關於奉獻的英語美文閱讀

  奉獻精神是中華兒女一貫追求的高尚品格,是中華民族寶貴的精神財富。下面是小編帶來的,歡迎閱讀!

  篇一

  One day a young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it. Yes, they all agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. The young man was very proud and boasted more loudly about his beautiful heart.

  Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said, "Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine." The crowd and the young man looked at the old man's heart. It was beating strongly, but full of scars, it had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in, but they didn't fit quite right and there were several jagged edges. In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing.

  The people stared — how can he say his heart is more beautiful, they thought? The young man looked at the old man's heart and saw its state and laughed. "You must be joking," he said. "Compare your heart with mine, mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears."

  "Yes," said the old man, "Yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love — I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them, and often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in my heart, but because the pieces aren't exact, I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared. Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away, and the other person hasn't returned a piece of his heart to me. These are the empty gouges — giving love is taking a chance. Although these gouges are painful, they stay open, reminding me of the love I have for these people too, and I hope someday they may return and fill the space in my heart. So now do you see what true beauty is? "

  The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart, and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands.

  The old man took his offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man's heart. It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges. The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever, since love from the old man's heart flowed into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.

  一個年輕人站在城鎮的中央,宣佈他的心是整個山谷中最美麗的心。圍觀的群眾很多,他們都稱讚他的心的確是最完美的,沒有一點傷痕或者瑕疵。真的,他們一致認為這實在是他們見過的最美麗的心。這個年輕人非常自豪,更加起勁地大聲吹捧自己那顆美麗的心。

  突然,一位老人出現在人群面前,他說:“你的心不如我的美麗。”圍觀群眾和年輕人都朝老人的心看去,它有力地跳動著,卻佈滿了傷疤,有的地方被挖走了,雖然重新補上了,但修補得不甚完整,留下參差不齊的疤痕。實際上,有的地方還露出很深的豁口。

  人們睜大了眼睛——他們想:他怎能說自己的心更美麗呢?年輕人看老人的心,見是這種情形,不禁笑了起來:“你不是在開玩笑吧?”他說。“把你的心和我的比一下,我的心是那麼完美,而你的心卻佈滿了傷疤和裂痕。”

  “是的,”老人說,“你的心從表面來看很完美,但我絕不會跟你交換。你看,每個傷疤都代表我為別人獻出的一份愛——我掏出一塊心給他們,他們常常會掏出自己的一塊回贈給我,但由於這兩塊不完全一樣,傷口的邊緣就留下了疤痕,不過我十分珍惜這些疤痕,因為它們能使我想起我們共同擁有的愛心。有時我送出了心,其他人並沒有回贈給我,因此就出現了這些深孔——獻出愛只是創造機會。儘管這些傷口疼痛,並且整日敞開著,卻能使我想起我給予他們的愛。我希望有一天,他們能夠回來填補上我心裡的空間。你們現在明白什麼是真正的美麗了吧?”

  年輕人默默無語地站著,淚水順著臉頰流下。他走到這位老人身邊,把手伸進自己完美而年輕美麗的心裡,撕下一塊來。他用顫抖的雙手把它獻給這位老人。

  老人接過饋贈,把它放進自己的心裡。然後他從自己疤痕累累的心裡掏出一塊,放在年輕人心裡的那個傷口上。正好放進去,但不是特別吻合,因為有一些疤痕。年輕人看著自己的心,看起來不再完美但比以前更美麗了,因為老人心中的愛也流淌到了他的心裡。他們互相擁抱,然後肩並肩離開了。

  篇二

  奉獻藝術一生的故事

  Michael Joseph Jackson born August 29, 1958 is an outstanding American musician. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene at the age of 11 as a member of The Jackson 5 and began a solo career in 1971 while still a member of the group Referred to as the "King of Pop" in subsequent years, five of his solo studio albums have become some of the world's best-selling records: off the Wall 1979,Thriller 1982, Bad 1987, Dangerous 1991 and History 1995.

  邁克爾·約瑟夫 ·傑克遜1958年8月29日出生,美國傑出的音樂人。他是傑克遜家族的第七個孩子。他第一次登上專業的音樂舞臺是作為傑克遜五兄弟演唱組的成員。那時候他11歲。1971年,他還在這個組合時就開始了自己的獨唱生涯。他的個人專輯成為了世界上銷量最好的唱片——《培外》1979,《顫慄》1982,《真棒》1987,《危險》和《歷史》,並在之後的歲月裡被譽為“流行音樂之王”。

  In the early 1980s, he became a dominant figure in popular music and the first African-American entertainer to amass a strong crossover following on MTV. The popularity of his music videos airing on MTV, such as "Beat it", "Billie jean" and "Thriller-credited for transforming the music videos into an art form and a promotional tool--helped bring the relatively new channel to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" kept Jackson as a staple on MTV into the 1990s. With stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of physically complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced numerous hip-hop, pop and contemporary R&B artists.

