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英语笔译（
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笔译
I
学生课后练习
1. Lexicography
1) Lexicography provides at its best a
joyful sense of busyness with language. 2) One
is immersed in the details of language
as in no other field. 3) Sometimes the details
are so overwhelming and endless they
sap the spirit and depress the mind. 4) Often at
the
end
of
a
hard
day's
work
one
realizes
with
dismay
that
the
meager
stack
of
finished work one has
accomplished has an immeasurably slight impact on
the work
as a whole. 5) As I hope the
readers of this work will come to understand,
dictionaries
do
not
sprint
into
being.
6)
People
must
plan
them,
collect
information,
and
write
them.
7)
Writing
takes
time,
and
it
is
often
frustrating
and
even
infuriating.
8)
No
other form
of writing is at once so quixotic and so intensely
practical. 9) Dictionary
making
does
not
require
brilliance
or
originality
of
mind.
10)
It
does
require
high
intelligence,
mastery
of
the
craft,
and
dedication
to
hard
work.
11)
If
one
has
produced a dictionary, one has the
satisfaction of having produced a work of enduring
value.
2. Intelligent Test
1)
There
is
more
agreement
on
the
kinds
of
behavior
referred
to
by
the
term
agreed
that
a
person
of
high
intelligence
is
one
who
can
grasp
ideas
readily,
make
distinctions,
reason
logically,
and
make
use
of
verbal
and
mathematical
symbols
in
solving problems. 3) An
intelligence test is a rough measure of a child's
capacity for
learning, particularly for
learning the kinds of things required in school.
4) It does not
measure
character,
social
adjustment,
physical
endurance,
manual
skills,
or
artistic
abilities.
5)
It
is
not
supposed
to
--
it
was
not
designed
for
such
purposes.
6)
To
criticize it for such
failure is roughly comparable to criticizing a
thermometer for not
measuring
wind
velocity.
7)
Now
since
the
assessment
of
intelligence
is
a
comparative matter we must be sure that
the scale with which we are comparing our
subjects provides a
3. Bureaucracy
1) Most ironic was the image of
government that was born of these experiences. 2)
As
any scholarly treatise on the
subject will tell you, the great advantage
bureaucracy is
supposed to offer a
complex, modern society like ours is efficient,
rational, uniform
and
courteous
treatment
for
the
citizens
it
deals
with.
3)
Yet
not
only
did
these
qualities not come through to the
people I talked with, it was their very opposites
that
seemed more characteristic. 4)
People of all classes -- the rich man dealing with
the
Internal
Revenue
Service
as
well
as
the
poor
woman
struggling
with
the
welfare
1
department --
felt that the treatment they had received had been
bungled, not efficient;
unpredictable,
not rational; discriminatory , not uniform; and,
all too often, insensitive,
rather than
courteous. 5) It was as if they had bought a big
new car that not only did
not run when
they wanted it to, but periodically revved itself
up and drove all around
their yards.
4. Problem with
Educational System
1) There are 39
universities and colleges offering degree courses
in Geography, but I
have never seen any
good jobs for Geography graduates advertised. 2)
Or am I alone
in suspecting that they
will return to teach Geography to another set of
students, who
in turn will teach more
Geography undergraduates? 3) Only ten universities
currently
offer
degree
courses
in
Aeronautical
Engineering,
which
perhaps
is
just
as
well,
in
view of the speed with
which the aircraft industry
has been dispensing
with
excess
personnel. 4) On the
other hand, hospital casualty departments
throughout the country
are having to
close down because of the lack of doctors. 5) The
reason? University
medical schools can
only find places for half of those who apply. 6)
It seems to me
that time is ripe for
the Department of Employment and the Department of
Education
to get together with the
universities and produce a revised educational
system that will
make a more economic
use of the wealth of talent, application and
industry currently
being wasted on
diplomas and degrees that no one wants to know
about.
5. The Law of Competition
1)
Under the law of competition, the employer of
thousands is forced into the strictest
economies,
among
which
the
rates
paid
to
labor
figure
prominently.
2)
The
price
which society pays for the law, like
the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries,
is great, but the advantages of this
law are also greater than its cost -- for it is to
this
law
that
we
owe
our
wonderful
material
development,
which
brings
improved
conditions in its
train. 3) But, whether the law be benign or not,
we cannot evade it; of
the effect of
any new substitutes for it proposed we can not be
sure; and while the law
may be
sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for
the race, because it insures the
survival of the fittest in every
department. 4) We accept and welcome, therefore,
as
conditions to which we must
accommodate ourselves, great inequality of
environment;
the concentration of
business, industrial and commercial, in the hands
of a few; and
the law of competition
between these, as being not only beneficial, but
essential to the
future progress of the
race.
6. A
Political Speech
1) Within a very short
time of coming back into power the present
government had
taken steps to stabilize
the position. 2) First of all, we applied
ourselves to identifying
the
root
causes
of
our
national
ailments,
examining
contemporary
evidence
and
refusing to be slaves to
outmoded doctrinaire beliefs. 3) Secondly we
embarked on a
2
reasoned policy to ensure steady
economic growth, the modernization of industry,
and
a
proper
balance
between
public
and
private
expenditure.
