英语经典美文背诵100篇001-005
英语美文背诵文选100篇
英语美文背诵文选100篇1. The First SnowThe first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs on the living, on the graves of the dead! All white save the river, that marked its course be a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless tress, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacies of their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion! Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to something soft and musical. No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh-bell, beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children. (118 words)From KavanaghBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow2. The Humming-birdOf all animals being this is the most elegant in form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds. "maxime Miranda in minimis." Her masterpiece is this little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where they perennially bloom. (149 words)From Natural HistoryBy George Louise Buffon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》3. PinesThe pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, bring into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them or a bank of cowlips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem; it shall point to the center of the earth as long as the tree lives. It may be well also for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need, and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to need nothing and endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained, desiring nothing but rightness, content with restricted completion. Tall or short, it will be straight. (160 words)From Modern PaintersBy John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》4. Reading Good BooksDevote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long asthey have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the company. From good books, moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few companions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit they may not be deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed paged are stored up, to be worked over by the imagination for future profit.(135 words)From Self-DevelopmentBy Henry Addington Bruce陈冠商《英语背诵文选》5. On EtiquetteEtiquette to society is what apparel is to the individual. Without apparel men would go in shameful nudity which would surely lead to the corruption of morals; and without etiquette society would be in a pitiable state and the necessary intercourse between its members would be interfered with by needless offences and troubles. If society were a train, the etiquette would be the rails along which only the train could rumble forth; if society were a state coach, the etiquette would be the wheels and axis on which only the coach could roll forward. The lack of proprieties would make the most intimate friends turns to be the most decided enemies and the friendly or allied countries declare war against each other. We can find many examples in the history of mankind. Therefore I advise you to stand on ceremony before anyone else and to take pains not to do anything against etiquette lest you give offences or make enemies. (160 words)by William Hazlitt陈冠商《英语背诵文选》6. An Hour Before SunriseAn hour before sunrise in the city there is an air of cold. Solitary desolation about the noiseless streets, which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings which throughout the day are warming with life. The drunken, the dissipated, and the criminal have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labors of the day, and the stillness of death is over streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the gray, somber light of daybreak. A partially opened bedroom window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of a light through the blinds of yonder windows denotes the chamber of watching and sickness. Save for that sad light, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. (166 words)From BozBy Charles Dickens陈冠商《英语背诵文选》7. The Importance of Scientific ExperimentsThe rise of modern science may perhaps be considered to date as far as the time of Roger Bacon, the wonderful monk and philosopher of Oxford, who lived between the years 1214 and 1292. He was probable the first in the middle ages to assert that we must learn science by observing and experimenting on the things around us, and he himself made many remarkable discoveries. Galileo, however who lived more than 300 years later (1564 to 1642), was the greatest of several great men, who in Italy, France, Germany or England, began by degrees to show how manyimportant truths could be discovered by well-directed observation. Before the time of Galileo, learned men believed that large bodies fall more rapidly towards the earth than small ones, because Aristotle said so. But Galileo, going to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, let fall two unequal stones, and proved to some friends, whom he had brought there to see his experiment, that Aristotle was in error. It is Galileo's sprit of going direct to Nature, and verifying our opinions and theories by experiment, that has led to all the great discoveries of modern science.(196 words)From LogicBy William Stanley Jevons陈冠商《英语背诵文选》8. Address at GettysburgFourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, ca n long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, heave consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that form these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (268 words)By Abraham Lincoln9. A Little Girl (1)Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was shi in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy could was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely. (159 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》10. A Little Girl (2)Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I didnot take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed tome a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me. (129 words)(302 words)From Aylwinby Theodore Watts-Dunton陈冠商《英语背诵文选》11. Choosing an OccupationHodeslea, Eastbourne,November 5, 1892Dear Sir,I am very sorry that the pressure of other occupations has prevented me form sending an earlier reply to your letter.In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to so work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself, a very important education the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not dare about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. It would have saved me a frightful waste of time if I had ever had it drilled into me in youth.Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry, and energy. If you possess that equipment, you will find leisure enough after your daily commercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to commerce. Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man who, as the Scotch proverb says, in 'trying to make a spoon spoils a horn," and becomes a mere hanger-on in literature or in science, when he might have been a useful and a valuable member of Society in other occupations.I think that your father ought to see this letter. (244 words)Yours faithfullyT.H. HuxleyFrom Life and Letters of Thomas Henry HuxleyBy Leonard Huxley陈冠商《英语背诵文选》12. An Important Aspect of College LifeIt is perfectly possible to organize the life of our colleges in such a way that students and teachers alike will take part in it; in such a way that a perfectly natural daily intercourse will be established between them; and it is only by such an organization that they can be given real vitality as places of serious training, be made communities in which youngsters will come fully to realize how interesting intellectual work is, how vital, how important, how closely associated with all modern achievement-only by such an organization that study can be made to seem part of life itself. Lectures often seem very formal and empty things; recitations generally proved very dull and unrewarding. It is in conversation and natural intercourse with scholars chiefly that you find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of every thing that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of everything thatis "practical" and connected with the world. Men are not always made thoughtful by books; but they are generally made thoughtful by association with men who think. (195 words)By Woodrow Wilson陈冠商《英语背诵文选》13. Night (1)Night has fallen over the country. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still save the continuous wind or the sound of the neighboring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.(128 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》14. Night (2)How different it is in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night as if you folded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him revolving like the sail of a windmill. The iron gates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps and loud voices; --a tumult; --a drunken brawl; --an alarm of fire; --then silence again. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening of the streets-angular like blocks of white marble. (195 words)(323 words)By Nathanial Hawthorne陈冠商《英语背诵文选》15. An October Sunrise (1)I was up the next morning before the October sunrise, and away through the wild and the woodland. The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of gray mountain and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped and crept to the hollow places, then stole away in line and column, holding skirts and cling subtly at the sheltering corners where rock hung over grass-land, while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding.The woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was upon them, as they owned already, touched with gold and red and olive, and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. (152 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》16. An October Sunrise (2)Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose, according to thescene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the coven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and proclaiming, "God is here!" Then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower and bud and bird had a fluttering sense of them, and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence.So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morning, when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happiness envy glory; but all things shall arise, and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen. (153 words)(305 words)By Richard D. Blackmore陈冠商《英语背诵文选》17. Of Studies (1)Studies serve for delight, for ornamental, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. (157 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》18. Of Studies (2)Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; an if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. (170 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》19. Of Studies (3)Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up onething to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. (163 words)(490 words)By Francis Bacon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》20. Books (1)The good books of the hour, then, --I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussion of questions; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; --all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worse possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. (189 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》21. Books (2)The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, the roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read". A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would-the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. (190 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》22. Books (3)The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; --this the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "this is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory, " That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book". (186 words)(565 words)By John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》24. The Value of Time (1)"Time" says the proverb "is money". This means that every moment well spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity comes. There can thus be no doubt that time is convertible into money. Let those who think nothing of wasting time, remember this; let them remember that an hour misspent is equivalent to the loss of a bank-note; an that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they give their consent to the loss of any part of their time. Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live. A day of an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Let us bear this in mind, and waste of time will appear to us in the light of a crime as culpable as suicide itself. (250 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》25. The Value of Time (2)There is a third consideration which will also tend to warn us against loss of time. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one half of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making, either on our own account or for the sake of others; some in celebrating religious and social festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the tern over which our life extends we shall find about fifteen or twenty years at our disposal for active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly waste a single moment of his life. "It is astonishing" says Lord Chesterfield "that anyone can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that portion of time which is allotted to us in this world. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it!" (187 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》26. The Value of Time (3)All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our faculties and capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away unutilized, we shall never be able to recoup the loss. As we grow older, our power of acquisition gets blunted, so that the art or science which is not acquired in childhood or youth will never be acquired at all. Just as money laid out at interest doubles and trebles itself in time, so the precious hours of childhood and youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages. "Every moment you lose" says Lord Chesterfield "is so much character and advantage lost; as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully is so much time wisely laid out at prodigious interest."A proper employment of time is of great benefit to us from a moral point of view. Idleness is justly said to be the rust of the mind and an idle brain is said to be Satan's workshop. It is mostly whenyou do not know what to do with yourself that you do something ill or wrong. The mind of the idler preys upon itself. As Watt has said:In works of labour or of skillLet me be busy too;For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do. (249 words(686 words)By Robert William Service陈冠商《英语背诵文选》27. Spring The Resurrection TimeSprings are not always the same, In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap—and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. "I know you're out there," I cry. "Come in!" And April slips into arms.The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. With in the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. Once examined the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago The apples display their milliner's scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up-primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms-you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands.The dark Blue Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. And then they stretch and gradually awaken. A warm wind, soft as a girl's hair, moves sailboat clouds in gentle skies. The rain come-good rains to sleep by-and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn to pale green, then to Kelly green.All this reminds me of a theme that runs through my head like a line of music. Its message is profoundly simple, and profoundly mysterious also: Life goes on. That is all there is to it. Everything that is, was; and everything that is, will be. (259 words)by James J. Kilpatrick陈擎红《英语背诵散文》27. Spell of the Rising MoonAs the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose, the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of the horizon, full chested and round and the color of ivory, the valley were deep shadows in the landscape. The dogs, reassured that this was the familiar moon, stopped barking.The drama took an hour. Moonrise is slow and serried with subtleties. To watch it, we must slip into an older, more patient sense of time. To watch the moon move inexorably higher is to find an unusual stillness within ourselves. Our imaginations become aware of the vast distances of space, the immensity of the earth and the huge improbability of our own existence. We feel small but privileged.Moonlight shows us none of life's harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery, the oceans still and blue in its light. In moonlight we become less calculating, more drawn to our feelings.(184 words)。
英语美文背诵文选100篇
英语美文背诵文选100篇1. The First SnowThe first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs on the living, on the graves of the dead! All white save the river, that marked its course be a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless tress, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacies of their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion! Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to something soft and musical. No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh-bell, beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children. (118 words)From KavanaghBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow2. The Humming-birdOf all animals being this is the most elegant in form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not parable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds. "maxime Miranda in minimis." Her masterpiece is this little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where they perennially bloom. (149 words)From Natural HistoryBy George Louise Buffon陈冠商?英语背诵文选?3. PinesThe pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, bring into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them or a bank of cowlips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem; it shall point to the center of the earth as long as the tree lives. It may be well also for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need, and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to need nothing and endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained, desiring nothing but rightness, content with restricted pletion. Tall or short, it will be straight.(160 words)From Modern PaintersBy John Ruskin陈冠商?英语背诵文选?4. Reading Good BooksDevote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long as they have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the pany. From good books,moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few panions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit they may not be deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed paged are stored up, to be worked over by the imagination for future profit.(135 words)From Self-DevelopmentBy Henry Addington Bruce陈冠商?英语背诵文选?5. On EtiquetteEtiquette to society is what apparel is to the individual. Without apparel men would go in shameful nudity which would surely lead to the corruption of morals; and without etiquette society would be in a pitiable state and the necessary intercourse between its members would be interfered with by needless offences and troubles. If society were a train, the etiquette would be the rails along which only the train could rumble forth; if society were a state coach, the etiquette would be the wheels and axis on which only the coach could roll forward. The lack of proprieties would make the most intimate friends turns to be the most decided enemies and the friendly or allied countries declare war against each other. We can find many examples in the history of mankind. Therefore I advise you to stand on ceremony before anyone else and to take pains not to do anything against etiquette lest you give offences or make enemies. (160 words)by William Hazlitt陈冠商?英语背诵文选?6. An Hour Before SunriseAn hour before sunrise in the city there is an air of cold. Solitary desolation about the noiseless streets, which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings which throughout the day are warming with life. The drunken, the dissipated, and the criminal have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labors of the day, and the stillness of death is over streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the gray, somber light of daybreak. A partially opened bedroom window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of a light through the blinds of yonder windows denotes the chamber of watching and sickness. Save for that sad light, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. (166 words)From BozBy Charles Dickens陈冠商?英语背诵文选?7. The Importance of Scientific ExperimentsThe rise of modern science may perhaps be considered to date as far as the time of Roger Bacon, the wonderful monk and philosopher of Oxford, who lived between the years 1214 and 1292. He was probable the first in the middle ages to assert that we must learn science by observing and experimenting on the things around us, and he himself made many remarkable discoveries. Galileo, however who lived more than 300 years later (1564 to 1642), was the greatest of several great men, who in Italy, France, Germany or England, began by degrees to show how many important truths could be discovered by well-directed observation. Before the time of Galileo, learned men believedthat large bodies fall more rapidly towards the earth than small ones, because Aristotle said so. But Galileo, going to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, let fall two unequal stones, and proved to some friends, whom he had brought there to see his experiment, that Aristotle was in error. It is Galileo's sprit of going direct to Nature, and verifying our opinions and theories by experiment, that has led to all the great discoveries of modern science.(196 words)From LogicBy William Stanley Jevons陈冠商?英语背诵文选?8. Address at GettysburgFourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, ca n long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have e to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, heave consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that form these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (268 words) By Abraham Lincoln9. A Little Girl (1)Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly bee very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So pletely absorbed was shi in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy could was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her plexion, that she unmonly lovely.(159 words)陈冠商?英语背诵文选?10. A Little Girl (2)Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I did not take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stoodsilently gazing. Here seemed tome a more perfect beauty than had ever e to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me. (129 words)(302 words)From Aylwinby Theodore Watts-Dunton陈冠商?英语背诵文选?11. Choosing an OccupationHodeslea, Eastbourne,November 5, 1892Dear Sir,I am very sorry that the pressure of other occupations has prevented me form sending an earlier reply to your letter.In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to so work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself, a very important education the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not dare about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. It would have saved me a frightful waste of time if I had ever had it drilled into me in youth.Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry, and energy. If you possess that equipment, you will find leisure enough after your daily mercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to merce. Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man who, as the Scotch proverb says, in 'trying to make a spoon spoils a horn," and bees a mere hanger-on in literature or in science, when he might have been a useful and a valuable member of Society in other occupations.I think that your father ought to see this letter. (244 words)Yours faithfullyT.H. HuxleyFrom Life and Letters of Thomas Henry HuxleyBy Leonard Huxley陈冠商?英语背诵文选?12. An Important Aspect of College LifeIt is perfectly possible to organize the life of our colleges in such a way that students and teachers alike will take part in it; in such a way that a perfectly natural daily intercourse will be established between them; and it is only by such an organization that they can be given real vitality as places of serious training, be made munities in which youngsters will e fully to realize how interesting intellectual work is, how vital, how important, how closely associated with all modern achievement-only by such an organization that study can be made to seem part of life itself. Lectures often seem very formal and empty things; recitations generally proved very dull and unrewarding. It is in conversation and natural intercourse with scholars chiefly that you find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of every thing that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of everything that is "practical" and connected with the world. Men are not always made thoughtful by books; but they are generally made thoughtful by association with men who think. (195 words)By Woodrow Wilson陈冠商?英语背诵文选?13. Night (1)Night has fallen over the country. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still save the continuous wind or the sound of the neighboring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.(128 words)陈冠商?