英语名著阅读——汤姆·索亚历险记：第二章 4

《汤姆·索亚历险记》（The Adventures of Tom Sawyer）是美国小说家马克·吐温1876年发表的长篇小说。

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

CHAPTER 2 Part 4

词汇预习：

covet [ˈkʌvət] vt. 垂涎；觊觎；vi. 垂涎；觊觎
Blanc [blæŋk] n. 白；n. (Blanc)人名；(英)布朗；(法)勃朗；(西、罗、葡...

He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while—plenty of company —and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy _{垂涎；觊觎} a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread–mill is work, while rolling ten–pins or climbing Mont _白 is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four–horse passenger–coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.

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词汇预习：

awhile [əˈwaɪl] adv. 一会儿；片刻
mused  v. 沉思，冥想，揣摩；沉思地自言自语（muse 的过去式和过去分词）

The boy _{沉思，冥想，揣摩 一会儿} over the substantial change which had taken place in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to report.