4)
Thirdly
by
refusing
to
take
refuge -- as the previous Government had
continually done in the preceding years
--
in
panic-
stricken
stop-gap
measures,
we
stimulated
the
return
of
international
confidence. 5)
As a result of those immediate measures, and aided
by the tremendous
effort which they
evoked from our people who responded as so often
before to a firm
hand
at
the
helm,
we
weathered
the
storm
and
moved
on
into
calmer
waters
and
a
period of economic expansion and social
reorganization.
7. Animals' Rights
1)
The
point
is
this:
without
agreement
on
the
rights
of
people,
arguing
about
the
rights
of
animals
is
fruitless.
2)
It
leads
the
discussion
to
extremes
at
the
outset:
it
invites
you
to
think
that
animals
should
be
treated
either
with
the
consideration
humans
extend
to
other
humans
or
with
no
consideration
at
all.
3)
This
is
a
false
choice.
4)
Arguing
from
the
view
that
humans
are
different
from
animals
in
every
relevant respect,
extremists of this kind think that animals lie
outside the area of moral
choice. 5)
Any regard for the suffering of animals is seen as
a mistake -- a sentimental
displacement
of feeling that should properly be directed to
other humans. 6) But the
most
elementary
form
of
moral
reasoning
is
to
weigh
others'
interests
against
one's
own. 7) To see an
animal in pain is enough, for most, to engage
sympathy. 8) When
that happens, it is
not a mistake, it is mankind's instinct for moral
reasoning in action,
an instinct that
should be encouraged rather than laughed at.
8. American
Study
The scientific interest of
American history centered in national character,
and in the
workings of a society
destined to become bast, in which individuals were
important
chiefly as types. 2) Although
this kind of interest was different from that of
European
history, it was at least as
important to the world. 3) Should history ever
become a true
science, it must expect
to establish its laws, not from the complicated
story of rival
European
nationalities,
but
from
the
economical
evolution
of
a
great
democracy.
4)
North America was the most favorable
field on the globe for the spread of a society so
large, uniform,
and isolated
as to answer
the purposes of science.
5) There a single
homogeneous society
could easily attain proportions of three or four
hundred million
persons, under
conditions
of undisturbed growth. 6)
In Europe or Asia, undisturbed
social
evolution
had
been
unknown.
7)
Without
disturbance,
evolution
seemed
to
cease.
8)
Wherever
disturbance
occurred,
permanence
was
impossible.
9)
Every
people in turn adapted
itself to the law of necessity.
9. Jack London
1) Life itself led Jack London to
reject this approach in his writing. 2) He knew
what
it meant to be one of the
disinherited, to be chained to the deadening
routine of the
3
machine and to soul-destroying labor
for an insufficient reward. 3) Consequently he
swept aside not only the literature
that pretended that ours is a society of sweetness
and light, but also that which
contended that the inculcation of the spirit of
Christian
fellowship
would
put
an
end
to
class
controversy.
4)
He
did
not
oppose
labor
organization nor balk at the strike as
a weapon of labor; rather, he took his heroes and
heroines from
the labor
movement
and wove his plots
within their struggles. 5)
He
poured into his writings
all the pain of his life, the fierce hatred of the
bourgeoisie that
it had produced in
him, and the conviction it had brought to him that
world could be
made a better place to
live in if the exploited would rise up and take
the management
of society out of the
hands of the exploiters.
10. On Incorruptibility
l)
This reputation for incorruptibility is the
greatest of our advantages in administering
the Empire. 2) Its rarity among nearly
all the other peoples I have known raises our
officials almost to the level of divine
superiority, and without it we could not hold the
Empire together, nor would it be worth
the pains. 3) A business man who has worked
long under the system of concessions in
Russia tells me that it is now impossible to
bribe the Commissar or other high
officials there. 4) That is an immense advance,
for
under Tsarism one had only to
signify the chance of a good bribe and one got
what
one wanted. But nowadays on the
suspicion of bribery both parties are shot off-
hand.
5) It is a drastic way of
teaching what we have somehow learnt so smoothly
that we
are scarcely conscious of the
lesson or of our need of it. 6) Yet there was
need. 7) The
change is remarkable, and
I think it may be traced to an unconscious sense
of honor
somehow instilled among the
boys.
11. A
Jew's Journey
1) It is a very long time
since I attended a Mass. 2) In this pilgrimage
town you get the
real thing, with a
crowd of real worshippers -- those who come
include the paralyzed,
the crippled,
the blind, the deformed, the dying, a terrible
parade, a parade of God's
cruel jokes
or inept mistakes, if you seriously maintain that
he heeds the sparrow's fall.
3) Cold as
it was in the church, the air was warm as May
compared to the chill in my
heart
as
the
Mass
proceeded.
