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新概念三 Lesson 14    A noble gangster 贵族歹徒

There was a time when the owners of shops and businesses in Chicago had to pay large sums ofmoney to gangstersin returnfor 'protection.' If the money was not paidpromptly, the gangsters would quickly put a manout of business by destroying his shop.Obtaining'protection money' is not a modern crime.As long ago as the fourteenth century, anEnglishman, Sir John Hawkwood,made the remarkablediscovery that peoplewouldratherpay largesums of money than have their life work destroyed by gangsters.

Six hundredyears ago, Sir Johan Hawkwood arrived inItaly with a band of soldiers andsettlednear Florence. He soonmadea name for himself and came to be known to the Italians as Giovanni Acuto.Whenever the Italian city-states wereat war with each other, Hawkwood used to hire his soldiers toprinces who were willing to pay the high price hedemanded.In times of peace,when business was bad, Hawkwood and his men wouldmarchinto a city-state and, afterburningdown a few farms, wouldoffer to go away if protection money was paid to them.Hawkwoodmade large sums ofmoney in this way.Inspite of this, the Italiansregardedhim as a sort of hero. When he diedat the age of eighty, the Florentines gave him a state funeralandhad a pictured painted which was dedicatedto the memory of'the mostvaliant soldier and most notable leader, Signor Giovanni Haukodue.'

曾经有一个时期,芝加哥的店主和商行的老板们不得不拿出大笔的钱给歹徒以换取"保护"。如果交款不及时,歹徒们就会很快捣毁他的商店,让他破产.榨取"保护金"并不是一种现代的罪恶行径.早在14世纪,英国人约翰.霍克伍德就有过非凡的发现:"人们情愿拿出大笔的钱,也不愿毕生的心血毁于歹徒之手.

600年前,约翰.霍克伍德爵士带着一队士兵来到意大利,在佛罗伦萨附近驻扎下来,很快就出了名.意大利人叫他乔凡尼.阿库托.每次意大利各城邦之间发生战争,霍克伍德把他的士兵雇佣给愿给他出高价的君主。和平时期,当生意萧条时,霍克伍德便带领士兵进入某个城邦,纵火烧毁一两个农场,然后提出,如向他们缴纳保护金,他们便主动撤离。霍克伍德用这种方法挣了大笔钱.尽管如此,意大利人还是把他视作某种英雄。他80岁那年死去时,佛罗伦萨人为他举行了国葬,并为他画像以纪念这位"骁勇无比的战士、杰出的领袖乔凡尼.阿库托先生."

Lesson 17     The longest suspension bridge in the world 世界上最长的吊桥

Verrazano, anItalian about whom little is known, sailed into New York Harbour in 1524 andnamed it Angouleme. Hedescribed it as'a very agreeable situation locatedwithin two small hills in the midst of whichfloweda great river.' Though Verrazano isby no means consideredto be a great explorer, his name willprobablyremain immortal, for on November 21st,1964, the longestsuspension bridge inthe world wasnamed afterhim.

The VerrazanoBridge, which was designed by OthmarAmmann, joins Brooklyn to Staten Island. It has aspanof 4,260 feet. The bridge is so long that theshapeof the earth had to be takeninto account by its designer.Two great towers support four huge cables. The towers are built onimmense underwater platformsmade of steel and concrete.Theplatforms extend to a depth of over 100 feet underthe sea. These alone took sixteen months to build. Above thesurface of the water, the towersrise to a height of nearly 700 feet. They support thecables from which the bridge has been suspended.Each of the four cables contains 26,108 lengths of wire. It has beenestimated that if the bridge werepacked with cars, it wouldstill only be carrying a third of its totalcapacity.However, size and strength are not the only important things about this bridge.Despite its immensity, it is both simple andelegant,fulfilling its designer's dream tocreate 'an enormous object drawn as faintly as possible'.

1524年，一位鲜为人知的意大利人维拉萨诺驾船驶进纽约港，并将该港名为安古拉姆。他对该港作了这样的描述：“地理位置十分适宜，位于两座小山的中间，一条大河从中间流过”。虽然维拉萨诺绝对算不上一个伟大的探险家，但他的名字将流芳百世，因为1964年11月21日建成的一座世界上最长的吊桥是以他的名字命名。

维拉萨诺大桥由奥斯马.阿曼设计，连结着布鲁克林与斯塔顿岛，桥长4,260英尺。由于桥身太长，设计者不得不考虑了地表的形状。两座巨塔支撑着4根粗大的钢缆。塔身建在巨大的水下钢盘混凝土平台上。平台深入海底100英尺。仅这两座塔就花了16个月才建成。塔身高出水面将近700英尺。高塔支撑着钢缆，而钢缆又悬吊着大桥，4根钢缆中的每根由26，108股钢绳组成。据估计，若桥上摆满了汽车，也只不过是桥的总承载力的1/3。然而，这座桥重要特点不仅是它的规模与强度。尽管此桥很大，但它的结构简单，造型优美，实现了设计者企图创造一个“尽量用细线条勾画出一个庞然大物”的梦想。

Lesson 21     Daniel Mendoza      丹尼尔.门多萨

Boxing matcheswere very popular in England two hundred years ago. In those days, boxersfought with bare fists for prize money. Because of this, theywereknown as'prize-fighters'. However, boxing was verycrude, for there were no rules and a prize-fightercould beseriously injured or evenkilled during a match.

One of the mostcolourful figures in boxing history wasDaniel Mendoza, who was born in 1764. The use ofgloveswas not introduced until 1860, when theMarquis of Queensberry drew up the first set ofrules. Though he wastechnically aprize-fighter, Mendoza did much to change crude prize-fighting into a sport,for he broughtscienceto the game.In his day,Mendoza enjoyedtremendous popularity.He wasadoredby rich and poor alike.

Mendoza rose to fame swiftly after a boxing-match when he was onlyfourteen years old. Thisattracted theattention of Richard Humphries who was then the mosteminent boxer in England. He offered to train Mendoza andhis youngpupil wasquick to learn. In fact, Mendoza soon became so successful that Humphriesturned against him. The twomenquarrelled bitterly and it was clearthat the argument could only besettledby a fight. A match was held at Stilton, where both men fought for an hour. Thepublic bet a great deal of money on Mendoza, but he wasdefeated.Mendoza met Humphriesin thering on a later occasion and he lost for a second time.Itwas not until his third match in 1790 that he finally beat Humphries and becameChampionof England. Meanwhile, he founded a highly successfulAcademy and even LordByron became one of hispupils.He earnedenormous sums of moneyand was paidas much as100 pounds for a single appearance.Despite this, he was soextravagantthat he was always indebt.After he was defeated by a boxer called Gentleman Jackson, he was quicklyforgotten. He was sent to prison for failing to pay his debts and diedin poverty in 1836.

两百年前，拳击比赛在英国非常盛行。当时，拳击手们不戴手套，为争夺奖金而搏斗。因此，他们被称作“职业拳击手”。不过，拳击是十分野蛮的，因为当时没有任何比赛规则，职业拳击手有可能在比赛中受重伤，甚至丧命。

拳击史上最引人注目的人物之一是丹尼尔.门多萨，他生于1764年。1860年昆斯伯里侯爵第一次为拳击比赛制定了规则，拳击比赛这才用上了手套。虽然门多萨严格来讲不过是个职业拳击手，但在把这种粗野的拳击变成一种体育运动方面，他作出了重大贡献。是他把科学引进了这项运动。门多萨在他的全盛时期深受大家欢迎，无论是富人还是穷人都对他祟拜备至。

门多萨在14岁时参加一场拳击赛后一举成名。这引起当时英国拳坛名将理查德.汉弗莱斯的注意。他主动提出教授门多萨，而年少的门多萨一学就会。事实上，门多萨不久便名声大振，致使汉弗莱斯与他反目为敌。两个人争吵不休，显而易见，只有较量一番才能解决问题。于是两人在斯蒂尔顿设下赛场，厮打了一个小时。公众把大笔赌注下到了门多萨身上，但他却输了。后来，门多萨与汉弗莱斯再次在拳击场上较量，门多萨又输了一场。直到1790年他们第3次对垒，门多萨才终于击败汉弗莱斯，成了全英拳击冠军。同时，他建立了一所拳击学校，办得很成功，连拜伦勋爵也成了他的学生。门多萨挣来大笔大笔的钱，一次出场费就多可达100英镑。尽管收入不少，但他挥霍无度，经常债台高筑。他被一个叫杰克逊绅士的拳击手击败后很快被遗忘。他因无力还债而被捕入狱，最后于1836年在贫困中死去。

Lesson 24  A skeleton in the cupboard “家丑”

We often read in novels how a seemingly respectable person or family has some terrible secret which has been concealed from strangers foryears.The English language possesses a vivid saying to describe this sort of situation.The terrible secret is called ‘as keleton in the cupboard’.At some dramatic moment in the story, the terrible secret becomes known and a reputation isruined. The reader's hairstands on end when he reads in the final pages of the novel that theheroine, a dear old lady who had alwaysbeen so kind to everybody, had, in her youth,poisonedevery one of her five husbands.

It is all very well for such things tooccur in fiction. Tovarying degrees, we all have secrets which we do not want even ourclosest friends to learn, but few of us haveskeletons in the cupboard. The only person I know who has a skeleton in thecupboard is George Carlton, and he is veryproud of the fact. George studied medicine in his youth.Instead of becoming a doctor, however, he became a successful writer ofdetective stories. I once spent anuncomfortable weekend which I shall never forgetat his house. George showed me to the guest-room which, he said, was rarelyused. He told me tounpack my things andthen come down to dinner. After I had stacked my shirts and underclothes in twoempty drawers, I decided to hang one ofthe two suits I had brought with me in the cupboard. I opened the cupboarddoor and then stood in front ofitpetrified. A skeleton was dangling before my eyes. The sudden movement ofthe door made it swayslightly and itgave me the impression that it was about toleap out at me. Dropping mysuit, I dashed downstairs to tellGeorge. This was worse than ‘a terrible secret’; this was a real skeleton! ButGeorge wasunsympathetic. ‘Oh, that,’ hesaid with a smileas ifhe were talking aboutan old friend. ‘That's Sebastian. You forget that I was a medical studentonce upon a time. ’

在小说中，我们经常读到一个表面上受人尊重的人物或家族，却有着某种多年不为人所知的骇人听闻的秘密。英语中有一个生动的说法来形容这种情况。惊人的秘密被称作“柜中骷髅”。在小说的某个戏剧性时刻，可怕的秘密泄漏出来，接着便是某人的声誉扫地。当读者读到小说最后几页了解到书中女主人公，那位一向待大家很好的可爱的老妇人年轻时一连毒死了她的5个丈夫时，不禁会毛骨悚然。

这种事发生在小说中是无可非议的。尽管我们人人都有各种大小秘密，连最亲密的朋友都不愿让他们知道，但我们当中极少有人有柜中骷髅。我所认识的唯一的在柜中藏骷髅的人便是乔治·卡尔顿，他甚至引以为自豪。乔治年轻时学过医，然而，他后来没当上医生，却成了一位成功的侦探小说作家。有一次，我在他家里度周末，过得很不愉快。这事我永远不会忘记。乔治把我领进客房，说这间房间很少使用。他让我打开行装后下楼吃饭。我将衬衫、内衣放进两个空抽屉里，然后我想把随身带来的两套西服中的一套挂到大衣柜里去。我打开柜门，站在柜门前一下子惊呆了。一具骷髅悬挂在眼前，由于柜门突然打开，它也随之轻微摇晃起来，让我觉得它好像马上要跳出柜门朝我扑过来似的。我扔下西服冲下楼去告诉乔治。这是比“骇人听闻的秘密”更加惊人的东西，这是一具真正的骷髅啊！但乔治却无动于衷。“噢，是它呀！他笑着说道，俨然在谈论一位老朋友。“那是塞巴斯蒂安。你忘了我以前是学医的了。”

Lesson 27    Nothing to sell and nothing to buy 没有东西可卖也没有东西可买

It has been said that everyonelives byselling something.In the lightof this statement, teacherslive by selling knowledge,philosophersby selling wisdom andpriests by sellingspiritual comfort. Though it may bepossible tomeasure the value ofmaterial goodin terms ofmoney, it is extremely difficult to estimate the true value of theservices which people performfor us.There are times whenwe wouldwillingly give everything we possess to save our lives, yet we might grudge paying a surgeon a high fee for offeringuspreciselythisservice. The conditions of society are such that skills have to be paid forin the same way thatgoods are paid for at a shop. Everyone has something to sell.

Tramps seem to be the only exception to this general rule. Beggars almostsell themselves ashuman beingsto arouse the pity of passers-by. But real tramps are not beggars.They havenothing to sell and require nothing from others. In seeking independence, they do not sacrifice their humandignity. A tramp may ask you for money, but hewill never ask you tofeelsorry for him. He has deliberatelychosen to lead the life he leads and is fullyaware of the consequences.He may never be sure where the next meal iscoming from, but he is free from the thousands of anxieties whichafflictother people. His few material possessions make it possible for him to movefrom place to placewith ease.By having to sleep in the open,he gets far closer tothe world of nature than most of us ever do. He may hunt, beg, or stealoccasionally to keep himself alive; he may even,in times of real need, do alittle work; but he will neversacrificehis freedom. We oftenspeakof tramps with contempt andput them in the same class as beggars, but how many of us can honestly say thatwe have not felt a littleenvious oftheir simple way of life and their freedom from care?

据说每个人都靠出售某种东西来维持生活。根据这种说法，教师靠卖知识为生，哲学家靠卖智慧为生，牧师靠卖精神安慰为生。虽然物质产品的价值可以用金钱来衡量，但要估算别人为我们为所提供的服务的价值却是极其困难的。有时，我们为了挽救生命，愿意付出我们所占有的一切。但就在外科大夫给我们提供了这种服务后，我们却可能为所支付的昂贵的费用而抱怨。社会上的情况就是如此，技术是必须付钱去买的，就像在商店里要花钱买商品一样。人人都有东西可以出售。

在这条普遍的规律前面，好像只有流浪汉是个例外，乞丐出售的几乎是他本人，以引起过路人的怜悯。但真正的流浪并不是乞丐。他们既不出售任何东西，也不需要从别人那儿得到任何东西，在追求独立自由的同时，他们并不牺牲为人的尊严。游浪汉可能会向你讨钱，但他从来不要你可怜他。他是故意在选择过那种生活的，并完全清楚以这种方式生活的后果。他可能从不知道下顿饭有无着落，但他不像有人那样被千万桩愁事所折磨。他几乎没有什么财产，这使他能够轻松自如地在各地奔波。由于被迫在露天睡觉，他比我们中许多人都离大自然近得多。为了生存，他可能会去打猎、乞讨，偶尔偷上一两回；确实需要的时候，他甚至可能干一点儿活，但他决不会牺牲自由。说起流浪汉，我们常常带有轻蔑并把他们与乞丐归为一类。但是，我们中有多少人能够坦率地说我们对流浪汉的简朴生活与无忧无虑的境况不感到有些羡慕呢？

Lesson 33  A day to remember 难忘的一天

 We haveall experienced days when everythinggoes wrong. A day may beginwell enough, but suddenly everything seems toget out of control. What invariably happens is that a great number of thingschoose to go wrong atprecisely the same moment. It is asif a single unimportant eventsetup a chain of reactions. Letus suppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on the baby at the same time. Thetelephone rings and this marks thepreludetoan unforeseen series of catastrophes.While you are on the phone,the baby pulls the table-cloth off the table,smashinghalf your best crockery and cuttinghimselfin the process.Youhang uphurriedly and attend tobaby, crockery, etc. Meanwhile, the mealgets burnt. As if this were not enough toreduce you to tears, your husband arrives,unexpectedly bringing three guests to dinner.

Things can go wrong on a big scale, as anumber of people recently discovered in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney. Duringtherush hour oneevening two carscollided and bothdrivers began to argue. The womanimmediatelybehind the two cars happened tobe a learner. She suddenlygot into a panic and stopped her car. This made the driverfollowing her brake hard. His wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake.As she wasthrown forward, the cake wentright through thewindscreen and landedon the road. Seeing a cake flying through the air, a lorry–driver who wasdrawing up alongside the car,pulled upall of a sudden. The lorry wasloaded with empty beerbottles and hundreds of themslidoff the back of the vehicleand on to the road. This led to yet another angry argument. Meanwhile, thetrafficpiled upbehind. It took the police nearly an hour to get the traffic on the moveagain.In the meantime,the lorry driver had to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles. Only two straydogsbenefited from all this confusion, for they greedily devoured what was left of the cake. It was justone of those days!

