全新版大学英语综合教程~4~课文电子书

2021年1月25日发(作者：lemonade)

全新版大学英语第四册课文


Unit 1 Text A The ICY Defender


Text
课文



They
say
that
pride
comes
before
a
fall.
In
the
case
of
both
Napoleon
and
Hitler,
the
many
victories they enjoyed led them to believe that anything was possible, that nothing could stand in
their way. Russia's icy defender was to prove them wrong.








THE ICY DEFENDER














Nila B, Smith





In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, led his Grand Army into Russia. He
was
prepared
for
the
fierce resistance
of
the
Russian
people
defending
their
homeland. He
was
prepared
for
the
long
march
across
Russian
soil
to
Moscow,
the
capital
city.
But
he
was
not
prepared
for
the
devastating
enemy
that
met
him
in
Moscow
—

the
raw,
bitter,
bleak
Russian
winter.





In 1941, Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, launched an attack against the Soviet Union,
as Russia then was called. Hitler's
military
might was
unequaled. His war machine had mowed
down resistance in most of Europe. Hitler expected a short campaign but, like Napoleon before
him, was taught a painful lesson. The Russian winter again came to the aid of the Soviet soldiers.






Napoleon's Campaign





In
the
spring
of
1812,
Napoleon
assembled
an
army
of
six
hundred
thousand
men
on
the
borders of Russia. The soldiers were well trained, efficient, and well equipped. This military force
was
called
the
Grand
Army.
Napoleon,
confident
of
a
quick
victory,
predicted
the
conquest
of
Russia in five weeks.






Shortly
afterwards,
Napoleon's
army
crossed
the
Neman
River
into
Russia.
The
quick,
decisive victory that Napoleon expected never happened. To his surprise, the Russians refused to
stand and fight. Instead, they retreated eastward, burning their crops and homes as they went. The
Grand Army followed, but its advance march soon became bogged down by slow-moving supply
lines.





In August, the French and Russian armies engaged at Smolensk, in a battle that left over ten
thousand
dead
on
each
side.
Yet,
the
Russians
were
again
able
to
retreat
farther
into
Russian
territory. Napoleon had won no decisive victory. He was now faced with a crucial decision. Should
he
continue
to
pursue
the
Russian
army?
Or
should
he
keep
his
army
in
Smolensk
for
the
approaching winter?






Napoleon took the gamble of pressing on to Moscow, 448 kilometers away. On September
7,1812, the French and Russian armies met in fierce battle at Borodino, 112 kilometers west of
Moscow.
By
nightfall,
thirty
thousand
French
and
forty-four
thousand
Russians
lay
dead
or
wounded on the battlefield.






Again, the Russian army retreated to safety. Napoleon had a clear path to Moscow, but the
occupation
of
the
city
became
an
empty
victory.
The Russians
fled
their
capital. Soon
after
the
French
arrived,
a
raging
fire
destroyed
two-thirds
of
the
city.
Napoleon
offered
a
truce
to
Alexander I, but the Russian czar knew he could bide his time:
fight the war for us.






Napoleon soon realized he could not feed, clothe, and quarter his army in Moscow during
the winter. In October 1812, he ordered his Grand Army to retreat from Moscow.






The French retreat turned into a nightmare. From fields and forests, the Russians launched
hit-and-run
attacks
on
the
French.
A
short
distance
from
Moscow,
the
temperature
had
already
dropped
to
minus
4
degrees
Celsius.
On
November
3,
the
winter's
first
snow
came.
Exhausted
horses fell dead in their tracks. Cannon became stuck in the snow. Equipment had to be burned for
fuel. Soldiers took ill and froze to death. The French soldiers dragged on, leaving the dead along
every mile.





As the Russian army was gathering its strength, the French had to flee Russia to avoid certain
defeat. At
the Berezina
River,
the
Russians
nearly
trapped
the
retreating
French
by
burning
the
bridges
over
the
swollen
river.
But
Napoleon,
by
a
stroke
of
luck,
was
able
to
build
two
new
bridges. Thousands of French soldiers escaped, but at the cost of fifty thousand dead. Once across
the Berezina, the tattered survivors limped toward Vilna.