英语背诵文选?14. Night (2)How different it is in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night as if you folded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him revolving like the sail of a windmill. The iron gates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps and loud voices; --a tumult; --a drunken brawl; --an alarm of fire; --then silence again. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to wele her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening of the streets-angular like blocks of white marble. (195 words)(323 words)By Nathanial Hawthorne陈冠商?英语背诵文选?15. An October Sunrise (1)I was up the next morning before the October sunrise, and away through the wild and the woodland. The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of gray mountain and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped and crept to the hollow places, then stole away in line and column, holding skirts and cling subtly at the sheltering corners where rock hung over grass-land, while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding.The woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was upon them, as they owned already, touched with gold and red and olive, and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. (152 words)陈冠商?英语背诵文选?16. An October Sunrise (2)Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose, according to the scene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the coven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and proclaiming, "God is here!" Then life and joy sprangreassured from every crouching hollow; every flower and bud and bird had a fluttering sense of them, and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence.So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morning, when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happiness envy glory; but all things shall arise, and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen. (153 words)(305 words)By Richard D. Blackmore陈冠商?英语背诵文选?17. Of Studies (1)Studies serve for delight, for ornamental, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, e best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. (157 words)陈冠商?英语背诵文选?18. Of Studies (2)Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like mon distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; an if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. (170 words)陈冠商?英语背诵文选?19. Of Studies (3)Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. (163 words) (490 words)By Francis Bacon陈冠商?英语背诵文选?20. Books (1)The good books of the hour, then, --I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussion of questions; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; --all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education bees more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worse possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. (189 words)陈冠商?英语背诵文选?21. Books (2)The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, the roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read". A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere munication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would-the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. (190 words) 陈冠商?英语背诵文选?22. Books (3)The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; --this the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "this is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory, " That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book". (186 words) (565 words)By John Ruskin陈冠商?英语背诵文选?24. The Value of Time (1)"Time" says the proverb "is money". This means that every moment well spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase ourcapacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity es. There can thus be no doubt that time is convertible into money. Let those who think nothing of wasting time, remember this; let them remember that an hour misspent is equivalent to the loss of a bank-note; an that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they give their consent to the loss of any part of their time.Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live. A day of an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Let us bear this in mind, and waste of time will appear to us in the light of a crime as culpable as suicide itself. (250 words)陈冠商?英语背诵文选?25. The Value of Time (2)There is a third consideration which will also tend to warn us against loss of time. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one half of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making, either on our own account or for the sake of others; some in celebrating religious and social festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the tern over which our life extends we shall find about fifteen or twenty years at our disposal for active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly waste a single moment of his life. "It is astonishing" says Lord Chesterfield "that anyone can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that portion of time which is allotted to us in this world. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it!" (187 words)陈冠商?英语背诵文选?26. The Value of Time (3)All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our faculties and capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away unutilized, we shall never be able to recoup the loss. As we grow older, our power of acquisition gets blunted, so that the art or science which is not acquired in childhood or youth will never be acquired at all. Just as money laid out at interest doubles and trebles itself in time, so the precious hours of childhood and youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages. "Every moment you lose" says Lord Chesterfield "is so much character and advantage lost; as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully is so much time wisely laid out at prodigious interest."A proper employment of time is of great benefit to us from a moral point of view. Idleness is justly said to be the rust of the mind and an idle brain is said to be Satan's workshop. It is mostly when you do not know what to do with yourself that you do something ill or wrong. The mind of the idler preys upon itself. As Watt has said:In works of labour or of skillLet me be busy too;For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do. (249 words(686 words)By Robert William Service陈冠商?英语背诵文选?27. Spring The Resurrection TimeSprings are not always the same, In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap—and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overe by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. "I know you're out there," I cry. "e in!" And April slips into arms.The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. With in the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. Once examined the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago The apples display their milliner's scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up-primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms-you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands.The dark Blue Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. And then they stretch and gradually awaken. A warm wind, soft as a girl's hair, moves sailboat clouds in gentle skies. The rain e-good rains to sleep by-and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn to pale green, then to Kelly green.All this reminds me of a theme that runs through my head like a line of music. Its message is profoundly simple, and profoundly mysterious also: Life goes on. That is all there is to it. Everything that is, was; and everything that is, will be. (259 words)by James J. Kilpatrick陈擎红?英语背诵散文?27. Spell of the Rising MoonAs the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its plexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose, the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of the horizon, full chested and round and the color of ivory, the valley were deep shadows in the landscape. The dogs, reassured that this was the familiar moon, stopped barking.The drama took an hour. Moonrise is slow and serried with subtleties. To watch it, we must slip into an older, more patient sense of time. To watch the moon move inexorably higher is to find an unusual stillness within ourselves. Our imaginations bee aware of the vast distances of space, the immensity of the earth and the huge improbability of our own existence. We feel small but privileged. Moonlight shows us none of life's harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery, the oceans still and blue in its light. In moonlight we bee less calculating, more drawn to our feelings.(184 words)by Peter Steinhart陈擎红?英语背诵散文?28. The Enchantment of Creeks (1)Nearly everybody has a creek in his past, a confiding waterway that rose in the spring of youth.……. My creek wound between Grandfather's apricot orchard and a neighbor's hillside pasture. It banks were shaded by cottonwoods and redwood trees and a thick tangle of blackberries and wild grapevines. On hot summer days the quiet water flowed clear and cold over gravel bars where I fished for trout.。
英语美文背诵文选篇
英语美文背诵文选100篇1. The First SnowThe first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs on the living, on the graves of the dead! All white save the river, that marked its course be a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless tress, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacies of their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion! Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to something soft and musical. No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh-bell, beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children. (118 words)From KavanaghBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow2. The Humming-birdOf all animals being this is the most elegant in form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds. "maxime Miranda in minimis." Her masterpiece is this little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness,rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where they perennially bloom. (149 words)From Natural HistoryBy George Louise Buffon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》3. PinesThe pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, bring into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them or a bank of cowlips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem; it shall point to the center of the earth as long as the tree lives. It may be well also for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need, and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to neednothing and endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained, desiring nothing but rightness, content with restricted completion. Tall or short, it will be straight.(160 words)From Modern PaintersBy John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》4. Reading Good BooksDevote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long as they have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the company. From good books, moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few companions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit they may not be deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed paged are stored up, to be worked over by the imagination for future profit.(135 words)From Self-DevelopmentBy Henry Addington Bruce陈冠商《英语背诵文选》5. On EtiquetteEtiquette to society is what apparel is to the individual. Without apparel men would go in shameful nudity which would surely lead to the corruption of morals; and without etiquette society would be in a pitiable state and the necessary intercourse between its members would be interfered with by needless offences and troubles. If society were a train, the etiquette would be the rails along which only the train could rumble forth; if society were a state coach, the etiquette would be the wheels and axis on which only the coach could roll forward. The lack of proprieties would make the most intimate friends turns to be the most decided enemies and the friendly or allied countries declare war against each other. We can find many examples in the history of mankind. Therefore I advise you to stand on ceremony before anyone else and to take pains not to do anything against etiquette lest you give offences or make enemies. (160 words)by William Hazlitt陈冠商《英语背诵文选》6. An Hour Before SunriseAn hour before sunrise in the city there is an air of cold. Solitary desolation about the noiseless streets, which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings which throughout the day are warming with life. The drunken, the dissipated, and the criminal have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labors of the day, and the stillness of death is over streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the gray, somber light of daybreak.A partially opened bedroom window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of a light through the blinds of yonder windows denotes the chamber of watching and sickness. Save for that sad light, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. (166 words)From BozBy Charles Dickens陈冠商《英语背诵文选》7. The Importance of Scientific ExperimentsThe rise of modern science may perhaps be considered to date as far as the time of Roger Bacon, the wonderful monk and philosopher of Oxford, who lived between the years 1214 and 1292. He was probablethe first in the middle ages to assert that we must learn science by observing and experimenting on the things around us, and he himself made many remarkable discoveries. Galileo, however who lived more than 300 years later (1564 to 1642), was the greatest of several great men, who in Italy, France, Germany or England, began by degrees to show how many important truths could be discovered by well-directed observation. Before the time of Galileo, learned men believed that large bodies fall more rapidly towards the earth than small ones, because Aristotle said so. But Galileo, going to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, let fall two unequal stones, and proved to some friends, whom he had brought there to see his experiment, that Aristotle was in error. It is Galileo's sprit of going direct to Nature, and verifying our opinions and theories by experiment, that has led to all the great discoveries of modern science.(196 words)From LogicBy William Stanley Jevons陈冠商《英语背诵文选》8. Address at GettysburgFourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation in liberty, and dedicated to the propositionthat all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, ca n long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, heave consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that form these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (268 words)By Abraham Lincoln9. A Little Girl (1)Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was shi in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy could was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely.(159 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》10. A Little Girl (2)Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I did not take in at once; for at first I couldsee nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed tome a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me. (129 words) (302 words)From Aylwinby Theodore Watts-Dunton陈冠商《英语背诵文选》11. Choosing an OccupationHodeslea, Eastbourne,November 5, 1892Dear Sir,I am very sorry that the pressure of other occupations has prevented me form sending an earlier reply to your letter.In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to so work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself, a very important education the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not dareabout when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. It would have saved me a frightful waste of time if I had ever had it drilled into me in youth.Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry, and energy. If you possess that equipment, you will find leisure enough after your daily commercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to commerce. Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man who, as the Scotch proverb says, in 'trying to make a spoon spoils a horn," and becomes a mere hanger-on in literature or in science, when he might have been a useful and a valuable member of Society in other occupations.I think that your father ought to see this letter. (244 words) Yours faithfully. HuxleyFrom Life and Letters of Thomas Henry HuxleyBy Leonard Huxley陈冠商《英语背诵文选》12. An Important Aspect of College LifeIt is perfectly possible to organize the life of our colleges in such a way that students and teachers alike will take part in it; in such a way that a perfectly natural daily intercourse will beestablished between them; and it is only by such an organization that they can be given real vitality as places of serious training, be made communities in which youngsters will come fully to realize how interesting intellectual work is, how vital, how important, how closely associated with all modern achievement-only by such an organization that study can be made to seem part of life itself. Lectures often seem very formal and empty things; recitations generally proved very dull and unrewarding. It is in conversation and natural intercourse with scholars chiefly that you find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of every thing that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of everything that is "practical" and connected with the world. Men are not always made thoughtful by books; but they are generally made thoughtful by association with men who think. (195 words)By Woodrow Wilson陈冠商《英语背诵文选》13. Night (1)Night has fallen over the country. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks,the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still save the continuous wind or the sound of the neighboring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone. (128 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》14. Night (2)How different it is in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night as if you folded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him revolving like the sail of a windmill. The iron gates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps and loud voices; --a tumult; --a drunken brawl; --an alarm of fire; --then silence again. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs,and finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening of the streets-angular like blocks of white marble. (195 words)(323 words)By Nathanial Hawthorne陈冠商《英语背诵文选》15. An October Sunrise (1)I was up the next morning before the October sunrise, and away through the wild and the woodland. The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of gray mountain and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped and crept to the hollow places, then stole away in line and column, holding skirts and cling subtly at the sheltering corners where rock hung over grass-land, while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding.The woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was upon them, as they owned already, touched with gold and red and olive, and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. (152 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》16. An October Sunrise (2)Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose, according to the scene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the coven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and proclaiming, "God is here!" Then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower and bud and bird had a fluttering sense of them, and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence.So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morning, when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happiness envy glory; but all things shall arise, and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen. (153 words)(305 words)By Richard D. Blackmore陈冠商《英语背诵文选》17. Of Studies (1)Studies serve for delight, for ornamental, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, in privateness and retiring; for ornament,is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. (157 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》18. Of Studies (2)Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books;else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; an if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. (170 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》19. Of Studies (3)Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. (163 words)(490 words)By Francis Bacon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》20. Books (1)The good books of the hour, then, --I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussion of questions; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; --all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worse possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. (189 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》21. Books (2)The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, the roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read". A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would-the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. (190 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》22. Books (3)The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is boundto say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; --this the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "this is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory, " That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book". (186 words)(565 words)By John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》24. The Value of Time (1)"Time" says the proverb "is money". This means that every moment well spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity comes. There can thus be no doubt that time is convertible into money. Let those who thinknothing of wasting time, remember this; let them remember that an hour misspent is equivalent to the loss of a bank-note; an that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they give their consent to the loss of any part of their time.Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live. A day of an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Let us bear this in mind, and waste of time will appear to us in the light of a crime as culpable as suicide itself. (250 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》25. The Value of Time (2)There is a third consideration which will also tend to warn us against loss of time. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one half of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making, either on our own account or for thesake of others; some in celebrating religious and social festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the tern over which our life extends we shall find about fifteen or twenty years at our disposal for active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly waste a single moment of his life. "It is astonishing" says Lord Chesterfield "that anyone can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that portion of time which is allotted to us in this world. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it!" (187 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》26. The Value of Time (3)All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our faculties and capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away unutilized, we shall never be able to recoup the loss. As we grow older, our power of acquisition gets blunted, so that the art or science which is not acquired in childhood or youth will never be acquired at all. Just as money laid out at interest doubles and trebles itself in time, so the precious hours of childhood and youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages."Every moment you lose" says Lord Chesterfield "is so much character and advantage lost; as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully is so much time wisely laid out at prodigious interest."A proper employment of time is of great benefit to us from a moral point of view. Idleness is justly said to be the rust of the mind and an idle brain is said to be Satan's workshop. It is mostly when you do not know what to do with yourself that you do something ill or wrong. The mind of the idler preys upon itself. As Watt has said: In works of labour or of skillLet me be busy too;For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do. (249 words(686 words)By Robert William Service陈冠商《英语背诵文选》27. Spring The Resurrection TimeSprings are not always the same, In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap—and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight,giggling in the hallway. "I know you're out there," I cry. "Come in!" And April slips into arms.The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. With in the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. Once examined the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago The apples display their milliner's scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up-primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms-you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands.The dark Blue Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. And then they stretch and gradually awaken. A warm wind, soft as a girl's hair, moves sailboat clouds in gentle skies. The rain come-good rains to sleep by-and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn to pale green, then to Kelly green. All this reminds me of a theme that runs through my head like a line of music. Its message is profoundly simple, and profoundly mysterious also: Life goes on. That is all there is to it. Everything that is, was; and everything that is, will be. (259 words)by James J. Kilpatrick陈擎红《英语背诵散文》27. Spell of the Rising MoonAs the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive。
最新英语美文背诵文选100篇