我们大家都有过事事不顺心的日子。一天开始时，可能还不错，但突然间似乎一切都失去了控制。情况经常是这样的，许许多多的事情都偏偏赶在同一时刻出问题，好像是一件无关紧要的小事引起了一连串的连锁反应。假设你在做饭，同时又在照看孩子。这时电话铃响了，它预示着一连串意想不到的灾难的来临。就在你接电话时，孩子把桌布从桌子上扯了下来，将家中最好的陶瓷餐具半数摔碎，同时也弄伤了他自己。你急急忙忙挂上电话，赶去照看孩子和餐具。这时，饭又烧糊了。好像这一切还不足以使你急得掉泪，你的丈夫接着回来了，事先没打招呼就带来3个客人吃饭。

就像许多人最近在悉尼郊区帕拉马塔所发现的那样，有时乱子会闹得很大。一天傍晚交通最拥挤时，一辆汽车撞上前面一辆汽车，两个司机争吵起来。紧跟其后的一辆车上的司机碰巧是个初学者，她一惊之下突然把车停了下来。她这一停使得跟在后头的司机也来了个急刹车。司机的妻子正坐在他身边，手里托着块大蛋糕。她往前一冲，蛋糕从挡风玻璃飞了出去掉在马路上。此时，一辆卡车正好从后边开到那辆汽车边上，司机看见一块蛋糕从天而降，紧急刹车。卡车上装着空啤酒瓶，成百只瓶子顺势从卡车后面滑出车外落在马路上。这又引起了一场唇枪舌剑的争吵。与此同时，后面的车辆排成了长龙，警察花了将近一个小时才使车辆又开起来。在这段时间里，卡车司机不得不清扫那几百只破瓶子。只有两只野狗从这一片混乱中得到了好处，它们贪婪地吃掉了剩下的蛋糕。这就是事事不顺心的那么一天！

Lesson 34  A happy discovery 幸运的发现

 Antiqueshops exert a peculiarfascination on a great many people. The more expensive kind ofantique shop where rare objects are beautifully displayed in glass cases tokeep them free from dust is usually a forbiddingplace. But no one has tomusterup courage to enter a lesspretentiousantique shop. There is always hope that in itslabyrinthof musty, dark, disordered rooms a realrarity will be found amongst the piles ofassortedjunk that litter the floors.

No one discoversa rarity by chance.A trulydedicated bargain hunter must havepatience, and above all, the ability torecognize the worth of something when he sees it.To do this, he must beat leastas knowledgeable as the dealer. Like a scientistbent on making a discovery, hemust cherish the hope that one day hewill beamply rewarded.

My old friend,Frank Halliday, is just such a person. He has often describedto me how hepicked upa masterpiece for a mere￡50. One Saturday morning,Frank visited an antique shop in my neighbourhood.As he had never beenthere before, he found a greatdeal to interest him. The morning passed rapidly and Frankwas about to leave when he noticed a large packing-case lying on the floor.Thedealer told him that it had just come in, but that he could not bebotheredto open it. Frank beggedhim to do so and the dealer reluctantlyprised it open. The contents were disappointing.Apart from an interesting-looking carved dagger,the box was full of crockery,muchofit broken.Frank gently lifted the crockery out of the box and suddenly noticed aminiature painting at the bottom of the packing-case. As itsComposition and line remindedhim of an Italian painting he knew well, he decided to buy it.Glancing at it briefly, thedealer told him that it was worth￡50. Frank could hardlyconceal his excitement, forhe knew that he hadmade a realdiscovery. The tiny paintingproved to be an unknown masterpiece by Correggio and was worth hundreds of thousandsof pounds.

古玩店对许多人来说有一种特殊的魅力。高档一点的古玩店为了防尘，把文物漂亮地陈列在玻璃柜子里，那里往往令人望而却步。而对不太装腔作势的古玩店，无论是谁都不用壮着胆子才敢往里进。人们还常常有希望在发霉、阴暗、杂乱无章、迷宫般的店堂里，从杂乱地摆放在地面上的、一堆堆各式各样的破烂货里找到一件稀世珍品。

无论是谁都不会一下子就发现一件珍品。一个到处找便宜货买的人必须具有耐心，而且最重要的是看到珍品时要有鉴别珍品的能力。要做到这一点，他至少要像古董商一样在行。他必须像一个专心致志进行探索的科学家那样抱有这样的希望，即终有一天，他的努力会取得丰硕的成果。

我的老朋友弗兰克·哈利戴正是这样一个人。他多次向我详细讲他如何只花50英镑便买到一位名家的杰作。一个星期六的上午，弗兰克去了我家附近的一家古玩店。由于他从未去过那儿，结果他发现了许多有趣的东西。上午很快过去了，弗兰克正准备离去，突然看见地板上放着一只体积很大的货箱。古董商告诉他那只货箱刚到不久，但他嫌麻烦不想把它打开。经弗兰克恳求，古董商才勉强把货箱撬开了。箱内东西令人失望。除了一柄式样别致、雕有花纹的匕首外，货箱内装满了陶器，而且大部分都已破碎。弗兰克轻轻地把陶器拿出箱子，突然发现在箱底有一幅微型画，画面构图与线条使他想起了一幅他所熟悉的意大利画，于是他决定将画买下来。古董商漫不经心看了一眼那幅画，告诉弗兰克那画值50英镑。弗兰克几乎无法掩饰自己兴奋的心情，因为他明白自己发现了一件珍品。那幅不大的画原来是柯勒乔的一幅未被发现的杰作，价值几十万英镑。

Lesson 38    The first calender 最早的日历

Future historians will bein a unique position when theycome to record the history of our own times.Theywill hardly know which facts to selectfrom thegreat massof evidence that steadilyaccumulates.What is more, theywill not have torely solely onthe written word. Films, videos, CDs and CD-ROMS are just some of thebewildering amount of information they will have.They will be able,as itwere, to see and hear usin action. But the historianattempting to reconstructthe distant past is always facedwith a difficult task. He has todeducewhat he can from the few scanty clues available. Even seeminglyinsignificant remains can shed interesting light on thehistory of early man.

Up to now, historians haveassumedthat calendars came into beingwith the advent ofagriculture,for then man was faced with areal need to understand something about the seasons. Recentscientificevidence seems to indicatethat thisassumption is incorrect.

Historians have long been puzzledby dots,lines and symbols which have beenengravedon walls, bones, and the ivory tusks ofmammoths.The nomads who made these markingslived by hunting and fishingduring the last Ice Age which began about 35,000 B.C. and ended about 10,000B.C. Bycorrelating markings made invarious parts of the world, historians have been able to read this difficultcode. They have found that it isconnectedwith the passage of days and thephasesof the moon. It is, in fact,a primitive type of calendar.It has long been knownthat the hunting scenesdepicted onwalls were not simply a form ofartisticexpression. They had a definite meaning, for they wereas near as early man couldget to writing.It is possiblethat there is adefiniterelation between these paintings and the markings that sometimesaccompany them. It seems that man was making a realeffort to understand the seasons 20,000 yearsearlier than has beensupposed.

未来的历史学家在写我们这一段历史的时候会别具一格。对于逐渐积累起来的庞大材料，他们几乎不知道选取哪些好，而且，也不必完全依赖文字材料。电影、录像、光盘和光盘驱动器只是能为他们提供令人眼花缭乱的大量信息的几种手段。他们能够身临其境般地观看我们做事，倾听我们讲话。但是，历史学家企图重现遥远的过去可是一项艰巨的任务，他们必须根据现有的不充分的线索进行推理。即使看起来微不足道的遗物，也可能揭示人类早期历史的一些有趣的内容。

历史学家迄今认为日历是随农业的问世而出现的，因为当时人们面临着了解四季的实际需要，但近期科学研究发现，好像这种假设是不正确的。

长期以来，历史学家一直对雕刻在墙壁上、骨头上、古代长毛象的象牙上的点、线和形形色色的符号感到困惑不解。这些痕迹是游牧人留下的，他们生活在从公元前约35，000年到公元前10，000年的冰川期的末期，以狩猎、捕鱼为生。历史学家通过把世界各地留下的这种痕迹放在一起研究，终于弄懂了这种费解的代码。他们发现代码与昼夜更迭和月亮圆缺有关，事实上是一种最原始的日历。大家早就知道，画在墙上的狩猎图景并不是单纯的艺术表现形式，它们有着一定的含义，因为它们已接近古代人的文字形式。有时，这种图画与墙壁上的刻痕共存，它们之间可能有一定的联系。看来人类早就致力于探索四季变迁了，比人们想像的要早20,000年。

Lesson 40  Who's who 真假难辨

It has neverbeen explained why university students seem to enjoy practical jokes more than anyone else. Studentsspecialize in a particular type of practical joke:thehoax. Inviting the fire-brigadetoput out a non-existent fire is a crude form ofdeception which no self-respecting student wouldeverindulge in.Students often create amusingsituationswhich are funny to everyone except thevictims.

When a studentrecently saw two workmen using a pneumaticdrill outside his university, he immediately telephoned the police andinformed them that two students dressed up as workmen were tearing up the road with apneumatic drill.As soon ashe had hung up, hewent over to the workmen and told them that if a policemanordered them to go away, they were not totake him seriously. He addedthat a student had dressed up as a policeman and was playingall sorts of silly jokes onpeople.Both the police and the workmen were gratefulto the student for this piece ofadvanceinformation.

The student hidin an archway nearby where he could watch and hear everything that went on.Sure enough, a policeman arrived on the scene andpolitely asked the workmen to go away.When he received a very rude replyfrom one of the workmen, he threatenedto remove them by force. The workmen told him to do as he pleased and thepolicemantelephoned for help.Shortly afterwards,four more policemen arrived andremonstratedwith the workmen. As the men refused to stop working, the policeattempted to seize the pneumatic drill. Theworkmenstruggled fiercely and one ofthemlost his temper.He threatened tocall the police. At this, the policepointed out ironicallythat this would hardly be necessary as the men were already under arrest.Pretending tospeak seriously, one of the workmen asked if he might make a telephone call beforebeing taken to the station.Permissionwas granted and a policemanaccompaniedhim to a pay phone.Onlywhen he saw that the man was actually telephoning the police did he realize that they had all been the victims of ahoax.

谁也弄不清为什么大学生好像比任何人都更喜欢恶作剧。大学生擅长一种特殊的恶作剧——戏弄人。请消防队来扑灭一场根本没有的大火是一种低级骗局，有自尊心的大学生决不会去做。大学生们常常做的是制造一种可笑的局面，除了受害者大家都觉得非常滑稽。

最近有个学生看见两个工人在大学校门外用风钻干活，马上打电话报告警察，说有两个学生装扮成工人，正在用风钻破坏路面。挂上电话后，他又马上来到工人那儿，告诉他们若有个警察来让他们走开，不要把他当回事；还对工人说，有个学生常装扮成警察无聊地同别人开玩笑。警察与工人都对那个学生事先通报情况表示感谢。

那学生躲在附近一拱形门廊里，在那儿可以看见、听到现场发生的一切。果然，警察来了，有礼貌地请工人离开此地；但其中一个工人粗鲁地回了几句。于是警察威胁要强行使他们离开。工人说，悉听尊便。警察去打电话叫人。一会儿工夫，又来了4个警察，规劝工人离开。由于工人拒绝停下手中的活，警察想夺风钻。两个工人奋力抗争，其中一个发了火，威胁说要去叫警察。警察听后讥讽地说，这大可不必，因为他俩已被逮捕了。其中一个工人装模作样地问道，在被带往警察局之前，是否可以打一个电话。警察同意了，陪他来到一个投币电话前。当他看到那个工人真的是给警察挂电话，才恍然大悟，原来他们都成了一场骗局的受害者。

Lesson 41  Illusions of PastoralPeace 宁静田园生活的遐想

 Thequiet life of the country has never appealed to me. City born and city bred, I have alwaysregarded the country assomething you look at through a train window, or something youoccasionally visit during the weekend. Most of myfriends live in the city, yet they alwaysgo into raptures at the mere mention of the country. Though they extol thevirtuesof the peaceful life, only one of them has ever gone to live in the country andhe was back in town within six months.Even he still lives under the illusion thatcountry life is somehowsuperiorto town life. He is forevertalking about the friendly people, the cleanatmosphere, the closeness to nature and thegentle pace of living.Nothing can be compared,he maintains, with the first cock crow, thetwitteringof birds at dawn, the sight of the rising sunglintingon the trees and pastures. Thisidyllic pastoral scene is only part of the picture.My friendfails to mention the long and friendless winter eveningsin front of the TV ---- virtually the only form of entertainment. Hesays nothing about the poorselection of goods in the shops, or about thoseunfortunatepeople who have to travel from the country to the city every day to get towork.Why people are preparedto tolerate a four-hourjourney each day for the dubious privilegeof living in the country is beyond me. They could be saved so much miseryand expense if theychose tolive in the city where theyrightlybelong.

If you can do without the fewpastoral pleasures of the country, you will findthe city canprovide you withthe best that life can offer. Younever have to travel miles to see your friends. Theyinvariably live nearby and are alwaysavailable for an informal chat or an evening'sentertainment. Some of myacquaintancesin the country come up totown once or twice a year to visit the theatre as a special treat. For themthis is a majoroperation which involvesconsiderable planning. As the playdraws to its close, theywonder whether they will ever catch that last train home.The city dwellernever experiences anxieties of this sort. The latest exhibitions, films, or plays are only a short busride away. Shopping, too, is always a pleasure.There is so much variety that you never have tomake do with second best.Country people run wild when they go shopping inthe city and stagger homeloaded with as many of the exotic items as they can carry. Nor is the city without its moments ofbeauty.There is something comforting about the warm glow shedby advertisements on cold wet winter nights. Few things could be moreimpressive than the peace that descends on deserted city streets at weekendswhen the thousands that travel to work every day aretucked away in their homes in the country.It has always been a mysteryto me why city dwellers, whoappreciateall these things, obstinately pretendthat they would prefer tolive in the country.

宁静的乡村生活从来没有吸引过我。我生在城市，长在城市，总认为乡村是透过火车车窗看到的那个样子，或偶尔周末去游玩一下的景象。我的许多朋友都住在城市，但他们只要一提起乡村，马上就会变得欣喜若狂。尽管他们都交口称赞宁静的乡村生活的种种优点，但其中只有一人真去农村住过，而且不足6个月就回来了。即使他也仍存有幻觉，好像乡村生活就是比城市生活优越。他滔滔不绝地大谈友好的农民，洁净的空气，贴近大自然的环境和悠闲的生活节奏。他坚持认为，凌晨雄鸡第一声啼叫，黎明时分小鸟吱喳欢叫，冉冉升起的朝阳染红树木、牧场，此番美景无与伦比。但这种田园诗般的乡村风光仅仅是一个侧面。我的朋友没有提到在电视机前度过的漫长寂寞的冬夜——电视是唯一的娱乐形式。他也不说商店货物品种单调，以及那些每天不得不从乡下赶到城里工作的不幸的人们。人们为什么情愿每天在路上奔波4个小时去换取值得怀疑的乡间的优点，我是无法理解的。要是他们愿意住在本来属于他们的城市，则可以让他们省去诸多不便与节约大量开支。

如果你愿舍弃乡下生活那一点点乐趣的话，那么你会发现城市可以为你提供生活中最美好的东西。你去看朋友根本不用跋涉好几英里，因为他们都住在附近，你随时可以同他们聊天或在晚上一起娱乐。我在乡村有一些熟人，他们每年进城来看一回或几回戏，并把此看作一种特殊的享受。看戏在他们是件大事，需要精心计划。当戏快演完时，他们又为是否能赶上末班火车回家而犯愁。这种焦虑，城里人是从未体验过的。坐公共汽车几站路，就可看到最新的展览、电影、戏剧。买东西也是一种乐趣。物品品种繁多，从来不必用二等品来凑合。乡里人进城采购欣喜若狂，每次回家时都买足了外来商品，直到拿不动方才罢休，连走路都摇摇晃晃的。城市也并非没有良辰美景。寒冷潮湿的冬夜里，广告灯箱发出的暖光，会给人某种安慰。周末，当成千上万进城上班的人回到了他们的乡间寓所之后，空旷的街市笼罩着一种宁静的气氛，没有什么能比此时的宁静更令人难忘了。城里人对这一切心里很明白，却偏要执拗地装出他们喜欢住在乡村的样子，这对我来说一直是个谜。

Lesson 42    Modern cavemen    现代洞穴人

Caveexploration, or pot-holing, as it hascome to be known, is a relativelynew sport. Perhaps it is the desire forsolitudeor the chance of making an unexpected discovery that lures peopledown to the depths of theearth. It is impossible togivea satisfactory explanation for a pot-holer's motives. For him,caveshave the same peculiar fascination whichhigh mountains have for the climber.They arouse instincts which can only be dimly understood.

Exploring reallydeep caves is not a task for the Sunday afternoon rambler.Such undertakings require thepreciseplanning and foresight ofmilitary operations. It can take as long as eightdays to rig up ropeladders and to establish supply bases before adescentcan be made into avery deep cave.Precautions of this sortare necessary, for it is impossible toforetellthe exact nature of the difficulties which willconfrontthe pot-holer. The deepest known cave in the world is the Gouffre Berger nearGrenoble. Itextends toa depth of 3,723 feet. This immensechasmhas been formed by an underground stream which hastunneleda course through a flaw in the rocks. Theentrance to the cave is on a plateau in the Dauphine Alps. As it is only sixfeet across, it is barelynoticeable. Thecave might never have been discovered had not the entrance been spotted by thedistinguished French pot-holer, Berger. Sinceits discovery, it has become a sort of pot-holers'Everest(珠峰). Though a number ofdescents have been made,much of it still remains to be explored.

A team of pot-holersrecentlywent downthe Gouffre Berger. After entering the narrow gapon the plateau, they climbed down the steepsides of the cave until they came to narrowcorridor.They had to edge their wayalong this, sometimeswadingacross shallow streams, or swimming across deep pools. Suddenly theycame to a waterfall whichdroppedinto an underground lakeat the bottom of the cave. Theyplunged into the lake, and after loading theirgear on aninflatable rubber dinghy, let the current carry them to the otherside. To protect themselves from the icy water, they had to wear special rubbersuits. At the far end of the lake, they came to huge piles of rubble which had been washed up by the water. Inthis part of the cave, they could hear aninsistentbooming sound which they found wascaused by a small water-spout shooting down into a pool fromthe roof of the cave.Squeezing througha cleft in the rocks, the pot-holersarrived at an enormous cavern, the size of a huge concert hall.After switching on powerful arc lights, they saw greatstalagmites -- some of them over forty feet high--rising up liketree-trunks to meet thestalactites suspended from the roof.Round about, piles of limestoneglistenedin all the colours of the rainbow. In theeerie（可怕的） silence of thecavern, the only sound that could be heard was made by water which drippedcontinuously from the high dome above them.