  在20世紀80年代,他成為了流行音樂的代表人物,也是第一個在音樂電視成功之後強勢轉型的非洲裔美國人。他的音樂視訊在音樂電視臺播放,很受歡迎,比如“避開”“比利 ·瓊”和“顫慄”——因為把音樂錄影帶變成了一種藝術形式和一種促銷手段而受讚譽——這幫他把名聲提到一個相當新的層次。錄影帶比如“是黑是白”和“尖叫”讓傑克遜成為了20世紀90年代音樂電視上的重要部分。傑克遜的舞臺表演和音樂視訊推廣了很多運用身體的複雜的跳舞技巧,比如機械舞和太空步。他與眾不同的悅耳嗓音和發聲方式影響了許多街舞、流行音樂和同時期的藍調音樂藝術家們。

  Jackson has donated and raised millions of dollars for beneficial causes through his Dangerous World Tour, charity singles and support of 39 charities. However, other aspects of his personal life-including his changing appearance and eccentric behaviour-generated significant controversy which damaged his public image. He was accused of child sexual abuse in 1993, the criminal investigation was closed clue to lack of evidence and Jackson was not charged. He then married twice and fathered three children, all of which caused further controversy. The singer has experienced health concerns since the early 1990s and conflicting reports regarding the state of his finances since the late 1990s. In 2005, Jackson was tried and acquitted of further sexual abuse allegations and several other charges.

  傑克遜通過他的“危險世界巡演”,慈善單曲演唱和對39個慈善機構的支援為公益事業捐贈或募集了成百萬上千萬美元。然而,他個人生活的其他方面—— 包括他面貌的改變和古怪的行為——引發了嚴重的爭議,損害了他的公眾形象。1993年他被指控犯了虐童罪,但是由於證據不足調查結束,傑克遜沒有被起訴。後來,他結過兩次婚,成為了三個孩子的父親,這也引起了更大的爭議。從20世紀90年代早期,這位歌手就經歷了健康上的麻煩;20世紀90年代後期他的財務狀況報告又自相矛盾。2005年時,傑克遜因為更多的性虐待和其他指控被審判,最終被無罪釋放。

  Jackson died on June 25, 2009 from a drug overdose, amidst preparations for his This Is It concert series.

  2009年6月25日,傑克遜死於用藥過量。當時他正在準備他的This Is It系列演唱會。

  篇三

  A Service of Love愛的奉獻

  When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard.

  Joe came out of the Middle West with a genius for pictorial art2. At six he drew a picture of the town pump with an important citizen passing it hurriedly. This work was framed3 and hung in the drug store window. At twenty he left for New York.

  Delia did things in music so well in a pine-tree village in the South that her relatives raised a little money for her to go “North” and “finish.” They could not see her, but that is our story.

  Joe and Delia met in a studio where a number of art and music students had gathered to discuss all kinds of arts.

  Joe and Delia fell in love with each other, and in a short time were married—for, when one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard.

  The couple began housekeeping in a flat. It was a lonely flat. And they were happy; for they had their Art and they had each other.

  Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister—you know his fame. His fees are high; his lessons are light—his high-lights have brought him fame. Delia was studying under Rosenstock—a very strict piano teacher.

  They were very happy as long as their money lasted. So is everybody. Their aims were very clear. They hoped their arts could bring them wealth and fame.

  But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat—the warm chats after the day’s study; the comfortable dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions4; the mutual help and inspiration; and meat and cheese sandwiches at 11 p. m.

  But after a while Art flagged5. It sometimes does, even if nobody flags it. Everything going out and nothing coming in. Money was lacking to pay Mr. Magister and Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to make a living.

  For two or three days she went out hunting for pupils. One evening she came home happily.

  “Joe, dear,” she said, “I’ve a pupil. And, oh, the loveliest people! General—General Pinkney’s daughter—on Seventy-first Street. Such a splendid house, Joe—you ought to see the front door! Byzantine6. I think you would call it. And inside! Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it before.

  “My pupil is his daughter Clementina. I dearly love her already. She’s a delicate thing—dresses always in white; and the sweetest, simplest manners! Only eighteen years old. I’m to give three lessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson. I don’t mind it a bit; for when I get two or three more pupils I can once again take up my lessons with Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle between your brows7, dear, and let’s have a nice supper.”

  “That’s all right for you, Dele,” said Joe, opening a can of peas with a carving knife, “but how about me? Do you think I’m going to let you hurry for wages while I enjoy the taste of high art? No! I guess I can do something, and bring in a dollar or two.”

  Delia came and hung about his neck.

  “Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It is not as if I had left my music and gone to work at something else. While I teach I learn. I am always with my music. And we can live as happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn’t think of leaving Mr. Magister.”

  “All right,” said Joe, reaching for the vegetable dish. “But I hate for you to be giving lessons. It isn’t Art. But you’re great and a dear to do it.”

  “When one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard,” said Delia.