英语美文背诵文选100篇1. The First SnowThe first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs on the living, on the graves of the dead! All white save the river, that marked its course be a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless tress, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacies of their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion! Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to something soft and musical. No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh-bell, beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children. (118 words)From KavanaghBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow2. The Humming-birdOf all animals being this is the most elegant in form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds. "maxime Miranda in minimis." Her masterpiece is this little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where they perennially bloom. (149 words)From Natural HistoryBy George Louise Buffon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》3. PinesThe pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, bring into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them or a bank of cowlips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem; it shall point to the center of the earth as long as the tree lives. It may be well also for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need, and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to need nothing and endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained, desiring nothing but rightness, content with restricted completion. Tall or short, it will be straight. (160 words)From Modern PaintersBy John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》4. Reading Good BooksDevote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long asthey have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the company. From good books, moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few companions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit they may not be deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed paged are stored up, to be worked over by the imagination for future profit.(135 words)From Self-DevelopmentBy Henry Addington Bruce陈冠商《英语背诵文选》5. On EtiquetteEtiquette to society is what apparel is to the individual. Without apparel men would go in shameful nudity which would surely lead to the corruption of morals; and without etiquette society would be in a pitiable state and the necessary intercourse between its members would be interfered with by needless offences and troubles. If society were a train, the etiquette would be the rails along which only the train could rumble forth; if society were a state coach, the etiquette would be the wheels and axis on which only the coach could roll forward. The lack of proprieties would make the most intimate friends turns to be the most decided enemies and the friendly or allied countries declare war against each other. We can find many examples in the history of mankind. Therefore I advise you to stand on ceremony before anyone else and to take pains not to do anything against etiquette lest you give offences or make enemies. (160 words)by William Hazlitt陈冠商《英语背诵文选》6. An Hour Before SunriseAn hour before sunrise in the city there is an air of cold. Solitary desolation about the noiseless streets, which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings which throughout the day are warming with life. The drunken, the dissipated, and the criminal have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labors of the day, and the stillness of death is over streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the gray, somber light of daybreak. A partially opened bedroom window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of a light through the blinds of yonder windows denotes the chamber of watching and sickness. Save for that sad light, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. (166 words)From BozBy Charles Dickens陈冠商《英语背诵文选》7. The Importance of Scientific ExperimentsThe rise of modern science may perhaps be considered to date as far as the time of Roger Bacon, the wonderful monk and philosopher of Oxford, who lived between the years 1214 and 1292. He was probable the first in the middle ages to assert that we must learn science by observing and experimenting on the things around us, and he himself made many remarkable discoveries. Galileo, however who lived more than 300 years later (1564 to 1642), was the greatest of several great men, who in Italy, France, Germany or England, began by degrees to show how manyimportant truths could be discovered by well-directed observation. Before the time of Galileo, learned men believed that large bodies fall more rapidly towards the earth than small ones, because Aristotle said so. But Galileo, going to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, let fall two unequal stones, and proved to some friends, whom he had brought there to see his experiment, that Aristotle was in error. It is Galileo's sprit of going direct to Nature, and verifying our opinions and theories by experiment, that has led to all the great discoveries of modern science.(196 words)From LogicBy William Stanley Jevons陈冠商《英语背诵文选》8. Address at GettysburgFourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, ca n long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, heave consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that form these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (268 words)By Abraham Lincoln9. A Little Girl (1)Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was shi in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy could was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely. (159 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》10. A Little Girl (2)Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I didnot take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed tome a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me. (129 words)(302 words)From Aylwinby Theodore Watts-Dunton陈冠商《英语背诵文选》11. Choosing an OccupationHodeslea, Eastbourne,November 5, 1892Dear Sir,I am very sorry that the pressure of other occupations has prevented me form sending an earlier reply to your letter.In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to so work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself, a very important education the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not dare about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. It would have saved me a frightful waste of time if I had ever had it drilled into me in youth.Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry, and energy. If you possess that equipment, you will find leisure enough after your daily commercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to commerce. Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man who, as the Scotch proverb says, in 'trying to make a spoon spoils a horn," and becomes a mere hanger-on in literature or in science, when he might have been a useful and a valuable member of Society in other occupations.I think that your father ought to see this letter. (244 words)Yours faithfullyT.H. HuxleyFrom Life and Letters of Thomas Henry HuxleyBy Leonard Huxley陈冠商《英语背诵文选》12. An Important Aspect of College LifeIt is perfectly possible to organize the life of our colleges in such a way that students and teachers alike will take part in it; in such a way that a perfectly natural daily intercourse will be established between them; and it is only by such an organization that they can be given real vitality as places of serious training, be made communities in which youngsters will come fully to realize how interesting intellectual work is, how vital, how important, how closely associated with all modern achievement-only by such an organization that study can be made to seem part of life itself. Lectures often seem very formal and empty things; recitations generally proved very dull and unrewarding. It is in conversation and natural intercourse with scholars chiefly that you find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of every thing that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of everything thatis "practical" and connected with the world. Men are not always made thoughtful by books; but they are generally made thoughtful by association with men who think. (195 words)By Woodrow Wilson陈冠商《英语背诵文选》13. Night (1)Night has fallen over the country. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still save the continuous wind or the sound of the neighboring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.(128 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》14. Night (2)How different it is in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night as if you folded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him revolving like the sail of a windmill. The iron gates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps and loud voices; --a tumult; --a drunken brawl; --an alarm of fire; --then silence again. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening of the streets-angular like blocks of white marble. (195 words)(323 words)By Nathanial Hawthorne陈冠商《英语背诵文选》15. An October Sunrise (1)I was up the next morning before the October sunrise, and away through the wild and the woodland. The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of gray mountain and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped and crept to the hollow places, then stole away in line and column, holding skirts and cling subtly at the sheltering corners where rock hung over grass-land, while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding.The woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was upon them, as they owned already, touched with gold and red and olive, and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. (152 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》16. An October Sunrise (2)Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose, according to thescene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the coven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and proclaiming, "God is here!" Then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower and bud and bird had a fluttering sense of them, and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence.So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morning, when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happiness envy glory; but all things shall arise, and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen. (153 words)(305 words)By Richard D. Blackmore陈冠商《英语背诵文选》17. Of Studies (1)Studies serve for delight, for ornamental, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. (157 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》18. Of Studies (2)Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; an if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. (170 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》19. Of Studies (3)Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up onething to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. (163 words)(490 words)By Francis Bacon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》20. Books (1)The good books of the hour, then, --I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussion of questions; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; --all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worse possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. (189 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》21. Books (2)The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, the roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read". A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would-the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. (190 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》22. Books (3)The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; --this the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "this is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory, " That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book". (186 words)(565 words)By John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》24. The Value of Time (1)"Time" says the proverb "is money". This means that every moment well spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity comes. There can thus be no doubt that time is convertible into money. Let those who think nothing of wasting time, remember this; let them remember that an hour misspent is equivalent to the loss of a bank-note; an that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they give their consent to the loss of any part of their time. Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live. A day of an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Let us bear this in mind, and waste of time will appear to us in the light of a crime as culpable as suicide itself. (250 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》25. The Value of Time (2)There is a third consideration which will also tend to warn us against loss of time. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one half of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making, either on our own account or for the sake of others; some in celebrating religious and social festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the tern over which our life extends we shall find about fifteen or twenty years at our disposal for active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly waste a single moment of his life. "It is astonishing" says Lord Chesterfield "that anyone can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that portion of time which is allotted to us in this world. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it!" (187 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》26. The Value of Time (3)All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our faculties and capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away unutilized, we shall never be able to recoup the loss. As we grow older, our power of acquisition gets blunted, so that the art or science which is not acquired in childhood or youth will never be acquired at all. Just as money laid out at interest doubles and trebles itself in time, so the precious hours of childhood and youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages. "Every moment you lose" says Lord Chesterfield "is so much character and advantage lost; as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully is so much time wisely laid out at prodigious interest."A proper employment of time is of great benefit to us from a moral point of view. Idleness is justly said to be the rust of the mind and an idle brain is said to be Satan's workshop. It is mostly whenyou do not know what to do with yourself that you do something ill or wrong. The mind of the idler preys upon itself. As Watt has said:In works of labour or of skillLet me be busy too;For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do. (249 words(686 words)By Robert William Service陈冠商《英语背诵文选》27. Spring The Resurrection TimeSprings are not always the same, In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap—and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. "I know you're out there," I cry. "Come in!" And April slips into arms.The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. With in the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. Once examined the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago The apples display their milliner's scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up-primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms-you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands.The dark Blue Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. And then they stretch and gradually awaken. A warm wind, soft as a girl's hair, moves sailboat clouds in gentle skies. The rain come-good rains to sleep by-and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn to pale green, then to Kelly green.All this reminds me of a theme that runs through my head like a line of music. Its message is profoundly simple, and profoundly mysterious also: Life goes on. That is all there is to it. Everything that is, was; and everything that is, will be. (259 words)by James J. Kilpatrick陈擎红《英语背诵散文》27. Spell of the Rising MoonAs the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose, the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of the horizon, full chested and round and the color of ivory, the valley were deep shadows in the landscape. The dogs, reassured that this was the familiar moon, stopped barking.The drama took an hour. Moonrise is slow and serried with subtleties. To watch it, we must slip into an older, more patient sense of time. To watch the moon move inexorably higher is to find an unusual stillness within ourselves. Our imaginations become aware of the vast distances of space, the immensity of the earth and the huge improbability of our own existence. We feel small but privileged.Moonlight shows us none of life's harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery, the oceans still and blue in its light. In moonlight we become less calculating, more drawn to our feelings.(184 words)。
英语经典美文背诵100篇001-005
1. Beauty is MeaninglessA young man sees a sunset and, unable to understand or to express the emotion that it rouses in him, concludes that it must be the gateway to a world that lies beyond. It is difficult for any of us in moments of intense aesthetic experience to resist the suggestion that we are catching a glimpse of a light that shines down to us from a different realm of existence, different and, because the experience is intensely moving, in some way higher. And, though the gleams blind and dazzle, yet they do convey a hint of beauty and serenity greater than we have known or imagined. Greater too than we can describe, for language, which was invented to convey the meanings of this world, cannot readily be fitted to the uses of another.年轻人看到日落，由于无法理解或表达心中激起的那种强烈感情，便断定日落处一定是通往遥远世界的大门。
我们任何人在强烈感受到美的时刻都不禁联想到：我们似乎瞥见从一个不同世界射向我们的一线光芒，不仅不同，而且因为这种美具有强烈的感染力，所以在某种程度上更高级。
实用文库汇编之英语美文背诵文选100篇
*实用文库汇编之英语美文背诵文选100篇*1. The First SnowThe first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs on the living, on the graves of the dead! All white save the river, that marked its course be a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless tress, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacies of their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion! Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to something soft and musical. No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh-bell, beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children. (118 words)From KavanaghBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow2. The Humming-birdOf all animals being this is the most elegant in form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds. "maxime Miranda in minimis." Her masterpiece is this little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where they perennially bloom. (149 words)From Natural HistoryBy George Louise Buffon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》3. PinesThe pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, bring into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them or a bank of cowlips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem; it shall point to the center of the earth as long as the tree lives. It may be well also for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need, and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to need nothing and endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained, desiring nothing but rightness, content with restricted completion. Tall or short, it will be straight. (160 words)From Modern PaintersBy John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》4. Reading Good BooksDevote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long asthey have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the company. From good books, moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few companions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit they may not be deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed paged are stored up, to be worked over by the imagination for future profit.(135 words)From Self-DevelopmentBy Henry Addington Bruce陈冠商《英语背诵文选》5. On EtiquetteEtiquette to society is what apparel is to the individual. Without apparel men would go in shameful nudity which would surely lead to the corruption of morals; and without etiquette society would be in a pitiable state and the necessary intercourse between its members would be interfered with by needless offences and troubles. If society were a train, the etiquette would be the rails along which only the train could rumble forth; if society were a state coach, the etiquette would be the wheels and axis on which only the coach could roll forward. The lack of proprieties would make the most intimate friends turns to be the most decided enemies and the friendly or allied countries declare war against each other. We can find many examples in the history of mankind. Therefore I advise you to stand on ceremony before anyone else and to take pains not to do anything against etiquette lest you give offences or make enemies. (160 words)by William Hazlitt陈冠商《英语背诵文选》6. An Hour Before SunriseAn hour before sunrise in the city there is an air of cold. Solitary desolation about the noiseless streets, which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings which throughout the day are warming with life. The drunken, the dissipated, and the criminal have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labors of the day, and the stillness of death is over streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the gray, somber light of daybreak. A partially opened bedroom window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of a light through the blinds of yonder windows denotes the chamber of watching and sickness. Save for that sad light, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. (166 words)From BozBy Charles Dickens陈冠商《英语背诵文选》7. The Importance of Scientific ExperimentsThe rise of modern science may perhaps be considered to date as far as the time of Roger Bacon, the wonderful monk and philosopher of Oxford, who lived between the years 1214 and 1292. He was probable the first in the middle ages to assert that we must learn science by observing and experimenting on the things around us, and he himself made many remarkable discoveries. Galileo, however who lived more than 300 years later (1564 to 1642), was the greatest of several great men, who in Italy, France, Germany or England, began by degrees to show how manyimportant truths could be discovered by well-directed observation. Before the time of Galileo, learned men believed that large bodies fall more rapidly towards the earth than small ones, because Aristotle said so. But Galileo, going to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, let fall two unequal stones, and proved to some friends, whom he had brought there to see his experiment, that Aristotle was in error. It is Galileo's sprit of going direct to Nature, and verifying our opinions and theories by experiment, that has led to all the great discoveries of modern science.(196 words)From LogicBy William Stanley Jevons陈冠商《英语背诵文选》8. Address at GettysburgFourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, ca n long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, heave consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that form these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (268 words)By Abraham Lincoln9. A Little Girl (1)Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was shi in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy could was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely. (159 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》10. A Little Girl (2)Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I didnot take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed tome a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me. (129 words)(302 words)From Aylwinby Theodore Watts-Dunton陈冠商《英语背诵文选》11. Choosing an OccupationHodeslea, Eastbourne,November 5, 1892Dear Sir,I am very sorry that the pressure of other occupations has prevented me form sending an earlier reply to your letter.In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to so work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself, a very important education the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not dare about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. It would have saved me a frightful waste of time if I had ever had it drilled into me in youth.Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry, and energy. If you possess that equipment, you will find leisure enough after your daily commercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to commerce. Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man who, as the Scotch proverb says, in 'trying to make a spoon spoils a horn," and becomes a mere hanger-on in literature or in science, when he might have been a useful and a valuable member of Society in other occupations.I think that your father ought to see this letter. (244 words)Yours faithfullyT.H. HuxleyFrom Life and Letters of Thomas Henry HuxleyBy Leonard Huxley陈冠商《英语背诵文选》12. An Important Aspect of College LifeIt is perfectly possible to organize the life of our colleges in such a way that students and teachers alike will take part in it; in such a way that a perfectly natural daily intercourse will be established between them; and it is only by such an organization that they can be given real vitality as places of serious training, be made communities in which youngsters will come fully to realize how interesting intellectual work is, how vital, how important, how closely associated with all modern achievement-only by such an organization that study can be made to seem part of life itself. Lectures often seem very formal and empty things; recitations generally proved very dull and unrewarding. It is in conversation and natural intercourse with scholars chiefly that you find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of every thing that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of everything thatis "practical" and connected with the world. Men are not always made thoughtful by books; but they are generally made thoughtful by association with men who think. (195 words)By Woodrow Wilson陈冠商《英语背诵文选》13. Night (1)Night has fallen over the country. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still save the continuous wind or the sound of the neighboring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.(128 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》14. Night (2)How different it is in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night as if you folded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him revolving like the sail of a windmill. The iron gates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps and loud voices; --a tumult; --a drunken brawl; --an alarm of fire; --then silence again. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening of the streets-angular like blocks of white marble. (195 words)(323 words)By Nathanial Hawthorne陈冠商《英语背诵文选》15. An October Sunrise (1)I was up the next morning before the October sunrise, and away through the wild and the woodland. The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of gray mountain and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped and crept to the hollow places, then stole away in line and column, holding skirts and cling subtly at the sheltering corners where rock hung over grass-land, while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding.The woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was upon them, as they owned already, touched with gold and red and olive, and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. (152 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》16. An October Sunrise (2)Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose, according to thescene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the coven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and proclaiming, "God is here!" Then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower and bud and bird had a fluttering sense of them, and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence.So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morning, when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happiness envy glory; but all things shall arise, and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen. (153 words)(305 words)By Richard D. Blackmore陈冠商《英语背诵文选》17. Of Studies (1)Studies serve for delight, for ornamental, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. (157 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》18. Of Studies (2)Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; an if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. (170 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》19. Of Studies (3)Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up onething to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. (163 words)(490 words)By Francis Bacon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》20. Books (1)The good books of the hour, then, --I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussion of questions; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; --all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worse possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. (189 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》21. Books (2)The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, the roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read". A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would-the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. (190 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》22. Books (3)The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; --this the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "this is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory, " That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book". (186 words)(565 words)By John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》24. The Value of Time (1)"Time" says the proverb "is money". This means that every moment well spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity comes. There can thus be no doubt that time is convertible into money. Let those who think nothing of wasting time, remember this; let them remember that an hour misspent is equivalent to the loss of a bank-note; an that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they give their consent to the loss of any part of their time. Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live. A day of an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Let us bear this in mind, and waste of time will appear to us in the light of a crime as culpable as suicide itself. (250 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》25. The Value of Time (2)There is a third consideration which will also tend to warn us against loss of time. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one half of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making, either on our own account or for the sake of others; some in celebrating religious and social festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the tern over which our life extends we shall find about fifteen or twenty years at our disposal for active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly waste a single moment of his life. "It is astonishing" says Lord Chesterfield "that anyone can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that portion of time which is allotted to us in this world. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it!" (187 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》26. The Value of Time (3)All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our faculties and capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away unutilized, we shall never be able to recoup the loss. As we grow older, our power of acquisition gets blunted, so that the art or science which is not acquired in childhood or youth will never be acquired at all. Just as money laid out at interest doubles and trebles itself in time, so the precious hours of childhood and youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages. "Every moment you lose" says Lord Chesterfield "is so much character and advantage lost; as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully is so much time wisely laid out at prodigious interest."A proper employment of time is of great benefit to us from a moral point of view. Idleness is justly said to be the rust of the mind and an idle brain is said to be Satan's workshop. It is mostly whenyou do not know what to do with yourself that you do something ill or wrong. The mind of the idler preys upon itself. As Watt has said:In works of labour or of skillLet me be busy too;For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do. (249 words(686 words)By Robert William Service陈冠商《英语背诵文选》27. Spring The Resurrection TimeSprings are not always the same, In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap—and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. "I know you're out there," I cry. "Come in!" And April slips into arms.The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. With in the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. Once examined the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago The apples display their milliner's scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up-primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms-you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands.The dark Blue Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. And then they stretch and gradually awaken. A warm wind, soft as a girl's hair, moves sailboat clouds in gentle skies. The rain come-good rains to sleep by-and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn to pale green, then to Kelly green.All this reminds me of a theme that runs through my head like a line of music. Its message is profoundly simple, and profoundly mysterious also: Life goes on. That is all there is to it. Everything that is, was; and everything that is, will be. (259 words)by James J. Kilpatrick陈擎红《英语背诵散文》27. Spell of the Rising MoonAs the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose, the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of the horizon, full chested and round and the color of ivory, the valley were deep shadows in the landscape. The dogs, reassured that this was the familiar moon, stopped barking.The drama took an hour. Moonrise is slow and serried with subtleties. To watch it, we must slip into an older, more patient sense of time. To watch the moon move inexorably higher is to find an unusual stillness within ourselves. Our imaginations become aware of the vast distances of space, the immensity of the earth and the huge improbability of our own existence. We feel small but privileged.Moonlight shows us none of life's harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery, the oceans still and blue in its light. In moonlight we become less calculating, more drawn to our feelings.(184 words)。
晨读英语美文100篇
晨读英语美文100篇Passage1. Knowledge and VirtueKnowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentleman, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life—these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge;they are the objects of a University.I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them;but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness,and they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate,to the heartless, pleasant, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them.Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be what they are not;they look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and in the long run;and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretense and hypocrisy,not, I repeat, fromtheir own fault,but because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not,and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim.Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk,then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledgeand human reason to contend against those giants,Passage 2. “Packing” a PersonA person, like a commodity, needs packaging.But going too far is absolutely undesirable.A little exaggeration, however, does no harmwhen it shows the person's unique qualities to their advantage.To display personal charm in a casual and natural way,it is important for one to have a clear knowledge of oneself.A master packager knows how to integrate art and nature without any traces of embellishment,so that the person so packaged is no commodity but a human being, lively and lovely.A young person, especially a female, radiant with beauty and full of life,has all the favor granted by God.Any attempt to make up would be self-defeating.Youth, however, comes and goes in a moment of doze.Packaging for the middle-aged is primarily to conceal the furrows ploughed by time.If you still enjoy life's exuberance enough to retain self-confidenceand pursuepioneering work, you are unique in your natural qualities,and your charm and grace will remain.Elderly people are beautiful if their river of life has been,through plains, mountains and jungles, running its course as it should.You have really lived your life which now arrives at a complacent stage of serenityindifferent to fame or wealth.There is no need to resort to hair-dyeing；the snow-capped mountain is itself a beautiful scene of fairyland.Let your looks change from young to old synchronizing with the natural ageing processso as to keep in harmony with nature, for harmony itself is beauty,while the other way round will only end in unpleasantness.To be in the elder's company is like reading a thick book of deluxe editionthat fascinates one so much as to be reluctant to part with.As long as one finds where one stands, one knows how to package oneself,just as a commodity establishes its brand by the right packaging.Passage 3. Three Passions I Have Lived forThree passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life:the longing for love, the search for knowledge,and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither,in a wayward course over a deep ocean ofanguish,reaching to the very verge of despair.I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my lifefor a few hours for this joy.I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousnesslooks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss.I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen,in a mystic miniature,the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life,this is what—at last—I have found.With equal passion I have sought knowledge.I have wished to understand the hearts of men.I have wished to know why the stars shine ...A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens.But always pity brought me back to earth.Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart.Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people—a hated burden to their sons,and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.This has been my life.I have found it worth living, and would gladly live itagainif the chance were offered me.Passage 4. A Little GirlSitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl.With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing,while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloudthat hovered like a golden feather above her head.The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair,gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black.So completely absorbed was she in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation seemed addressed,that she did not observe me when I rose and went towards her.Over her head, high up in the blue,a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy cloud was singing, as if in rivalry.As I slowly approached the child,I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl,and especially by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely.Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet,were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way,and these matched in hue her eyebrows,and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat were quivering in the sunlight.All this I did not take in at once;for at first I could see nothing but thosequivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face.Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth,grew upon me as I stood silently gazing.Here seemed to me a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty.Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me.Passage 5 Declaration of IndependenceWhen in the Course of human events,it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bandswhich have connected them with another,and to assume among the powers of the earth,the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,a decent respect to the opinions of mankindrequires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,and to institutenew Government,laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long establishedshould not be changed for light and transient causes;and accordingly all experience has shown,that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce themunder absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies;and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.The history of the present King of Great Britainis a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.Passage 6. A Tribute to the DogThe best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy.His son or daughter that he has rearedwith loving care may prove ungrateful.Those who are nearest and dearest to us,those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name,may become traitors to their faith.The money that a man has he may lose.It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most.A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action.The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with usmay be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world,the one that never deserts him,the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness.He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely,if only he may be near his master’s side.He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer;he will lick the wounds and sores that come from encounter with the roughness of the world.He will guard the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.When all other friends desert, he remains.When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces,he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journeys through the heavens.If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless,the faithfuldog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him,to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies.And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace,and his body is laid away in the cold ground,no matter if all other friends pursue their way,there by the grave will the noble dog be found,his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness,faithful and true even in death.Passage 7. Knowledge and ProgressWhy does the idea of progress loom so large in the modern world?Surely because progress of a particular kind is actually taking place around usand is becoming more and more manifest.Although mankind has undergone no general improvement in intelligence or morality,it has made extraordinary progress in the accumulation of knowledge.Knowledge began to increase as soon as the thoughts of one individualcould be communicated to another by means of speech.With the invention of writing，a great advance was made,for knowledge could then be not only communicated but also stored.Libraries made education possible, and education in its turn added to libraries:the growth of knowledge followed a kind of compound interest law,which was greatly enhanced by the invention of printing.All this was comparatively slow until, with the coming of science,the tempowas suddenly raised.Then knowledge began to be accumulated according to a systematic plan.The trickle became a stream;the stream has now become a torrent.Moreover, as soon as new knowledge is acquired, it is now turned to practical account.What is called “modern civilization” is not the result of a balanced development of all man's nature,but of accumulated knowledge applied to practical life.The problem now facing humanity is:What is going to be done with all this knowledge?As is so often pointed out, knowledge is a two-edged weaponwhich can be used equally for good or evil.It is now being used indifferently for both.Could any spectacle, for instance, be more grimly weirdthan that of gunners using science to shatter men's bodies while, close at hand,surgeons use it to restore them?We have to ask ourselves very seriously what will happen if this twofold use of knowledge,with its ever-increasing power, continues.Passage 8. Address by EngelsOn the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon,the greatest living thinker ceased to think.He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes,and when we came back we found him in his armchair,peacefully gone to sleep—but forever.An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by themilitant proletariat of Europe and America,and by historical science, in the death of this man.The gap that has been left by the departure of this mighty spiritwill soon enough make itself felt.Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature,so Marx discovered the law of development of human history:the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology,that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing,before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.;that therefore the production of the immediate material means of subsistenceand consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given peopleor during a given epoch form the foundation upon which the state institutions,the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion,of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore,be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.But that is not all.Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist mode of productionand the bourgeois society that this mode of production has created.The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem,in trying to solve which all previous investigations,of both bourgeois economists and socialist critics, had been groping in thedark.Two such discoveries would be enough for one lifetime.Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery.But in every single field which Marx investigated—and he investigated very many fields,none of them superficially—in every field, even in that of mathematics,he made independent discoveries.Passage 9. Relationship that LastsIf somebody tells you,“ I’ll love you for ever,” will you believe it?I don’t think there’s any reason not to.We are ready to believe such commitment at the moment,whatever change may happen afterwards.As for the belief in an everlasting love, that’s another thing.Then you may be asked whether there is such a thing as an everlasting love.I’d answer I believe in it, but an everlasting love is not immutable.You may unswervingly love or be loved by a person.But love will change its composition with the passage of time.It will not remain the same.In the course of your growth and as a result of your increased experience,love will become something different to you.In the beginning you believed a fervent love for a person could last definitely.By and by, however, “fervent” gave way to “prosaic”.Precisely because of this change it became possible for love to last.Then what was meant by an everlasting love would eventually end up in asort of interdependence.We used to insist on the difference between love and liking.The former seemed much more beautiful than the latter.One day, however, it turns out there’s really no need to make such difference.Liking is actually a sort of love.By the same token, the everlasting interdependence is actually an everlasting love.I wish I could believe there was somebody who would love me for ever.That’s, as we all know, too romantic to be true.Passage 10. RushSwallows may have gone, but there is a time of return;willow trees may have died back, but there is a time of regreening;peach blossoms may have fallen, but they will bloom again.Now, you the wise, tell me, why should our days leave us, never to return?If they had been stolen by someone, who could it be?Where could he hide them?If they had made the escape themselves, then where could they stay at the moment?I don’t know how many days I have been given to spend,but I do feel my hands are getting empty.Taking stock silently, I find that more than eight thousand days have already slid away from me.Like a drop of water from the point of a needle disappearing into the ocean,my days are dripping into the stream of time, soundless, traceless.Already sweat is starting on my forehead,and tears welling up in my eyes.Those that have gone have gone for good, those to come keep coming;yet in between, how fast is the shift, in such a rush?When I get up in the morning,the slanting sun marks its presence in my small room in two or three oblongs.The sun has feet, look, he is treading on, lightly and furtively;and I am caught, blankly, in his revolution.Thus —the day flows away through the sink when I wash my hands,wears off in the bowl when I eat my meal,and passes away before my day-dreaming gaze as reflect in silence.I can feel his haste now, so I reach out my hands to hold him back,but he keeps flowing past my withholding hands.In the evening, as I lie in bed, he strides over my body, glides past my feet, in his agile way.The moment I open my eyes and meet the sun again, one whole day has gone.I bury my face in my hands and heave a sigh.But the new day begins to flash past in the sigh.What can I do, in this bustling world, with my days flying in their escape?Nothing but to hesitate, to rush.What have I been doing in that eight-thousand-day rush, apart from hesitating?Those bygone days have been dispersed as smoke by a light wind,or evaporated as mist by the morning sun.What traces have I left behind me?Have I ever left behind any gossamer traces at all?I have come to the world, stark naked;am I to go back, in a blink,in the same stark nakedness?It is not fair though:why should I have made such a trip for nothing!You the wise, tell me,why should our days leave us, never to return?。
小学英语必背美文100篇（教学类别）