洞穴勘查——或洞穴勘探——是一项比较新的体育活动。寻求独处的愿望或寻求意外发现的机会的欲望吸引人们来到地下深处。要想对洞穴探险者的动机作出满意的解释是不可能的。对洞穴探险者来说，洞穴有一种特殊的魅力，就像高山对登山者有特殊魅力一样。为什么洞空能引发人的那种探险本能，人们对此只能有一种模模糊糊的理解。

探测非常深的洞穴不是那些在星期日下午漫步的人所能胜任的。这种活动需要有军事行动般的周密布署和预见能力。有时需要花费整整8天时间来搭起绳梯，建立供应基地，然后才能到一个很深的洞穴里。作出这样的准备是必要的，因为无法预见到洞穴探险者究竟会遇到什么性质的困难。世界上最深的洞穴是格里诺布尔附近的高弗.伯杰洞，深达3,723英尺。这个深邃的洞穴是由一条地下暗泉冲刷岩石中的缝隙并使之慢慢变大而形成的。此洞的洞口在丹芬阿尔卑斯山的高原上，仅6英尺宽，很难被发现。若不是法国著名洞穴探险家伯杰由于偶然的机会发现了这个洞口的话，这个洞也许不会为人所知。自从被发现以后，这个洞成了洞穴探险者的珠穆朗玛峰，人们多次进入洞内探险，但至今尚有不少东西有待勘探。

最近，一队洞穴探险者下到了高弗.伯杰洞里。他们从高原上的窄缝进去，顺着笔直陡峭的洞壁往下爬。来到一条狭窄的走廊上。他们不得不侧着身子往前走，有时过浅溪，有时游过深潭。突然，他们来到一道瀑布前，那瀑布奔泻而下，注入洞底一处地下湖里。他们跳入湖中，把各种器具装上一只充气的橡皮艇，听任水流将他们带往对岸。湖水冰冷刺骨，他们必须穿上一种特制的橡皮服以保护自己。在湖的尽头，他们见到一大堆一大堆由湖水冲刷上岸的碎石。在这儿，他们可以听见一种连续不断的轰鸣声。后来他们发现这是由山洞顶部的一个小孔里喷出的水柱跌落到水潭中发出的声音。洞穴探险者从岩石缝里挤身过去，来到一个巨大的洞里，其大小相当于一个音乐厅。他们打开强力弧光灯，看见一株株巨大的石笋，有的高达40英尺，像树干似地向上长着，与洞顶悬挂下来的钟乳石相接。周围是一堆堆石灰石，像彩虹一样闪闪发光。洞里有一种可怕的寂静，唯一的可以听见的声响是高高的圆顶上不间断地滴水的嘀嗒声。

Lesson 43  Fully insured 全保险

Insurance companies arenormally willing to insureanything. Insuringpublic or privateproperty is a standardpractice in most countries inthe world. If, however, you were holding an open air garden party or afete it would be equally possible to insureyourselfin the event ofbad weather. Needless to say, the bigger the risk an insurance companytakes, the higher the premium you will have to pay.It is not uncommon to hear that a shippingcompany has made aclaim for the cost ofsalvaging a sunken ship.But theclaim made by a local authority to recover the cost of salvaging a sunken piedish must surely be unique.

Admittedly it was an unusual pie dish, for it was eighteenfeet long and six feet wide. It had beenpurchasedby a local authorityso that an enormous pie could be baked for an annual fair. The piecommittee decided that the best way totransport the dish would be by canal, so they insured itfor the trip.Shortly afterit was launched, the pie committee wentto a local inn to celebrate.Atthe same time, a number of teenagersclimbed on to the dish and held a little party oftheir own.Dancing proved to be more than the dish could bear, for during the party itcapsized and sank in seven feet of water.

The piecommittee telephoned a local garageowner whoarrived ina recovery truck to salvage the pie dish.Shiveringin their wet clothes, the teenagers looked on while three mendived repeatedly into thewater to locate the dish. Theyhad little difficulty in finding it, buthauling it out of the water proved to bea serious problem. The sidesof the dish were sosmooth that itwas almost impossible to attach hawsers and chains to the rim without damagingit. Eventually chains were fixed to one end of the dish and a powerfulwinch wasput into operation.The dish rose to thesurface and was gently drawn towards the canal bank.For one agonizing moment, the dish was perchedprecariously on the bank of the canal, but it suddenly overbalanced andslid back into the water. The men were nowobliged to try once more. This time they fixed heavy metal clamps to both sidesof the dish so that they could fasten the chains. The dish now had to be liftedvertically because one edge was restingagainst the side of the canal. The winch was again put into operation and oneof the menstarted upthe truck. Several minutes later, the dish was successfullyhauled above the surface of the water. Waterstreamed in torrents over its sides with suchforce that itset upa huge wave in the canal.Therewas a danger that the wave wouldreboundoff the other side of the bank and send the dishplunging into the water again. By working attremendous speed, the men managed to get the dish on todry land before the wave returned.

保险公司一般说来愿意承保一切东西。承办公共财产或私人财产保险是世界上大部分国家的正常业务。如果你要举办一次露天游园会或盛宴，为避免碰上不好的天气而遭受损失也同样可以保险。不用说，保险公司承担风险越大，你付的保险费也就越高。航运公司为打捞沉船而提出索赔，这是常有的事，但某地当局为打捞一只焙制馅饼的盘子提出索赔，倒是件新鲜事儿。

这个馅饼盘子确实少见，有18英尺长，6英尺宽。某地方当局买下它用来焙制一个巨大的馅饼为一年一度交易会助兴。馅饼委员会确认运输这只盘子的最佳方案是通过运河水运。于是，他们对这只盘子的运输安全投了保。盘子下水后不久，馅饼委员会成员们来到当地一家小酒店庆贺。就在这个时候，许多十几岁的孩子爬上盘子举行他们自己的集会。他们跳起了舞，盘子难以承受。舞会进行过程中，盘子倾覆，沉入了7英尺深的水中。

馅饼委员会给当地汽车修理库老板打电话，他闻讯后开着一辆急修车前来打捞盘子。那些孩子们穿着湿衣服哆嗦，看着3个工人轮番潜入水中以确定盘子的位置。他们没费多大事儿就找到了盘子，可是把盘子捞出却是一个很大的难题。盘子四边十分光滑，要在盘边拴上绳索或链条而同时又不损坏它是很难办到的。不过，他们终于将链条固定在盘子的一端，一台大功率的绞车开动起来。盘子慢慢浮出水面，被轻轻地拽向运河岸边。在令人忐忑不安的瞬间，盘子晃晃悠悠地上了岸，但它突然失去了平衡，又跌回水中。工人们只得再来一次。这次，他们用沉重的金属夹子把盘子夹住，以便往盘子上安装铁链。这次，盘子必须垂直吊出水面，因为盘子的一边紧靠着运河河岸。绞盘机再次启动，一位工人发动了急修车的引擎。几分钟后，盘子被成功地拽出了水面。波浪从盘子两侧急涌而出，在运河里掀起一股大浪。但是当波浪从河对岸折回来时，就有再次把盘子拖进水里的危险。工人们动作迅速，终于赶在那股大浪返回之前把盘子拽到了岸上。

Lesson 44  Speed and comfort 又快捷又舒适

People,traveling long distances frequently haveto decide whether they wouldpreferto go by land, sea, or air. Hardly anyone canpositively enjoy sitting in a train formore than a few hours. Train compartments soon get cramped andstuffy.It is almost impossible to take your mind off the journey. Reading is onlya partial solution, for themonotonousrhythm of the wheels clicking on the rails soonlullsyou to sleep. During the day,sleepcomes in snatches. At night, when you really wish togo to sleep, you rarely manage to do so. If you arelucky enough to get a sleeper, you spend half the nightstaring at the small bluelight in the ceiling, orfumbling tofind your ticket for inspection.Inevitably you arrive atyour destination almost exhausted.Long car journeys are even less pleasant,for it is quite impossible even to read. On motorways you can, at least,travel fairly safelyat highspeeds, but moreoften than not, the greater part of the journey is spent on roadswith few service stations and too much traffic.By comparison, ferry trips orcruises offer a great variety of civilizedcomforts. You canstretch your legson the spacious decks, play games, meet interesting people and enjoy goodfood----always assuming, of course, that the sea is calm.If it is not, andyou are likely to get sea-sick, no form of transport could be worse.Even if you travel in idealweather, seajourneys take a long time.Relatively few people areprepared to sacrifice holiday time for the pleasure oftravelling by sea.

Aeroplanes have thereputationof being dangerous and even hardened travellers areintimidatedby them. They also have the disadvantage ofbeing an expensive form of transport.But nothing can match them for speed and comfort. Travellingat a height of 30, 000 feet, far above the clouds, and at over 500 miles anhour is anexhilarating experience. Youdo not have to devise ways of taking your mind off the journey, for anaeroplane gets you to yourdestinationrapidly. For a few hours, yousettleback in a deep armchair to enjoy the flight. The real escapist canwatch a film and sipchampagne on someservices. But even when suchrefinementsare not available, there is plenty tokeep you occupied. An aeroplane offers you an unusual andbreathtaking view of the world. You soareffortlesslyover high mountains and deep valleys. You really see the shape of the land. Ifthe landscape is hidden from view, you can enjoy the extraordinary sight of unbrokencloud plains thatstretch outfor miles before you, while the sun shinesbrilliantlyin a clear sky. The journey is so smooth that there is nothing toprevent you from reading or sleeping. Howeveryou decide to spend your time, one thing is certain: you willarrive at your destination fresh and uncrumpled.You will nothave to spend the next few days recoveringfrom a long andarduousjourney.

出远门的人常常需要决定是走旱路、水路，还是坐飞机。很少有人能够真正喜欢坐几个小时以上的火车。车厢很快就变得拥挤、闷热，想摆脱开旅途的困扰是很难的。看书只能解决部分问题。车轮与铁轨间单调的嘎喳声很快就会送你进入梦乡。白天是忽睡忽醒，到了夜晚，你真想睡了，却很难入睡。即使你走运弄到一个卧铺，夜间有一半时间你会盯着车顶那盏小蓝灯而睡不着觉；要不然就为查票摸索你的车票。一旦抵达目的地，你总是疲惫不堪。乘汽车作长途旅行则更加不舒服，因为连看书都几乎不可能。在公路上还好，你至少能以相当快的速度安全地向前行。但旅行的大部分时间都花在路上，而且只有很少的服务设施，交通也很拥挤。相比之下，坐船旅行或环游可以得到文明世界的各种享受。你可以在甲板上伸展四肢、做游戏，还能见到各种有趣的人，能享用各种美味佳肴——当然，这一切只有在大海风平浪静的情况下才有可能。如果大海肆虐起来，你就可能晕船，那种难受劲儿是任何一种别的旅行方式都不会带来的。即便风平浪静，坐船旅行也要占用很长时间。没有多少人会为了享受坐船旅行的乐趣而牺牲假期的时间。

飞机以危险而著称，连老资格的旅行者也怕飞机。飞机的另一个缺点是昂贵。但就速度与舒适而言，飞机是无与伦比的。腾云驾雾，在3万英尺高空以500英里的时速旅行，这种经历令人心旷神怡。你不必想办法去摆脱旅途的困扰，因为飞机会迅速地把你送到目的地。几小时之内，你躺在扶手椅上，享受着旅途的欢乐。真正会享受的人还可以在某些航班上看一场电影和喝香槟。即使没有这些消遣条件，也总是有事可做。飞机上，你可以观察世界上非同寻常的奇妙的美景。你毫不费劲地飞越高山幽谷，你确能饱览大地的风貌。如果这种景色被遮住了，你便可以观赏一下展现在你面前的、一望数英里的、连绵不断的云海，同时阳光灿烂，天空清澈明朗。旅途平稳，丝毫不妨碍你阅读或睡眠。不管你打算如何消磨时间，有件事是可以肯定的，即当你抵达目的地时，你感到精神焕发，毫无倦意，用不着因为漫长旅途的辛苦而花几天时间休息来恢复精神。

Lesson 45  The power of the press 新闻报道的威力

 In democratic countries any efforts torestrict the freedom of the Press are rightlycondemned. However, this freedom can easily beabused.Stories about people often attract far morepublic attention than political events. Though wemay enjoy reading about the lives of others,it is extremely doubtful whether we would equallyenjoy reading about ourselves.Acting on the contentionthat facts are sacred, reporters can cause untoldsufferingto individuals by publishing detailsabout their private lives. Newspapersexert such tremendous influence that they can notonlybring aboutmajor changes to the lives ofordinarypeople but can even overthrow agovernment.

The story of apoor family that acquired fame andfortune overnight,dramaticallyillustrates the power of the press. The familylived in Aberdeen, a small town of 23, 000inhabitants in South Dakota. As the parents hadfive children, life was aperpetualstruggle against poverty. They were expecting their sixth child and werefaced with even more pressingeconomic problems.If they had onlyhad one more child, the fact would have passed unnoticed. They would havecontinued tostruggle againsteconomic odds and would have lived in obscurity. But they suddenly became the parentsofquintuplets, four girls and a boy, anevent which radically changed their lives. The day after the birth of thefive children, an aeroplane arrived in Aberdeen bringing sixty reporters andphotographers.

The rise to fame was swift. Television cameras and newspapers carried the news to everyone in thecountry. Newspapers and magazines offered the family huge sums for theexclusive rights to publish stories andphotographs. Giftspoured innot only fromunknown people,but frombaby food and soap manufacturers whowished to advertise their products. The old farmhouse the family lived in wasto bereplaced by anew ＄500, 000home. Reporters keptpressing forinterviews so lawyers had to be employed toact as spokesmen for the family at pressconferences. While the five babies were stillquietly sleeping in oxygen tents in a hospital nursery,their parents were paying the price for fame. Itwould never again be possible for them to lead normal lives.They had becomethe victims of commercialization, for their names had acquired a market value.Instead of being five newfamily members, these children hadimmediatelybecome a commodity.

在民主国家里，任何限制新闻自由的企图都理所当然地受到谴责。然而，这种自由很容易被滥用。常人轶事往往比政治事件更能引起公众注意。我们都喜欢看关于别人生活的报道，但是否同样喜欢看关于自己生活的报道，就很难说了。记者按事实至上的论点行事，发表有关别人私生活的细节，有时会给当事人造成极大的痛苦。新闻具有巨大的威力。它们不仅可以给寻常人家的生活带来重大的变化，甚至还能推翻一个政府。

下面这户穷人一夜之间出名发财的故事戏剧性地说明了新闻报道的威力。这户人家住在南达科他州一个人口为23，000的小镇上，镇名为阿拜丁。家里已有5个孩子，全家人常年在贫困中挣扎。第6个孩子即将问世，他们面临着更为严峻的经济问题。如果他们只是添了1个孩子，这件事本来就不会引起任何人的注意。这家人会继续为克服经济上的拮据而奋斗，并默默无闻地活下去。但是他们出人意料地生了个五胞胎，4女1男。这事使他们的生活发生了根本的变化。五胞胎降生第二天，一架飞机飞抵阿拜丁，随机带来60名记者与摄影师。

这一家迅速出了名。电视摄像机和报纸把消息传送到全国。报纸、杂志出高价向他们购买文字、图片的独家报道权。不但素昧平生的人寄来了大量的礼物，而且婴儿食品、婴儿肥皂制造厂商为了替自己产品做广告也寄来了大量的礼物。这家人住的旧农舍将由一座价值50万美元的新住宅所取代。由于记者纷纷要求会见，他们不得不请了律师充当他们家的发言人举行记者招待会。眼下，五胞胎还静静地躺在医院婴儿室的氧气帐里，他们的父母却为这名声付出了代价，他们再也无法过正常的生活。他们成了商业化的受害者，因为他们的名字具有了市场价值。这些孩子立即成了商品，而不是5个新的家庭成员。

Lesson 47    Too high a price? 代价太高？

Pollution is theprice we pay for anoverpopulated, over industrializedplanet. When youcome to think about it, thereare only four ways you candealwith rubbish: dump it, burn it, turn it into something you can useagain,attempt toproduce less of it.We keeptrying all four methods, buthe sheer volume ofrubbish we produce worldwidethreatensto overwhelm us.

Rubbish,however, is only part of the problem of polluting our planet. The need toproduce ever-increasingquantities ofcheap food leads toa different kind of pollution.Industrializedfarming methods produce cheap meat products: beef, pork and chicken. The use ofpesticides and fertilizers produces cheap grain and vegetables.The price wepay for cheap food may be already too high: Mad Cow Disease (BSE) in cattle,salmonella in chicken and eggs, and wisteria indairy products. And if you think you'llabandonmeat and become a vegetarian, you havethe choice of veryexpensive organically-grown vegetables or a steady diet ofpesticides every time you think you're eating fresh salads and vegetables, orjust having aninnocent glassof water!