4)
It
would
have
been
only
courteous
to
kneel
at
the
proper
time,
as
all
did,
since
I
had
voluntarily
come;
but
for
all
the
disapproving
glances, I the
stiff-necked Jew, would not kneel. 5) I remember
the first break with my
own religion as
though it were yesterday. 6) I can still feel my
cheek stinging from the
slap of the
mashiakh, the study hall supervisor, as I trudge
in the snow on the town
square in the
purple evening, having been ordered out of the
hall for impudent heresy.
7)
Perhaps
in
a
larger
city,
the
mashiakh
would
have
had
the
sense
to
smile
at
my
effrontery,
and
pass
it
off.
8)
Then
the
whole
course
of
my
life
might
have
been
different.
4
12. The
Importance of being interested
1)
Now
I
have
recalled
these
beginnings
of
the
careers
of
Franklin,
Darwin
and
Mozart
because
they
strikingly
illustrate
a
profound
psychological
truth
the
significance of which
can scarcely be overestimated. 2) It is a truth,
to be sure, that
has long been
partially recognized. 3) But its full meaning has
not been -- and could
not
be
--
appreciated
until
quite
recently.
4)
Only
within
the
past
few
years
has
scientific research effected various
discoveries which make its complete recognition
possible and of supreme importance --
of such importance that practical application of
the
principles
involved
would
make
for
an
immediate
and
stupendous
increase
in
human
happiness,
efficiency,
and
welfare.
5)
Stated
briefly,
the
truth
in
question
is
that
success in life, meaning thereby the
accomplishment of results of real value to the
individual
and
to
society,
depends
chiefly
on
sustained
endeavor
springing
out
of
a
deep and ardent interest
in the tasks of one's chosen occupation.
13. The
Normandy Landings
1)
The
landings
were
very
chancy
and
might
have
ended
disastrously.
2)
A
pyramiding of mistakes and
bad luck on German side gave Roosevelt success in
his
one audacious military move. 3) The
mounting of the invasion armada was certainly a
fine
technological
achievement;
as
was
the
production
of
the
huge
air
fleets,
with
crews to man them. 4)
General Marshall's raising, equipping, and
training of the land
armies that poured
into Normandy showed him to be an American
Scharnhorst. 5) The
U. S infantryman,
while requiring far too luxurious logistical
support, put up a nice
fight in France;
he was fresh well-fed, and unscarred by battle. 6)
But essentially what
happened
in
Normandy
was
that
Franklin
Roosevelt
beat
Adolf
Hitler,
as
surely
as
Wellington beat Napoleon at Waterloo.
7) In Normandy the two men at last clashed in
head-on
armed
shock.
8)
Hitler's
mistakes
gave
Roosevelt
the
victory
just
as
at
Waterloo it
was less Wellington who won than Napoleon who
lost.
14.
Sunset
1)
But
owing
to
the
constant
presence
of
air
currents,
arranging
both
the
dust
and
vapor in strata of varying extent and
density, and of high or low clouds which both
absorb
and
reflect
the
light
in
varying
degree,
we
see
produced
all
those
wondrous
combinations of tints and those
gorgeous ever-changing colors which are a constant
source of admiration and delight
to
all who have the
advantage of an uninterrupted
view
to
the
west
and
who
are
accustomed
to
watch
for
those
not
infrequent
exhibitions
of
nature's
kaleidoscopic
color
painting.
2)
With
every
change
in
the
altitude of the sun the display changes
its characters; and most of all when it has sunk
below
the
horizon,
and
owing
to
the
more
favorable
angle
a
larger
quantity
of
the
colored
light
is
reflected
toward
us.
3)
These,
as
long
as
the
sun
was
above
the
horizon,
intercepted
much
of
the
light
and
color;
but
when
the
great
luminary
has
passed away from our
direct vision, its light shines more directly on
the under sides of
all the clouds and
air strata of different densities.
5
15. Tragedy
1) Our tragedy
today is a general and universal physical fear so
long sustained by now
that we can even
bear it. 2) There are no longer problems of the
spirit. 3) There is only
the
question:
4)
When
will
I
be
blown
up?
5)
Because
of
this,
the
young
man
or
woman writing today has
forgotten the problems of the human heart in
conflict with
itself which alone can
make good writing because only that is
worth
writing about,
worth the agony and the sweat. 6) He
must learn them again. 7) He must teach himself
that the basest of all things is to be
afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it
forever,
leaving no room in
his workshop for anything but
the old
verities and truths
of the
heart, the universal
truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and
doomed -- love
and honor and pity and
pride and compassion and sacrifice. 8) Until he
does so, he
labors under a curse. 9) He
writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in
which nobody
loses anything of value,
of victories without hope and, worst
of all, without pity or
compassion.
16. Views on the World Wars
1) The Second World War in some ways
gave birth to less novelty and genius than the
First. 2) It was, of course, a greater
cataclysm, fought over a wider area, and altered
the social and political structure of
the world at least as radically as its
predecessor,
perhaps more
so. 3) But the break in continuity in 1914 was far
more violent. 4) The
year 1914 looks to
us now, and looked even in the 1920s, as the end
of a long period
of largely peaceful
development, broken suddenly and catastrophically.