小学英语必背美文100篇（教学类别）预览说明:预览图片所展示的格式为文档的源格式展示,下载源文件没有水印,内容可编辑和复制小学英语必背美文100篇Passage 1.WoodpeckerThere are many apple trees in a garden. They’re good friends. One day an old tree is ill. There are many pests in the tree. Leaves of the tree turn yellow. The old tree feels very sad and unwell. Another tree sends for a doctor for him. At first, they send for a pigeon, but she has no idea about it. Then they send for an oriole, and she ca n’t treat the old tree well. Then they send for a woodpecker. She is a good doctor. She pecks a hole in the tree and eats lots of pests. At last the old tree becomes better and better. Leaves turn green and green.Passage 2.A Busy DayToday is Sunday! On Sundays, I usually play the flute.My father usually reads the newspaper. My motherusuallycleansthe house. Buttoday my mother is in bed. She is ill. My father has to do the housework. Now, he is cleaning the house. “Sam, can you help me?”“Yes, Dad!”Now, we’re washing the car. Where’s my sister, Amy? She is playing my flute. What a lucky girl!Passage 3.The dog and his reflectionOne day a dog with a piece of meat in his mouth was crossing a plank over a stream. As he walked along,helookedintowater,andhesawhis reflection. He thought this was another dog carryinga piece of meat. And he felt he would like to have two pieces. So he snapped at the reflection in the water, and of course, as heopened his mouth, the piece of meat disappeared quickly.Passage 4.An honest boyTony is seven years old. He is an honest and polite boy. One day, it was Sunday. Tony, his sister and his mother stayed at home. He was watching TV and his sister was reading books. His mother was washing clothes. Just then, his father came back with a bag of pears. Tony likes pears very much and he wantedto eat one. His mother gave him four and said, “Let’s sharethem.”“Whichpeardo youwant, Tony?”asked his mother. “The biggest one, mum.”“What?”said his mother, “You should be polite and want the sm allest one.”“Should I tell a lie just to be polite, mum?”Passage 5.A birthday partyToday is Susan’s birthday. She is nine years old. Her friends are in her home now. There is a birthday party in the evening. Look! Mary is listening to the music. And Tom is drinking orangejuice. Jack and Sam are playing cards on the floor. Lily and Amy are watching TV. Someone is knocking at the door. It’s Henry. He brings a big teddy bear for Susan. The teddy bear is yellow. Susan is very happy. All the children are happy. They sing a birthday song for Susan.Passage 6.The Farmer and the SnakeIt was a cold winter day.A farmer found a snake on the ground. It was nearly dead by cold. The Farmer was a kind man. Hepicked up thesnake carefully and put it under the coat. Soon the snake Began to move and it raised its mouth and bit the farmer. “Oh, My god!”said the farmer, “I save your life, but you thank me in that way. You must die.”Then he killed the snake with a stick. At last he died, too.Passage 7.Two Young TreesTwo young trees are standing on the top of the hill. Their names are Tim and Alan.One day, it’s sunny and warm. Some birds are singing in the trees. The wind blows, and the trees are talking. “What do you want to be when you grow up?’’asks Tim. “I’m not sure. I think I want to be a chair or a desk.”answers Alan, “Maybe I want to bea toy box or a baseball bat. I like children.”“What do you want to be when you grow up?”asks Alan. “Me?”says Tim, “I just want to be a tree. I want to bea house for birds and spiders. I want to have many apples. And when it’s sunny and hot, people and animals can stand under me.”Passage 8.Hongkong is a nice placeHong Kong is a nice place, especially in summer. JulyisahotmonthinHongKong.Butit’san excellent time for swimming. There is a beautiful beach at Repulse Bay (浅水湾). T o get there, you can take a bus from Central. Lots of people go to the beach on Sundays and Saturdays. But if you go on a weekday, it is will be not so crowded.Visitors to Hongkong need passports. But people from many countries do not need visas. Hongkong is a nice place for holiday. There are many shops.Passage 9.WaterWater is very important for living things. Without water, there must be no life on the earth. All the plants and animals need water to drink, to cook food and to clean ourselves. Water is needed in farms, factories, offices, schools, families and many other places.Water is found in seas, rivers and lakes. It can be foundeverywhere in the world, and it also can be found in the air.Passage 10.Twins’BedroomThis is the twins’bedroom. It is a nice room. The two beds look the same. This bed is Lily’s and that one is Lucy’s. The twins have one desk and two chairs. Their clock, books and pencil-boxes are on the desk. Their schoolbags are behind the chairs. Some nice flowers are on the desk. Some nice pictures are on the wall. Is there a kite? Yes, it’s under Lily’s bed. The bedroom is very nice.Passage 11.DogsOne of the animals that help people a lot is the dog. In some countries, dogs pull wagons. In the cold north, dogs pull sleds.There are other ways that dogs help us, too. Policemen use them to look for missing people. Soldiers use them to carry letters and medicine .On farms, dogs take care of sheep and keep them in the fields. At night, they take the sheep home. Dogs help the blind with work. Some dogs are good and kind. Some dogs are good at another skill.Passage 12.The Best JobBetty is a lazy girl. She doesn’t study hard, and she doesn’t help her mother with the housework, either. “What are you going to be when you grow up, Betty?”Mother asks. “You’re too lazy. No job will ever fit you.”“But I know one,”says the girl, “I’m going to be Father Christmas,”“You want to be Father Christmas?”Mother is surprised, “But why?”“Because he works only one day in a whole year.”Passage 13.A Clever MonkeyA little monkey picks up a pumpkin and wants to takeithome.Butthepumpkinistoobig.The monkey can’t take ithome.Suddenly he sees a panda riding a bike towards him. He watches the bike. “l have a good idea. I can roll the pumpkin. It likes a wheel.”So he rolls the pumpkin to his home. When his mother sees the big pumpkin, she is surprised and says, “How can you carry it home?”The little monkey answers proudly, “l can’t lift it, but l can roll it.”His mother smiles and says, “What a clever boy!”Passage14. What Are Stars Like?Have you ever wondered about the stars? In some ways, stars are like people. They are born. They grow old. And they die. A star is born from dust and gas. Slowly the dust and gas make a ball. The ball gets very hot. Then it starts to give off light. The young star grows into a giant. Many years go by. The older star begins to get small again. At last its light goes out. The star’s life isover.Passage 15.Radio and TelevisionRadio and television are very popular in the world today. Millions of people watch TV. Perhaps more people listen to the radio.The TV is more useful than the radio. On TV we can see and hear what is happening in the world. However, radio isn’t lost. It is still with us. And listeners are becoming more. That’sbecause a transistor radio isn’t lost. It is still with us. It is very easy to carry. You can put one in your pocket and listen to it on the bus or your bike when you go to work.Passage 16.It’s cool behind youIt’stwoo’clockintheafternoon.Thesunis shinning and it’svery hot. Nancy has to meet her mother at the train station.Now she’s walking in the street. There are no trees and she’s fat. So she feels very hot. But she doesn’t find a boy walking just behind her. And she meets a friend and says “hello”to him. “Who’s the boy behind you？”asks the man . Now she sees the boy. She is angry and asks, “Why are you walking behind me, boy?”“There’snoshadeinthestreet, you know.”answers the boy. “It’s cool behind you, I think.”Passage 17.Father’s HobbyMy dad works from Monday to Friday in a bank. he uses the computer to count money. His job is very important in the bank.Dad is also busy at home. At weekends he cooks dinner. Usually he cooks Italian food. On Sundays he makesfive pieces of pizza. Sometimes hecooks chicken and makes Chinese food. My mum watches and helps him. I help my dad, too. I wash the dishes.Many people think it is strange for a man to cook. But my dad enjoys his hobby. Cooking relaxes him. He is a weekend cook.Passage 18.I don’t think soJack is a good boy but he doesn’t like to use his head. He often says something withou thinking.It makes others unhappy.Mr. Black teaches math in a school. He’s old now and he likes children.On the Friday Mr. Black does n’t go to work, because he’s ill in a hospital. And Jack’s mother will see him after dinner. “I want to be there with you.”says Jack. “You’re a rude boy. I can’t take you there.’’sayshis mother. “Don’t worry, mum. I won’t do that again. Please believe me. ”says Jack. In the hospital, Jack says nothing at first. When they’re leaving , he says to Mr. Black, “You look fine. The doctor says you’re going to die, but I don’t think so. ”Passage 19.Seven days in a weekThere are about fifty-two weeks in a year. And there are seven days in each week. The first day of a week is Sunday. The other days of a week between SundayandSaturdayare Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday and Friday. Monday is the second day, Tuesday is the third day, Wednesday is the fourth day, Thursday is the fifth day, and Friday is the sixth day. What’s the last day? Do you know?Passage 20.My special FriendI have a friend in the U.S. His name is Don Adams. I know him very well, but I have never met him. We write to each other all the time. My letters are very short. It is still hard for me to write in English. I received a letter from Don yesterday. It makes me very happy. He is coming to my country for a visit next summer. We are going to see each other for the first time.Passage 21.A Day in My LifeMy family lives on this street. In the morning, my father goes to work and all the children go to school. My mother takes us to school everyday. She does the housework. She always has her lunch at home, and sees her friends in the afternoon. In the evening all the children come home from school. They always get home early. My father goes home from work and he is often late. After supper my two brothers and I do our homework. We go to bed at ten.Passage 22. The SeaWhat do know about the sea? Some people have seen it but others haven’t. The sea looks beautiful on a fine sunny day and it can be very tough when there is a strong wind. What other things do you know about it? Of course, the sea is very large. In the world there is more sea than land. If you have swum in the sea, you know that the sea is salty. Rivers carry salt from the landinto the sea. Some places of the sea are saltier than the other places. Do you know the Dead Sea? It is so salty that you can’t sink when you are in the water! And fish cannot live in it!Passage 23.A Good Young PioneerLi Hua is a Yong Pioneer. He is going to the park. Now he is waiting for a bus. Suddenly he finds a watchon theground.He askssome people, “Whose watch is it?”But the watch isn’t theirs. So he gives the watch to a policeman.Now Li Hua gets on the bus. He is sitting near the window. An old woman gets on the bus. Shehas no seat. So he stands up and says, “Here is a seat for you, Granny. Please sit here”Passage 24.Sea horseThere are all kinds of horses in the world. But one of them you can’t ride. It doesn’t live on land, but in the sea. It looks like the head of horse. So the people call it sea horse. In fact, the sea horse is a small fish. It likes to live in warm water. A sea horse stands up in the water when it swims.Father horse carries the eggs to keep them safe in its pouch. Whenthe eggsare hatched, the baby horses swim away.Passage 25.A Cat and a BirdThere are three trees near the house. There is a big tree, and two small trees.In the big tree there is a bird. Can the bird sing? Yes, it can. What’s under the big tree? It’s a cat.“I want some food,”thinks the cat. “Bird, my good friend, Come here! It’s time to play games”says the cat.“No today, thank you!”says the bird, “You can’t catch me! Goodbye!”Look! The bird is flying!Passage 26.A Flying FoxA flying fox is not a fox at all. It is a bat. But this bat looks like a fox. A flying fox is very big. It likes to eat fruit. Sometimes the flying fox is called fruit bat.The flying fox flies into fruit trees. Then the bat eats all the fruit. So fruit farmers do not like the flying fox.Passage 27.Flying BirdsBirds don’t fly high up in the sky. The air is too thin.It is hard for birds to breathe in thin air. Thin air doesn’t hold them up.Birds fly near the ground so that they can see where they are. The birds look for places they know. Then they do not get lost. Some birds fly so low over the ocean that the waves often hide them. Many birds fly a long distance in the spring and autumn.Passage 28.AirAir is all around us. It is around us as we walk and play. From the time we were born air is around us on every side. When we sit down, it is around us. When we go to bed, air is also around us. We live in air. We can live without food or water for a few days, but we cannot live for more than a few minutes without air. We take in air. When we are working or running we need more air. When we are asleep, we need less air. We live in air, but we cannot see it. We can only feel it when it is moving. Moving air is called wind. How can we make air move? Here is one way. Hold an open book in front of your face, close it quickly. What can you feel? What you feel is air.Passage 29.ClocksThere are many clocks in the Brown’s house. They are in different rooms.A big clock stands in a corner of the sitting room. It is a very, very old clock, but it still keeps good time. Mr. Brown winds it once a week.Passage 30. SwimmingSwimming is a good sport. It’s popular. People like swimming because the water makes people feel cool. But if they swim in a wrong place, it is very dangerous. These years, some people died when they were enjoying themselves in water and most of them were students. Summer holiday will be there again.I want to give you some advice. First, don’t g et into the water when you are alone. Second, don’t get into the water if there is a No swimming sign. Third, you should be careful in the water. If you remember these, swimming will be safe and it’s good for your health.。
英语美文背诵文选100篇
英语美文背诵文选100篇1. The First SnowThe first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs on the living, on the graves of the dead! All white save the river, that marked its course be a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless tress, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacies of their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion! Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to something soft and musical. No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh-bell, beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children. (118 words)From KavanaghBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow2. The Humming-birdOf all animals being this is the most elegant in form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds. "maxime Miranda in minimis." Her masterpiece is this little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where they perennially bloom. (149 words) From Natural HistoryBy George Louise Buffon冠商《英语背诵文选》3. PinesThe pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, bring into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them or a bank of cowlips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem; it shall point to the center of the earth as long as the tree lives. It may be well also for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need, and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to need nothing and endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained, desiring nothing but rightness, content with restricted completion. Tall or short, it will be straight.(160 words)From Modern PaintersBy John Ruskin冠商《英语背诵文选》4. Reading Good BooksDevote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long as they have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the company. From good books, moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few companions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit they may not be deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed paged are stored up, to be worked over by the imagination for future profit. (135 words)From Self-DevelopmentBy Henry Addington Bruce冠商《英语背诵文选》5. On EtiquetteEtiquette to society is what apparel is to the individual. Without apparel men would go in shameful nudity which would surely lead to the corruption of morals; and without etiquette society would be in a pitiable state and the necessary intercourse between its members would be interfered with by needless offences and troubles. If society were a train, the etiquette would be the rails along which only the train could rumble forth; if society were a state coach, the etiquette would be the wheels and axis on which only the coach could roll forward. The lack of proprieties would make the most intimate friends turns to be the most decided enemies and the friendly or allied countries declare war against each other. We can find many examples in the history of mankind. Therefore I advise you to stand on ceremony before anyone else and to take pains not to do anything against etiquette lest you give offences or make enemies. (160 words)by William Hazlitt冠商《英语背诵文选》6. An Hour Before SunriseAn hour before sunrise in the city there is an air of cold. Solitary desolation about the noiseless streets, which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings which throughout the day are warming with life. The drunken, the dissipated, and the criminal have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labors of the day, and the stillness of death is over streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the gray, somber light of daybreak. A partially opened bedroom window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of a light through the blinds of yonder windows denotes the chamber of watching and sickness. Save for that sad light, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. (166 words)From BozBy Charles Dickens冠商《英语背诵文选》7. The Importance of Scientific ExperimentsThe rise of modern science may perhaps be considered to date as far as the time of Roger Bacon, the wonderful monk and philosopher of Oxford, who lived between the years 1214 and 1292. He was probable the first in the middle ages to assert that we must learn science by observing and experimenting on the things around us, and he himself made many remarkable discoveries. Galileo, however who lived more than 300 years later (1564 to 1642), was the greatest of several great men, who in Italy, France, Germany or England, began by degrees to show how many important truths could be discovered by well-directed observation. Before the time of Galileo, learned men believed that large bodies fall more rapidly towards the earth than small ones, because Aristotle said so. But Galileo, going to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, let fall two unequal stones, and proved to some friends, whom he had brought there to see his experiment, that Aristotle was in error. It is Galileo's sprit of going direct to Nature, and verifying our opinions and theories by experiment, that has led to all the great discoveries of modern science.(196 words)From LogicBy William Stanley Jevons冠商《英语背诵文选》8. Address at GettysburgFourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, ca n long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, heave consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that form these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (268 words) By Abraham Lincoln9. A Little Girl (1)Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while oneof her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was shi in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy could was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely.(159 words)冠商《英语背诵文选》10. A Little Girl (2)Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I did not take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed tome a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me. (129 words)(302 words)From Aylwinby Theodore Watts-Dunton冠商《英语背诵文选》11. Choosing an OccupationHodeslea, Eastbourne,November 5, 1892Dear Sir,I am very sorry that the pressure of other occupations has prevented me form sending an earlier reply to your letter.In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to so work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself, a very important education the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not dare about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. It would have saved me a frightful waste of time if I had ever had it drilled into me in youth.Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry, and energy. If you possess that equipment, you will find leisure enough after your daily commercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to commerce. Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man who, as the Scotch proverb says, in 'trying to make a spoon spoils a horn," and becomes a mere hanger-on in literature or in science, when hemight have been a useful and a valuable member of Society in other occupations.I think that your father ought to see this letter. (244 words)Yours faithfullyT.H. HuxleyFrom Life and Letters of Thomas Henry HuxleyBy Leonard Huxley冠商《英语背诵文选》12. An Important Aspect of College LifeIt is perfectly possible to organize the life of our colleges in such a way that students and teachers alike will take part in it; in such a way that a perfectly natural daily intercourse will be established between them; and it is only by such an organization that they can be given real vitality as places of serious training, be made communities in which youngsters will come fully to realize how interesting intellectual work is, how vital, how important, how closely associated with all modern achievement-only by such an organization that study can be made to seem part of life itself. Lectures often seem very formal and empty things; recitations generally proved very dull and unrewarding. It is in conversation and natural intercourse with scholars chiefly that you find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of every thing that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of everything that is "practical" and connected with the world. Men are not always made thoughtful by books; but they are generally made thoughtful by association with men who think. (195 words)By Woodrow Wilson冠商《英语背诵文选》13. Night (1)Night has fallen over the country. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night the coolness and the dews descend.I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still save the continuous wind or the sound of the neighboring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone. (128 words)冠商《英语背诵文选》14. Night (2)How different it is in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night as if you folded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him revolving like the sailof a windmill. The iron gates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps and loud voices; --a tumult; --a drunken brawl; --an alarm of fire; --then silence again. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening of the streets-angular like blocks of white marble. (195 words)(323 words)By Nathanial Hawthorne冠商《英语背诵文选》15. An October Sunrise (1)I was up the next morning before the October sunrise, and away through the wild and the woodland. The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of gray mountain and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped and crept to the hollow places, then stole away in line and column, holding skirts and cling subtly at the sheltering corners where rock hung over grass-land, while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding.The woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was upon them, as they owned already, touched with gold and red and olive, and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. (152 words)冠商《英语背诵文选》16. An October Sunrise (2)Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose, according to the scene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the coven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and proclaiming, "God is here!" Then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower and bud and bird had a fluttering sense of them, and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence. So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morning, when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happiness envy glory; but all things shall arise, and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen. (153 words) (305 words)By Richard D. Blackmore冠商《英语背诵文选》17. Of Studies (1)Studies serve for delight, for ornamental, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to makejudgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. (157 words)冠商《英语背诵文选》18. Of Studies (2)Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; an if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. (170 words) 冠商《英语背诵文选》19. Of Studies (3)Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. (163 words)(490 words)By Francis Bacon冠商《英语背诵文选》20. Books (1)The good books of the hour, then, --I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussion of questions; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; --all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as educationbecomes more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worse possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. (189 words) 冠商《英语背诵文选》21. Books (2)The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, the roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read".A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would-the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. (190 words)冠商《英语背诵文选》22. Books (3)The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; --this the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "this is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory, " That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book". (186 words)(565 words)By John Ruskin冠商《英语背诵文选》24. The Value of Time (1)"Time" says the proverb "is money". This means that every moment well spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity comes. There can thus be no doubt that timeis convertible into money. Let those who think nothing of wasting time, remember this; let them remember that an hour misspent is equivalent to the loss of a bank-note; an that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they give their consent to the loss of any part of their time.Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live. A day of an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Let us bear this in mind, and waste of time will appear to us in the light of a crime as culpable as suicide itself. (250 words)冠商《英语背诵文选》25. The Value of Time (2)There is a third consideration which will also tend to warn us against loss of time. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one half of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making, either on our own account or for the sake of others; some in celebrating religious and social festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the tern over which our life extends we shall find about fifteen or twenty years at our disposal for active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly waste a single moment of his life. "It is astonishing" says Lord Chesterfield "that anyone can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that portion of time which is allotted to us in this world. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it!" (187 words)冠商《英语背诵文选》26. The Value of Time (3)All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our faculties and capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away unutilized, we shall never be able to recoup the loss. As we grow older, our power of acquisition gets blunted, so that the art or science which is not acquired in childhood or youth will never be acquired at all. Just as money laid out at interest doubles and trebles itself in time, so the precious hours of childhood and youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages. "Every moment you lose" says Lord Chesterfield "is so much character and advantage lost; as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully is so much time wisely laid out at prodigious interest."A proper employment of time is of great benefit to us from a moral point of view. Idleness is justly said to be the rust of the mind and an idle brain is said to be Satan's workshop. It is mostly when you do not know what to do with yourself that you do something ill or wrong. The mind of the idler preys upon itself. As Watt hassaid:In works of labour or of skillLet me be busy too;For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do. (249 words(686 words)By Robert William Service冠商《英语背诵文选》27. Spring The Resurrection TimeSprings are not always the same, In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap—and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. "I know you're out there," I cry. "Come in!" And April slips into arms.The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. With in the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. Once examined the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago The apples display their milliner's scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up-primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms-you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands.The dark Blue Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. And then they stretch and gradually awaken. A warm wind, soft as a girl's hair, moves sailboat clouds in gentle skies. The rain come-good rains to sleep by-and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn to pale green, then to Kelly green. All this reminds me of a theme that runs through my head like a line of music. Its message is profoundly simple, and profoundly mysterious also: Life goes on. That is all there is to it. Everything that is, was; and everything that is, will be. (259 words)by James J. Kilpatrick擎红《英语背诵散文》27. Spell of the Rising MoonAs the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose, the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of the horizon, full chested and round and the color of ivory, the valley were deep shadows in the landscape. The dogs, reassured that this was the familiar moon, stopped barking.The drama took an hour. Moonrise is slow and serried with subtleties. To watch it, we must slip into an older, more patient sense of time. To watch the moon move inexorably higher is to find an unusual stillness within ourselves. Our imaginations become aware of the vast distances of space, the immensity of the earth and the huge improbability of our own existence. We feel small but privileged.Moonlight shows us none of life's harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery,。