However, thereis an even more insidious kind of pollution that particularlyaffects urban areas and invades our daily lives, and that is noise.Burglaralarms going offat any time of the day ornight serve only to annoy passers-by and actuallyassistburglars to burgle. Car alarmsconstantlyscream at us in thestreet and are a source of profoundirritation.A recent survey of the effects of noise revealed (surprisingly?) that dogsbarkingincessantly in the night ratedthe highest form of noise pollution on a scaleranging from 1 to 7. The surveyrevealed a large number of sources of noise that we reallydislike.Lawn mowerswhining on a summer's day, late-night parties in apartment blocks, noisyneighbors, vehicles of al kinds, especially largecontainer trucks thunderingthrough quiet village, planes and helicopters flying overhead, large radioscarried round in public places and played at maximum volume.New technologyhas also made its owncontribution to noise. A lot of peopleobject to mobile phones,especially when they are usedinpublic places like restaurants or on public transport. Loudconversations on mobile phones invade ourthoughts orinterrupt the pleasure ofmeeting friends for a quiet chat. The noise pollution survey revealed a ratherspurring and possibly amusing oldfashioned source of noise. It turned out to be snoring! Menwere found to be the worst offenders. It wasrevealedthat 20% of men in their mid-thirties snore. This figurerises to a staggering 60% of men in their sixties.Against these figures, it wasfound that only 5% of women snore regularly, while the rest areconstantly woken or kept awake by theirtrumpetingpartners. Whatever the source of noise, one thing is certain: silence, itseems, has become a golden memory.

污染就是我们为这个人口过密，过度工业化的星球所付出的代价。当我们开始考虑垃圾问题时，我们只有4种对付垃圾的方法：倾倒、焚烧、把垃圾变成再生材料或试图少产生一些垃圾。我们一直在试这4种方式，但是，我们在世界范围内仅产生的垃圾的量就有把我们覆盖的危险。

然而，垃圾只是我们这个星球的污染问题的一个方面。日益增长的对廉价食物的需求导致了另一种形式的污染。工业化的农作方式生产出廉价的肉类制品——牛肉、猪肉和鸡肉。使用杀虫剂和化肥生产出廉价的谷物和蔬菜。为了廉价食物我们付出代价已经太高了：牛肉中的疯牛病，鸡肉和鸡蛋中的沙门氏菌，奶制品中的利斯特杆菌。如果你想放弃肉类而变成一位素食者，那么你可以两者择一：或是选用价格昂贵、有机培植的蔬菜，或是当你认为在享用新鲜色拉和新鲜蔬菜或饮用一杯无害的水的时候，实际上每次都不断吃进杀虫剂。

但是，还有一种更加隐蔽有害的污染，它专门影响城镇地区，侵袭我们的日常生活，那就是噪音。防盗警报器在白天和黑夜的任何时候都会响起来，它的作用只是骚扰过路行人，而实际上却帮助窃贼入室行窃。在街上，汽车的防盗警报不断对我们吼叫，这是人们极度烦燥的一个原因，最近一个有关噪音的作用的调查（令人吃惊地）指出，夜间连续不断的狗叫声，在一个从1级至7级刻度表上应列为最严重的噪间污染。这个调查揭示了我们所不喜欢的大量的噪间的来源：夏天呜呜作响的割草机，公寓楼里深夜聚会的喧哗声，大声吵闹的邻居，各式各样的车辆，特别是穿越寂静的村庄的集装箱卡车，从头顶飞过的飞机和直升机，被带到公共场所、音量开到最大的大功率收音机。新技术也为噪音作了它的贡献。许多人都反对移动式电话，特别是在如饭店，公共交通车等公共场所使用移动电话。用移动电话大声交谈干扰我们的思路，破坏我们和朋友在一起轻声聊天所得到的乐趣。这个有关噪音的污染调查还揭示了一种出人意外而同时可能会引人意外而同时可能会引人发笑的老式噪音源。它竟然是鼾声。人类是这方面的罪魁祸首。调查指出，20%的35岁左右的男人打鼾；而到60岁这个年龄段，这个数字上升到令人惊愕的60%。与这些数字相比，只有5% 的女性经常打鼾；而其余则经常被与她们同睡、像吹号似地打着呼噜的男人吵醒或弄得睡不着。不管噪声来自何方，有一点是肯定的：看来寂静已变成一种珍贵的回忆。

Lesson 50  New Year resolutions 新年的决心

The New Year isa time for resolutions. Mentally,at least, most of us couldcompileformidable lists of ‘dos’ and‘don'ts’. The same oldfavourites recur year in year out withmonotonousregularity. We resolve toget up earlier each morning, eat less, find more time toplay with the children, do athousand and one jobs about the house, benice to people we don't like, drive carefully, andtake the dog for a walk every day.Past experiencehas taught us that certainaccomplishmentsare beyond attainment.If we remaininveterate smokers, it isonly because we have so often experienced thefrustrationthat results from failure.Most of us fail in our efforts at self-improvement becauseour schemes are tooambitious and wenever have time to carry them out. We also make thefundamental error of announcing ourresolutions to everybody so that we look evenmore foolish when weslip backinto our bad old ways.Aware of these pitfalls,this year Iattempted to keep my resolutions to myself.Ilimited myself totwo modest ambitions: todophysical exercises every morning and to read more of an evening. Anall-night party on New Year's Eveprovidedme with a good excuse for not carrying on either of these new resolutions onthe first day of the year, but on the second, I applied myselfassiduously to the task.

The dailyexercises lasted only eleven minutes and I proposed to do them early in the morning beforeanyone had got up. Theself-discipline required to drag myselfout of bed eleven minutesearlier than usual wasconsiderable.Nevertheless, I managed tocreep down into the living-room for two days before anyone found meout.After jumping about on the carpet and twisting the human frame intouncomfortablepositions, I sat down atthe breakfast table in an exhausted condition. It was this thatbetrayed me. The next morning the whole familytrooped in to watch the performance. That was really unsettling, but Ifended off thetaunts and jibes of the family good-humouredly and sooneverybodygot used tothe idea. However, myenthusiasm waned. Thetime I spent at exercise graduallydiminished.Little by little theeleven minutes fell to zero.By January 10th, I was back to where I hadstarted from. I argued that if I spent less time exhausting myself atexercises in the morning, I would keep my mindfreshfor reading when I got home from work.Resisting the hypnotizing effect of television, I sat in myroom for a few evenings with my eyes glued to a book. One night, however,feeling cold and lonely, I went downstairs and sat in front of the televisionpretending to read. That proved to be myundoing, for I soon got back to my old bad habit ofdozing off in front of thescreen. I still haven't given up my resolution to do more reading. In fact, Ihave just bought a bookentitled How toRead a Thousand Words a Minute. Perhaps it will solve my problem, but I justhaven't had time to read it!

新年是下决心的时候，至少在大多数人的心里会编排出一份“应做什么”和“不应做什么”的令人生畏的单子。相同的决心以单调的规律年复一年地出现。我们决心每天早晨起得早些；吃得少些；多花点时间与孩子们一起做游戏；做大量的家务；对不喜欢的人友善一些；小心驾车；每天都要带着狗散步；等等。以往的经验告诉我们有些事是办不到的。如果我们烟瘾大，戒不掉，那是因为屡戒屡败，失去了信心。我们大多数人想自我完善却遭到失败，这是因为我们的规划过于宏大，而又根本没有时间去实施。我们还犯有一个根本性的错误，即把我们的决心向大家宣布。这样一旦滑回到那些环的老习惯上去，我们在别人眼里会显得更加难堪。我深知这些问题，于是，今年我对自己的计划要严加保密，只给自己定下两项适中的任务：每天早上锻炼身体，每天晚上多看点书。新年除夕举办的一次通宵晚会，使我理直气壮地在新年头一天免去了这两项任务。不过，新年第二天，我全力以赴地照着去做了。

早锻炼一共只有11分钟，我打算在别人起床之前进行。这就要求我比平日早11分钟把自己从床上拽起来，这种自我约束是很艰苦的。不过开头两天我还是成功地蹑手蹑脚地来到楼下起居室，被谁也没发现。我在地毯上跳过来蹦过去，扭曲身子，摆出各种姿势，弄得浑身不舒服，然后坐到桌边吃早饭，一副筋疲力尽的样子。正是这副模样泄露了我的秘密。第二天早晨全家人结队来到起居室看我表演。这真叫人不好意思，但我心平气和地顶住了全家人的嘲笑和奚落。不久，大家对我习以为常了，而这时我的热情却减退了。我花在锻炼上的时间逐渐减少，慢慢地从11分钟减到了零。到了1月10日，我恢复了原来的作息时间。我辩解说，早晨少耗费精力锻炼，晚上下班回家看书时头脑更清醒些。有几天晚上，我极力摆脱了电视的诱惑，坐在自己房间里，两眼盯在书上。可是，有一天夜里，我感到又冷又孤单，便来到楼下坐在电视机前假装看书。这下我可完了，因为不一会儿，我就恢复了以前的坏习惯，在屏幕前打起瞌睡来。但我还没有放弃多看些书的决心。事实上，我刚买来一本叫《一分钟读一千字的诀窍》的书。也许这本书能解决我的问题，但我一直还没时间去看这本书！

Lesson 53  In the public interest 为了公众的利益

 TheScandinavian countries are much admiredall over the world for theirenlightened social policies.Sweden has evolved an excellent system for protecting the individualcitizen fromhigh-handed or incompetent public officers. The system hasworked so well, that it has been adopted in other countries too.

The Swedes were the first to recognize that public officials like civil servants, policeofficers, health inspectors ortax-collectorscan make mistakes oractover-zealouslyin the belief thatthey areserving the public.As long ago as 1809,the Swedish Parliamentintroduced ascheme to safeguard theinterest of the individual. Aparliamentarycommittee representing all politicalparties appoints a person who is suitablyqualified to investigateprivate grievances against the State.The official title of the person is ‘Justiteombudsman’, but the Swedes commonlyrefer to him as the‘J. O.’ or ‘Ombudsman’. The Ombudsman is not subject to political pressure. Heinvestigates complaints large and small that come to him fromall levels of society. Ascomplaints must be made in writing, the Ombudsman receivesan average of 1, 200 lettersa year. He has eight lawyerassistantsto help him and he examines every single letterin detail. There is nothing secretive about theOmbudsman's work, for his correspondence is open to publicinspection. If a citizen's complaint is justified, the Ombudsman willact on his behalf. The actionhe takes variesaccording tothe nature of the complaint. Hemay gentlyreprimand an official or evensuggest toparliament that a law bealtered.The following case is a typical example of the Ombudsman's work.

A foreigner living in a Swedish villagewrote to the Ombudsman complaining that he had been ill-treated by the police,simply because he was a foreigner. The Ombudsman immediatelywrote to the Chief of Policein the district asking him to send a record of the case. There was nothing inthe record to show that the foreigner's complaint was justified and the Chiefof Police strongly denied the accusation.It was impossible forthe Ombudsman totake action,but when he received asimilar complaintfrom another foreigner in the samevillage,he immediately sent one of his lawyers to investigate the matter. The lawyerascertained that a policeman had indeed dealtroughly with foreignersonseveral occasions. Thefact that the policeman was prejudicedagainst foreigners could not be recorded in the official files. It was onlypossible for the Ombudsman to find this out by sending one of hisrepresentatives to check the facts. The policemanin question was severely reprimanded and was informed that if any furthercomplaints werelodged againsthim, he would beprosecuted. TheOmbudsman's prompt actionat once put an end to an unpleasantpractice which might have goneunnoticed.

斯堪的纳维亚半岛各国实行的开明的社会政策，受到全世界的推崇。在瑞典，已逐渐形成了一种完善的制度以保护每个公民不受专横的和不称职的政府官员的欺压。由于这种制度行之有效，已被其他国家采纳。

是瑞典人首先认识到政府工作人员如文职人员、警官、卫生稽查员、税务人员等等也会犯错误或者自以为在为公众服务而把事情做过了头。早在1809年，瑞典议会就建立了一个保护公民利益的制度。议会内有一个代表各政党利益的委员会，由它委派一位称职的人选专门调查个人对国家的意见。此人官衔为“司法特派员”，但瑞典人一般都管他叫“J．O．”，即“司法特派员”。司法特派员不受任何政治压力的制约。他听取社会各阶层的各种大小意见，并进行调查。由于意见均需用书面形式提出，司法特派员每年平均收到1，200封信。他有8位律帅做他的助手协助工作，每封信都详细批阅。司法特派员的工作没有什么秘密可言，他的信件是公开的，供公众监督。如果公民的意见正确，司法特派员便为他伸张正义。司法特派员采取的行动因意见的性质不同而有所不同。他可以善意地批评某位官员，也可以甚至向议会提议修改某项法律。下述事件是司法特派员工作的一个典型例子。

一个住在瑞典乡村的外国人写信给司法特派员，抱怨说他受到警察虐待，原因就是因为他是个外国人。司法特派员立即写信给当地的警察局长，请他寄送与此事有关的材料。材料中没有任何文字记载证明外国人所说的情况符合事实，警察局长矢口否认这一指控。司法特派员难以处理。但是，当他又收到住在同一村庄的另一个外国人写的一封内容类似的投诉信时，他立即派出一位律师前去调查。律师证实有个警察确实多次粗鲁地对待外国人。警察歧视外国人的事在官方档案中不可能加以记载，司法特派员只有派他的代表去核对事实才能了解真相。当事的警察受到严厉斥责，并被告知，如果再有人投诉他，他将受到起诉。司法特派员及时采取的行动，迅速制止了这一起不愉快的事件，不然这件事可能因未得到人们注意而不了了之。

Lesson 54    Instinct or cleverness?   是本能还是机智

We have been brought up to fear insects. Weregard them as unnecessarycreatures that do more harmthan good. We continuallywage war on them, for they contaminateour food, carry diseases, or devour ourcrops. They sting or bite withoutprovocation;they fly uninvited intoour rooms on summer nights, or beat ageist our lighted windows.We live in dread not only ofunpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless one likemoths. Reading about them increases our understandingwithoutdispelling our fears. Knowing that theindustrious ant lives in a highly organized society does nothingtoprevent us frombeing filled withrevulsion when we find hordesof them crawlingover a carefully prepared picnic lunch.No matter how much welike honey, or how much we have read about theuncannysense of direction which bees possess, wehave a horror of being stung. Most of ourfears areunreasonable, but they areimpossible toerase. At the same time, however,insects are strangely fascinating. We enjoy reading about them, especially whenwe find that, like the prayingmantis,they lead perfectly horrible lives.We enjoy staring at them, entrancedas they go about their business, unaware (we hope) of our presence. Who has notstood in aweat the sight of a spider pouncing on a fly, ora column of ants triumphantlybearing home anenormous dead beetle?

Last summer Ispent days in the garden watching thousands of ants crawling up the trunk of my prize peach tree. Thetree has grown against a warm wall on ashelteredside of the house. I am especiallyproud of it, not only because it has survived severalsevere winters, but because it occasionallyproducesluscious peaches. During thesummer, I noticed that the leaves of the tree were beginning to wither.Clusters of tiny insects called aphides were to be found on the underside of theleaves. They were visited byalarge colony of ants which obtaineda sort of honey from them. I immediatelyembarked on an experiment which, even though iffailed toget rid ofthe ants, kept me fascinated fortwenty-four hours. I bound the base of the tree withsticky tape, makingit impossible for the ants to reach the aphides. The tape was sostick that they did not dare to cross it.For a long time. I watched themscurrying around the base of the tree inbewilderment. I even went out at midnight with a torch and noted withsatisfaction (and surprise) that the ants werestillswarming around the sticky tapewithout being able to do anything about it.I got up early next morning hoping to find that the antshadgiven up in despair.Instead, I saw that they had discovereda new route. They were climbing up the wall of the house and then on to theleaves of the tree. I realized sadly that I had been completely defeated by theiringenuity.The ants had been quick tofindan answer to my thoroughlyunscientificmethods!

我们自幼就在对昆虫的惧怕中长大。我们把昆虫当作害多益少的无用东西。人类不断同昆虫斗争，因为昆虫弄脏我们的食物，传播疾病，吞噬庄稼。它们无缘无故地又叮又咬；夏天的晚上，它们未经邀请便飞到我们房间里，或者对着露出亮光的窗户乱扑乱撞。我们在日常生活中，不但憎恶如蜘蛛、黄蜂之类令人讨厌的昆虫，而且憎恶并无大害的飞蛾等。阅读有关昆虫的书能增加我们对它们的了解，却不能消除我们的恐惧的心理。即使知道勤奋的蚂蚁生活具有高度组织性的社会里，当看到大群蚂蚁在我们精心准备的午间野餐上爬行时，我们也无法抑制对它们的反感。不管我们多么爱吃蜂蜜，或读过多少关于蜜蜂具有神秘的识别方向的灵感的书，我们仍然十分害怕被蜂蜇。我们的恐惧大部分是没有道理的，但去无法消除。同时，不知为什么昆虫又是迷人的。我们喜欢看有关昆虫的书，尤其是当我们了解螳螂等过着一种令人生畏的生活时，就更加爱读有关昆虫的书了。我们喜欢入迷地看它们做事，它们不知道（但愿如此）我们就在它们身边。当看到蜘蛛扑向一只苍蝇时，一队蚂蚁抬着一只巨大的死甲虫凯旋归时，谁能不感到敬畏呢？

去年夏天，我花了好几天时间站在花园里观察成千只蚂蚁爬上我那棵心爱的桃树的树干。那棵树是靠着房子有遮挡的一面暖墙生长的。我为这棵树感到特别自豪，不仅因为它度过了几个寒冬终于活了下来，而且还因为它有时结出些甘甜的桃子来。到了夏天，我发现树叶开始枯萎，结果在树叶背面找到成串的叫作蚜虫小虫子。蚜虫遭到一窝蚂蚁的攻击，蚂蚁从它们身上可以获得一种蜜。我当即动手作了一项试验，这项试验尽管没有使我摆脱这些蚂蚁，却使我着迷了24小时。我用一条胶带把桃树底部包上，不让蚂蚁接近蚜虫。胶带极粘，蚂蚁不敢从上面爬过。在很长一段时间里，我看见蚂蚁围着大树底部来回转悠，不知所措。半夜，我还拿着电筒来到花园里，满意地（同时惊奇地）发现那些蚂蚁还围着胶带团团转。无能为力。第二天早上，我起床后希望看见蚂蚁已因无望而放弃了尝试，结果却发现它们又找到一条新的路径。它们正在顺着房子的外墙往上爬，然后爬上树叶。我懊丧地感到败在了足智多谋的蚂蚁的手下。蚂蚁已很快找到了相应的对策，来对付我那套完全不科学的办法！

lesson 59  Collecting 收藏

People tend to amass possessions,sometimes without beingawareof doing so. Indeedthey canhave a delightfulsurprise when they find something useful which they did not knowthey owned. Those who never have to move house becomeindiscriminate collectors of what can only be described as clutter.They leave unwanted objects in drawers, cupboards and attics for years,in the belief that theymay one day need just those very things. As they grow old, people alsoaccumulate belongings for two other reasons,lack of physical and mental energy, both of whichare essential in turning out and throwing away, andsentiment. Things owned for a long time are full of associations with the past, perhaps withrelatives who are dead, and so theygradually acquire a value beyond their trueworth.