5) In Europe,
at
least,
the
years
before
1914
were
viewed
with
understandable
nostalgia
by
those
who after them knew no
real peace. 6) The period between the wars marks a
decline
in the development of human
culture if it is compared with that sustained and
fruitful
period
which
makes
the
nineteenth
century
seem
a
unique
human
achievement,
so
powerful
that
it
persisted,
even
during
the
war
which
broke
it,
to
a
degree
which
seems astonishing to us now.
17. Talks on
Science
1) In earliest times, when the
field of available knowledge was comfortably small
and
its advance slow, the lover of
learning might hope to explore the greater part of
it. 2)
Today, when it is
not
only driving ahead at
a
bewildering speed but
tunneling back
into wider
and wider areas of the past, even the most dogged
adventurer can not hope
to explore more
than a small fraction of the vast continent. 3) In
our listening, as in
our other
intellectual activities, we must pick and choose.
4) But nobody can afford to
ignore
modern science. 5) Its intricate processes are, of
course, far above the heads of
most of
us, but we can at least
grasp something
of its conclusions and theories and
their implications, and the B. B. C.
provides opportunities to do so in numerous talks
and discussions, many of them of
outstanding excellence. 6) When listening to all
but
6
the
simplest scientific programs I find it essential
to take notes. 7) Such listening is no
easy
self-indulgence.
8)
But
often
I
am
rewarded
by
new
and
exciting
ideas
which
stimulate my mind and
enrich my outlook on life.
18. The Method
of Scientific Research
1)
The
method
of
scientific
investigation
is
nothing
but
the
expression
of
the
necessary
mode
of
working
of
the
human
mind;
it
is
simply
the
mode
at
which
all
phenomena
are
reasoned
about,
rendered
precise
and
exact.
2)
There
is
no
more
difference, but there
is just the same kind of difference, between the
mental operations
of
a
man
of
science
and
those
of
an
ordinary
person,
as
there
is
between
the
operations and methods of a baker or of
a butcher weighing out his goods in common
scales, and the operations of a chemist
in performing a difficult and complex analysis
by means of his balance and finely
graded weights. 3) It is not that the scales in
the
one case, and the balance in the
other, differ in the principles of their
construction or
manner of working; but
that the latter is a much finer apparatus and of
course much
more accurate in its
measurement than the former.
19. Books
1)
Since
a
particular
bookstore
happens
to
resemble
a
supermarket
anyway,
the
inescapable, though
perhaps unintended, message is that books are
consumable items,
meant to be devoured
and forgotten, like potatoes or pizza. 2) The
implied inclusion
of books among the
world's perishable goods is hardly made more
agreeable by the
reflection that
increasing numbers of books these days do seem to
be written with just
such
consumption
in
mind,
and
that
most
bookstores
have
become
little
more
than
news stands for hard cover publications
of this sort, which are merchandised for a few
weeks -- sometimes only as long as they
remain on the best-seller lists -- and are then
retired
to
discount
store
(those
jumbled
graveyards
of
books,
so
saddening
to
the
hearts of authors) shortly
before dropping out
of print
altogether. 3) Books that are
planned
for rapid oblivion probably make some kind of
economic sense to publishing
houses,
but as contribution to literature they amount to a
contradiction in terms.
20. The Requirements of Writing Science
Fiction
1) It hardly needs to be
pointed out that a prime requirement for science
fiction, if it is
to fulfill the
function just formulated, is that it be
entertaining. 2) This is by no means
synonymous
with
jollity
or
with
having
a
happy
ending,
for
tragedy
is
often
more
deeply
strengthening
than
victory.
3)
But
the
story
should
be
one
that
absorbs
and
convinces us and at the same time
affords us relief from our daily doings by taking
us
via the narrative, not the didactic,
route satisfactorily beyond our accustomed
horizons.
4) Properly to meet this
combination of conditions is a job that demands an
extremely
7
high
order of abilities. 5) These must include not only
a working understanding of the
major
principles and possibilities of present-day
natural science and technology, in the
diverse lines relevant to the theme
dealt with, but also a rounded insight into human
relations and feelings, a fertile but
well-controlled imagination, and the exacting
skills
of a writer.
21.
He
was
a
man
of
fifty,
and
some,
seeing
that
he
had
gone
both
bald
and
grey,
thought
he
looked
older. But the first physical impression was
deceptive. He was tall and thick about the body,
with something of a paunch, but he was
also small-boned, active, light on his feet. In
the same way,
his head was massive, his
forehead high and broad between the fringes of
fair hair; but no one's
face changed
its expression quicker, and his smile was
brilliant. Behind the thick lenses, his eyes
were
small
and
intensely
bright,
the
eyes
of
a
young
and
lively
man.
At
a
first
glance,
people
might think he looked
a senator, it did not take them long to discover
how mercurial he was. His
temper was as
quick as his smile, in everything he did his
nerves seemed on the surface. In fact,
people forgot all about the senator and
began to complain that sympathy and emotion flowed
too
easily. Many of them disliked his
love of display. Yet they were affected by the
depth of his feeling.