Of the six hundred thousand soldiers Napoleon
had led into Russia, less than one hundred
thousand came back. The weakened French army continued its retreat westward across Europe.
Soon,
Britain,
Austria,
Russia,
and
Prussia
formed
a
powerful
alliance
and
attacked
these
stragglers. In March 1814, Paris was captured. Napoleon abdicated and went into exile, his empire
at an end.































Hitler's Invasion





By early 1941, Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, had seized control of most of Europe.
To
the
east
of
Hitler's
German
empire
was
the
Soviet
Union.
On
June
22,1941,
without
a
declaration of war, Hitler began an invasion of the Soviet Union that was the largest military land
campaign in history. Confident of a quick victory, Hitler expected the campaign to last no longer
than three months. He planned to use the blitzkrieg, or
the
rest
of
Europe.
The
invasion
had
three
broad
thrusts:
against
Leningrad
and
Moscow
and
through the Ukraine.





Caught off guard by the invasion, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin instructed the Russian people to

rendered
useless.
During
the
first
ten
weeks
of
the
invasion,
the
Germans
pushed
the
front
eastward, and the Russians suffered more than a million casualties.





In
the
north,
the
Germans
closed
in
on
Leningrad.
Despite
great
suffering,
however,
the
people of Leningrad refused to surrender. As the battle of Leningrad dragged on into winter, the
city's situation became desperate. As food ran out, people died from hunger and disease. By the
middle of the winter of 1941-1942, nearly four thousand people starved to death every day. Close
to one million people died as a result of the siege.





In the center of Russia, Hitler's goal was the capture of Moscow. Because the Germans had
anticipated
a
quick
victory,
they
had
made
no
plans
for
winter
supplies.
October
arrived
with
heavy rains.





As Hitler's armies drew closer and closer to Moscow, an early, severe winter settled over the
Soviet
Union,
the harshest
in
years.
Temperatures
dropped
to
minus
48
degrees
Celsius.
Heavy
snows fell. The German soldiers, completely unprepared for the Russian winter, froze in their light
summer
uniforms.
The
German
tanks
lay
buried
in
the
heavy
snowbanks.
The
Russian
winter
brought the German offensive to a halt.





By the summer of 1942, Hitler had launched two new offensives. In the south, the Germans
captured Sevastopol. Hitler then pushed east to Stalingrad, a great industrial city that stretched for
48 kilometers along the V
olga River. Despite great suffering, Soviet defenders refused to give up
Stalingrad.





In November 1942, the Russians launched a counterattack. With little or no shelter from the
winter cold in and around Stalingrad, German troops were further weakened by a lack of food and
supplies.
Not
until
January
1943
did
the
Germans
give
up
their
siege.
Of
the
three
hundred
thousand Germans attacking Stalingrad, only ninety thousand starving soldiers were left. The loss
of the battle for Stalingrad finally turned the tide against Hitler. The German victories were over,
thanks in part to the Russian winter.





During 1943 and 1944, the Soviet armies pushed the German front back toward the west. In
the north, the Red Army broke the three-year siege of Leningrad with a surprise attack on January
15,1944.
Within
two
weeks,
the
heroic
survivors
of
Leningrad
saw
their
invaders
depart.
By
March 1944, the Ukraine farming region was again in Soviet hands. On May 9, 1944, Sevastopol
was liberated from the Germans. The Russians were now heading for Berlin.





For
Hitler,
the
invasion
of
the
Soviet
Union
had
turned
into
a
military
disaster.
For
the
Russian people, it brought unspeakable suffering. The total Soviet dead in World War II reached
almost 23 million.





Russia's Icy Defender





The elements of nature must be reckoned with in any military campaign. Napoleon and Hitler
both underestimated the severity of the Russian winter. Snow, ice, and freezing temperatures took
their toll on both invading armies. For the Russian people, the winter was an icy defender.