初中英语美文背诵文选100篇
初中英语美文背诵文选100篇1. The First SnowThe first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs on the living, on the graves of the dead! All white save the river, that marked its course be a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless tress, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacies of their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion! Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to something soft and musical. No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh-bell, beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children. (118 words)From KavanaghBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow2. The Humming-birdOf all animals being this is the most elegant in form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds. "maxime Miranda in minimis." Her masterpiece is this little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where they perennially bloom. (149 words)From Natural HistoryBy George Louise Buffon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》3. PinesThe pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, bring into them all possibleelements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them or a bank of cowlips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from its last shoot down the stem; it shall point to the center of the earth as long as the tree lives. It may be well also for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need, and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to need nothing and endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained, desiring nothing but rightness, content with restricted completion. Tall or short, it will be straight. (160 words)From Modern PaintersBy John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》4. Reading Good BooksDevote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long as they have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the company. From good books, moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few companions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit they may not be deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed paged are stored up, to be worked over by the imagination for future profit.(135 words)From Self-DevelopmentBy Henry Addington Bruce陈冠商《英语背诵文选》5. On EtiquetteEtiquette to society is what apparel is to the individual. Without apparel men would go inshameful nudity which would surely lead to the corruption of morals; and without etiquette society would be in a pitiable state and the necessary intercourse between its members would be interfered with by needless offences and troubles. If society were a train, the etiquette would be the rails along which only the train could rumble forth; if society were a state coach, the etiquette would be the wheels and axis on which only the coach could roll forward. The lack of proprieties would make the most intimate friends turns to be the most decided enemies and the friendly or allied countries declare war against each other. We can find many examples in the history of mankind. Therefore I advise you to stand on ceremony before anyone else and to take pains not to do anything against etiquette lest you give offences or make enemies. (160 words)by William Hazlitt陈冠商《英语背诵文选》6. An Hour Before SunriseAn hour before sunrise in the city there is an air of cold. Solitary desolation about the noiseless streets, which we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings which throughout the day are warming with life. The drunken, the dissipated, and the criminal have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labors of the day, and the stillness of death is over streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the gray, somber light of daybreak. A partially opened bedroom window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of a light through the blinds of yonder windows denotes the chamber of watching and sickness. Save for that sad light, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. (166 words)From BozBy Charles Dickens陈冠商《英语背诵文选》7. The Importance of Scientific ExperimentsThe rise of modern science may perhaps be considered to date as far as the time of Roger Bacon, the wonderful monk and philosopher of Oxford, who lived between the years 1214 and 1292. Hewas probable the first in the middle ages to assert that we must learn science by observing and experimenting on the things around us, and he himself made many remarkable discoveries. Galileo, however who lived more than 300 years later (1564 to 1642), was the greatest of several great men, who in Italy, France, Germany or England, began by degrees to show how many important truths could be discovered by well-directed observation. Before the time of Galileo, learned men believed that large bodies fall more rapidly towards the earth than small ones, because Aristotle said so. But Galileo, going to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, let fall two unequal stones, and proved to some friends, whom he had brought there to see his experiment, that Aristotle was in error. It is Galileo's sprit of going direct to Nature, and verifying our opinions and theories by experiment, that has led to all the great discoveries of modern science.(196 words)From LogicBy William Stanley Jevons陈冠商《英语背诵文选》8. Address at GettysburgFourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, ca n long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, heave consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that form these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shallhave a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (268 words)By Abraham Lincoln9. A Little Girl (1)Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was shi in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy could was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely. (159 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》10. A Little Girl (2)Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I did not take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed tome a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me. (129 words)(302 words)From Aylwinby Theodore Watts-Dunton陈冠商《英语背诵文选》11. Choosing an OccupationHodeslea, Eastbourne,November 5, 1892Dear Sir,I am very sorry that the pressure of other occupations has prevented me form sending an earlier reply to your letter.In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover, the learning to so work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself, a very important education the effects of which make themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which you do not dare about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. It would have saved me a frightful waste of time if I had ever had it drilled into me in youth.Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry, and energy. If you possess that equipment, you will find leisure enough after your daily commercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to commerce. Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man who, as the Scotch proverb says, in 'trying to make a spoon spoils a horn," and becomes a mere hanger-on in literature or in science, when he might have been a useful and a valuable member of Society in other occupations.I think that your father ought to see this letter. (244 words)Yours faithfullyT.H. HuxleyFrom Life and Letters of Thomas Henry HuxleyBy Leonard Huxley陈冠商《英语背诵文选》12. An Important Aspect of College LifeIt is perfectly possible to organize the life of our colleges in such a way that students and teachers alike will take part in it; in such a way that a perfectly natural daily intercourse will be established between them; and it is only by such an organization that they can be given real vitality as places of serious training, be made communities in which youngsters will come fully to realize howinteresting intellectual work is, how vital, how important, how closely associated with all modern achievement-only by such an organization that study can be made to seem part of life itself. Lectures often seem very formal and empty things; recitations generally proved very dull and unrewarding. It is in conversation and natural intercourse with scholars chiefly that you find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of everything that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of everything that is "practical" and connected with the world. Men are not always made thoughtful by books; but they are generally made thoughtful by association with men who think. (195 words)By Woodrow Wilson陈冠商《英语背诵文选》13. Night (1)Night has fallen over the country. Through the trees rises the red moon, and the stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still save the continuous wind or the sound of the neighboring sea. The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.(128 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》14. Night (2)How different it is in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step out upon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night as if you folded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees, like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People go by with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him revolving like the sail of a windmill. The iron gates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps and loud voices; --atumult; --a drunken brawl; --an alarm of fire; --then silence again. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening of the streets-angular like blocks of white marble. (195 words)(323 words)By Nathanial Hawthorne陈冠商《英语背诵文选》15. An October Sunrise (1)I was up the next morning before the October sunrise, and away through the wild and the woodland. The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of gray mountain and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped and crept to the hollow places, then stole away in line and column, holding skirts and cling subtly at the sheltering corners where rock hung over grass-land, while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding.The woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was upon them, as they owned already, touched with gold and red and olive, and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. (152 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》16. An October Sunrise (2)Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose, according to the scene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the coven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and proclaiming, "God is here!" Then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower and bud and bird had a fluttering sense of them, and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence.So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morning, when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neitherhappiness envy glory; but all things shall arise, and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen. (153 words)(305 words)By Richard D. Blackmore陈冠商《英语背诵文选》17. Of Studies (1)Studies serve for delight, for ornamental, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. (157 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》18. Of Studies (2)Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; an if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. (170 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》19. Of Studies (3)Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. (163 words)(490 words)By Francis Bacon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》20. Books (1)The good books of the hour, then, --I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you need to know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's present talk would be. These bright accounts of travels; good-humoured and witty discussion of questions; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; --all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worse possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. (189 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》21. Books (2)The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, the roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives you the real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read". A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only because its author cannot speak to thousands of people at once; if he could, he would-the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to your friend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. (190 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》22. Books (3)The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; --this the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "this is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory, " That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book". (186 words)(565 words)By John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》"Time" says the proverb "is money". This means that every moment well spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed, it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunity comes. There can thus be no doubt that time is convertible into money. Let those who think nothing of wasting time, remember this; let them remember that an hour misspent is equivalent to the loss of a bank-note; an that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they give their consent to the loss of any part of their time. Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too often indifferent to the loss of an hour or of a day, forgetting that our life is the sum total of the days and of the hours we live. A day of an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Let us bear this in mind, and waste of time will appear to us in the light of a crime as culpable as suicide itself. (250 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》25. The Value of Time (2)There is a third consideration which will also tend to warn us against loss of time. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one half of this has to be spent in sleep; some years have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making, either on our own account or for the sake of others; some in celebrating religious and social festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the tern over which our life extends we shall find about fifteen or twenty years at our disposal for active work. Whoever remembers this can never willingly waste a single moment of his life. "It is astonishing" says Lord Chesterfield "that anyone can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that portion of time which is allotted to us in this world. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it!" (187 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our faculties and capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away unutilized, we shall never be able to recoup the loss. As we grow older, our power of acquisition gets blunted, so that the art or science which is not acquired in childhood or youth will never be acquired at all. Just as money laid out at interest doubles and trebles itself in time, so the precious hours of childhood and youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages. "Every moment you lose" says Lord Chesterfield "is so much character and advantage lost; as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully is so much time wisely laid out at prodigious interest."A proper employment of time is of great benefit to us from a moral point of view. Idleness is justly said to be the rust of the mind and an idle brain is said to be Satan's workshop. It is mostly when you do not know what to do with yourself that you do something ill or wrong. The mind of the idler preys upon itself. As Watt has said:In works of labour or of skillLet me be busy too;For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do. (249 words(686 words)By Robert William Service陈冠商《英语背诵文选》27. Spring The Resurrection TimeSprings are not always the same, In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap—and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. "I know you're out there," I cry. "Come in!" And April slips into arms.The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. With in the perfect cup a score ofclustered seeds are nestled. Once examined the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago The apples display their milliner's scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up-primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms-you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands.The dark Blue Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. And then they stretch and gradually awaken. A warm wind, soft as a girl's hair, moves sailboat clouds in gentle skies. The rain come-good rains to sleep by-and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn to pale green, then to Kelly green.All this reminds me of a theme that runs through my head like a line of music. Its message is profoundly simple, and profoundly mysterious also: Life goes on. That is all there is to it. Everything that is, was; and everything that is, will be. (259 words)by James J. Kilpatrick陈擎红《英语背诵散文》27. Spell of the Rising MoonAs the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose, the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of the horizon, full chested and round and the color of ivory, the valley were deep shadows in the landscape. The dogs, reassured that this was the familiar moon, stopped barking.The drama took an hour. Moonrise is slow and serried with subtleties. To watch it, we must slip into an older, more patient sense of time. To watch the moon move inexorably higher is to find an unusual stillness within ourselves. Our imaginations become aware of the vast distances of space, the immensity of the earth and the huge improbability of our own existence. We feel small but privileged.Moonlight shows us none of life's harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery, the oceans still and blue in its light. In moonlight we become less calculating, more drawn to our feelings.(184 words)by Peter Steinhart陈擎红《英语背诵散文》28. The Enchantment of Creeks (1)。
关于英语美文100篇
英语背诵100篇1. The First SnowThe first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, allnight long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs on the living, onthe graves of the dead! All white save the river, that marked its cour se be a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless tress, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricaciesof their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion!Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to something soft and musical.No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh-bell, beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children. (118 words)From KavanaghBy Henry Wadsworth Longfellow2. The Humming-birdOf all animals being this is the most elegant in form and the most brilliant incolors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to thisjewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds. "maximeMiranda in minimis." Her masterpiece is this little humming-bird, and uponit she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the r uby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. Itnever soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touchesthe turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar, and dwells only in the climates where they perennially bloom. (149 words)From Natural HistoryBy George Louise Buffon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》3. PinesThe pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, bringinto them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends themor a bank of cowlips from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of vertical precipice to cling to, it will nevertheless grow straight. Thrust a rod from itslast shoot down the stem; it shall point to the center of the earth as long as the tree lives. It may be well also for lowland branches to reach hither and thither for what they need, and to take all kinds of irregular shape and extension. But the pine is trained to need nothing and endure everything. It is resolvedly whole, self-contained, desiring nothing but rightness, content with restricted completion. Tall or short, it will be straight.(160 words)From Modern PaintersBy John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》4. Reading Good BooksDevote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long as they have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the company. From good books, moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few companions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit they may notbe deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed paged are stored up, to be worke d over by the imagination for future profit.(135 words)From Self-DevelopmentBy Henry Addington Bruce陈冠商《英语背诵文选》5. On EtiquetteEtiquette to society is what apparel is to the individual. Without apparel men would go in shameful nudity which would surely lead to the corruptionof morals; and without etiquette society would be in a pitiable state and thenecessary intercourse between its members would be interfered with by needless offences and troubles. If society were a train, the etiquette would bethe rails along which only the train could rumble forth; if society were a state coach, the etiquette would be the wheels and axis on which only the coach could roll forward. The lack of proprieties would make the most intimate friends turns to be the most decided enemies and the friendly or allied countries declare war against each other. We can find many exam ples in the history of mankind. Therefore I advise you to stand on ceremony before anyone else and to take pains not to do anything against etiquette lestyou give offences or make enemies. (160 words)by William Hazlitt陈冠商《英语背诵文选》6. An Hour Before SunriseAn hour before sunrise in the city there is an air of cold. Solitary desolationabout the noiseless streets, which we are accustomed to see thronged at othertimes by a busy, eager crowd, and over the quiet, closely shut buildings which throughout the day are warming with life. The drunken, the dissipated,and the criminal have disappeared; the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labors of the day, and the stillness of death is over streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the gray, somber light of daybreak. A partially openedbedroom window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and theuneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of a light through the blinds of yonder windows denotes the chamber of watching and sickness. Save for that sad light, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. (166 words)From BozBy Charles Dickens陈冠商《英语背诵文选》7. The Importance of Scientific ExperimentsThe rise of modern science may perhaps be considered to date as far as the time of Roger Bacon, the wonderful monk and philosopher of Oxford, who lived between the years 1214 and 1292. He was probable the first in the middle ages to assert that we must learn science by observing and experimenting on the things around us, and he himself made many remarkable discoveries. Galileo, however who lived more than 300 years later (1564 to 1642), was the greates t of several great men, who in Italy, France, Germany or England, began by degrees to show how many importanttruths could be discovered by well-directed observation. Before the time of Galileo, learned men believed that large bodies fall more rapidly towa rds the earth than small ones, because Aristotle said so. But Galileo, going to the topof the Leaning Tower of Pisa, let fall two unequal stones, and proved to somefriends, whom he had brought there to see his experiment, that Aristotle wasin error. It is Galileo's sprit of going direct to Nature, and verifying our opinions and theories by experiment, that has led to all the great discoveriesof modern science.