Nearly everyone
recognized that, though it took some insight to
perceive that he was not only a
man of
deep feeling, but also one of passionate pride.
22.
The Beauty
of Britain
We
live
in
one
of
the
most
beautiful
islands
in
the
world.
This
is
a
fact
we
are
always
forgetting. When
beautiful islands are mentioned we think of
Trinidad and Tahiti. These are fine,
romantic
places,
but
they
are
not
really
as
exquisitely
beautiful
as
our
own
Britain.
Before
the
mines and factories
came, and long before we went from bad to worse
with our arterial roads and
petrol
stations and horrible brick bungalows, this
country must have been an enchantment. Even
now, after we have been busy for so
long flinging mud at this fair pale face, the
encharument still
remains. Sometimes I
doubt if we deserve to possess it. There can be
few parts of the world in
which
commercial
greed
and
public
indifference
have
combined
to
do
more
damage
than
they
have here. The process
continues. It is still too often assumed that any
enterprising fellow after
quick profits
has a perfect right to destroy a loveliness that
is the heritage of the whole community.
The beauty of our country is as hard to
define as it is easy to enjoy. Remembering other
and
larger countries we see at once
that one of its charms is that it is immensely
varied within a small
compass. We have
here no vast mountain ranges, no illimitable
plains. But we have superb variety.
A
great deal of everything is packed into little
space. I suspect that we are always faintly
conscious
of
the
fact
that
this
is
a
smallish
island,
with
the
sea
always
round
the
corner.
We
know
that
everything
has
to
be
neatly
packed
into
a
small
space.
Nature,
we
feel,
has
carefully
adjusted
things
—
mountains,
plains, rivers, lakes
—
to the
scale of the island itself. A mountain 12,000 feet
high would be a horrible monster here,
as wrong as a plain 400 miles long, a river as
broad as the
Mississippi. Though the
geographical features of this island are
comparatively small, and there is
astonishing variety almost everywhere,
that does not mean that our mountains are not
mountains,
our plains not plains.
My own favourite country, perhaps
because I know it as a boy, is that of the
Yorkshire Dales.
8
A day's walk among them will give you
almost everything fit to be seen on this earth.
Within a
few hours, you have enjoyed
the green valleys, with their rivers, fine old
bridges, pleasant villages,
hanging
woods,
smooth
fields,
and
then
the
moorland
slopes,
with
their
rushing
streams,
stone
wails, salty winds and crying curlews,
white farmhouses, and then the lonely heights
which seem
to
be
miles
above
the
ordinary
world,
and
moorland
tracks
as
remote,
it
seems,
as
trails
in
Mongolia.
We
have
greater
resources
at
our
command
than
our
ancestors
had,
and
we
are
more
impatient than they
were. Thanks to our new resources, we are better
able to ruin the countryside
and
even
the
towns,
than
our
fathers
were,
but
on
the
other
hand
we
are
far
more
alive
to
the
consequences of such
ruin than they were.
Our
children
and
their
children
after
them
must
live
in
a
beautiful
country.
It
must
be
a
country happily
compromising between Nature and Man, blending what
was best worth retaining
from the past
with what best represents the spirit of our own
age, a country as rich in noble towns
as it is in trees, birds, and wild
flowers. (568 words)
23.
PROVERBS IN LATIN AMERICAN TALK
Proverbs are the popular sayings that
brighten so much Latin American talk, the boiled-
down
wisdom
that
you
are
as
apt
to
hear
from
professors
as
from
peasants,
from
beggars
as
from
elegantes. Brief and
colorful, they more often than not carry a sting.
When
a
neighbor's
dismally
unattractive
daughter
announced
her
engagement,
Imelda
remarked,
’‖
And when
her
son-in-law blustered about how he was going to get
even with the boss who had docked his
pay, lmelda fixed him with a cold eye
and said,
One
afternoon
I
heard
lmelda
and
her
daughter
arguing
in
the
kitchen.
Her
daughter
had
quarrelled with her husband's parents,
and Imelda was insisting that she apologize to
them. Her
daughter objected.
until we need something; then they're
too poor. So today when they wouldn't even lend
enough to
pay for a new bed, all I did
was say something that I've heard you say a
hundred times:
'
If so
grand, why so poor? If so poor. why so
grand? '
pays for'? I will
not have it said that I could never teach my
daughter proper respect for her elders.
And before you go to beg their pardon,
change those trousers for a dress. You know how
your
mother-in-law feels
about pants on a woman. She always says, 'What was
hatched a hen must not
try to be a
rooster! '
Her daughter made one more
try.
pray to him until he gets over it.
Can't I leave it for
tomorrow?
did wrong. But, 'A
gift is the key to open the door closed against
you. ' I have a cake in the oven
that I
was making for the Senora's dinner. I will explain
to the Senora. Now, dear, hurry home and
make yourself pretty in your pink
dress. By the time you get back, I will have the
cake ready for
you to take to your
mother-in-law. She will be so pleased that she may
make your father-in-law
pay for the
bed. Remember: 'One hand washes the other, but
together they wash the face. '
9
24.