Unit Two Text A Smart Cars


Text
课文



Smart cars that can see, hear, feel, smell, and talk? And drive on their own? This may sound like a
dream, but the computer revolution is set to turn it into a reality.




































SMART CARS









































Michio Kaku






Even the automobile industry, which has remained largely unchanged for the last seventy
years, is about to feel the effects of the computer revolution.





The automobile
industry
ranks
as
among
the
most
lucrative
and
powerful
industries
of
the
twentieth century. There are presently 500 million cars on earth, or one car for every ten people.
Sales
of
the
automobile
industry
stand
at
about
a
trillion
dollars,
making
it
the
world's
biggest
manufacturing industry.





The car, and the roads it travels on, will be revolutionized in the twenty-first century. The key
to tomorrow's
and
smell
and
talk
and
act,
predicts
Bill
Spreitzer,
technical
director
of
General
Motors
Corporation's ITS program, which is designing the smart car and road of the future.





Approximately 40,000 people are killed each year
in the United States in traffic accidents.
The number of people that are killed or badly injured in car accidents is so vast that we don't even
bother to mention them in the newspapers anymore. Fully half of these fatalities come from drunk
drivers,
and
many
others
from
carelessness.
A
smart
car
could
eliminate
most
of
these
car
accidents. It can sense if a driver is drunk via electronic sensors that can pick up alcohol vapor in
the air, and refuse to start up the engine. The car could also alert the police and provide its precise
location if it is stolen.





Smart
cars
have
already
been
built
which
can
monitor
one's
driving
and
the
driving
conditions nearby. Small radars hidden in the bumpers can scan for nearby cars. Should you make
a serious driving mistake (e.g., change lanes when there is a car in your
would sound an immediate warning.





At the MIT Media Lab, a prototype is already being built which will determine how sleepy
you
are
as
you
drive,
which
is
especially
important
for
long-distance
truck
drivers.
The
monotonous, almost hypnotic process of staring at the center divider for long hours is a grossly
underestimated, life-threatening hazard. To eliminate this, a tiny camera hidden in the dashboard
can be trained on a driver's face and eyes. If the driver's eyelids close for a certain length of time
and his or her driving becomes erratic, a computer in the dashboard could alert the driver.





Two of the most frustrating things about driving a car are getting lost and getting stuck in
traffic. While the computer revolution is unlikely to cure these problems, it will have a positive
impact.
Sensors
in
your
car
tuned
to
radio
signals
from
orbiting
satellites
can
locate
your
car
precisely at any moment and warn of traffic jams. We already have twenty-four Navstar satellites
orbiting the earth, making up what is called the Global Positioning System. They make it possible
to determine your location on the earth to within about a hundred feet. At any given time, there are
several
GPS
satellites
orbiting
overhead
at
a
distance
of
about
11,000
miles.
Each
satellite
contains four
quantum theory.





As a satellite passes overhead, it sends out a radio signal that can be detected by a receiver in
a car's computer. The car's computer can then calculate how far the satellite is by measuring how
long it took for the signal to arrive. Since the speed of light is well known, any delay in receiving
the satellite's signal can be converted into a distance.





In
Japan
there
are
already
over
a
million
cars
with
some
type
of
navigational
capability.
(Some
of
them
locate
a
car's
position
by
correlating
the
rotations
in
the
steering
wheel
to
its
position on a map.)





With the price of microchips dropping so drastically, future applications of GPS are virtually
limitless.

commercial
industry
is
poised
to
explode,
says
Randy
Hoffman
of
Magellan
Systems
Corp.,
which
manufactures
navigational
systems.
Blind
individuals
could
use
GPS
sensors in walking sticks, airplanes could land by remote control, hikers will be able to locate their
position in the woods
—
the list of potential uses is endless.





GPS
is
actually
but
part
of
a
larger
movement,
called

which
will
eventually
attempt to put smart cars on smart highways. Prototypes of such highways already exist in Europe,
and
experiments
are
being
made
in
California
to
mount
computer
chips,
sensors,
and
radio
transmitters on highways to alert cars to traffic jams and obstructions.