(196 words)From LogicBy William Stanley Jevons陈冠商《英语背诵文选》8. Address at GettysburgFourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent anew nation in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whethe r that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, ca n long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that fieldas a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, heave consecrated it far above our poor po wer to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to theunfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobl y advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that form these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause forwhich they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolvethat these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shallhave a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (268 words)By Abraham Lincoln9. A Little Girl (1)Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing,while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like agolden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was shi in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a larkthat was soaring towards the same gauzy could was singing, as if in rivalry.As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a glob e of pearl, and especially by her complexion, thatshe uncommonly lovely.(159 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》10. A Little Girl (2)Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I did not take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed tome a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me inmy loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her b eauty so much as the lookshe gave me that fascinated me, melted me. (129 words)(302 words)From Aylwinby Theodore Watts-Dunton陈冠商《英语背诵文选》11. Choosing an OccupationHodeslea, Eastbourne,November 5, 1892Dear Sir,I am very sorry that the pressure of other occupations has prevented me form sending an earlier reply to your letter.In my opinion a man's first duty is to find a way of supporting himself, thereby relieving other people of the necessity of supporting him. Moreover,the learning to so work of practical value in the world, in an exact and careful manner, is of itself, a very important education the effects of whichmake themselves felt in all other pursuits. The habit of doing that which youdo not dare about when you would much rather be doing something else, is invaluable. It would have saved me a frightful waste of time if I had ever hadit drilled into me in youth.Success in any scientific career requires an unusual equipment of capacity, industry, and energy. If you possess that equipment,you will find leisure enough after your daily commercial work is over, to make an opening in the scientific ranks for yourself. If you do not, you had better stick to commerce.Nothing is less to be desired than the fate of a young man who, as the Scotchproverb says, in 'trying to make a spoon spoils a horn," and becomes a merehanger-on in literature or in science, when he might have been a useful and avaluable member of Society in other occupations.I think that your father ought to see this letter. (244 words)Yours faithfullyT.H. HuxleyFrom Life and Letters of Thomas Henry HuxleyBy Leonard Huxley陈冠商《英语背诵文选》12. An Important Aspect of College LifeIt is perfectly possible to organize the life of our colleges in such a way thatstudents and teachers alike will take part in it; in such a way that a perfectlynatural daily intercourse will be establis hed between them; and it is only bysuch an organization that they can be given real vitality as places of serioustraining, be made communities in which youngsters will come fully to realizehow interesting intellectual work is, how vital, how important, how closely associated with all modern achievement-only by such an organization that study can be made to seem part of life itself. Lectures often seem very formaland empty things; recitations generally proved very dull and unrewarding.It is in conversation and natural intercourse with scholars chiefly that you find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything that is interestingand important, how intimate a part it is of every thing that is interesting andimportant, how intimate a part it is of everything that is "practical" and connected with the world. Men are not always made thoughtful by books; butthey are generally made thoughtful by association with men who think. (195words)By Woodrow Wilson陈冠商《英语背诵文选》13. Night (1)Night has fallen over the country. Through the trees rises the red moon, andthe stars are scarcely seen. In the vast shadow of night the coolness and the dews descend. I sit at the open window to enjoy them; and hear only the voice of the summer wind. Like black hulks, the shadows of the great trees ride at anchor on the billowy sea of grass. I cannot see the red and blue flowers, but I know that they are there. Far away in the meadow gleams the silver Charles. The tramp of horses' hoofs sounds from the wooden bridge. Then all is still save the continuous wind or the sound of the neighboring sea.The village clock strikes; and I feel that I am not alone.(128 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》14. Night (2)How different it is in the city! It is late, and the crowd is gone. You step outupon the balcony, and lie in the very bosom of the cool, dewy night as if youfolded her garments about you. Beneath lies the public walk with trees,like a fathomless, black gulf, into whose silent beloved spirit clasped in its embrace. The lamps are still burning up and down the long street. People goby with grotesque shadows, now foreshortened, and now lengthening away into the darkness and vanishing, while a new one springs up behind the walker, and seems to pass him revolving like the sail of a windmill. The irongates of the park shut with a jangling clang. There are footsteps and loud voices; --a tumult; --a drunken brawl; --an alarm of fire; --then silenceagain. And now at length the city is asleep, and we can see the night. The belated moon looks over the roofs, and finds no one to welcome her. The moonlight is broken. It lies here and there in the squares, and the opening ofthe streets-angular like blocks of white marble. (195 words)(323 words)By Nathanial Hawthorne陈冠商《英语背诵文选》15. An October Sunrise (1)I was up the next morning before the October sunrise, and away through thewild and the woodland. The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of gray mountain and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped and crept to the hollow places, then stole away in line and column, holding skirts and cling subtly at the sheltering corners where rock hung over gr ass-land, while the brave lines ofthe hills came forth, one beyond other gliding.The woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with adepth of awe, and memory of the tempests. Autumn's mellow hand was uponthem, as they owned alre ady, touched with gold and red and olive, and theirjoy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. (152 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》16. An October Sunrise (2)Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose, according to the scene they lit on, and the curtainflung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the coven hoof of darkness, allon the wings of hope advancing, a nd proclaiming, "God is here!" Then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower and budand bird had a fluttering sense of them, and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence.So, perhaps, shall break upon us t hat eternal morning, when crag and chasmshall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; when glory shall not scare happiness, neither happiness envy glory; but all thingsshall arise, and shine in the light of the Father's countenan ce, because itselfis risen. (153 words)(305 words)By Richard D. Blackmore陈冠商《英语背诵文选》17. Of Studies (1)Studies serve for delight, for ornamental, and for ability. Their chief use fordelight, in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those thatare learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too muchfor ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, natural plants, that need proyningby study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Craft y men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. (157 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》18. Of Studies (2)Read not to contradict and confute; no r to believe and take for granted; norto find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted; others to swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is,some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; butthat would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory;if he confer little, he had need have a present wi t; an if he read little, he hadneed have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. (170 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》19. Of Studies (3)Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriateexercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs andbreast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. Soif a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again.If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to b eat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. (163 words)(490 words)By Francis Bacon陈冠商《英语背诵文选》20. Books (1)The good books of the hour, then, --I do not speak of the bad ones—is simply the useful or pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very useful often, telling you what you needto know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's pre sent talk would be.questions; lively or pathetic story-telling in the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real agents concerned in the events of passing history; --all these books of the hour, multiplying among us as education becomes more general, are a peculiar characteristic and possession of the present age:we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselvesif we make no good use of them. But we make the worse possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print. Our friend'sletter may be delightful, or necessary, today: whether worth keeping or not, is to be considered. (189 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》21. Books (2)The newspaper may be entirely proper at breakfast time, but assuredly it is not reading for all day. So though bound up in a volume, the long letter which gives you so pleasant an account of the inns, the roads, and weather last year at such a place, or which tells you that amusing story, or gives youthe real circumstances of such and such events, however valuable for occasional reference, may not be, in the real sense of the word, a "book" at all, nor, in the real sense, to be "read". A book is essentially not a talked thing, but a written thing; and written, not with the view of mere communication, but of permanence. The book of talk is printed only becauseits author cannot speak to thou sands of people at once; if he could, he would-the volume is mere multiplication of his voice. You cannot talk to yourfriend in India; if you could, you would; you write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. But a book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. (190 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》22. Books (3)The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, orknows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodious ly if he may; clearly, at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; --this the piece of true knowledge,or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, "this is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw andknew: this, if anything of mine, is w orth your memory, " That is his "writing"; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a "Book". (186 words)(565 words)By John Ruskin陈冠商《英语背诵文选》24. The Value of Time (1)"Time" says the proverb "is money". This means that every moment well spent may put some money into our pockets. If our time is usefully employed,it will either turn out some useful and important piece of work which will fetch its price in the market, or it will add to our experience and increase our capacities so as to enable us to earn money when the proper opportunitycomes. There can thus be no doubt that time is convertible into money. Let those who think nothing of wasting time, remember this; let th em remember that an hour misspent is equivalent to the loss of a bank-note; an that an hour utilized is tantamount to so much silver or gold; and then they will probably think twice before they give their consent to the loss of any part oftheir time.Moreover, our life is nothing more than our time. To kill time is therefore a form of suicide. We are shocked when we think of death, and we spare no pains, no trouble, and no expense to preserve life. But we are too oftensum total of the days and of the hours we live. A day of an hour wasted is therefore so much life forfeited. Let us bear this in mind, and waste of time will appear to us in the light of a crime as culpable as sui cide itself. (250 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》25. The Value of Time (2)There is a third consideration which will also tend to warn us against loss oftime. Our life is a brief span measuring some sixty or seventy years in all, but nearly one half of this has to be spent in sleep; some yea rs have to be spent over our meals; some over dressing and undressing; some in making journeys on land and voyages by sea; some in merry-making, either on our own account or for the sake of others; some in celebrating religious and social festivities; some in watching over the sick-beds of our nearest and dearest relatives. Now if all these years were to be deducted from the tern over which our life extends we shall find about fifteen or twenty years at ourdisposal for active work. Whoever remembers this c an never willingly wastea single moment of his life. "It is astonishing" says Lord Chesterfield "that anyone can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that portion of time which is allotted to us in this world. Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it!" (187 words)陈冠商《英语背诵文选》26. The Value of Time (3)All time is precious; but the time of our childhood and of our youth is more precious than any other portion of our existence. For those are the periods when alone we can acquire knowledge and develop our faculties and capacities. If we allow these morning hours of life to slip away unutilized, weshall never be able to recoup the loss. As we grow older, our power of acquisition gets blunted, so that the art or science which is not acquired in childhood or youth will never be acquired at all. Just as money laid out atand youth, if properly used, will yield us incalculable advantages. "Every moment you lose" says Lord Chesterfield "is so much character and advantage lost; as on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefullyis so much time wisely laid out at prodigious interest."A proper employment of time is of great benefit to us from a moral point of view. Idleness is justly said to be the rust of the mind and an idle brain is said to be Satan's workshop. It is mostly when you do not know what to do with yourself that you do something ill or wrong. The mind of the idler preysupon itself. As Watt has said:In works of labour or of skillLet me be busy too;For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do. (249 words(686 words)By Robert William Service陈冠商《英语背诵文选》27. Spring The Resurrection TimeSprings are not always the same, In some years, April bursts upon our Virginia hills in one prodigious leap—and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. "I know you're out there," I cry. "Come in!" And April slips into arms.The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. With in the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. Once examined the bud inawe: Where were those seeds a month ago The apples display their milliner'sscraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up-primrose,April in your hands.The dark Blue Mountains in which I dwell, great-hipped, big-breasted, slumber on the western sky. And then they stretch and gradually awaken. A warm wind, soft as a girl's hair, moves sailboat clouds in gentle skies. The rain come-good rains to sleep by-and fields that were dun as oatmeal turn topale green, then to Kelly green.All this reminds me of a theme that runs through my head like a line of music.Its message is profoundly simple, and profoundly mysterious also: Life goes on. That is all there is to it. Everything that is, was; and everything that is,will be. (259 words)by James J. Kilpatrick陈擎红《英语背诵散文》27. Spell of the Rising MoonAs the moon lifted off the ridge it gathered firmness and authority. Its complexion changed from red, to orange, to gold, to impassive yellow. It seemed to draw light out of the darkening earth, for as it rose, the hills and valleys below grew dimmer. By the time the moon stood clear of the horizon,full chested and round and the color of ivory, the valley were deep shadows in the landscape. The dogs, reassured that this was the familiar moon, stopped barking.The drama took an hour. Moonrise is slow and serried with subtleties. To watch it, we must slip into an older, more patient sense of time. To watch themoon move inexorably higher is to find an unusual stillness within ourselves.Our imaginations become aware of the vast distances of space, the immensityof the earth and the huge improbability of our own existence. We feel small but privileged.Moonlight shows us none of life's harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery, the oceans still and blue in its ligh t. In moonlight we become less calculating, more drawn to our feelings.。
晨读英语美文100个
.晨读英语美文100篇Passage1.KnowledgeandVirtueKnowledgeisonething,virtueisanother;goodsenseisnotconscience,refinementisnothumility,norislargenessandjustness of view faith.Philosophy,however enlightened,however profound,gives no commandover the passions,no influential motives,no vivifying principles.LiberalEducationmakesnottheChristian,nottheCatholic,butthegentleman.Itiswelltobeagentleman,itiswelltohaveacultivatedintellect,adelicatetaste,acandid,equitable,dispassionate mind,a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct oflife—these are theconnatural qualities of alargeknowledge;they aretheobjects ofa amadvocating,Ishallillustrateandinsistuponthem;butstill,Irepeat,they are noguarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness,and they mayattach to the manof the world,to the profligate,to the heartless,pleasant,alas,andattractive as he shows whendecked outin by themselves,theydo but seemtobewhatthey are not;theylook like virtue atadistance,buttheyaredetectedbycloseobservers,andinthelongrun;andhenceitisthattheyarepopularly accusedof pretense andhypocrisy,not,Irepeat,from.their ownfault,but becausetheir professors andtheir admirerspersist in taking themfor whattheyare not,and are officiousin arrogating for them apraise to which they havenothegraniterockwithrazors,ormoorthevessel withathreadofsilk,thenmayyouhopewithsuchkeenand delicateinstrumentsashumanknowledgeandhumanreasonto contendagainstthosegiants,Passage2.“Packing”aPersonAperson,like acommodity,needs going toofar is absolutely little exaggeration,however, doesnoharmwhenit showstheperson's uniquequalities totheir displaypersonalcharminacasualandnaturalway,it is important for oneto have a clearknowledge ofmasterpackagerknowshowto integrate art andnaturewithout any traces of embellishment,so that the personsopackagedis nocommoditybutahumanbeing,lively andyoungperson,especially afemale,radiant withbeautyandfull oflife,hasallthefavorgrantedbyattempttomakeupwouldbeself-defeating.Youth,however,comesandgoesin amomentof forthemiddle-agedisprimarily to concealthe furrows ploughedby youstill enjoylife'sexuberance enough to retainself-confidenceandpursuepioneeringwork,youareuniqueinyournaturalqualities,and yourcharmandgracewillpeoplearebeautiful iftheirriveroflifehasbeen,throughplains,mountainsand jungles,running its course asit havereallylivedyour lifewhich now arrives at acomplacent stageofserenityindifferent to fameor is noneed t oresorttohair-dyeing；thesnow-cappedmountainisitselfa beautifulsceneofyourlookschangefromyoung tooldsynchronizingwiththenaturalageingprocesssoasto keepinharmonywith nature,forharmonyitself isbeauty,while theotherwayroundwillonlyendinbeintheelder'scompanyislikereadingathickbookofdeluxe editionthatfascinatesonesomuchastobereluctanttopart longasonefindswhereonestands,oneknowshowto packageoneself,justasacommodityestablishesitsbrandby therightpackaging.Passage3.ThreePassionsIHaveLivedforThreepassions,simplebutoverwhelminglystrong,havegoverned my life:the longingfor love,the search forknowledge,and unbearable pity for the suffering o fpassions,like greatwinds,haveblownmehitherand thither,in a wayward courseover a deepoceanofanguish,reachingtotheveryvergeofhavesoughtlove,first,becauseitbringsecstasy—ecstasysogreatthat Iwouldoftenhavesacrificedalltherestofmylifeforafewhoursforthishavesoughtit,next,becauseitrelievesloneliness—thatterriblelonelinessinwhichoneshiveringconsciousnesslooksovertherimofthew orldintothecoldunfathomablelifelesshavesoughtit,finally,becauseintheunionoflov eIhaveseen,inamysticminiature,the prefiguringvisionoftheheaventhatsaintsandpoetshaveiswhatIsought,andthoughitmi ghtseemtoogoodforhumanlife,thisiswhat—atlast—Ihaveequal passion I have sought have wished tounderstand thehearts of havewishedto knowwhythestarsshine...Alittleofthis,butnotmuch,Ihaveandknowledge,sofar astheywerepossible,ledupwardtowardthe alwayspity brought mebackto ofcries of pain reverberate in my in famine,victimstorturedbyoppressors,helplessoldpeople—ahatedburdentotheir sons,and the wholeworldofloneliness,poverty,andpainmakeamockeryofwhathumanlifeshouldlongtoalleviate theevil,butI cannot,andItoo hasbeenmy havefound it worthliving,andwouldgladlylive it ;.againifthechancewereofferedme.Passage4.ALittleGirlSittingonagrassygrave,beneathoneofthewindowsof thechurch,wasalittleherheadbentbackshewasgazingup at the skyandsinging,while oneof herlittle hands waspointing toatiny cloudthat hoveredlike agolden feather abovehersun,whichhadsuddenlybecomevery bright, shiningonherglossyhair,gaveitametallicluster,anditwasdifficult tosaywhatwasthe color,darkbronzeor completely absorbedwassheinwatching thecloudtowhichher strangesongorincantationseemedaddressed,thatshedidnot observemewhenI rose andwenttowards herhead,high upintheblue,alarkthatwassoaringtowardsthesamegauzycloud wassinging,asif in Islowly approachedthechild,I could seebyherforehead,whichinthesunshine seemedlikeaglobeofpearl,andespeciallybyhercomplexion,that sheuncommonlyeyes,whichatonemomentseemedblue-gray,at another violet,were shadedbylong black lashes,curvingbackwardinamostpeculiarway,andthesematchedin huehereyebrows,andthetressesthatweretossedabouthertender throat werequivering in the thisI didnottakeinatonce;foratfirstIcouldseenothingbutthosequivering,glittering,changeful eyes turned up into mytheotherfeatures,especiallythesensitivefull-lipped mouth,grewuponmeasI stood silently seemedtomeamoreperfectbeautythanhadevercometomein myloveliest dreamsof it wasnotherbeauty somuch asthelookshegavemethatfascinatedme,meltedme.Passage5DeclarationofIndependenceWhenintheCourseofhumanevents,itbecomesnecessary foronepeopletodissolvethepoliticalbandswhichhaveconnectedthemwith another,and toassumeamongthepowersofthe earth,theseparate andequal station towhichtheLawsofNatureandofNature'sGodentitlethem,adecent respecttotheopinionsofmankindrequiresthattheyshould declarethecauseswhichimpelthemtotheholdthese truths to be self-evident,that all menare createdequal,that they are endowedby their Creator with certain unalienableRights,thatamongtheseareLife,Libertyandthepursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted amongMen,deriving their just powersfromtheconsentofthegoverned,—Thatwheneverany Formof Governmentbecomesdestructive of theseends,it is theRight of the Peopletoalteror to abolishit,andtoinstitutenewGovernment,layingitsfoundationonsuchprinciplesand organizingitspowersinsuchform,astothemshallseemmostlikelyto effect their Safetyand Happiness.Prudence,indeed, willdictatethatGovernmentslongestablishedshouldnotbe changedforlightandtransientcauses;andaccordinglyall experience hasshown,that mankindaremoredisposedto suffer,whileevils are sufferable,than to right themselves byabolishingtheformstowhichtheyarewhena longtrainofabusesandusurpations,pursuinginvariablythe sameObject evinces adesign to reducethemunder absoluteDespotism,it istheir right,it is their duty,tothrow offsuchGovernment,andtoprovide newGuardsfor their future security.