THE URGENCY
If a man is ever
going to admit that he belongs to the earth, not
the other way
round, it probably will
be in late June. Then it is that life surpasses
man
’
s affairs with
incredible urgency and outreaches him
in every direction. Even the farmer, on whom
we all depend for the substance of
existence, knows then that the best he can do is
cooperate
with
wind
and
weather,
soil
and
seed.
The
incalculable
energy
of
chlorophyll, the
green leaf
itself, dominates the
earth
and the root in the soil is
the
inescapable fact. Even
the roadside weed ignores man's legislation.
The
urgency
is
everywhere.
Grass
blankets
the
earth,
reaching
for
the
sun,
spreads its roots, flowers and comes to
seed. The forest widens its canopy, strengthens
its boles, nurtures its seedlings,
ripens its perpetuating nuts. The birds nest and
hatch
their fledglings. The beetle
andcthe bee are busy at the grassroot and the
blossom, and
the butterfly lays eggs
that will hatch and crawl and eat and pupate and
take to the air
oncc more. Fish spawn
and meadow voles harvest the wild meadows, and
owls and
foxes feed their young.
Dragoniflies and swallows and nighthawks seine the
air where
the minute winged creatures
flit out their minute life spans.
And
man. who glibly calls the earth his own, neither
powers the leaf nor energizes the fragile
wing. Man participates, but his
dominance is limited. It is the urgency of life,
or growth, that rules.
Late June and
early Summer are the ultimate, unarguable proof.
25
.
May
Is
…
May
is
more
than
a
month.
In
a
very
real
sense.
May
is
a
whole
season
unto
itself.
May
is open windows and lilac perfume on the breezes
and bees humming at the
tulips. It is
roaring lawn mowers and Little League baseball
games and small children
reinventing
dandelion necklaces. May is tiny but succulent
wild strawberries hiding in
the meadow
grass and the promise of summer displayed in the
blossoms of the apple
orchard, violets
blooming shyly at the woods' edge and daisies
swaying in the fields.
It
is
long-legged
colts
in
the
pasture
and
fragrant
first
hay
awaiting
the
baler
and
furrows
plowed straight and deep. May is rain-scrubbed sky
the color of the robin's
eggshell now
discarded on the lawn, and a hillside of a hundred
shades of pastel green
that change day
to day.
May is a boy with a fishing rod
walking to the pond on Saturday morning, and
young sweethearts strolling along the
pond on Saturday nights. It is a canoe trip down
the river and the family picnic in the
park and toddler getting their first rides on the
swings.
May is surging life
all around
–
life awakened
and life returned and life bursting
with growth. It is a time for all
things living, a time for celebrating our own
existence.
From
Reader''s
Digest
26.
The
Art of Pleasing
10
Chesterfield
Dear boy,
The art of pleasing is a very necessary
one to possess; but a very difficult one to
acquire. It can hardly be reduced to
rules; and your own good sense and observation
will teach you more of it than I can.
Do as you would be done by, is the surest method
that I know of pleasing. Observe
carefully what pleases you in others, and probably
the same things in
you will
please others.
If
you are
pleased with the complaisance
and
attention of others to your humours, your tastes,
or your weaknesses, depend upon
it,
the
same
complaisance
and
attention,
on
your
part,
to
theirs,
will
equally
please
them. Take the tone of the company,
that you are in, and do not pretend to give it; be
serious, gay, or even trifling, as you
find the present humour of the company; this is
an attention due from every individual
to the majority. Do not tell stories in company,
there is nothing more
tedious and disagreeable; if by chance you know a
very short
story, and exceedingly
applicable to the present subject of conversation,
tell it in as
few words as possible;
and even then, throw out that you do not love to
tell stories;
but that the shortness of
it tempted you.
0f
all
things,
banish
the
egotism
out
of
your
conversation,
and
never
think
of
entertaining people with
your own personal concerns, or private affairs;
though they
are
interesting
to
you,
they
are
tedious
and
impertinent
to
every
body
else:
besides
that, one cannot
keep one's own private affairs too secret.
Whatever
you think your
own
excellencies may be, do not affectedly display
them in company; nor labour, as
many
people do, to give that turn to the conversation,
which may supply you with an
opportunity
of
exhibiting
them.
If
they
are
real,
they
will
infallibly
be
discovered,
without
your
pointing
them
out
yourself,
and
with
much
more
advantage.
Never
maintain an argument with heat and
clamour, though you think or know yourself to be
in
the
right;
but
give
your
opinion
modestly
and
coolly,
which
is
the
only
way
to
convince;
and,
if
that
does
not
do,
try
to
change
the
conversation,
by
saying,
with
good
humour,
'We
shall
hardly
convince
one
another,
nor
is
it
necessary
that
we
should, so let us ta!k of
something else.
’
From
Letters to His
Son
27.