  “Magister praised the sky in that sketch8 I made in the park,” said Joe. “And Tinkle gave me permission to hang two of them in his window. I may sell one if the right kind of a rich fellow sees them.”

  “I’m sure you will,” said Delia sweetly. “And now let’s be thankful for General Pinkney and this roast.”

  During all of the next week the couple had an early breakfast. Joe was excited about some sketches he was doing in Central Park, and Delia prepared breakfast for him, praised, and kissed at seven o’clock. It was most times seven o’clock when he returned in the evening.

  At the end of the week Delia, sweetly proud but tired, threw three five-dollar bills on the 8 by 10 inches centre table of the 8 by 10 feet flat room9.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “Clementina tires me. I’m afraid she doesn’t practise enough, and I have to tell her the same things so often. And then she always dresses entirely in white, and that does get monotonous10. But General Pinkney is the dearest old man! I wish you could know him, Joe. He comes in sometimes when I am with Clementina at the piano and stands there pulling his white beard. ‘And how are the semiquavers and the demi-semiquavers progressing11?’ he always asks.

  “I wish you could see the wainscoting in that drawing-room, Joe!”

  And then Joe, with the air of a Monte Cristo12, drew out a ten, a five, a two and a one—all legal notes13—and laid them beside Delia’s earnings.

  “Sold that water-colour to a man from Peoria,” he announced happily.

  “Don’t joke with me,” said Delia—“not from Peoria!”

  “All the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a woolen coat. He saw the sketch in Tinkle’s window and thought it was a windmill14 and bought it anyhow. He ordered another—an oil sketch of the Lackawanna freight depot15—to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh, I guess Art is still in it.”

  “I’m so glad you’ve kept on,” said Delia heartily. “You’re sure to win, dear. Thirty-three dollars! We never had so much to spend before. We’ll have a rich dinner to-night.”

  On the next Saturday evening Joe reached home first. He spread his $18 on the table and washed what seemed to be a great deal of dark paint from his hands.

  Half an hour later Delia arrived, her right hand tied up in a shapeless bundle of wraps and bandages16.

  “How is this?” asked Joe after the usual greetings.

  Delia laughed, but not very joyously.

  “Clementina,” she explained, “insisted upon a Welsh rabbit17 after her lesson. She is such a strange girl. Welsh rabbits at five in the afternoon. The General was there. You should have seen him run for the chafing dish18, Joe, just as if there wasn’t a servant in the house. I know Clementina isn’t in good health; she is so nervous. In serving the rabbit she spilled19 a great lot of it, boiling hot, over my hand and wrist. It hurt terribly, Joe. And the dear girl was so sorry! But General Pinkney!—Joe, that old man nearly went crazy. He rushed downstairs and sent somebody out to a drug store for some oil and things to bind it up with. It doesn’t hurt so much now.”

  “What’s this?” asked Joe, taking the hand softly and pulling at some white strands20 under the bandages.

  “It’s something soft,” said Delia, “that had oil on it. Oh, Joe, did you sell another sketch?” She had seen the money on the table.

  “Did I?” said Joe. “Just ask the man from Peoria. He got his sketch today, and he isn’t sure but he thinks he wants another parkscape and a view on the Hudson21. What time this afternoon did you burn your hand, Dele?”

  “Five o’clock, I think,” said Dele . “The iron—I mean the rabbit came off the fire about that time. You ought to have seen General Pinkney, Joe, when—”

  “Sit down here a moment, Dele,” said Joe. He drew her to the couch, sat down beside her and put his arm across her shoulders.

  “What have you been doing for the last two weeks, Dele?” he asked.

  She sat in silence for a moment or two with an eye full of love, and murmured a phrase or two of General Pinkney; but at last down went her head and out came the truth and tears.

  “I couldn’t get any pupils,” she said. “And I couldn’t bear to have you give up your lessons; and I got a place ironing shirts in that big Twenty-fourth Street laundry22. And I think I did very well to make up both General Pinkney and Clementina, don’t you, Joe? And when a girl in the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand this afternoon I was all the way home making up that story about the Welsh rabbit. You’re not angry, are you, Joe? And if I hadn’t got the work you mightn’t have sold your sketches to that man from Peoria.”

  “He wasn’t from Peoria,” said Joe slowly.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter where he was from. How clever you are, Joe—and—kiss me, Joe—and what made you ever think that I wasn’t giving music lessons to Clementina?”

  “I didn’t,” said Joe, “until to-night. And I wouldn’t have then, only I sent up this cotton waste and oil from the engine-room this afternoon for a girl upstairs who had her hand burned with an iron. I’ve been firing the engine in that laundry for the last two weeks.”

  “And then you didn’t—”

  “My purchaser23 from Peoria,” said Joe, “and General Pinkney are both creations24 of the same art—but you wouldn’t call it either painting or music.”

  And then they both laughed, and Joe began:

  “When one loves one’s Art no service seems—”

  But Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. “No,” she said—“just ‘When one loves.’”