經典英語名著的文章段落

  經典名著因其豐厚的精神內蘊和極高的美學價值,在民族文化的傳承過程中肩負著重大的任務。下面是小編帶來的,歡迎閱讀!

  欣賞

  When in an hour they crowded into a cab to go home, I strolled idly to my club. I was perhapsa little lonely, and it was with a touch of envy that I thought of the pleasant family life of whichI had had a glimpse. They seemed devoted to one another. They had little private jokes of theirown which, unintelligible to the outsider, amused them enormously. Perhaps CharlesStrickland was dull judged by a standard that demanded above all things verbal scintillation;but his intelligence was adequate to his surroundings, and that is a passport, not only toreasonable success, but still more to happiness. Mrs. Strickland was a charming woman,and she loved him. I pictured their lives, troubled by no untoward adventure, honest,decent, and, by reason of those two upstanding, pleasant children, so obviously destinedto carry on the normal traditions of their race and station, not without significance. They wouldgrow old insensibly; they would see their son and daughter come to years of reason, marry indue course —— the one a pretty girl, future mother of healthy children; the other ahandsome, manly fellow, obviously a soldier; and at last, prosperous in their dignifiedretirement, beloved by their descendants, after a happy, not unuseful life, in the fullness oftheir age they would sink into the grave.

  ——Excerpt from the Moon and Sixpennce by W. Somerset Maugham

  一個鐘頭以後,這一家擠上一輛馬車回家去了,我也一個人懶散地往俱樂部踱去。我也許感到有一點寂寞,回想我剛才瞥見的這種幸福家庭生活,心裡不無豔羨之感。這一家人感情似乎非常融洽。他們說一些外人無從理解的小笑話,笑得要命。如果純粹從善於辭令這一角度衡量一個人的智慧,也許查理斯。思特里克蘭德算不得聰明,但是在他自己的那個環境裡,他的智慧還是綽綽有餘的,這不僅是事業成功的敲門磚,而且是生活幸福的保障。思特里克蘭德太太是一個招人喜愛的女人,她很愛她的丈夫。我想象著這一對夫妻的生活,不受任何災殃禍變的干擾,誠實、體面,兩個孩子更是規矩可愛,肯定會繼承和發揚這一家人的地位和傳統。在不知不覺間,他們倆的年紀越來越老,兒女卻逐漸長大成人,到了一定的年齡,就會結婚成家——一個已經出息成美麗的姑娘,將來還會生育活潑健康的孩子;另一個則是儀表堂堂的男子漢,顯然會成為一名軍人。最後這一對夫妻告老引退,受到子孫敬愛,過著富足、體面的晚年。他們幸福的一生並未虛度,直到年壽已經很高,才告別了人世。

  ——摘自《月亮與六便士》威廉•薩默塞特•毛姆

  賞析

  Remember, my son, you have to work. Whether you handle a pick or a pen, a wheel-barrowor a set of books, digging ditches or editing a paper, ringing an auction bell or writing funnythings, you must work. If you look around you will see the men who are the most able to livethe rest of their days without work are the men who work the hardest. Don't be afraid of killingyourself with overwork. It is beyond your power to do that on the sunny side of thirty. They diesometimes, but it is because they quit work at six in the evening, and do not go home until twoin the morning. It’s the interval that kills, my son. The work gives you an appetite for yourmeals; it lends solidity to your slumbers, it gives you a perfect and grateful appreciation of aholiday.