On an eight-mile stretch of Interstate 15 ten miles north of San Diego, traffic engineers are
installing an MIT-designed system which will introduce the
computers,
aided
by
thousands
of
three-inch
magnetic
spikes
buried
in
the
highway,
to
take
complete
control
of
the
driving
of
cars
on
heavily
trafficked
roads.
Cars
will
be
bunched
into
groups
of
ten
to
twelve
vehicles,
only
six
feet
apart,
traveling
in
unison,
and
controlled
by
computer.





Promoters of this computerized highway have great hopes for its future. By 2010, telematics
may well be incorporated into one of the major highways in the United States. If successful, by
2020, as the price of microchips drops to below a penny a piece, telematics could be adopted in
thousands
of
miles
of
highways
in
the
United
States.
This
could
prove
to
be
an
environmental
boon
as
well,
saving
fuel,
reducing
traffic
jams,
decreasing
air
pollution,
and
serving
as
an
alternative to highway expansion.


Unit 3 Text A Get The Job You Want


Text
课文



Harvey Mackay, who runs his own company, often interviews applicants for jobs. Here he lets us
into the secret of what qualities an employer is looking for, and gives four tips on what can help
you to stand out from the crowd.































GET THE JOB YOU WANT








































Harvey B, Mackay





I run a manufacturing company with about 350 employees, and I often do the interviewing
and hiring myself. I like talking to potential salespeople, because they're our link to customers.





When a recent college graduate came into my office not too long ago looking for a sales job,
I asked him what he had done to prepare for the interview. He said he'd read something about us
somewhere.





Had he called anyone at Mackay Envelope Corporation to find out more about us? No. Had
he called our suppliers? Our customers? No.





Had
he
checked
with
his
university
to
see
if
there were
any
graduates
working
at
Mackay
whom he could interview? Had he asked any friends to grill him in a mock interview? Did he go
to the library to find newspaper clippings on us?





Did he write a letter beforehand to tell us about himself, what he was doing to prepare for the
interview
and
why
he'd
be
right
for
the
job?
Was
he
planning
to
follow
up
the
interview
with
another letter indicating his eagerness to join us? Would the letter be in our hands within 24 hours
of the meeting, possibly even hand-delivered?





The answer to every question was the same: no. That left me with only one other question:
How well prepared would this person be if he were to call on a prospective customer for us? I
already knew the answer.





As I see it, there are four keys to getting hired:





1. Prepare
to
win.

you
miss
one
day
of
practice,
you
notice
the
difference,
the
saying
goes among musicians.
miss three days of practice, the audience notices the difference.






When we watch a world-class musician or a top athlete, we don't see the years of preparation
that enabled him or her to become great. The Michael Jordans of the world have talent, yes, but
they're
also
the
first
ones
on
and
the
last
ones
off
the
basketball
court.
The
same
preparation
applies in every form of human endeavor. If you want the job, you have to prepare to win it.





When I graduated from college, the odds were good that I would have the same job for the
rest of my life. And that's how it worked out. But getting hired is no longer a once-in-a-lifetime
experience.
Employment
experts
believe
that
today's
graduates
could
face
as
many
as
ten
job
changes during their careers.





That
may
sound
like
a
lot
of
pressure.
But
if
you're
prepared,
the
pressure
is on
the
other
folks
—
the ones who haven't done their homework.





You won't get every
job you go after. The best salespeople don't close every sale. Michael
Jordan makes barely half of his field-goal attempts. But it takes no longer to prepare well for one
interview than to wander in half- prepared for five. And your prospects for success will be many
times better.





2. Never stop learning. Recently I played a doubles tennis match paired with a 90-year-old. I
wondered how things would work out; I shouldn't have. We hammered our opponents 6-1, 6-1!





As we were switching
sides to play a third set, he said to
me,

you mind if
I play the
backhand court? I always like to work on my weaknesses.
who has never stopped learning. Incidentally, we won the third set 6-1.