THE DELIGHTS OF BOOKS
by Sir
John Lubbock
Books are to mankind what
memory is to the individual. They contain the
history
of
our
race,
the
discoveries
we
have
made,
the
accumulated
knowledge
and
experience of ages; they
picture for us the marvels and beauties of nature;
help us in
our difficulties, comfort us
in sorrow and in suffering, change hours of
weariness into
moments
of
delight,
store
our
minds
with
ideas,
fill
them
with
good
and
happy
thoughts, and lift us
out of and above ourselves.
There is an
oriental story of two men: one was a king, who
every night dreamt he
was a beggar; the
other
was a beggar, who every night
dreamt he was a prince and
lived in a
palace. I am not sure that the king had very much
the best of it. Imagination
is
sometimes
more
vivid
than
reality.
But,
however
this
may
be,
when
we
read
we
11
may not only (if we wish
it) be kings and live in palaces, but, what is far
better, we
may transport ourselves to
the mountains or the seashore, and visit the most
beautiful
parts of the earth, without
fatigue, inconvenience, or expense.
Many of those who have had, as we say,
all that this world can give, have yet
told
us
they
owed
much
of
their
purest
happiness
to
books.
Ascham,
in
Schoolmaster,
sitt
ing in an oriel window reading Plato's beautiful
account of the death of Socrates.
Her
father and mother were hunting in the park, the
hounds were in full cry and their
voices came in thrrough the open
window. He expressed his surprise that she had not
joined them. But, said she,
the pleasure I find in
Plato.
Macaulay
had
wealth
and
fame,
rank
and
power,
and
yet
he
tells
us
in
his
biography that he owed
the happiest hours of his life to books. In a
charming letter to
a little girl, he
says:
my little girl happy, and nothing
pleases me so much as to see that she likes books,
for
when she is as old as I am, she
will find that they are better than all the tarts
and cakes,
toys and plays, and sights
in the world, if any one would make me the
greatest king
that ever lived, with
palaces and gardens and fine dinners, and wines
and coaches, and
beautiful clothes, and
hundreds of servants, on condition that I should
not read books,
I would not be a king.
I would rather be a poor man in a garret with
plenty of books
than a king who did not
love reading.
Books, indeed, endow us
with a whole enchanted palace of thoughts. There
is a
wider prospect, says Jean Paul
Richter, from Parnassus than from a throne. In one
way
they
give
us
an
even
more
vivid
idea
than
the
actual
reality,
just
as
reflections
are
often
more
beautiful
than
real
nature.
mirrors,
says
George
Macdonald.
commonest room is a room in
a poem when I look in the
glass.
Precious and priceless are the
blessings which the books scatter around our daily
paths. We walk, in imagination, with
the noblest spirits, through the most sublime and
enchanting regions.
Without
stirring from our firesides we may roam to the
most remote regions of
the earth, or
soar into realms where Spenser's shapes of
unearthly beauty flock to meet
us;
where Milton's angels peal in our ears the choral
hymns of Paradise. Science, art,
literature,
philosophy,
--all
that
man
has
thought,
all
that
man
has
done,
--the
experience that has been bought wnh the
sufferings of a hundred generations, --all are
gamered up for us in the world of
books.
(658 words)
28.
Relax and
enjoy it! This is a terrific time to buy wine. The
selection has never been so great or
so
good. The downside is that you can be spoilt for
choice. In some supermarkets, you may find
over
500
different
wines.
How
do
you
decide
what
to
buy?
Where
do
you
start?
If
not
the
supermarket,
where
else?
Corner
shop?
High
Street
chain?
Independent
Wine
Merchant?
Mail
Order? Online? Or place
of origin?
Bear in mind
that the more you pay, the higher proportion of
your money goes on the actual
12
wine. Expensive wine is
much better than cheap wine. What??!! Yes indeed.
This is because of the
fixed costs. The
material and labor costs involved in bottling,
corkage, labeling, packaging, freight,
and insurance, plus duty when
applicable - will all be roughly the same no
matter what the value
of
the
wine.
Add
on
everyone's
profit
margins.
The
result
is
that
the
value
of
the
wine
in
the
cheapest bottles may be
as little as one fifth of the total price. For
medium price bottles, it'll be
around a
third, but with expensive ones it can go up to a
half. So it's worth paying more whenever
you can.
A
couple of things to look out for. Avoid bottles
whose corks are either weeping or bulging.
Reject bottles that look as if they may
have been standing upright for a long time.
Compare the
vintage (if it has one)
with the date by which the wine should be drunk;
if it's inexpensive, white
in
particular,
don't
buy
it
if
it's
more
than
a
year
or
two
old.
It's
likely
to
be
a
flabby
relic.
Conversely, if it's a young expensive
red wine, especially European, it may well be
harsh and not
yet ready for drinking.
The
widest
selection
of
wine,
at
the
most
competitive
prices,
is
usually
to
be
found
in
supermarkets. Their buying power
enables them to strike deals with producers, which
are beyond
the clout of smaller shops.
By the same token, they can exert a strong
influence on the style of
wine they
sell - the style they believe will appeal to their
customers. You find supermarkets' own
label
wines,
made
to
their
specification.
These
will
be
reliable,
ready
for
drinking,
fashionable,
well-priced, modern styles of wine.