Some things arecollected deliberately in the homein an attempt to avoid waste. Among these I would list string and brownpaper, kept by thrifty people when aparcelhas been opened, to save buyingthese two requisites. Collecting smallitems can easily become amania. I knowsomeone who always cutssketches outfrom newspapers of model clothes that shewould like to buy, if she had the money. As she isnot rich, the chances that she will everbe able to afford such purchasesare remote; but she is neversufficiently strongminded to be able to stop thepractice.It is a harmless habit, but it litters up her deskto such an extent that every time she opensit; loose bits of paper fall out in everydirection.

Collecting as aserious hobby is quitedifferent and has manyadvantages. It provides relaxationfor leisure hours, asjust looking at one'streasures isalways a joy. One does not have to go outside foramusement,since the collection ishoused at home. Whatever it consists of,stamps, records, first editions of books, china, glass, antique furniture,pictures, model cars,stuffed birds, toyanimals, there is always something to do in connection with it, from finding the rightplace for the latest addition, to verifyingfacts in reference books. This hobby educates one not only in the chosensubject, but also in general matters whichhave some bearing on it. Thereare also other benefits. One wants to meet like-minded collectors, to get advice, to compare notes, toexchange articles, to showoff the latest find. So one's circle of friends grows. Soon the hobby leads totravel, perhaps to a meeting in another town, possibly a trip abroadin search of a rare specimen, for collectors are not confined to anyone country. Over the years, one may well become an authority on one's hobbyand will very probably be asked to give informal talks to little gatherings and then, if successful, to largeraudiences. In this way self-confidence grows, first frommastering a subject, then from being able to talkabout it.Collecting, by occupying spare time soconstructively,makes a person contented, with no timefor boredom.

人们喜欢收藏东西，有时并没有意识到自己在这样做。确实，一旦无意之中从自己的收藏品中找到某件有用的东西时，可以给人一种惊喜的感觉。那些从来不必搬家的人们成了一种无所不容的收藏家。他们专门收藏那些只能被称作杂货的东西。他们在抽屉里、碗柜中、阁楼上堆放着一些不用的东西，一放就是好几年，相信总有一天需要的正好是那些东西。人们年老之后也喜欢收藏东西，不过是出于两个不同的原因：一是体力、精力均告不佳，这二者是清除无用的东西必不可少的因素；另一个原因是感情因素。东西搁得时间久了，便会充满着与过去岁月的联系，比方说与死去的亲戚有关。因此这些东西慢慢获得了一种超出它本身的价值。

居家度日，有目的地收藏某些东西是为了防止浪费。这些东西中我想举出线绳和包装纸为例。节俭的人们打开包裹后便把这两样必备的东西收藏起来，省得日后去买。收集小玩艺儿很容易着迷。我认识一个人，她总喜欢从报纸上剪下流行服装的图样，等以后有钱时去买服装。由于她并不富裕，她买得起这些服装的可能性十分渺茫。但她又缺乏足够坚强的意志把这一收集活动停下来。这种习惯无害，只是把写字台里堆得满满当当，以致每次打开抽屉总能带出许多纸片四处飞扬。

作为一种严肃的业余爱好的收藏活动完全是另外一回事，它具有许多益处。它可以使人在闲暇中得到休息，因为欣赏自己收藏的珍品总会充满了乐趣。人们不必走到户外去寻求娱乐，因为收藏品都是存放在家中。不管收藏品是什么，邮票、唱片、头版书籍、瓷器、玻璃杯、老式家具、绘画、模型汽车、鸟类标本，还是玩具动物，从为新增添的收藏品寻找摆放位置到核对参考书中的事实，总归有事可做。这种爱好不仅能使人从选择的专题中受到教育，而且也能从与之有关的一般事物中获得长进。除此之外，还有其他的益处。收藏者要会见情趣相投的收藏者，以获取教益、交流经验、交换收藏品、炫耀自己的最新收藏。朋友的圈子就这样不断扩太。用不了多久，有这种爱好的人便开始旅行，也许是去另一个城市参加会议，也可能是出国寻找一件珍品，因为收藏家是不分国籍的。一人积了多年经验会成为自己这种爱好的权威，很可能应邀在小型集会上作非正式的讲话。如果讲得好，可能向更多的人发表演说。这样，你自信心不断增强，先是因为掌握了一门学问，接下来是因为能够就此发表见解。收藏活动通过富有建设性地利用业余时间使人感到心满意足，不再有无聊之日。

Lesson 60  Too early and too late 太早和太晚

Punctuality is a necessary habit in allpublic affairs incivilized society. Without it, nothing could everbebrought to a conclusion;everything would bein a stateof chaos. Only in a sparsely-populated ruralcommunityis it possible to disregard it.In ordinary living, there can be sometoleranceof unpunctuality. The intellectual, whois working on some abstruse problem, haseverything coordinated and organized forthe matter in hand.He is therefore forgiven, if late for a dinner party. But people are oftenreproached for unpunctualitywhen their only fault iscuttingthings fine. It is hardfor energetic, quick-mindedpeople towaste time,so they are often tempted to finish ajob before setting outtokeep an appointment.If no accidents occur on the way, like puncturedtyres,diversions of traffic, sudden descent offog, they will beon time.They are often more industrious, usefulcitizens than those who are never late.The over-punctual can be as much a trial to others asthe unpunctual. The guest who arrives half an hour too soon is the greatestnuisance. Some friends of my family hadthis irritating habit.The only thing to do wasask them to come half an hour later than the other guests. Then they arrivedjust when we wanted them.

If you are catching a train, it is always better to becomfortablyearly than even a fraction of a minute too late. Although being early may meanwasting a little time, this will beless than if you miss the train and have to wait an hour ormore for the next one; andyou avoid the frustrationof arriving at the very moment when the train isdrawingout of the station and being unable toget on it. An even harder situation is to beon the platformin good timefor a train and still to see itgo off without you. Such an experience befell a certain young girl the firsttime she was travelling alone.

She entered the station twenty minutes before the train was due, since herparents hadimpressed uponher that it would beunforgivable tomiss it and cause the friends with whom she was going to stay to make twojourneys to meet her. She gave her luggage to a porter and showed him herticket.To her horrorhe said that she was two hours too soon. She felt in her handbag for the pieceof paper on which her father had written down all the details of the journeyand gave it to the porter. He agreed that a train did come into the station at the time on the paper andthat it did stop, butonly totake on mail, not passengers.The girl asked to see a timetable, feeling sure that her fathercould not have made such a mistake. The porterwent to fetch one and arrived back with thestation master, who produced it with aflourishand pointed out amicroscopic ‘o’ beside the time of the arrival ofthe train at his station; this little ‘o’ indicated that the train onlystopped for mail. Just as thatmoment the train came into the station.The girl, tears streaming down her face, begged to be allowed toslip into the guard's van.But the station master wasadamant:rules could not be broken.And she had to watch that train disappear towardsher destination while she was leftbehind.

准时是文明社会中进行一切社交活动时必须养成的习惯。不准时将一事无成，事事都会陷入混乱不堪的境地。只有在人口稀少的农村，才可以忽视准时的习惯。在日常生活中人们可以容忍一定程度的不准时。一个专心钻研某个复杂问题的知识分子，为了搞好手头的研究，要把一切都协调一致、组织周密。因此，他要是赴宴迟到了会得到谅解。但有些人不准时常常是因为掐钟点所致，他们常常会受到责备。精力充沛、头脑敏捷的人极不愿意浪费时间，因此他们常想做完一件事后再去赴约。要是路上没有发生如爆胎、改道、突然起雾等意外事故，他们是决不会迟到的。他们与那些从不迟到的人相比，常常是更勤奋有用的公民。早到的人同迟到的人一样令人讨厌。客人提前半小时到达是最令人讨厌的。我家有几个朋友就有这种令人恼火的习惯。唯一的办法就是请他们比别的客人晚来半小时。这样，他们可以恰好在我们要求的时间到达。

如果赶火车，早到总比晚到好，哪怕早到一会儿也好。虽然早到可能意味着浪费一点时间，但这比误了火车、等上一个多小时坐下一班车浪费的时间要少，而且可以避免那种正好在火车驶出站时赶到车站，因上不去车而感到的沮丧。更难堪的情况是虽然及时赶到站台上，却眼睁睁地看着那趟火车启动，把你抛下。一个小姑娘第一次单独出门就碰到了这种情况。

在火车进站20分钟前她就进了车站。因为她的父母再三跟她说，如果误了这趟车，她的东道主朋友就得接她两趟，这是不应该的。她把行李交给搬运工并给他看了车票。搬运工说她早到了两个小时，她听后大吃一惊。她从钱包里摸出一张纸条，那上面有她父亲对这次旅行的详细说明，她把这张纸条交给了搬运工。搬运工说，正如纸条上所说，确有一趟火车在那个时刻到站，但它只停站装邮件，不载旅客。姑娘要求看时刻表，因为她相信父亲不能把这么大的事给弄错。搬运工跑回去取时刻表，同时请来了站长。站长拿着时刻表一挥手，指着那趟列车到站时刻旁边的一个很小的圆圈标记。这个标记表示列车是为装邮件而停车。正在这时，火车进站了。女孩泪流满面，央求让她不声不响地到押车员车厢里去算了。但站长态度坚决，规章制度不能破环，姑娘只得眼看着那趟火车消逝在她要去的方向而撇下了她。

新概念四Lesson 1  Finding fossil man发现化石人

We can read of things that happened5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write.But thereare some parts of the world whereeven now people cannot write.The only way that they can preserve their history is torecount it as sagas----legendshanded down from onegeneration of story-tellers to another. These legends are useful becausethey can tell us something about migrationsof people who lived long ago,but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where theremote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples nowliving in the Pacific Islandscamefrom. The sagas of these peopleexplainthat some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.

But the first people who werelike ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, areforgotten. Soarchaeologists have neither history nor legendsto help them tofind outwhere the first‘modern men’ came from.

Fortunately, however, ancientmen made tools of stone, especiallyflint,because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used woodand skins, but these haverottedaway. Stone does notdecay,and so the tools of long ago haveremainedwhen even the bones of the men who made them havedisappeared without trace.

我们从书籍中可以读到5,000年前近东发生的事情，那里的人最早学会了写字。但直到现在，世界上仍然有些地方；人们还不会书写。他们保存历史的唯一办法是将历史当作传说讲述，由讲述人一代接一代地将史实描述为传奇故事口传下来。这些传说是很有用的，因为它们能告诉我们以往人们迁居的情况。但是；没有人能把他们当时做的事情记载下来。人类学家过去不清楚如今生活在太平洋诸岛上的波利尼西亚人的祖先来自何方，当地人的传说却告诉了人们：其中有一部分是约在2,000年前从印度尼西亚迁来的。

但是，和我们相似的原始人生活的年代太久远了；因此，有关他们的传说即使有如今也失传了。于是，考古学家们既缺乏历史记载，又无口头传说来帮助他们弄清最早的“现代人”是从哪里来的。

然而，幸运的是，远古人用石头制作了工具，特别是用燧石，因力燧石较之其他石头更易成形。他们也可能用过木头和兽皮，但这类东西早已腐烂殆尽。石头是不会腐烂的。因此，尽管制造这些工具的人的骨头早已荡然无存；但远古时代的石头工具却保存了下来。

Lesson 2  Spare that spider不要伤害蜘蛛

Why, you maywonder, should spiders be our friends? Because they destroy so manyinsects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of thehuman race．Insectswould make it impossible for us to live in the world; they woulddevour allour crops and kill our flocks and herds,if it were not for theprotectionwe get from insect-eating animals．Weowe a lotto the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only afraction of thenumber destroyed byspiders．Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters,spiders never do the least harm to us orourbelongings.

Spiders are notinsects, as many peoplethink, nor even nearly related to them．One cantell the differencealmostat a glance, for a spider always has eight legs and aninsect never more than six.

How many spidersare engaged inthis work on ourbehalf? One authority onspiders made a census ofthe spiders in a grass field in the south of England, and heestimatedthat there were more than2,250,000 in one acre; that issomethinglike 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a football pitch．Spiders arebusy for at least half the year in killing insects．It isimpossible to make more than the wildest guess athow many they kill, but they are hungrycreatures,not content with only three meals a day．It has beenestimated that the weight of all theinsects destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than thetotal weight of all the human beings in the country.

你可能会觉得奇怪，蜘蛛怎么会是我们的朋友呢？因为它们能消灭那么多的昆虫，其中包括一些人类的大敌。要不是人类受一些食虫动物的保护，昆虫就会使我们无法在地球上生活下去，昆虫会吞食我们的全部庄稼，杀死我们的成群的牛羊。我们要十分感谢那些吃昆虫的鸟和兽，然而把它们所杀死的昆虫全部加在一起也只相当于蜘蛛所消灭的一小部分。此外，蜘蛛不同于其他食虫动物，它们丝毫不危害我们和我们的财物。

许多人认为蜘蛛是昆虫，但它们不是昆虫，甚至与昆虫毫无关系。人们几乎一眼就能看出二者的差异，因为蜘蛛都是8条腿，而昆虫的腿从不超过6条。

有多少蜘蛛在为我们效力呢？一位研究蜘蛛的权威对英国南部一块草坪上的蜘蛛作了一次调查。他估计每英亩草坪里有225万多只蜘蛛。这就是说，在一个足球场上约有600万只不同种类的蜘蛛。蜘蛛至少有半年忙于吃昆虫。它们一年中消灭了多少昆虫，我们简直无法猜测，它们是吃不饱的动物，不满意一日三餐。据估计，在英国蜘蛛一年里所消灭昆虫的重量超过了这个国家人口的总重量。

Lesson 3 Matterhorn man马特霍恩山区人

 Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route whichwill give them good sport,and themore difficult it is, the more highly it is regarded．In the pioneering days, however, this was not the caseat all．The early climbers werelooking for the easiest way to the top, becausethesummit was the prize they sought, especially if it had never been attained before．It is true that during theirexplorationsthey often faced difficulties and dangers of the mostperilous nature, equipped in a manner which would makea modern climbershudder at the thought, but they didnotgo out of their wayto court such excitement．They had a singleaim, asolitary goal---the top!

It is hard for us to realize nowadays how difficult it was for the pioneers．Except for one or twoplacessuch asZermatt and Chamonix, which had rapidly become popular,  Alpine villagestended to be impoverished settlementscut offfrom civilizationby the high mountains．Such inns as there weregenerallydirty and flea-ridden; the food simply local cheeseaccompaniedby bread often twelve months old, allwashed down with coarse wine．Often a valleyboastedno inn at all, andclimbers foundshelter wherever theycould---sometimes with the local priest (who was usuallyas poor as his parishioners), sometimes withshepherds or cheese-makers．Invariably the background was the same: dirt and poverty, andveryuncomfortable．For men accustomed to eatingseven-course dinners and sleeping between fine linen sheets at home, the changeto the Alpsmust have beenvery hard indeed．

现代登山运动员总想找一条能够给他们带来运动乐趣的路线来攀登山峰。他们认为，道路愈艰险愈带劲儿。然而，在登山运动的初期，全然不是这种情况。早期登山者所寻找的是通往山顶的最方便的途径，因为顶峰——特别是前人未曾到过的顶峰——才是他们寻求的目标。确实，在探险中他们经常遇到惊心动魄的困难和危险，而他们装备之简陋足以使现代登山者一想起来就胆战心惊。但是，他们并非故意寻求这种刺激，他们只有一个目的，唯一的目标——顶峰！

我们今天很难想像昔日的登山先驱们是多么艰苦。除了泽曼特和夏蒙尼等一两个很快出了名的地方外，阿尔卑斯山山区的小村几乎全是高山环抱、与世隔绝的穷乡僻壤。那里的小客栈一般都很肮脏，而且跳蚤猖獗。食物是当地的干酪和通常存放了一年之久的面包，人们就着劣质酒吞下这种食物。山谷里常常没有小客栈，登山者只好随遇而安。有时同当地牧师（他通常和他的教民一样穷）住在一起，有时同牧羊人或制乳酪的人住在一起。无论住在哪儿，情况都一样：肮脏、贫穷，极其不舒适。对于过惯了一顿饭吃7道菜、睡亚麻细布床单的人来说，变换一下生活环境来到阿尔卑斯山山区，那一定是很艰难的。

Lesson 6 The sporting spirit体育的精神

 I amalways amazed when I hear people sayingthat sportcreates goodwill between thenations, and thatif onlythe common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket,they wouldhave no inclinationto meet on the battlefield．Even if one didn't know fromconcreteexamples (the 1936 Olympic Games,for instance) that internationalsporting contestslead toorgies of hatred, one coulddeduce it from general principles.