As we walked off the court, my 90-year-old partner chuckled and said,
to know about my number-one ranking in doubles in the United States in my age bracket, 85 and
up!





You can do the same if you work on your weaknesses and develop your strengths. To be able
to compete, you've got to keep learning all your life.





3. Believe in yourself, even when no one else does. Do you remember the four-minute mile?
Athletes
had
been
trying
to
do
it
for
hundreds
of
years
and
finally
decided
it
was
physically
impossible for humans. Our bone structure was all wrong, our lung power inadequate.





Then one human proved the experts wrong. And, miracle of miracles, six weeks after Roger
Bannister broke the four-minute mile, John Landy beat Bannister's time by nearly two full seconds.
Since then, close to eight hundred runners have broken the four-minute mile!





Several years ago my daughter Mimi and I took a crack at running the New York Marathon.
At
the
gun,
23,000
runners
started
—

and
21,244
finished.
First
place
went
to
a
Kenyan
who
completed the race in two hours, 11 minutes and one second. The 21,244th runner to finish was a
Vietnam veteran. He did it in three days, nine hours and 37 minutes. With no legs, he covered 26.2
miles. After my daughter and I passed him in the first few minutes, we easily found more courage
to finish ourselves.





Don't
ever
let
anyone
tell
you
that
you
can't
accomplish
your
goals.
Who
says
you're
not
tougher, harder working and more able than your competition? You see, a goal is a dream with a
deadline: in writing, measurable, identifiable, attainable.





4. Find a way to make a difference. In my opinion, the majority of New York cabdrivers are
unfriendly,
if
not
downright
rude.
Most
of
the
cabs
are
filthy,
and
almost
all
of
them
sport
an
impenetrable,
bulletproof
partition.
But
recently
I
jumped
into
a
cab
at
LaGuardia
Airport
and
guess what? It was clean. There was beautiful music playing and no partition.






Wally,
safely, courteously and on time.





As we drove off, he held up a choice of newspapers and said,
help myself to the fruit in the basket on the back seat. He held up a cellular phone and said,
dollar a minute if you'd like to make a call.





Shocked, I blurted,
years.

















He doesn't know it, but he's my hero. He's living proof that you can always shift the odds in
your favor.





My
mentor,
Curt
Carlson,
is
the
wealthiest
man
in
Minnesota,
owner of
a
hotel
and
travel
company with sales in the neighborhood of $$9 billion. I had to get to a meeting in New York one
day, and Curt generously offered me a ride in his jet. It happened to be a day Minnesota was hit
with one of the worst snowstorms in years. Minneapolis- St. Paul International Airport was closed
for the first time in decades.





Then, though the storm continued to pound us, the airport opened a runway for small craft
only. As we were taxiing down it to take off, Curt turned to me and said gleefully,
no tracks in the snow!





Curt Carlson, 70 years old at the time, rich beyond anyone's dreams, could still sparkle with
excitement about being first.





From my standpoint, that's what it's all about. Prepare to win. Never stop learning. Believe in
yourself, even when no one else does. Find a way to make a difference. Then go out and make
your own tracks in the snow.


Unit 4Text A America As A Collage


Text
课文



Is America going to decline like other great nations have before? The author thinks not, arguing
that the type of society being created in America is quite unlike any that has gone before it. Read
what he has to say and see whether you agree.































AMERICA AS A COLLAGE











































Ryzsard Kapuscinski





The mere fact that America still attracts millions of people is evidence that it is not in decline.
People aren't attracted to a place of decline. Signs of decline are sure to be found in a place as
complex
as America:
debt, crime,
the
homeless,
drugs, dropouts. But
the
main
characteristic
of
America,
the
first
and
most
enduring
impression,
is
dynamism,
energy,
aggressiveness,
forward
movement.





It is so hard to think of this nation in decline when you know that there are vast regions of the
planet which are absolutely paralyzed, incapable of any improvement at all.





