards is of exactly the same brightness as the blue card. Thus the bees do not mistake any shade of grey for blue. In this way we have proved that they do really see blue as a colour.
We can find out in just the same way what other colours bees can see. It turns out that bees can see various colours, but these insects differ from us as regards their colour-sense in two very interesting ways. Suppose we train bees to come to a red card, and, having done so, we put the red card on the table in the garden among the set of different grey cards. This time we find that the bees mistake red for dark grey or black. They cannot distinguish between them. This means that red is not a colour at all for bees; for them it is just dark grey or black.
【注释】
syrup[\K0T:A]:糖汁
蜜蜂与颜色
H·蒙罗·福克斯
我们把一张蓝色的卡片放在花园中的桌上，再在
其四周放上一些深浅不同的灰色卡片。这些灰色卡片具有尽可能不同色度的灰色，包括白色和黑色。每张卡片上都有一块透明玻璃。那张蓝色卡片的透明玻璃里有一些糖汁，其它的都是空的。不一会儿，蜜蜂就找到了糖汁，并一再来采吃糖汁。几小时后，我们把蓝卡片上有糖汁的透明玻璃拿开，在该处放上块空玻璃。
那么蜜蜂又会怎样呢?尽管没有糖汁了，它们还是径直向蓝色卡片飞去。它们不飞往任何灰色的卡片上去，虽然其中有一张灰色卡片和那张蓝色卡片的色度同样鲜艳。这样看来，蜜蜂是不会把任何色度的灰色错当成蓝色的。我们用这种方法证明了蜜蜂的确能认出蓝颜色。
我们用同样的方法还会发现蜜蜂能辨出其它的颜色。结果证明，蜜蜂能分辨出不同的颜色。但是这种昆虫的色觉在两个很有趣的方面与我们的不同。假定我们训练蜜蜂飞到红色卡片上去。训练后，我们把这张红色卡片放在花园中的桌子上那套深浅不同的灰色卡片中去。这次，我们发现蜜蜂错认红色为深灰色或黑色。它们不能区别这几种颜色。这说明，红色对蜜蜂来说根本就不是一种新颜色，而只不过是深灰色或黑色罢了。
【作者简介】
H·蒙罗·福克斯：去世时是伦敦大学动物学荣誉教授。他曾在布赖顿大学和剑桥大学受过教育。他是国际科学杂志的编辑，也是皇家学会会员。
Atom
The idea that everything is made up of very small particles, or atoms, was
known to the Greeks over two thousand years ago, but it was only about one hundred and fifty years ago that John Dalton put forward the important ideas which made the atomic theory really useful and greatly hastened the development of modern chemistry. What Dalton said was that, although many thousands of different chemical substances are known, these are made up of only a few different kinds of atom combined together in definite simple ways. We now know that there are altogether only about one hundred different types of atom, and about a third of these make up most of the substances encountered in everyday life. Atoms cannot be destroyed or changed in any way by chemical reactions; all that can happen is that the arrangement of the atoms is changed so as to produce another chemical substance with different properties.
Atoms are too small to be seen, even with a powerful microscope, but other instruments are able to detect them, to measure their size, and to count them just as easily and as certainly as if we could see them. We therefore know how much each kind of atom weighs and so it is easy to say immediately how many atoms there are in any piece of material, once we know what it is made of and how much it weighs. Atoms are so small, and their numbers are so great, that it is not easy for the mind to grasp such numbers. It takes about a hundred million atoms laid in a row to make one inch. There are more atoms in a glass of water than there are glasses of water in all the seas of the world. Since atoms can never be destroyed. this means that every glass of water we drink probably contains several atoms which have already been drunk many times by all the great men who have lived before us. With every meal, we consume a few atoms from the feasts of the Roman emperors and from the wine of the Pharaohs.