Nearly all thesports practiced nowadays are competitive．You play towin, and the game has little meaning unless you do yourutmost to win．On the village green, where youpick up sides and no feelingof localpatriotism is involved, it ispossible to play simply for the fun and exercise: butas soon as the question of prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you andsome larger unit will bedisgraced ifyou lose, the most savage combative instincts arearoused．Anyone whohas played even in a school football match knows this．At the international level, sport is frankly mimicwarfare．But thesignificant thing is not the behavior of the players butthe attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of thenations who work themselves into furies over theseabsurdcontests, and seriously believe --- at any rate for short periods --- that running, jumping andkicking a ball are tests of nationalvirtue.

当我听人们说体育运动可创造国家之间的友谊，还说各国民众若在足球场或板球场上交锋，就不愿在战场上残杀的时候，我总是惊愕不已。一个人即使不能从具体的事例（如1936年奥林匹克运动会）了解到国际运动比赛会导致疯狂的仇恨，也可以从常理中推断出结论。

现在开展的体育运动几乎都是竞争性的。参加比赛就是为了取胜。如果不拚命去赢，比赛就没有什么意义了。在乡间的草坪上，当你随意组成两个队，并且不涉及任何地方情绪时，那才有可能是单纯为了娱乐和锻炼而进行比赛。可是一旦涉及到荣誉问题，一旦你想到你和某一团体会因你输了而丢脸时，那么最野蛮的争斗天性便会被激发起来。即使是仅仅参加过学校足球赛的人也有这种体会。在国际比赛中，体育简直是一场模拟战争。但是，要紧的还不是运动员的行为，而是观众的态度，以及观众身后各个国家的态度。面对着这些荒唐的比赛，参赛的各个国家会如痴如狂，甚至煞有介事地相信——至少在短期内如此——跑跑、跳跳、踢踢球是对一个民族品德素质的检验。

Lesson 15  Secrecy in industry 工业中的秘密

Two factors weigh heavily against theeffectiveness of scientific research in industry. One is thegeneral atmosphere of secrecy in which it iscarried out, the other the lack of freedom of the individual research worker. Inso far as any inquiry is asecret one, it naturally limits all thoseengaged in carrying it out from effectivecontact with their fellowscientists either in other countries or in universities, or even, often enough,in other departments of the same firm. The degree of secrecy naturallyvaries considerably. Some of the bigger firms are engaged in researches whichare of such general andfundamentalnature that it is a positiveadvantageto them not to keep them secret.Yet a great many processes depending on such researcharesought for withcomplete secrecy until the stage at which patents can betaken out. Even moreprocesses are neverpatented at all butkept as secret processes. This applies particularly tochemical industries, wherechancediscoveries play a much larger part thanthey do in physical andmechanicalindustries. Sometimes the secrecygoes to such an extent that the whole nature of the researchcannot bementioned. Many firms, for instance, have great difficulty inobtaining technical or scientific books fromlibraries because they areunwillingto have their names entered as having taken out such and such a bookfor fear theagents of other firmsshould be able to trace the kind of research they are likely to beundertaking.

有两个因素严重地妨碍着工业中科学研究的效率：一是科研工作中普遍存在的保密气氛；二是研究人员缺乏个人自由。任何一项研究都涉及到保密，那些从事科研的人员自然受到了限制。他们不能和其他国家、其他大学、甚至往往不能与本公司的其他部门的同行们进行有效的接触。保密程度自然差别很大。某些大公司进行的研究属于一般和基础性的研究。因此不保密对他们才有利。然而，依赖这种研究的很多工艺程序是在完全保密的情况下进行的，直到可以取得专利权的阶段为止。更多的工艺过程根本就不会取得专利权，而是作为秘方保存着。这在化学工业方面尤其突出。同物理和机械工业相比，化学工业中偶然发现的机会要多得多。有时，保密竟达到了这样的程度，即连研究工作的整个性质都不准提及。比如，很多公司向图书馆借阅科技书籍时感到很困难，因为它们不愿让人家记下它们公司的名字和借阅的某一本书。他们生怕别的公司的情报人员据此摸到他们可能要从事的某项科研项目。

Lesson 16  The modern city现代城市

In the organization of industrial life theinfluenceof the factory upon thephysiologicaland mental state of the workers has beencompletelyneglected．Modern industry isbased on the conceptionof the maximum productionatlowest cost, inorder that anindividual or agroup of individuals may earnasmuch money as possible．It hasexpandedwithout any idea of the true nature of thehuman beings who run the machines, and withoutgiving any consideration tothe effects producedon theindividuals and on theirdescendantsby the artificial mode of existence imposed by the factory．The greatcities have been builtwith noregard for us．||Theshapeand dimensions of the skyscrapersdepend entirely on thenecessity of obtaining the maximum income per square foot of ground, and ofoffering to the tenants offices and apartments that please them．This causedthe construction ofgigantic buildingswhere too large masses of human beings arecrowded together．Civilized men likesuch a way ofliving．While they enjoy the comfort andbanal luxury of their dwelling, they do not realize that they aredeprived of the necessitiesof life．The modern cityconsists ofmonstrous edifices and of dark, narrowstreets full ofpetrol fumesand toxic gases, torn by the noise of the taxi-cabs, lorries and buses, andthronged ceaselessly by great crowds．||Obviously,it has not been plannedfor thegood of its inhabitants. ||

在工业生活的组织中，工厂对工人的生理和精神状态的影响完全被忽视了。现代工业的基本概念是：以最低成本获取最多产品，为的是让某个个人或某一部分人尽可能多地赚钱。现代工业发展起来了，却根本没想到操作机器的人的本质。工厂把一种人为的生存方式强加给工人，却不顾及这种生存方式给工人及其后代带来的影响。大城市的建设毫不关心我们。摩天大楼完全是按这样的需要修建的：每平方英尺地皮取得最大收入和向租房人提供使他满意的办公室和住房。这样就导致了许多摩天大厦拔地而起，大厦内众多的人挤在一起。文明人喜欢这样一种生活方式。在享受自己住宅的舒适和庸俗的豪华时，却没有意识到被剥夺了生活所必需的东西。大得吓人的高楼和阴暗狭窄的街道组成了今日现代化的城市。街道上充斥着汽油味和有毒气体，出租汽车、卡车、公共汽车的噪音刺耳难忍，络绎不绝的人群挤来挤去。显然，现代化的城市不是为居民的利益而规划的。

Lesson 22  Knowledge and progress知识和进步

Why does the idea of progressloom so large in the modern world? Surely because progress of aparticular kind is actually taking place around us and isbecoming more and moremanifest．Althoughmankind has undergone no general improvement inintelligenceor morality, it has madeextraordinary progress in the accumulation of knowledge．||Knowledgebegan to increase as soon as thethoughts of one individual could becommunicatedto another by means ofspeech．With theinvention of writing, agreat advance was made,for knowledge could then be not only communicated butalso stored．Libraries made education possible, and educationin its turn added to libraries: the growthof knowledge followed a kind of compound-interest law,which was greatlyenhanced by the invention of printing．All thiswascomparatively slow until, with thecoming of science, thetempo wassuddenly raised．Then knowledge began to beaccumulatedaccording to a systematic plan．Thetricklebecame a stream; the stream has now become atorrent．||Moreover, as soon as new knowledge isacquired,it is now turned topractical account．What is called‘modern civilization’is not the result of abalanced development of all man's nature, but of accumulated knowledge applied to practical life．The problemnow facing humanity is: What is going to be done with all this knowledge?Asis so often pointed out,knowledge is atwo-edged weaponwhich can be used equally for good or evil．It is now being usedindifferentlyfor both．Could anyspectacle,for instance, bemore grimlywhimsical than that of gunners using science to shatter men's bodieswhile, close at hand,surgeons use it torestore them? We have to askourselves very seriouslywhatwill happen if this twofolduse of knowledge, with its ever-increasing power,continues.||

为什么进步这个概念在现代世界显得如此突出？无疑是因为有一种特殊的进步实际上正在我们周围发生，而且变得越来越明显。虽然人类在智力和道德上没有得到普遍提高，但在知识积累方面却取得了巨大的进步。人一旦能用语言同别人交流思想，知识的积累便开始了。随着书写的发明，又迈进了一大步，因为这样一来，知识不仅能交流，而且能储存了。藏书使教育成为可能，而教育反过来又丰富了藏书，因为知识的增长遵循着一种“滚雪球”的规律。印刷术的发明又大大提高了知识增长的速度。所有这些发展都比较缓慢，而随着科学的到来，增长的速度才突然加快。于是，知识便开始有系统有计划地积累起来。涓涓细流汇成了小溪，小溪现已变成了奔腾的江河。而且，新知识一旦获得，便得到实际应用。所谓“现代文明”并不是人的天性平衡发展的结果，而是积累起来的知识应用到实际生活中的结果。现在人类面临的问题是：用这些知识去做什么？正像人们常常指出的，知识是一把双刃刀，可以用于造福，也可用来为害。人们现在正漫不经心地把知识用于这两个方面，例如：炮兵利用科学毁坏人的身体、而外科医生就在附近用科学抢救被炮兵毁坏的人体，还有什么情景比这更可怕、更怪诞的吗？我们不得不严肃地问问我们自己：随着日益增长的知识的力量，如果我们继续利用知识的这种双重性，将会发生什么样的情况呢？

Lesson 32 Galileo reborn 伽利略的复生

In his own lifetime Galileo was the centre of violentcontroversy;but the scientific dust has long sincesettled,and today we can see even his famous clash with theInquisitionin something like its properperspective.But, in contrast, it is onlyinmodern times that Galileo has become a problem child for historiansof science.

The old view ofGalileo was delightfully uncomplicated.Hewas, above all, aman who experimented: who despised theprejudicesand book learning of the Aristotelians, whoput his questions to nature instead of to theancients, and whodrew hisconclusions fearlessly. He had beenthe first to turn a telescope to the sky, and hehad seen there evidence enough tooverthrowAristotle and Ptolemy together. He was the man who climbed the Leaning Tower ofPisa and dropped various weightsfrom the top, who rolled balls downinclined planes, and then generalizedthe results of his many experiments into the famouslaw of free fall.

But a closerstudy of the evidence, supported by adeeper sense of the period, and particularly by a newconsciousness of the philosophicalundercurrents in the scientific revolution, hasprofoundlymodified this view of Galileo. Today, although the old Galileolives on in many popularwritings, among historians of science a new and moresophisticated picture has emerged.At the same time our sympathyfor Galileo's opponents has grown somewhat. His telescopicobservations are justly immortal; they aroused great interest at the time, they hadimportanttheoretical consequences, andthey provided a strikingdemonstrationof the potentialitieshidden in instruments and apparatus.But can we blame those who lookedand failed to see what Galileo saw, if we remember that to use a telescope atthe limit of its powers calls for long experience andintimate familiarity with one's instrument?Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo's telescope moreculpable than those whoalleged that thespiral nebulae observed with LordRosse's great telescope in the eighteen-forties were scratches left by thegrinder? We can perhaps forgive those who saidthe moons ofJupiter were produced byGalileo's spyglass if we recall thatin his day, as for centuries before, curved glass was thepopularcontrivance for producing nottruth but illusion, untruth; and if a single curved glass would distort nature,how much more would a pair of them?

伽利略在世时是激烈论战的中心。但是，自他逝世以来，那场科学上的纷争早已平息了下来，甚至他和宗教法庭的著名冲突，我们今天也能正确如实地看待。但是相比之下，对于科学史家来说，伽利略只是在现代才变成一个新的难题。

令人高兴的是，过去对伽利略的看法并不复杂。他首先是个实验工作者，他蔑视亚里士多德学派的偏见和空洞的书本知识。他向自然界而不是向古人提出问题，并大胆地得出自己的结论。他是第一个把望远镜对准天空的人，观察到的论据足以把亚里士多德和托勒密一起推翻。他就是那个曾经爬上比萨斜塔，从塔顶向下抛掷各种重物的人；他就是那个使球体沿斜面向下滚动，然后将多次实验结果概括成著名的自由落体定律的人。

但是，对那个时代的深化了解，尤其是以科学革命中哲学潜流的新意识为依据，进一步仔细研究，就会极大地改变对伽利略的看法。今天，虽然已故的伽利略继续活在许多通俗读物中，但在科学史家中间，一个新的更加复杂的伽利略的形象出现了。与此同时，我们对伽利略的反对派的同情也有所增加。伽利略用望远镜所作的观察确实是不朽的，这些观察在当时引起了人们极大的兴趣，具有重要的理论意义，并充分显示出了仪表和仪器的潜在力量。但是，如果我们想到，使用一架倍数有限的望远镜需要长期的经验和对自己仪器的熟悉程度，那么我们怎么能去责备观察了天空但没有看到伽利略所看到的东西的那些人呢？某位哲学家曾拒绝使用伽利略的望远镜去观察天空；到了19世纪40年代，有人硬把罗斯勋爵高倍望远镜观测到的螺旋状星云说成是磨镜工留下的磨痕。难道反对伽利略的哲学家比诋毁罗斯勋爵造谣者应受到更大的谴责吗？如果我们回想一下伽利略之前的几个世纪期间，曲面镜一直是一种用于产生幻影而不是产生真象的把戏装置，那么我们就会原谅那些当初把伽利略观察到的木星卫星说成是伽利略用他的小望远镜变出来的人们，何况一片曲面镜就可歪曲自然，那么伽利略的两片曲面镜对自然的歪曲又该多大呢？

Lesson 33 Education 教育

Education is oneof the key words ofour time. A man without an education, many of us believe, is an unfortunatevictim of adverse circumstances,deprived of one of thegreatest twentieth-centuryopportunities.Convinced of the importance ofeducation, modern states ‘invest’ in institutions of learning toget back ‘interest’ inthe form of a large group of enlightenedyoung men and women who arepotentialleaders. Education, with its cycles ofinstructionso carefully worked out,punctuated by text-books----thosepurchasable wells of wisdom----what wouldcivilizationbe like without its benefits?

So much iscertain: that we would have doctors and preachers, lawyers and defendants, marriages and births---but ourspiritual outlook would be different.We wouldlay less stress on‘facts and figures’ and more on a good memory, on applied psychology, and onthe capacity of a man togetalong with his fellow-citizens. If our educational system werefashioned after its bookless past we would have the mostdemocratic form of ‘college’  imaginable.Among tribal people all knowledgeinheritedby tradition is shared byall; it is taught to every member of the tribe so that in this respecteverybody is equally equipped for life.

It is the ideal condition of the ‘equal start’ which only our most progressive forms of moderneducation try to regain. Inprimitivecultures the obligation to seek and toreceive the traditional instruction isbinding to all. There are no ‘illiterates’----ifthe term can beapplied topeoples without a script----while our owncompulsoryschool attendance became law in Germany in 1642, in France in 1806, and inEngland in 1876, and is still non-existent in a number of ‘civilized’ nations.This shows how long it was before wedeemedit necessary to make sure thatall our children could share in the knowledgeaccumulatedby the ‘happy few’ during the past centuries.

Education in thewilderness is not a matter ofmonetary means. All areentitled to an equal start. Thereis none of the hurry which, in our society, often hampers the full developmentof a growingpersonality. There, achild grows up under the ever-present attention of his parents; therefore thejungles and thesavannahs know of no ‘juveniledelinquency’. No necessityof making a livingaway from home results inneglectof children, and no father isconfrontedwith his inability to ‘buy’ an education for his child.

教育是我们这个时代的关键词之一。我们许多人都相信，一个没有受过教育的人，是逆境的牺牲品，被剥夺了20世纪最优越的机会之一。现代国家深深懂得教育的重要性，对教育机构投资，收回的“利息”便是培养出大批有知识的男女青年，这些人可能会成为未来的栋梁。教育，以其教学周期如此精心地安排，并以教科书—那些可以买到的智慧源泉—予以强化，如果不受其惠，文明将会是个什么样子呢？

至少，这些是可以肯定的：虽然我们还会有医生和牧师、律师和被告、婚姻和生育，但人们的精神面貌将是另一个样子。人们不会再重视“资料和数据”，而靠好记性、实用心理学和与同伴相处的能力。如果我们的教育制度仿效没有书籍的古代教育，我们的学院将具有可以想像得出的最民主的形式了。在部落中，通过传统继承的知识为所有人共享，并传授给部落中的每一个成员。从这个意义上讲，人人受到的有关生活本领的教育是相等的。

这就是我们最进步的现代教育试图恢复的“平等起步”的理想状况。在原始文化中，寻求和接受传统教育的义务对全民都有约束力，因而没有“文盲”（如果这个字眼儿可以用于没有文字的民族的话）。而我们的义务教育成为法律在德国是在1642年，在法国是在1806年，在英国是在1876年。今天，在许多“文明”国家里，义务教育迄今尚未实行。这说明，经过了多么漫长的时间之后，我们才认识到，有必要确保我们的孩子享有多少个世纪以来由“少数幸运者”所积累起来的知识。

荒凉地区的教育不是钱的问题，所有的人都享有平等起步的权利。那里没有我们今天社会中的匆忙生活，而匆忙的生活常常妨碍个性的全面发展。荒凉地区的孩子无时无刻不在父母关怀下成长。因此，丛林和荒凉地区不知道什么叫“青少年犯罪”。人们没有必要离家谋生，所以不会产生孩子无人管的问题，也不存在父亲无力为孩子支付教育费用而犯难的问题。

Lesson 34   Adolescence 青春期

Parents areoften upset when their children praise the homes of their friends andregard it as a slur ontheir own cooking, or cleaning, or furniture, and often arefoolish enough to let the adolescentssee that they are annoyed. They may evenaccuse them of disloyalty, or make some spiteful remark about the friends' parents. Sucha loss of dignity and descent into childish behavior on the partof the adults deeply shocks the adolescents, and makes themresolve that in future they will nottalk to theirparents about the places or people they visit.Before very long the parentswill be complaining that the child is sosecretive and never tells them anything,but they seldom realize that they have brought this on themselves.