It is difficult for me to agree with Paul Kennedy's thesis in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers
that America must inevitably follow historical precedent. That's the way history used to be
—
all
powerful nations declined and gave way to other empires. But maybe there is another way to look
at what is happening. I have a sense that what is going on here concerns much more than the fate
of a nation.





It may be that the Euro-centered American nation is declining as it gives way to a new Pacific
civilization that will include, but not be limited to, America. Historically speaking, America may
not decline, but instead fuse with the Pacific culture to create a kind of vast Pacific collage, a mix
of Hispanic and Asian cultures linked through the most modern communication technologies.





Traditional history has been a history of nations. But here, for the first time since the Roman
Empire, there is the possibility of creating the history of a civilization. Now is the first chance on a
new basis with new technologies to create a civilization of unprecedented openness and pluralism.
A civilization of the polycentric mind. A civilization that leaves behind forever the ethnocentric,
tribal mentality. The mentality of destruction.





Los Angeles is a premonition of this new civilization.





Linked more to the Third World and Asia than to the Europe of America's racial and cultural
roots. Los Angeles and southern California will enter the twenty-first century as a multiracial and
multicultural society. This is absolutely new. There is no previous example of a civilization that is
being
simultaneously
created
by
so
many
races,
nationalities,
and
cultures.
This
new
type
of
cultural pluralism is completely unknown in the history of mankind.





America is becoming more plural every day because of the unbelievable facility of the new
Third World immigrants to put a piece of their original culture inside of American culture. The
notion
of
a

American
culture
is
changing every
moment.
It
is
incredible
coming
to
America to find you are somewhere else
—
in Seoul, in Taipei, in Mexico City. You can travel
inside this Korean culture right on the streets of Los Angeles. Inhabitants of this vast city become
internal tourists in the place of their own residence.





There are large communities of Laotians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Mexicans, Salvadorans,
Guatemalans, Iranians, Japanese, Koreans, Armenians, Chinese. We find here Little Taipei, Little
Saigon, Little Tokyo, Koreatown, Little Central America, the Iranian neighborhood in Westwood,
the
Armenian
community
in
Hollywood,
and
the
vast
Mexican-American
areas
of
East
Los
Angeles.
Eighty-one
languages,
few
of
them
European,
are
spoken
in
the
elementary
school
system of the city of Los Angeles.





This transformation of American culture anticipates the general trend in the composition of
mankind. Ninety percent of the immigrants to this city are from the Third World. At the beginning
of the twenty-first century, 90 percent of the world's population will be dark- skinned; the white
race will be no more than 11 percent of all human beings living on our planet.





Something that can only be seen in America: In the landscaped, ultraclean high-technology
parks of northern Orange County there is a personal computer company that seven years ago did
not
exist.
There
were
only
strawberry
fields
where
the
plant
is.
Now,
there
is
a
$$500
million
company with factories in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well.





The
company
was
founded
by
three
young
immigrants
—

a
Pakistani
Muslim
and
two
Chinese from Hong Kong. They only became citizens in 1984. Each individual is now probably
worth $$30 million.





Walking through this company we see only young, dark faces
—
Vietnamese, Cambodians,
Laotians, Mexicans
—
and the most advanced technology. The culture of the work force is a mix
of Hispanic-Catholic family values and Asian-Confucian group loyalty. Employment notices are
never posted; hiring is done through the network of families that live in southern California. Not
infrequently, employees ask to work an extra twenty hours a week to earn enough money to help
members of their extended family buy their first home.





In Los Angeles, traditional Third World cultures are, for the first time, fusing with the most
modern mentalities and technologies.





Usually,
the
contact
between
developed
and
underdeveloped
worlds
has
the
character
of
exploitation
—
just taking people's labor and resources and giving them nothing. And the border
between
races
has
usually
been
a
border
of
tension,
of
crisis.
Here
we
see
a
revolution
that
is
constructive.





This Pacific Rim civilization being created is a new relationship between development and
underdevelopment. Here, there is openness. There is hope. And a future. There is a multicultural
crowd. But it is not fighting. It is cooperating, peacefully competing, building. For the first time in
four hundred years of relations between the nonwhite Western world and the white Western world,
the
general
character
of
the
relationship
is
cooperation
and
construction,
not
exploitation,
not
destruction.