You'll find no shortage of
the next 6
to 12 months
purchase
To be sure, you'll find dozens of other
styles as well. What you won't find is much help
from
the staff. If you want advice,
your best bet will be to take a look at the back
label. Here you'll often
find
specific
serving
and
food-accompanying
suggestions.
In
some
cases
there
will
also
be
a
delightful description of
the wine's background.
The
other
thing
you
won't
find
on
a
supermarket
shelf
is
wine
which
is
not
made
in
large
quantities. The very bulk buying which
gives them such bargaining power, also means that
they
can't
consider
wines
from
small
producers.
They
can't
stock
innovative,
offbeat,
idiosyncratic
wines. Small
producers can't deal with supermarkets, because
they're not able to supply wine on a
large enough scale. Yet theirs are
often the most interesting.
The ultimate wine buying experience is
probably to go to the very source and find your
own
small
producer.
In
smarter,
more
upmarket
wineries
you'll
find
a
variety
of
bottles
set
out
on
a
ritzy
tasting table, allowing you to sample their range
of vintages and styles. And with luck, you'll
get a tour of the cellars as well.
Don't feel you must buy on these occasions. But
the more you
taste and the longer you
stay, the more it's expected.
Wine sales were enthusiastically
unleashed on the Internet a few years ago, but
many didn't
survive
the
bursting
of
the
dot
com
bubble.
However
a
number
of
merchants
and
mail
order
companies continue to develop them as a
sideline. (666)
29.
Life for
almost everybody is a long competitive struggle
where very few can win the race, and
those who do not win are unhappy. On
social occasions when it is de rigueur to seem
cheerful, the
necessary demeanor is
stimulated by alcohol. But the gaiety does not
ring true and anybody who
13
has just one drink too
many is apt to lapse into lachrymose melancholy.
One finds this sort of thing only among
English-speaking people. A Frenchman while he is
abusing
the
Governments
is
as
gay
as
a
lark.
So
is
an
Italian
while
he
is
telling
you
how
his
neighbor
has
swindled
him.
Mexicans,
when
they
are
not
actually
starving
or
actually
being
murdered, sing and dance and enjoy
sunshine and food and drink with a gusto which is
very rare
north of the Mexican
frontier.
When I try to
understand what it is that prevents so many
Americans from being as happy as
one
might expect, it seems to me that there are tow
causes, of which one goes much deeper than
the other. The one that goes least deep
is the necessity for subservience in some large
organization.
If you are an energetic
man with strong views as to the right way of doing
the job with which you
are concerned,
you find yourself invariably under the orders of
some big man at the top who is
elderly,
weary and cynical. Whenever you have a bright
idea, the boss puts a stopper on it. The
more
energetic
you
are
and
the
more
vision
you
have,
the
more
you
will
suffer
from
the
impossibility of doing any of the
things that you feel ought to be done. When you go
home and
moan to your wife, she tells
you that you are a silly fellow and that if you
became the proper sort
of
yes-man
your
income
would
soon
be
doubled.
If
you
try
divorce
and
remarriage
it
is
very
unlikely
that there will be any chance in this respect. And
so you are condemned to great ulcers
and premature old age. (344)
30.
The
rocket
engine,
with
its
steady
roar
like
that
of
a
waterfall
or
a
thunderstorm,
is
an
impressive symbol of
the new space age. Rcoket engines have
proved powerful enough to shot
astronauts beyond the
earth
’
s gravitational pull
and land them on the moon. We have now become
travelers in space.
Impressive and complex as it may
appear, the rocket is a relatively simple device.
Fuel than
is burned in the rocket
engine changes into gas. The hot and rapidly
expanding gas must escape,
but it can
do so only through an opening that faces backward.
As the gas is ejected with great force,
it pushes the rocket in the opposite
direction.
There
are
many
problems
connected
with
space
travel.
The
first
and
greatest
of
them
is
gravity. If you let your
pencil drop to the floor, you can see gravity in
action. Everything is held
down to the
earth by magnetic force. The weight of something
is another way of describing the
amount
of
force
exerted
on
it
by
gravity.
A
rocket
must
go
at
least
2500
miles
an hour
to
take
anyone beyond the gravity of the earth
into space.
Another problem is the
strain that a person is subjected to when a rocket
leaves the ground.
Anything that is not
moving tends to resist movement. As the rocket
leaves the ground, it pushes
upward
violently, and the person in the nose is pushed
back against the chair. During this thrust,
gravity exerts a force on the body
equal to nine times its normal force.
Once
out
of
the
earth
’
s
gravity,
an
astronaut
is
affected
by
still
another
problem
－<
/p>
weightlessness. here, if a pencil drops,
it does not fall. If a glass of water is turned
upside down,
the water will not fall
out. All of us who are used to gravity expect
things to have weight and to
fall
when
dropped.
Our
bodies,
which
are
accustomed
to
gravity,
tend
to
become
upset
in
weightless conditions. Recent long
flights have shown that the body needs to special
exercise in a
spaceship.
Cosmic rays and tiny dust particles
also raise a problem. Outer space, which has no
air, is
14
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