Disillusionment with the parents,however good and adequate they may be both asparents and asindividuals, is to some degree inevitable. Most children have such a high ideal of theirparents, unless the parents themselves have beenunsatisfactory,that it can hardly hope tostandup to a realistic evaluation.Parents would be greatly surprised and deeply touched if they realized how muchbelief their children usually have in their character andinfallibility, and how much this faith means to a child. If parentswereprepared forthis adolescent reaction, and realized that it was a sign that the child wasgrowing up and developingvaluable powers ofobservation andindependent judgment, they would not be so hurt, and therefore would notdrive the child into opposition by resenting and resisting it.

The adolescent, with his passion forsincerity, always respects a parent who admitsthat he is wrong, orignorant, or eventhat he has been unfair or unjust. Whatthe child cannot forgive is the parents'refusalto admit these charges if the child knows them to be true.

Victorianparents believed that they kept their dignityby retreating behind an unreasoningauthoritarianattitude; in factthey did nothing of the kind, but children were thentoo cowed to let them know how they reallyfelt. Today wetend to go tothe other extreme, buton the whole this is a healthierattitudeboth for the child and the parent. It is always wiser and safer toface up to reality, howeverpainful it may be at the moment.

当家长听到孩子赞扬自己朋友的家时，总感到不安，认为这是孩子在嫌弃自家的饭菜、卫生、或家具，而且愚蠢地让孩子看出自己的烦恼。他们甚至责备孩子不忠，或者讲些小朋友家长的坏话。家长这种有失身份和孩子气的作法使青春期的孩子大为震惊，决心以后不再向父母讲述去过的地方和见过的人。不要很久，家长就会抱怨孩子守口如瓶，什么事也不告诉他们，殊不知这是他们自找的。

不管家长的人品有多么好，作为父母又多么合格，孩子们对家长幻想的破灭在某种程度上是不可避免的。除非父母自身不能令人满意，大多数孩子对父母估价过高，以致这种估价很难指望经受住现实的考验。如果家长意识到孩子们通常是多么相信家长的品行和绝对正确，意识到孩子们的这种信念会对孩子产生多么大的影响，那么家长会大为吃惊和深受感动的。如果家长对青少年的这种反应有思想准备，并且意识到这象征着孩子们正在成熟和正在发展宝贵的观察力、独立判断力，那么他们就不会那样伤心，也就不会由于怨恨和抵触这种反应，而把孩子推到自己的对立面去。

青少年酷爱真诚，对于能够承认错误或无知、甚至承认自己做得不公平或不公正的父母，他们总是尊敬的。孩子们所不能原谅的是：父母错了，孩子们也看出来了，可是做父母的还不肯承认。

维多利业时代的父母认为，他们可以靠无理的权威气派来维护自己的尊严，实际上那是根本不行的。孩子们只不过被吓得不敢让父母知道自己的想法罢了。虽然现在我们倾向于走向另一个极端，但总地来看，孩子和家长双方态度都比较端正。遇事采取面对现实的态度总是比较明智和稳妥的，尽管会有暂时的痛苦。

Lesson 36 The cost of government 政府的开支

 If anation is essentially disunited, it isleft to the government to hold it together. This increases the expense of government, andreducescorrespondingly the amount ofeconomic resources that could beused for developing the country. And it should not beforgotten how small those resources are in a poor andbackward country. Where the cost of government ishigh, resources for development arecorrespondinglylow.

This may be illustrated by comparing the position of a nationwith that of aprivatebusiness enterprise.An enterprise has to incur certain costs and expenses in order tostay in business. For our purposes, we are concerned only with one kind of cost---thecost of managing andadministering thebusiness. Such administrative overheadsin a business areanalogous tothe cost of government in a nation. The administrative overheads of a businessare lowto the extent thateveryone working in the business can betrustedto behave in a way thatbestpromotes the interests of the firm.If they can eachbe trusted totake such responsibilities,and to exercise suchinitiative as fallswithin their sphere, then administrative overhead will be low.It will below because it will be necessary to have only one man looking after each job,without having another man tocheckupon what he is doing, keep him in line, and report on him tosomeone else.But if no one can be trustedtoact in a loyal andresponsible manner towards his job, then the business willrequire armies of administrators, checkers, andforemen, and administrativeoverheadswill rise correspondingly.As administrative overhead rises, so the earnings of the business, after meeting theexpense of administration, will fall; and thebusiness will have less money todistributeas dividends or invest directly in its future progress and development.

It is precisely the same with a nation. To the extentthat the people can bereliedupon to behave in a loyal and responsible manner, the governmentdoes notrequire armies of police andcivil servants tokeep them inorder. But if a nation isdisunited,the government cannot be sure that the actions of the people will bein the interests of thenation; and it will have to watch, check, and control the people accordingly. Adisunited nation therefore has to incurundulyhigh costs of government.

如果一个国家实际上处于分裂状态，使之联合起来就是政府的事了。这样一来就增加了政府的开支，从而相应地减少了可以用来发展国家的那部分经济资源。不应忘记，在一个贫穷落后的国家里，那部分财力是很有限的。凡是政府管理费用高的地方，用于发展国家经济的资金就会相应地减少。

把国家的状况同私人企业的状况加以比较，就可以看清这个问题。一个企业为了继续经营，不得不支出一定的费用和开销。就我们的目的而言，我们只关心一种费用—企业行政管理费。一家企业的这种行政管理开支类似于一个国家的政府管理所用的开支。如果企业中的每个人都在真诚地为提高企业利润而工作，那么企业的管理费用就会降低到相应的程度。如果企业的每个人都信得过，人人都认真负责，在各自的工作范围内发挥主动性，行政管理费用就会降低。行政管理费用降低的原因是：每项工作只需一个人去完成，用不着另外再有一个人检查他的工作，督促他遵守章程，或向有关人士汇报他的工作。但是，如果企业中谁也不可信赖会对工作尽忠守职，那么企业就会需要大批的管理人员、检查人员和带班人员，管理费用就会相应地增加。管理费用增加了，那么在扣除管理费用后，企业的收入就降低了。因而用于分红的金额或直接用于将来开拓和发展的投资就相应地减少了。

一个国家的情况也完全相同。如果人民忠于职守，举止规矩，能受到政府的信赖，那么政府就不需要大批的警察和文职人员去促使人民遵纪守法。但是，如果一个国家处于分裂状态，政府不能相信人民的行动有利于国家，那么政府就不得不对人民进行监督、检查和控制。因此，一个处于分裂状态的国家必然要支付过高的行政管理费用。

Lesson 37 The process of ageing 衰老过程

At the age of twelveyears, the human body is at its mostvigorous.It has yet toreach its full size andstrength, and its owner his or her fullintelligence;but at this age the likelihood of death is least. Earlier, we were infants andyoung children, andconsequently more vulnerable; later, we shall undergo aprogressive loss of our vigour andresistance which, though imperceptible at first, will finally become sosteep that we can live no longer, however well welook afterourselves, and however well society, and our doctors, look after us. Thisdecline in vigour with thepassing of time is called ageing.It is one of the most unpleasant discoveries which we all make that wemust declinein this way,that if we escape wars, accidents and diseases we shalleventually ‘die of old age’, and that thishappensat a ratewhich differs littlefrom personto person, so that there are heavyoddsin favour of ourdying between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. Some of us will diesooner, a few will live longer----on into a ninth or tenth decade. But thechances are against it, and there is a virtuallimit on how long we can hope to remain alive, however lucky androbust we are.

Normal people tend to forget this process unless and until theyare reminded of it.We are so familiar with the fact thatman ages, that people have for yearsassumedthat the process of losingvigour withtime, of becoming more likely to die the older we get, was somethingself-evident, like the cooling of a hot kettle or the wearing-out of a pair ofshoes.They have also assumed that all animals, and probably other organisms such as trees, or even the universeitself, mustin the nature ofthings ‘wear out’.Most animals we commonlyobserve do infact age as we do, if given the chance to live long enough; andmechanical systems like a wound watch, or thesun, do in fact run out of energy inaccordancewith the second law ofthermodynamics(whether the whole universe does so is a moot point at present). But these arenotanalogous to what happens when manages.A run-down watch is still a watch and can be rewound. An old watch, by contrast, becomes so wornandunreliable that it eventually is notworth mending. But a watch could never repair itself----it does notconsist of living parts, onlyof metal, which wears away byfriction.We could, at one time,repair ourselves----well enough,at least, to overcome all but the mostinstantly fatal illnesses and accidents. Betweentwelve and eighty years we gradually lose this power; an illness which attwelve wouldknock us over,at eighty can knock us out,and into our grave. If we could stay as vigorousas we are at twelve, it would take about 700 years for half of us to die, andanother 700 for thesurvivors to be reduced by half again.

 人体在12岁时是生命力最旺盛的时期。虽然在这个时期人的身材、体力和智力还有待发展和完善，但在这个年龄死亡的可能性最小。再早一些，我们是幼儿和小孩子，身体较脆弱；再迟一些，我们就要经历生命力和抵抗力逐步衰退的过程。虽然这个过程起初难以觉察，但最终会急转直下，不管我们怎样精心照料我们自己，不管社会和医生怎样对我们进行精心照顾，我们也无法再活下去了。生命力随时间的流失而衰退叫做衰老。人类发现的最不愉快的一个事实是：人必然会衰老。既使我们能避开战争、意外的事故和各种疾病，我们最终也会“老死”；衰老的速度在人与人之间相差甚微，我们最可能死亡的年龄在65至80岁之间，有些人会死得早一些，少数人寿命会长一些——活到八十几岁或九十几岁，但这种可能性很小。不管我们多么幸运，多么健壮，我们所希望的长寿实际上是有限度的。

衰老的过程，不经提起，正常人容易忘记；一经提醒，才会记起。我们对人总是要衰老的现象并不陌生，多年来就已认识到。生命力随着时间流失而丧失活力，人随着年龄的增长而接近死亡，这是不言而喻的，就像一壶热水迟早会凉下来，一双鞋渐渐会磨破一样。人们不但认识到所有的动物，大概也认识到所有的有机物，如树木，甚至宇宙本身，从事物的本质上来说都会“磨损掉”。我们通常看到的大多数动物，即使能让它们活得足够长久的话，也会像我们一样衰老的。像上紧发条的手表那样的机械装置，或太阳，也都会消耗完其能量（整个宇宙是否如此，目前尚有争论）。不过，这些衰老的情况同人并不相似。手表停了依然是只手表，还可以重上好发条。然而一只老掉牙的手表，磨损太厉害，老得一点儿也不准了，最终会不值得修理了。但是，手表决不会自行修理，它不是由有生命的部件组成，而是由金属组成，而金属可以随着磨擦而磨损殆尽。而我们人，在一定时间内是可以自行修复的，除了暴病而死或意外事故外，至少足以克服一切一般疾病和事故。在12岁至80岁之间，我们逐渐丧失这种能力。能使我们在12岁时病倒的疾病，到了80岁可能会使我们一蹶不振而进入坟墓。假如我们能保持12岁时的旺盛生命力，那么我们当中的一半人过700年才死去，剩下的一半人再过700年，才会又减少一半。

Lesson 39  What every writer wants作家之所需

I have knownvery few writers, but those I have known, and whom I respect, confess at once that they have little idea where they are going whenthey firstset pen to paper. They have a character, perhaps two; they arein that condition of eager discomfort which passes forinspiration;all admit radical changes ofdestinationonce the journey has begun; one, to my certain knowledge,spent nine months on a novelabout Kashmir, thenreset the wholething in the Scottish Highlands. I neverheard of anyone making a ‘skeleton’, as we were taught at school. In thebreaking andremaking, in the timing,interweaving, beginning afresh, the writer comes to discern things in his material which werenotconsciously in his mind when hebegan.This organic process, often leading tomoments of extraordinary self-discovery, is of anindescribable fascination. Ablurred image appears; he adds abrushstroke and another, and it is gone; butsomething was there, and he will not rest till he hascaptured it. Sometimes the yeast within a writer outlivesa book he has written. I have heard of writers who read nothing but their ownbooks; like adolescents they stand before the mirror, and still cannot fathom the exact outline of the vision beforethem.For the same reason,writers talkinterminably about theirown books,winkling outhidden meanings, super-imposing new ones, begging response from those aroundthem. Of course a writer doing this is misunderstood: he might as welltry to explain a crime or alove affair. He is also,incidentally,an unforgivable bore.

This temptation to cover the distance between himselfand the reader, to study his imagein the sight of those who do not know him, can be hisundoing: he has begun to write to please.

A young Englishwriter made the pertinent observation ayear or two back that thetalent goes into the first draft,and the art into the drafts that follow.For this reason also the writer, like anyother artist, has norestingplace, no crowd or movement in which he may take comfort, nojudgment from outside which can replace the judgment from within. A writermakes order out of the anarchy of his heart; he submits himself to a moreruthless discipline than any critic dreamed of, and when heflirts with fame, he is taking time off from livingwith himself, from the search for what his worldcontainsat its inmost point.

  我所认识的作家寥寥无几，然而凡是我所认识和尊敬的作家，都立即承认在他们动笔时，不清楚要写什么，怎么写。他们心中有一个或两个角色。他们处于急切不安的状态，而这被当作是灵感。他们无不承认，一旦“旅程”开始，“目的地”常有急剧的变化。据我所知，有位作家花了9个月的时间写了一部有关克什米尔的小说，后来却把整个故事背景换成了苏格兰高地。我从未听说过任何一位作家像我们在学校学的那样，动笔前先列什么提纲。作家在剪裁修改、构思时间、穿插情节、以至从头重写的过程中，会领悟到素材中有很多东西是他刚动笔时所未意识到的。这种有机的加工过程往往达到不寻常自我发现的境界，具有难以言表的构思魅力。一个朦胧的形象出现在作家的脑海里，他左添一笔，右添一笔，形象反而消逝了；可是，好像还有什么东西存在着，不把它捕捉到，作家是不会罢休的。有时，一个作家一本书写完了，但兴奋仍不消散。我听说一些作家，除了自己的书外，别的书一概不读，犹如希腊神话中那位漂亮少年，站在镜前，不能辨认出自身的真面目。由于这个原因，作家喋喋不休地谈论自己的书，挖掘其隐晦的含义，增添新的含义，询问周围人的反应。作家如此行事当然会被人误解。他还不如给人讲一个犯罪案件或一个恋爱故事。顺便说一句，他也是个不可饶恕的令人厌烦的人。

这种企图消除自己和读者之间距离的作法，企图用不了解自己的人的观点来研究自己塑造的形象的作法，会导致作家的毁灭，因为他已经开始为取悦他人而写作了。

一两年前，一位年轻的英国作家发表了中肯的看法。他说，初稿是才华，以后各稿是艺术。也是由于这个原因，作家同任何艺术家一样，找不到可休息的场所，找不到伙伴和活动使自己得到安逸。任何局外人的判断也比不上他自己内心的正确判断。一旦作家从内心的紊乱中理出头绪，就应按任何评论家想像不到的无情规范约束自己去写作；当他沽名钓誉时，他就脱离了自我生活，脱离了对自己灵魂最深处世界的探索。

Lesson 44 Patterns of culture 文化的模式

Custom has notcommonly been regarded asa subject of any great moment. Theinnerworkings of our own brains we feel to be uniquely worthy ofinvestigation, but custom, we have a way ofthinking, is behavior at its mostcommonplace.As a matter of fact,it is the other way around.Traditional custom, taken the world over, is amass of detailed behavior more astonishingthan what any one person can ever evolve inindividualactions, no matter howaberrant. Yet that is a rathertrivialaspect of the matter. The fact offirst-rate importance is the predominantrole that custom plays inexperience and inbelief, and the very greatvarietiesit may manifest.

No man everlooks at the world with pristine eyes.He sees itedited bya definite set of customs andinstitutions and ways of thinking. Even in hisphilosophical probings he cannotgo behind these stereotypes; his veryconcepts of the true and the false will still havereference to hisparticular traditional customs. John Dewey hassaid in all seriousness that the partplayed by custom inshaping the behaviorof the individual, as against any way inwhich he can affecttraditional custom,is as the proportion of the totalvocabulary of his mother tongue against those words of his own baby talk thataretaken up intothe vernacular of his family. Whenoneseriously studies the social ordersthat havehad the opportunityto developautonomously, the figurebecomes no more than an exact andmatter-of-fact observation. The life history of the individual isfirst and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standardstraditionallyhanded downin his community. From the moment of hisbirth, the customs into which he is bornshape his experience and behavior.By the time he cantalk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown andable totake part inits activities, itshabits are hishabits, its beliefs his beliefs, itsimpossibilitieshis impossibilities. Every child that isborn into his group will share them with him, andno child born into one on the opposite side of the globe can ever achieve thethousandth part.There is no social problem it is more incumbent upon us to understand than this of therole of custom. Until we are intelligent as to its laws andvarieties, the main complicating facts of humanlife must remainunintelligible.