【注释】
Pharaoh[\G2:T:7]:埃及法老，暴君
原 子
乔治·波特
在2000多年以前，希腊人就知道一切东西都是
由最小的粒子或说是原子组成的。但仅在大约150年前，约翰·道尔顿才提出一些极为重要的概念，这使原子理论成为真正有用的东西，并大大促进了现代化学的发展。道尔顿说：尽管人们知道数千种不同的化学物质，但这些物质仅仅是由少数不同种类的原子以一定的简单的方式结合在一起而组成的。现在我们知道总共只有大约100种原子，其中约三分之一组成了我们日常生活中所遇到的大部份物质。任何化学反应都不能消灭或改变原子，而只能改变原子的排列以产生另一种具有不同的特性的化学特质。
原子太小，甚至用高倍显微镜也看不见。但是其他仪器能够象我们用肉眼看到它们那样容易又有把握地探测到原子，测出其大小和计算其数目。因此，我们知道每种原子有多重，而且一旦我们知道某种材料是什么组成的、重量是多少就能很容易地立即说出它的原子数。原子这么小，数量那么大，所以记住这样的数字是不容易的。大约需要一亿个原子排列成一行才有一英寸长。一杯水中的原子数要比全世界海水所能装满的的杯数还要多。因为原子永远不能被消灭，这就意味着我们喝的每杯水中很可能有一些原子是从古到今所有的伟人已经喝过了许多次的。对每顿饭来说，我们可能吃了古罗马皇帝盛宴中的和古埃及法老美酒中的一些原子。
【作者简介】
乔治·波特: 文学硕士、理学博士,英国皇家学会会员,大不列颠皇家学院主任、教授，Fullerian式的化学教授。乔治·波特生于1910年，曾在里兹和剑桥大学攻读。本文选自他的《现代世界的化学》一书(1951年初版)。
Fighting with The Loss of Water And Soil
Aserious threat to farmers in many parts of the world is ero
sion. If a large area of land is cleared of trees and bushes and is then badly treated by the farmer, the rain and winds may gradually wash away, or blow away, much of the fertile top-soil. When this happens, crops of corn of grass become weaker and weaker until nothing much will grow at all, If erosion is allowed to continue, it will turn good farm land into a desert.
The first really bold attempt to do this was started by the Government of the United States of America in 1922. This experiment set a pattern for the world. The district where the experiment was carried out was the area watered by the Tennessee River in the U.S.A. The total area, about the size of England and Scotland combined, contained four million five hundred thousand people. Floods and bad farming over the years had ruined a land that had once been rich, and had made it miserably poor.
Big dams were built across the Tennessee river and its tributaries. In the rainy season there was plenty of water, and the dams stored it for use during the water which could be used for generating electricity. The Tennessee Valley Authority staff also helped the farmers to fertilize the soil, and to plant wind-breaks which would turn the force of the wind upwards away from the land. They taught the farmers to plough across the slopes of the hills (not upwards and downwards)in order to keep the rain-water in the land; and they tried to change the old methods of farming into modern ways.
The great success of the Tennessee Valley scheme has led to similar schemes elsewhere. In many places today rivers are dammed to control floods, generate electricity, and store water for the land in the dry season. But there is much more to do.
【注释】
be clear of:摆脱，免除 tributary[\CT0BU7C:T0]:支流
windbreaks[\V0QDBT<0E]:防风林
与水土流失作斗争
詹姆斯·赫明
对于世界上许多地区的农民来说，严重的威胁是
水土流失。如果把一大片土地的树木全部砍伐掉，再加之农民耕作不当的话，那么风吹雨打就会逐渐地把大部分表层的肥沃土壤吹走或冲掉。当这种情况发生时，谷物和草就长得越来越差 ，直至成为不毛之地。如果让水土流失继续发展下去，就会使良田变成沙漠。
1922年，美国政府进行了制止水土流失的第一次大胆的尝试。这一试验为全世界树立了榜样。进行上述试验的地区正是美国田纳西河所灌溉的地区。其总面积约等于英格兰和苏格兰面积之和。共有四百五十万人口。好多年来，水灾和耕作不当毁坏了一度曾是肥沃的土地，使之变得极其贫瘠。
在田纳西河及其支流上都修建了大型水坝。雨季时，河水充足，水坝就把水储存起来以备旱季使用。同时，水坝供水发电。田纳西流域开发管理局的工作人员还帮助农民给土壤施肥，种植防风林，使风力离开地面向上吹去。他们教农民在山地的斜坡上横向耕作(不是上下耕作)以使保持土地里的雨水。他们并且努力用现代耕作法取代老的耕作法。
【作者简介】
詹姆斯·赫明(JAMES HEMMING)：本文摘自《人类抗灾斗争》一书(1949年，Bridge版本)，这本书有关于世界卫生组织的大量资料，并由首任主席布罗克·奇泽姆博士为该书写了前言。
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