Unlike
any
other
place
on
the
planet,
Los
Angeles
shows
us
the
potential
of
development
once the Third World mentality merges with an open sense of possibility, a culture of organization,
a Western conception of time.





For
the
destructive,
paralyzed
world
where
I
have
spent
most
of
my
life,
it
is
important,
simply, that such a possibility as Los Angeles exists.





To adjust the concept of time is the most difficult thing. It is a key revolution of development.





Western
culture
is
a
culture
of
arithmetical
time.
Time
is
organized
by
the
clock.
In
non-Western culture, time is a measure between events. We arrange a meeting at nine o'clock but
the
man
doesn't
show
up.
We
become
anxious,
offended.
He
doesn't
understand
our
anxiety
because for him, the moment he arrives is the measure of time. He is on time when he arrives.





In 1924, the Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos wrote a book dreaming of the possibility
that, in the future, all races on the planet would merge into one type of man. This type of man is
being borne in Los Angeles, in the cultural sense if not the anthropological sense. A vast mosaic of
different races, cultures, religions, and moral habits are working toward one common aim. From
the
perspective
of
a
world
submerged
in
religious,
ethnic,
and
racial
conflict,
this
harmonious
cooperation is something unbelievable. It is truly striking.





What is the common aim that harmonizes competing cultures in one place?





It is not only the better living standard. What attracts immigrants to America is the essential
characteristic of American culture: the chance to try. There is a combination of two things that are
important: culture and space. The culture allows you to try to be somebody
—
to find yourself,
your place, your status. And there is space not only in a geographical sense, but in the sense of
opportunity, of social mobility. In societies that are in crisis and in societies which are stagnant
—

or even in those which are stable
—
there is no chance to try. You are defined in advance. Destiny
has already sentenced you.





This is what unites the diverse races and cultures in America. If the immigrant to America at
first
fails,
he
always
thinks,

will
try
again.
If
he
had
failed
in
the
old
society,
he
would
be
discouraged and pessimistic, accepting the place that was given to him. In America, he's thinking,



Unit 5 Text A A Friend in Need


Text
课文



Some
people
seem
easy
to
understand:
their
character
appears
obvious
on
first
meeting.
Appearances, however, can be deceptive.




































A FRIEND IN NEED










































Somerset Mauqham





For thirty
years now I have been studying my fellowmen. I do not know very much about
them. I shrug my shoulders when people tell me that their first impressions of a person are always
right. I think they must have small insight or great vanity. For my own part I find that the longer I
know people the more they puzzle me.





These
reflections
have
occurred
to
me
because
I
read
in
this
morning's
paper
that
Edward
Hyde Burton had died at Kobe. He was a merchant and he had been in business in Japan for many
years.
I
knew
him
very
little,
but
he
interested
me
because
once
he
gave
me
a
great
surprise.
Unless I had heard the story from his own lips, I should never have believed that he was capable
of such an action. It was more startling because both in appearance and manner he suggested a
very definite type. Here if ever was a man all of a piece. He was a tiny little fellow, not much more
than five feet four in height, and very slender, with white hair, a red face much wrinkled, and blue
eyes. I suppose he was about sixty when I knew him. He was always neatly and quietly dressed in
accordance with his age and station.





Though his offices were in Kobe, Burton often came down to Yokohama. I happened on one
occasion to be spending a few days there, waiting for a ship, and I was introduced to him at the
British Club. We played bridge together. He played a good game and a generous one. He did not
talk very much, either then or later when we were having drinks, but what he said was sensible.
He had a quiet, dry humor. He seemed to be popular at the club and afterwards, when he had gone,
they described him as one of the best. It happened that we were both staying at the Grand Hotel
and next day he asked me to dine with him. I met his wife, fat, elderly, and smiling, and his two
daughters. It was evidently a united and affectionate family. I think the chief thing that struck me