The study of custom can be profitable only after certainpreliminarypropositions have been accepted, and some of these propositions have beenviolently opposed.In the firstplace, any scientific study requires that there be nopreferential weighting of one or another of theitems in the series it selects for its consideration. In all the lesscontroversial fields, like the study ofcactior termites or the nature of nebulae,the necessary method of study is to group therelevantmaterial and to take note of all possiblevariantforms and conditions.In this way, we have learnedall that we know of the laws ofastronomy,or of the habits of the social insects, let us say.It is only in the study of man himself thatthe major social sciences havesubstitutedthe study of one localvariation, thatof Western civilization.

Anthropology was by definition impossible,as long as these distinctions between ourselves and theprimitive, ourselves and the barbarian, ourselves and the pagan, held sway over people's minds.It wasnecessary first to arrive at that degree ofsophistication where we no longer set our ownbelief against our neighbor’ssuperstition.It was necessary to recognize that theseinstitutionswhich are based onthe samepremises, let us say thesupernatural, must be considered together, our own among the rest.

风俗一般未被认为是什么重要的课题。我们觉得，只有我们大脑内部的活动情况才值得研究，至于风俗呢，只是些司空见惯的行为而已。事实上，情况正好相反。从世界范围来看，传统风俗是由许多细节性的习惯行为组成，它比任何个人养成的行为都更加引人注目，不管个人行为多么异常。这只是问题的一个次要的侧面。最重要的是，风俗在实践中和信仰上所起的举足轻重的作用，以及它所表现出来的极其丰富多采的形式。

没有一个人是用纯洁而无偏见的眼光看待世界。人们所看到的是一个受特定的风俗习惯、制度和思想方式剪辑过的世界。甚至在哲学领域的探索中，人们也无法超越这些定型的框框。人们关于真与伪的概念依然和特定的传统风俗有关。约翰·杜威曾经非常严肃地指出：风俗在形成个人行为方面所起的作用和一个人对风俗的任何影响相比，就好像他本国语言的总词汇量和自己咿呀学语时他家庭所接纳的他的词汇量之比。当一个人认真地研究自发形成的社会秩序时，杜威的比喻就是他实事求是观察得来的形象化的说法。个人的生活史首先就是适应他的社团世代相传形成的生活方式和准则。从他呱呱坠地的时刻起，他所生于其中的风俗就开始塑造他的经历和行为规范。到他会说话时，他就是传统文化塑造的一个小孩子了；等他长大了，能做各种事了，他的社团的习惯就是他的习惯，他的社团的信仰就是他的信仰，他的社团不能做的事就是他不能做的事。每一个和他诞生在同一个社团中的孩子和他一样具有相同的风俗；而在地球的另一边，诞生在另一个社团的孩子与他就很少有相同的风俗。没有任何一个社会问题比得上风俗的作用问题更要求我们对它理解。直到我们理解了风俗的规律性和多样性，我们才能明白人类生活中主要的复杂现象。

只有在某些基本的主张被接受下来、同时有些主张被激烈反对时，对风俗的研究才是全面的，才会有收获。首先，任何科学研究都要求人们对可供考虑的诸多因素不能厚此薄彼，偏向某一方面。在一切争议较小的领域里，如对仙人掌、白蚁或星云性质的研究，应采取的研究方法是，把有关各方面的材料汇集起来，同时注意任何可能出现的异常情况和条件。例如，用这种方法，我们完全掌握了天文学的规律和昆虫群居的习性。只是在对人类自身的研究中，各主要的社会学科才用对一个局部地区各种情况的研究（如对西方文明的研究）来代替对全人类的研究。只要我们同原始人，我们同野蛮人，我们同异教徒之间存在的区别在人的思想中占主导地位，那么人类学按其定义来说就无法存在。我们首先需要达到这样一种成熟的程度：不用自己的信仰去反对我们邻居的迷信。必须认识到，这些建立在相同前提基础上的风俗，暂且可以说是超自然的东西，必须放在一起加以考虑，我们自己的风俗和其他民族的风俗都在其中。

Lesson 46 Hobbies业余爱好

A gifted American psychologisthas said, ‘Worry is a spasm of theemotion; the mind catches holdof something and will notlet it go.’ It is useless to argue withthe mind in thiscondition. The stronger the will, the more futilethe task. One can only gently insinuatesomething else into its convulsivegrasp. And if this something else isrightlychosen, if it is really attended by theilluminationof another field of interest, gradually, and often quite swiftly, the oldundue grip relaxes and the process ofrecuperation and repair begins.

The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interestis therefore a policy of thefirstimportance to a public man. But this is not a business that can beundertaken in a day or swiftly improvised by a mere command of the will. Thegrowth ofalternative mental interestsis a long process. The seeds must be carefully chosen; they mustfall on good ground; theymust besedulously tended, if the vivifying fruits are to be at hand when needed.

To be reallyhappy and really safe, one oughtto have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.Itis no use starting late inlife to say: ‘I willtake aninterest in this or that.’ Such an attempt only aggravates the strainof mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topicsunconnected with his daily work, and yet gethardly any benefit or relief.It is no use doing what youlike; you have got to like what you do.Broadly speaking, human beings may bedivided into three classes:those who aretoiled to death, those whoare worried to death, and those who are bored to death.Itis no use offering the manuallaborer, tired out with a hard week's sweat and effort, the chance of playing agame of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon.It is no use inviting the politician or theprofessional or business man, who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry abouttrifling things at the weekend.

As for theunfortunate people who can command everything they want, who cangratify every capriceandlay their hands on almost everyobject ofdesire----for them a newpleasure, a new excitement is only an additional satiation. In vain they rushfrantically round from place to place, trying toescape from avenging boredomby mere clatter and motion. For them disciplinein one form or another is the most hopeful path.

It may also besaid that rational, industrious, usefulhuman beings are divided intotwo classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure;and secondly, those whose work andpleasureare one. Of these the former are the majority. They have theircompensations. The long hours in the office orthe factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means ofsustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in itssimplest and most modest forms. But Fortune'sfavored children belong to the second class.Their life is a naturalharmony. For them the working hours are neverlong enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays, when they come, aregrudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbingvocation. Yet to both classes, the need of analternativeoutlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort,is essential. Indeed,it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are those who most needthe means ofbanishing it at intervals from theirminds.

一位天才的美国心理学家曾经说过：“烦恼是感情的发作，此时脑子纠缠住了某种东西又不肯松手。”在这种情况下，你和头脑争吵让它松手是无济于事的。这种意志越是强烈，这种尝试越是徒劳。你只能缓和而巧妙地让另一种东西进入痉挛僵持的头脑中。如果选得合适，而且的确受到别的领域的情趣的启迪，那么渐渐地，往往也是很顺利地，原先不适当的紧张就会松弛下来，恢复和修整的过程就会开始。

因此，对一个从事社会活动的人来说，培养一种业馀爱好和各种新的兴趣是头等重要的作法。但这并非一日之功，也不是单凭意志一蹴而就的事。精神上多种情趣的培养是一个长期的过程。要想在需要的时候可随手摘取充满生机的果实，那就必然从精选良种做起，然后将其植入肥沃的土地，还需要勤勉地护理。

一个人要想真正感到幸福和平安，至少应有两三种爱好，而且都比较实际。到了晚年才开始说：“我会对这个或那个发生兴趣”，已没有用了。这种愿望只能加剧精神紧张。一个人可能会获得与其日常工作无关的某些课题的渊博知识，而没有从中得到什么实益或宽慰。干你所喜欢的事是没有用的，你得喜欢你所干的事。泛泛地说，人可以分为 3类：劳累至死的人、忧虑至死的人、无聊至死的人。对于流汗出力干了一周苦活的体力劳动者来说，让他们在星期六下午再踢足球或打垒球是不合适的；同样，对于为严肃的公务操劳或烦恼了6天的政界人士、专业技术人员、商人来说，在周末再让他们为琐事而动脑子和忧虑也是无益的。

至于那些能任意支配一切的“可怜的人”，他们能够恣意妄为，能染指一切追求的目标。对这种人来说，多一种新的乐趣、多一种新的刺激只是增加一分厌腻而已。他们到处狂奔乱跑，企图以闲聊和乱窜来摆脱无聊对他们的报复，但这是徒劳的。对他们来说，用某种形式的纪律约束他们一下才能有希望使他们走上正道。

也可以这样说，理智的、勤劳的、有用的人可以分为两类：第一类是分清工作是工作，娱乐是娱乐的人；第二类人的工作和娱乐是一回事。这两类人当中，第一类人是大多数，他们能够得到补偿。在办公室或工厂里长时间的工作给他们带来了酬劳，这不仅是谋生的手段，而且还带来了寻找乐趣的强烈欲望。那怕是最简单的、最低等的乐趣。但是，命运之神的宠儿是第二类人，他们的生活是一种自然的和谐，对他们来说，工作时间总不会太长，每天都是假日，而通常的假期到来时，他们却惋惜这假期强制打断了他们埋头从事的工作。然而对这两种人来说，都需要换一换脑子，改变一下气氛，转移一下注意力，这是不可缺少的。说实在的，把工作当作享受的那些人可能最需要每隔一段时间把工作从头脑中撇开。

Lesson 47  The great escape大逃亡

Economy is one powerful motive for camping,since after the initial outlay upon equipment, or through hiringit, thetotal expensecan be far less thanthe cost of hotels.But, contraryto a popular assumption, itis far from being the only one, or even the greatest. The man whomanoeuvres carelessly intohis twenty pounds' worth of space at one of Europe'smyriad permanent sites may find himselfbumping a Bentley. More likely, Ford Escort will behub to hub with Renault or Mercedes, but rarelywith bicycles made for two.

That theequipment of modern camping becomes yearly more sophisticatedis an entertainingparadox for the cynic, a brighter promise for the hopefultraveller who hassworn toget away from it all. It also provides---and some student sociologistmight care tobase his thesisupon the phenomenon----an escape of another kind. The moderntraveller is often a man who dislikes theSplendideand the Bellavista(都是旅馆名)， notbecause he cannot afford, orshuns theirmaterial comforts, but because he isafraid of them. Affluenthe may be, but he isby nomeans sure what to tip the doorman or thechambermaid. Master in his own house, hehas little idea of when tosayboo(呸，表不满)to a maitre d`hotel.（总管）对旅馆管事不满.

From all suchfears camping releases him. Granted, a snobbery of camping itself,based upon equipment andtechniques, already exists; but it is of a kind that, if he meets it, he canreadily understand anddealwith. There is no superior ‘they’in the shape ofmanagements and hotelhierarchies todarken his holiday days.

To such motives,yet another must be added. The contemporary phenomenon of car worship is to beexplained not leastby thesense of independence and freedom that ownership entails. To thispleasure camping gives anexquisiterefinement.

From one's ownfront door to home or foreign hills or sands and back again, everything is to hand. Not only are the means ofarriving at the holiday paradise entirely within one's own command andkeeping,but the means ofescape from holiday hell (if the beach proves too crowded, the localweather tooinclement) are there,outside----or, as likely, part of----the tent.

Idealists have objected to the practice of camping,as to the package tour, that the travellerabroad thereby denies himself the opportunity ofgetting to know the people ofthe country visited.Insularity and self-containment,it is argued, gohand in hand.The opinion does not survive experience of a popular Continental camping place.Holiday hotels tend tocaterfor one nationality of visitors especially, sometimesexclusively. Camping sites, by contrast, are highly cosmopolitan. Granted, apreponderance of Germans is a characteristic thatseems common to mostMediterranean sites; butas yet there is no overwhelmingly specializedpatronage. Notices forbiddingthe open-air drying of clothes, or the use of water points for car washing, orthose inviting ‘our camping friends’ to a dance or a boat trip are printed notonly in French or Italian or Spanish, but also in English, German and Dutch.At meal times the odour ofsauerkrautvies with that of garlic. TheFrenchman's breakfast coffee competeswith the Englishman's baconand eggs.

Whether theremarkable growth of organized campingmeans theeventual death of the moreindependent kind ishard to say.Municipalities naturallywant to secure thecampers'site fees and other custom. Police arewary of itinerantswho cannot be traced to arecognizedcamp boundary or to four walls. But mostprobably it will alldependupon campers themselves: how manyheathfires they cause; how much litter they leave;in short, whether or not they whollyalienate landowners and those who live in thecountryside. Only goodscouting islikely to preserve the freedoms so dearto the heart of theeternal Boy Scout.(童子军)

  图省钱是露营的一个主要动机，因为除了开始时购置或是租借一套露营装备外，总费用算起来要比住旅馆开支少得多。但是，和一般的看法相反，这决非是仅有的，甚至不是最主要的动机。如果一位游客漫不经心地驾车驶入欧洲无数常年营地之一，花20镑租用一个空位，那么他可能会碰见一辆本特利汽车，更可能会望见一辆福特·康索尔和一辆雷诺或一辆梅塞迪斯并排停放着，不过双人自行车则不容易看到。

现代露营装备一年比一年讲究，这对那些厌世嫉俗者来说是一件有趣的自相矛盾的事情。而对于发誓用露营来摆脱烦恼的人来说，却带来了更光明的前景。学社会学的大学生来露营是另一种形式的摆脱现实，他们的目的很可能是根据观察到的露营现象去写论文。现代露营旅游的人往往讨厌住“斯普兰迪德”和“贝拉维斯塔”这样的大酒店，这并不是因为他们付不起钱，也不是为了躲避物质享受，而是因为他们害怕酒店。他们可能很富有，但给看门人和房间女服务员多少小费，心中却根本没有数；他们在家可能是主人，但不知道什么时候才能对酒店的经理表示不满。

露营使人们免除了这些忧虑。诚然，露营地本身也存在以露营装备和方式取人的势利现象，但如果有这种情况，露营者也容易理解，知道如何对付，但在露营地里根本不会有管人的“人上人”和酒店里的等级制度来使露营者的假日过得阴郁低沉。

除了以上动机外，还应再加上一个。当前崇拜汽车现象可以用与所有权相伴的独立和自由意识来解释。因此开车去露营会给这种快乐意识增加一种优雅意境。

从自己的家门出发到国内国外的山区或沙滩上露营然后返回，一切都很便利。完全在自己掌握之中的私人汽车不仅是到达假日天堂的工具，而且也是逃离假日地狱（如海滩太挤，当地天气恶劣）的方便工具，因为汽车就停在帐篷外面，或者汽车本身可能就是露营帐篷的一个组成部分。

理想主义者像反对旅行社安排一切的一揽子旅游一样反对露营的作法，说这种封闭的作法使到国外旅游者失去了了解所去国家人民的机会。他们争论说，心胸狭窄和自我封闭是并存的。但这种说法在受人欢迎的欧洲露营场地是站不住脚的。假日旅馆有只接待来自一个国家的旅游者的倾向，有时会达到排他的程度。而露营驻地则相反，是高度世界性的。在大多数地中海露营地里，德国人占优势似乎是个普遍现象，确实如此，但并没有特别的优待。禁止露天晒衣服、禁止用水龙头冲洗汽车的布告和邀请露营朋友参加舞会、乘船观光的招贴不仅印成法语、意大利语、西班牙语，而且也印成英语、德语、荷兰语。用饭的时候，德国泡菜味和大蒜味争相散发，法国人的早点咖啡和英国人的咸肉煎蛋竞相比美。

有组织的露营活动的明显发展是否意味着较独立的自我封闭式露营的最终消失，还很难说。市政当局当然希望获得露营者的场地费和其他光临的好处，警察则对那些查不出有固定营地或住处的游荡者保持警惕。但最重要的或许是露营者自己，即他们引起了多少场野火，留下了多少垃圾。总之，他们是否弄得土地的主人和乡间的居民同他们反目。只有优良的童子军活动才能保持不朽的童子军所衷心热爱的各项自由。

 

经典教材精选的美文

这个优秀文章36篇是我从新概念三、四的教材里精心挑选出来的，其中新概念三20篇和新概念四的16篇，从贴近考研英语的角度来筛选，剔除了大部分的记叙文和说明文题材，主要就是论说文了。

 

这些精选出来的文章作为必须背诵的素材。这些文档原先来自沪江的电子书，不过原来的文档很多都有或多或少的小错误。这里我都精心对照过，并且尽力避免出现错误。

 

以前那个版本只有20篇文章（新三12篇，新四8篇），有网友反映排版使用不是很方便，这里重新排版。另外字体用稍微大一点的5号，眼睛会舒服一点，还可以做一点点笔记，不过页数会增加一点。

 

蓝色加粗是考研重点词汇，要从课文句子中掌握其用法，不是很熟的最好查一下牛津或者其他词典；加阴影紫色字体是考研用短语和句型。划线的重点要熟练应用的句子，尽量应用到作文中去。

 

对这36篇文章最好是听写、翻译、背诵一步步来。先把文章听写出来，然后翻译成中文，再把中文翻译成英文，最后背诵。不过这个过程很花时间，但是也能提高英语能力。如果单纯考研应试，英语不想考那么高分，而其他科目需要的时间多点，那就只背诵吧。

 

背诵是一件很痛苦的事情，实在背不下来，可以给自己定一个量的要求：“50遍啊50遍！”甚至更强的“100遍啊100遍”读了50遍以上就算背不出来也很熟练了吧。

 

语言是背出来，模仿磁带的读音，大声跟读大声的背，将可以达到听说读写齐头并进。