  謹記,我的年輕人,你們必須工作.不管你是使鋤頭還是用筆,也不管是推手推車還是編記賬簿,也不管你是種地還是編輯報紙,是拍賣師亦或是作家,都必須有一份工作,併為之努力奮鬥.如果仔細觀察周圍的人,你就會發現,那些工作最努力的人最有可能安享晚年而無須去工作.不要害怕超負荷的工作會縮短你的壽命,不足三十歲的年齡,你的承受能力遠不止如此.如果說真的有人過早送命,那完全是因為他們在晚上六點結束工作,卻要在外流連到凌晨兩點才歸家.我的年輕人,正是晚上六點到凌晨兩點的這段時間的生活毀了他們自己.工作會增加你的食慾,工作會使你安然入睡,工作將會使你心滿意足地享受假日。

  There are young men who do not work, but the world is not proud of them. It does not knowtheir names, even it simply speaks of them as “old So-and-So’s boy”. Nobody likes them; thegreat, busy world doesn’t know that they are there. So find out what you want to be and do,and take off your coat and make a dust in the world. The busier you are, the less harm you willbe apt to get into, the sweeter will be your sleep, the brighter and happier your holidays, andthe better satisfied will the world be with you.

  有的年輕人不工作,但世界並不會因他們自豪。它不知道他們的姓名,甚至簡單地將他們概括為“老令人討厭者的男孩 ” 。沒有人喜歡他們;偉大,繁忙的世界不知道他們在那裡。因此,找出哪些你想成為和做的,脫下你的外衣,把粉塵拋在世界上。越是繁忙的你越是少受傷害,甜蜜將成為您的睡眠,光明和幸福著您的假期,更好地滿足你的意志世界。

  閱讀

  To see the golden sun and the azure sky, the outstretched ocean, to walk upon the greenearth, and to be a lord of a thousand creatures to look down giddy precipices or over distantflowery vales, to see the world spread out under one's finger in a map, to bring the stars near,to view the smallest insects in a microscope, to read history and witness the revolutions ofempires and the succession of generations, to hear the glory of Sidon and Tyre of Babylon andSusa, as of a fade pageant and to say all these were and are now nothing. to think that weexist in such a point of time, and in such a corner of space, to be at once spectators and apart of the moving scene to watch the return of the seasons, of spring and autumn, to hear—

  The stock dove plain amid the forest deep,

  That drowsy rustles to the sighing gale.

  —to traverse desert wildness, to listen to the dungeon's gloom,or sit in crowded theatres andsee life itself mocked, to feel heat and cold,pleasure and pain right and wrong,truth andfalsehood, to study the works of art and refine the sense of beauty to agony, to worshipfame and to dream of immortality, to have read Shakespeare and Beloit to the same species asSir Isaac Newton to be and to do all this and then in a moment to be nothing to have it allsnatched from one like a juggler's ball or a phantasmagoria...

  我們看到金色的太陽,蔚藍的天空,廣闊的海洋;我們漫步在綠油油的大地上,做萬物的主人;我們俯視令人目眩心悸的懸崖峭壁,遠眺鮮花盛開的山谷;我們把地圖攤開,任意指點全球;我們把星辰移到眼前觀看,還在顯微鏡下觀察極其微小的生物,我們學歷史,親自目睹帝國的興亡,時代的交替;我們聽人談論西頓、推羅、巴比倫和蘇撒的勳業,如同聽一番往昔的盛會,聽了以後,我們說這些事確實發生過,但現在卻是過眼雲煙了;我們思考著自己生活的時代,生活的地區;我們在人生的活動舞臺上既當觀眾,又當演員;我們觀察四季更迭,春秋代序,我們聽見了——野鴿在濃密的樹林中哀訴,樹林隨微風的嘆息而低語——我們橫越大漠;我們傾聽了子夜的歌聲;我們光顧燈火輝煌的廳堂,走下陰森森的地牢,或者坐在萬頭攢動的劇院裡觀看生活本身受到的摩擬;我們親身感受炎熱和寒冷,快樂和痛苦,正義和邪惡,真理和謬誤;我們鑽研藝術作品,把自己的美感提高到極其敏銳的程度;我們崇拜榮譽,夢想不朽;我們閱讀莎士比亞,或者把自己和牛頓爵士視為同一族類,正當我們面臨這一切,從事這一切的時候,自己卻在一剎那之間化為虛無,眼前的一切像是魔術師手中的圓球,像是一場幻影,一下子全都消失得無影無蹤……