—SuchhasbeenthepatientsufferanceoftheseColonies;and suchisnowthenecessity whichconstrains themtoalter their formerSystemsofhistoryofthepresentKingof Great Britainis a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,allhavingindirectobjecttheestablishmentofanabsolute TyrannyovertheseStates.To provethis, let Facts besubmittedtoacandidworld.Passage6.ATributetotheDog Thebestfriendamanhasintheworldmayturnagainsthimandbecomehissonordaughterthat hehasreared ;.with loving caremayprove whoarenearest and dearesttous,thosewhomwetrustwithourhappinessandour goodname,maybecometraitorstotheirmoneythatamanhashe flies awayfromhim,perhapswhenheneeds itman’sreputationmaybesacrificedinamomentofill-considered people whoareproneto fall ontheirkneestodoushonorwhensuccessiswithusmaybethefirst tothrowthestoneofmalicewhenfailure settlesits cloud uponouroneabsolutely unselfish friend that mancanhaveinthisselfishworld,theonethatneverdesertshim,theonethat neverproves ungrateful or treacherous,ishisman’sdogstands byhimin prosperity andinpoverty,in health andinwill sleep onthecold ground,wherethe wintrywindsblowandthesnowdrives fiercely,ifonly hemaybenear hismaster’swillkissthehandthathasnofoodtooffer;he will lick thewoundsandsoresthat comefromencounterwith the roughnessof the willguard thesleep ofhispaupermasterasifhewereaallotherfriendsdesert,heriches takewingsandreputation falls topieces,heisasconstantinhisloveasthesuninitsjourneys throughthe fortunedrivesthe masterforth,anoutcastintheworld,friendlessandhomeless,thefaithfuldogasksnohigherprivilegethanthatofaccompanyinghim,toguardhimagainst danger,to fight against his whenthelastsceneofallcomes,anddeathtakesthemasterinitsembrace,andhis bodyis laid awayinthe cold ground,no matterifallotherfriendspursuetheirway,therebythegravewillthenoble dogbefound,his headbetweenhispaws,his eyessadbutopenin alert watchfulness,faithful andtrue evenin death.Passage7.KnowledgeandProgressWhydoestheidea of progress loomsolarge in the modernworld?Surely becauseprogress ofaparticular kind is actuallytaking place around usand is becoming more andmoremankindhasundergonenogeneral improvement inintelligence ormorality,it hasmadeextraordinary progress intheaccumulationofbegantoincreaseassoonasthe thoughts of oneindividualcould becommunicatedtoanotherbymeansoftheinventionofwriting，agreatadvancewasmade,forknowledgecouldthenbenotonlycommunicatedbut also madeeducation possible,andeducationinitsturnaddedtolibraries:thegrowthof knowledgefollowedakindofcompoundinterestlaw,whichwas greatlyenhancedbytheinventionofthiswascomparatively slowuntil,withthe comingof science,the tempowassuddenlyknowledgebegantobeaccumulatedaccording to asystematic trickle becameastream;thestream has nowbecomea torrent.Moreover,as soon as newknowledge is acquired,it is now turned to practicalis called“moderncivilization”is notthe resultof a balanced developmentof all man's nature,but ofaccumulatedknowledgeappliedtopracticalproblem nowfacinghumanityis:Whatisgoingtobedonewithallthisknowledge?Asis sooften pointed out,knowledgeis atwo-edgedweaponwhichcanbeusedequally for goodor is nowbeing usedindifferently for anyspectacle,for instance,be more grimly weirdthan that ofgunners usingscience toshattermen'sbodieswhile,closeathand,surgeonsuseittorestore them?Wehavetoaskourselves very seriously whatwillhappen if this twofold use ofknowledge,with itsever-increasingpower,continues.Passage8.AddressbyEngelsOn the14th of March,at a quarter to three in theafternoon,thegreatestlivingthinkerceasedtohadbeenleft alone for scarcelytwominutes,and whenwecamebackwefoundhiminhisarmchair,peacefullygonetosleep—but immeasurablelosshasbeensustainedbothbythemilitantproletariatofEuropeandAmerica,andbyhistorical science,inthedeathofthisgapthathasbeenleft bythedepartureofthismightyspiritwillsoonenoughmake itselfasDarwindiscoveredthelawofdevelopmentoforganic nature,so Marxdiscovered thelawofdevelopment ofhumanhistory:the simple fact,hithertoconcealed byanovergrowthofideology,thatmankindmustfirstofalleat,drink,haveshelter andclothing,before it canpursuepolitics,science,art,religion,etc.;that therefore theproduction of theimmediatematerialmeansofsubsistenceandconsequentlythedegreeof economicdevelopmentattained byagivenpeopleorduringagivenepochformthefoundationuponwhichthestateinstitutions,the legal conceptions,art,andeventheideasonreligion,of the people concernedhavebeenevolved,andin the lightofwhichtheymust,therefore,beexplained,insteadofvice versa,ashadhitherto beenthethatis notalsodiscoveredthespeciallawofmotiongoverningthepresent-day capitalist modeof productionand the bourgeoissociety that this modeofproduction has discoveryofsurplus value suddenly threwlight onthe problem,in tryingtosolvewhichallpreviousinvestigations,ofbothbourgeois economists and socialist critics,hadbeengroping in the ;.dark.Two such discoveries would be enough for one themantowhomitisgrantedtomakeevenonein every single field which Marx investigated—andheinvestigatedverymanyfields,noneofthemsuperficially—in every field,even in that ofmathematics,he made independent9.Relationship that LastsIf somebodytellsyou,“I’ll love you for ever,”willyoubelieve it?Idon’tthink there’sanyreasonnot are ready to believe such commitment at themoment,whateverchangemayhappen forthebelief inaneverlastinglove,that’sanotheryoumaybeaskedwhetherthereissuchathingasaneverlasting’d answer Ibelieve init,butaneverlasting love isnotmayunswervinglylove orbeloved byalovewillchangeitscompositionwiththepassageof willnotremainthethecourseofyourgrowthandasa result of your increased experience,love willbecomesomethingdifferenttothebeginningyoubelieveda ferventloveforapersoncouldlastandby,however,“fervent”gavewayto“prosaic”.Precisely becauseofthischangeitbecamepossibleforlovetowhatwasmeantbyan everlastinglovewouldeventuallyendupina;.. sortofusedtoinsistonthedifferencebetweenloveandformerseemedmuchmorebeautif ulthanthe day,however,itturnsout there’sreallynoneedtomakesuchisactuallyasortofthesametoken,theeverlastinginterdependenceisactuallyaneverlastingwishIcouldbelievetherewassomebodywhowouldlovemefor’s,asweallknow,tooromantictobetrue.Passage10.RushSwallows may have gone,but there is a time ofreturn;willow trees mayhavedied back,but there is atime ofregreening;peach blossomsmayhavefallen,but they willbloomagain.Now,youthewise,tellme,whyshould ourdaysleave us, nevertoreturn?Iftheyhadbeenstolenbysomeone,whocoulditbe?Wherecouldhehidethem?Iftheyhadmadetheescape themselves,thenwherecouldtheystayatthemoment?Idon’tknowhowmanydaysIhavebeengiventospend,butIdofeel myhandsaregettingstocksilently,Ifindthatmorethan eight thousand dayshave already slid awayfromadropofwaterfromthepoint ofaneedle disappearing intotheocean,mydaysaredrippingintothestreamoftime, soundless,sweatis starting onmyforehead, ;..andtears welling upinmythat havegonehavegoneforgood,thosetocomekeepcoming;yetinbetween,howfast istheshift,insucharush?WhenIgetupinthemorning,theslanting sunmarksits presenceinmysmall roomin twoor threesunhasfeet,look,heistreading on,lightly andfurtively;and I amcaught,blankly,inhis—thedayflowsawaythrough the sink whenI washmyhands,wears offinthebowlwhenIeatmymeal,andpassesawaybeforemyday-dreaminggazeasreflectincanfeelhishastenow,soIreachoutmyhandstoholdhimback,buthekeeps flowingpastmywithholdingtheevening,asIlieinbed,hestrides overmybody,glides pastmyfeet,in his agile momentI openmyeyesandmeetthe sunagain,onewhole dayhasburymyfaceinmyhandsandheavea thenewdaybeginstoflashpastinthecanIdo,inthis bustling world,with my days flying in their escape?Nothing butto hesitate,to haveIbeendoing inthateight-thousand-dayrush,apartfromhesitating?Those bygonedayshavebeendispersedassmokebyalightwind,or evaporatedasmistbythemorningtraceshaveIleftbehindme?HaveI ever left behindanygossamertraces at all?Ihavecometothe world,stark naked;amIto goback,in ablink,;..inthesamestarknakedness?Itisnotfairthough:whyshouldIhavemadesuchatripfornothing!Youthewise,tellme,whyshouldourdaysleaveus,nevertoreturn?;.。
标准英语美文读
英语标准美文100篇 001 Saving money for College onMy OwnFinally, I entered the institution. Because of my careful savings, I did not have towork during the school year. Then, summer came and it was time to work harder than ever. I continued working as a waitress at night, instructed tennis camps several mornings a week and worked as a secretary for a few hours in the afternoons. Being a little overzealous, I also decided to take a class at a community college. This class at the community college saved me $650. it was an exhausting summer and made me anxious to return to my relativelyeasy life at college.During my second and third years of undergraduate schooling, I decided towork about five hours per week in thecampus admissions office answering phones. This provided a little spendingmoney and kept me from draining mysavings. The overall situation looked hopeful as I approached my senior year as long as I could make as much money as I had the previous summer. I wanted to go to Israel to study for 3 weeks, but I hesitated in making this decision because it would cost me $1,600 more to get the credits in Israel. About two weeks later my Mom called to tell me that I had $1,600 in the bank that I had forgotten about! One of my concerns about this trip was not onlythe cost, but the loss of time to make money; however, I made as much that summer in the ten weeks when I was at home as I had made during the fourteen weeks when I was at home the summerbefore. The way everything worked together to make this trip feasible was one of the most exciting things that have everhappened to me.This experience has shaped me in many important ways. The first thing that I learned was the importance of a strong work ethic. Working long hours did a lot to mold my character and helped me learn the value of a dollar. It also made me learn how to craft creative solutions to difficultdilemmas.Whenever I am overwhelmed or afraid of the future, I can remember my $64,268miracle.Passage 2CompetitionIt is a plain fact that we are in a world where competition is going on in all a reas and at all levels.This is exciting.Y et, on the other hand, competition bree ze a pragmatic attitude.People choose t o learn things that are useful,and do th ings that are profitable.Todays' college education is also affected by this gener al sense of utilitarianism. Many college students choose business nor computin g programming as their majors convinc ed that this professions are where the big money is. It is not unusual to see t he college students taking a part time j obs as a warming up for the real battl e.I often see my friends taking GRE te sts, working on English or computer ce rtificates and taking the driving licence to get a licence. Well, I have nothing a gainst being practical. As the competitio n in the job market gets more and mor e intense, students do have reasons to be practical. However, we should never forget that college education is much more than skill training. Just imagine, if your utilitarianism is prevails on camp us, living no space for the cultivation of students' minds,or nurturing of their so ul. We will see university is training out well trained spiritless working machine s.If utilitarianism prevails society, we wil l see people bond by mind-forged medi cals lost in the money-making ventures; we will see humality lossing their grace and dignity, and that would be disastr ous.I'd like to think society as a courag e and people persumed for profit or fa me as a horese that pulls the courage. Yet without the driver picking direction t he courage would go straight and may even end out in a precarious situation .A certificate may give you some adva ntage, but broad horizons, positive attit udes and personal integrities ,these are assets you cannot acquire through an y quick fixed way.In today's world, whet her highest level of competition is not of skills or expertise , but vision and st rategy. Your intellectual quality largely determinds how far you can go in your career.英语标准美文100篇003 college students' idolsSuccessful entrepreneurs have surpassed pop stars as college students' idols, a recent Fudan University survey has found.In the survey, which sampled 150 students from different grades and departments, 96 chose successful entrepreneurs as their idols, 91 added scientists and scholars to the list, while only some 75 opted for stars of stage and screen. The results toppled the old perception that young college students are most impressed by the stars of shows.Fudan's students seemed not to be influenced too much by popular TV shows and new stars, despite the latest Supergirl, Shang Wenjie having graduated from the university last year."It's normal for students to have traditional ideas about the qualities an idol should have. They think of idols as people who have made a great contribution to society. These kinds of ideas aren't easily changed by TV shows," said Zhen Zhiwei, a second-year post-graduate student who conducted the survey.But students do have new standards for selecting idols. Some students voted for ordinary people and even fictional characters, such as Harry Potter."It reveals the diversity of students' standards," Zhen said. "Under the influence of pop culture, some students now view fictional figures as their idols. They see the same qualities in those fictional figures as in other real people."We are also delighted to see that more and more students are concerned with the roles ordinary people play in society. Wealth, social status and fame are not the only standards they use to select idols."The survey also revealed that 57% college students do not want to be idols for others."The result can be regarded as a good illustration for why most of them choose successful entrepreneurs and scholars as their idols," said Zhen. "They have highexpectations for idols, so they believe that to be an idol means having to take on more responsibilities and pressure than other people, and they are not ready to take so much responsibility yet."英语标准美文100篇008Chinese Undergraduates in the USEach year, elite American universities and liberal arts colleges, such as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Amherst and Wellesley, offer a number of scholarships to Chinese high school graduates to study in their undergraduate programs. Four years ago, I received such a scholarship from Yale.What are these Chinese undergrads like? Most come from middle-class families in the big urban centers of China. The geographical distribution is highly skewed, with Shanghai and Beijing heavily over-represented. Outside the main pool, a number of Yale students come from Changsha and Ningbo,swhereseach year American Yale graduates are sent to teach English.The overwhelming majority of Chinese undergraduates in the US major in science, engineering or economics. Many were academic superstars in their high schools - gold medallists in international academic Olympiads or prize winners in national academic contests. Once on US campuses, many of them decide to make research a lifelong commitment.Life outside the classroom constitutes an important part of college life. At American universities the average student spends less than thirteen hours a week in class. Many Chinese students use their spare time to pick up some extra pocket money. At Yale, one of the most common campus jobs is washing dishes in the dining halls. Virtually all Chinese undergraduates at Yale work part-time in the dining halls at some point in their college years. As they grow in age and sophistication, they upgrade to better-paying and less stressful positions. The more popular and interesting jobs include working as a computer assistant, math homework grader, investment office assistant and lab or research assistant. The latter three often lead to stimulating summer jobs.Student activities are another prominent feature of American college life. Each week there are countless student-organized events of all sorts - athletic, artistic, cultural, political or social (i.e. just for fun). New student organizations are constantly being created, and Chinese undergrads contribute to this ferment. Sport looms much larger on US campuses than in China. At Yale, intramural sports from soccer to water polo take place all year long; hence athletic talent is a real social asset. One of the Chinese students at Yale several years ago was a versatile sportsman. His athletic talents and enthusiastic participation in sporting events, combined with his other fine qualities, made him a popular figure in his residential college.英语标准美文100篇010September 11,at the firing moment for US studentsEvery generation has its defining moment, an event so extraordinary that people will forever remember exactly what they were doing at the moment it happened. For American college students, the morning of September 11, 2001 was such a moment.It was a bright, clear Tuesday morning in Lawrence, early in the fall semester at the school where I teach, the University of Kansas.My journalism students came to their 8:30 classes clutching radios for news about the airliner that had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City.Even though Kansas is in the central United States, many university students have family members and friends in New York and Washington. "Are they safe?" was the first question: as the towers crumbled, it became clear that thousands had died. Suddenly no one felt safe.American universities quickly organized a support network for their foreign students. At the University of Kansas any student who felt unsafe or threatened could stay in the home of a Lawrence resident. Terrorists could topple American buildings, the implication was, but they could not shake the American spirit of tolerance, mutual respect and neighborliness.In the days that followed, college students did not wait to ask "What can we do?" -- they just did it. Many helped organize fund drives. Some gave blood, in fact so much that the blood banks were temporarily oversupplied. Several drove to New York City to help where they could. Everyone pulled together to help our nation get through the ordeal.The morning of September 11 will live in students’ memories as "9-11" . The reality had dawned that life can end suddenly on a beautiful day. But Americans live in hope, not in fear. The lesson students drew from these events was not how dangerous the world is, but how peaceful nations of the world join together to help each other in times of need.The 9-11 tragedy will forever be this generation’s defining moment. American students now understand that terrorist attacks can take place anytime, anywhere. But just as tragedy can happen, so can peace, hope and kindness, whether shared by good people or by great nations。
小学英语必背美文100篇(教学类别)
小学英语必背美文100篇Passage 1.WoodpeckerThere are many apple trees in a garden. They’re good friends. One day an old tree is ill. There are many pests in the tree. Leaves of the tree turn yellow. The old tree feels very sad and unwell. Another tree sends for a doctor for him. At first, they send for a pigeon, but she has no idea about it. Then they send for an oriole, and she can’t treat the old tree well. Then they send for a woodpecker. She is a good doctor. She pecks a hole in the tree and eats lots of pests. At last the old tree becomes better and better. Leaves turn green and green.Passage 2.A Busy DayToday is Sunday! On Sundays, I usually play the flute.My father usually reads the newspaper. My motherusuallycleansthe house. Buttoday my mother is in bed. She is ill. My father has to do the housework. Now, he is cleaning the house. “Sam, can you help me?”“Yes, Dad!”Now, we’re washing the car. Where’s my sister, Amy? She is playing my flute. What a lucky girl!Passage 3.The dog and his reflectionOne day a dog with a piece of meat in his mouth was crossing a plank over a stream. As he walked along,helookedintowater,andhesawhis reflection. He thought this was another dog carryinga piece of meat. And he felt he would like to have two pieces. So he snapped at the reflection in the water, and of course, as he opened his mouth, the piece of meat disappeared quickly.Passage 4.An honest boyTony is seven years old. He is an honest and polite boy. One day, it was Sunday. Tony, his sister and his mother stayed at home. He was watching TV and his sister was reading books. His mother was washing clothes. Just then, his father came back with a bagof pears. Tony likes pears very much and he wantedto eat one. His mother gave him four and said, “Let’s sharethem.”“Whichpeardo youwant, Tony?”asked his mother. “The biggest one, mum.”“What?”said his mother, “You should be polite and want the smallest one.”“Should I tell a lie just to be polite, mum?”Passage 5.A birthday partyToday is Susan’s birthday. She is nine years old. Her friends are in her home now. There is a birthday party in the evening. Look! Mary is listening to the music. And Tom is drinking orangejuice. Jack and Sam are playing cards on the floor. Lily and Amy are watching TV. Someone is knocking at the door. It’s Henry. He brings a big teddy bear for Susan. The teddy bear is yellow. Susan is very happy. All the children are happy. They sing a birthday song for Susan.Passage 6.The Farmer and the SnakeIt was a cold winter day.A farmer found a snake on the ground. It was nearly dead by cold. The Farmer was a kind man. Hepicked up thesnake carefully and put it under the coat. Soon the snake Began to move and it raised its mouth and bit the farmer. “Oh, My god!”said the farmer, “I save your life, but you thank me in that way. You must die.”Then he killed the snake with a stick. At last he died, too.Passage 7.Two Young TreesTwo young trees are standing on the top of the hill. Their names are Tim and Alan.One day, it’s sunny and warm. Some birds are singing in the trees. The wind blows, and the trees are talking. “What do you want to be when you grow up?’’asks Tim. “I’m not sure. I think I want to be a chair or a desk.”answers Alan, “Maybe I want to bea toy box or a baseball bat. I like children.”“What do you want to be when you grow up?”asks Alan. “Me?”says Tim, “I just want to be a tree. I want to bea house for birds and spiders. I want to have many apples. And when it’s sunny and hot, people and animals can stand under me.”Passage 8.Hongkong is a nice placeHong Kong is a nice place, especially in summer. JulyisahotmonthinHongKong.Butit’san excellent time for swimming. There is a beautiful beach at Repulse Bay (浅水湾). To get there, you can take a bus from Central. Lots of people go to the beach on Sundays and Saturdays. But if you go on a weekday, it is will be not so crowded.Visitors to Hongkong need passports. But people from many countries do not need visas. Hongkong is a nice place for holiday. There are many shops.Passage 9.WaterWater is very important for living things. Without water, there must be no life on the earth. All the plants and animals need water to drink, to cook food and to clean ourselves. Water is needed in farms, factories, offices, schools, families and many other places.Water is found in seas, rivers and lakes. It can be found everywhere in the world, and it also can be found in the air.Passage 10.Twins’BedroomThis is the twins’bedroom. It is a nice room. The two beds look the same. This bed is Lily’s and that one is Lucy’s. The twins have one desk and two chairs. Their clock, books and pencil-boxes are on the desk. Their schoolbags are behind the chairs. Some nice flowers are on the desk. Some nice pictures are on the wall. Is there a kite? Yes, it’s under Lily’s bed. The bedroom is very nice.Passage 11.DogsOne of the animals that help people a lot is the dog. In some countries, dogs pull wagons. In the cold north, dogs pull sleds.There are other ways that dogs help us, too. Policemen use them to look for missing people. Soldiers use them to carry letters and medicine .On farms, dogs take care of sheep and keep them in the fields. At night, they take the sheep home. Dogs help the blind with work. Some dogs are good and kind. Some dogs are good at another skill.Passage 12.The Best JobBetty is a lazy girl. She doesn’t study hard, and she doesn’t help her mother with the housework, either. “What are you going to be when you grow up, Betty?”Mother asks. “You’re too lazy. No job will ever fit you.”“But I know one,”says the girl, “I’m going to be Father Christmas,”“You want to be Father Christmas?”Mother is surprised, “But why?”“Because he works only one day in a whole year.”Passage 13.A Clever MonkeyA little monkey picks up a pumpkin and wants to takeithome.Butthepumpkinistoobig.The monkey can’t take it home.Suddenly he sees a panda riding a bike towards him. He watches the bike. “l have a good idea. I can roll the pumpkin. It likes a wheel.”So he rolls the pumpkin to his home. When his mother sees the big pumpkin, she is surprised and says, “How can you carry it home?”The little monkey answers proudly, “l can’t lift it, but l can roll it.”His mother smiles and says, “What a clever boy!”Passage14. What Are Stars Like?Have you ever wondered about the stars? In some ways, stars are like people. They are born. They grow old. And they die. A star is born from dust and gas. Slowly the dust and gas make a ball. The ball gets very hot. Then it starts to give off light. The young star grows into a giant. Many years go by. The older star begins to get small again. At last its light goes out. The star’s life isover.Passage 15.Radio and TelevisionRadio and television are very popular in the world today. Millions of people watch TV. Perhaps more people listen to the radio.The TV is more useful than the radio. On TV we can see and hear what is happening in the world. However, radio isn’t lost. It is still with us. And listeners are becoming more. That’sbecause a transistor radio isn’t lost. It is still with us. It is very easy to carry. You can put one in your pocket and listen to it on the bus or your bike when you go to work.Passage 16.It’s cool behind youIt’stwoo’clockintheafternoon.Thesunis shinning and it’s very hot. Nancy has to meet her mother at the train station.Now she’s walking in the street. There are no trees and she’s fat. So she feels very hot. But she doesn’t find a boy walking just behind her. And she meets a friend and says “hello”to him. “Who’s the boy behind you？”asks the man . Now she sees the boy. She is angry and asks, “Why are you walking behind me, boy?”“There’snoshadeinthestreet, you know.”answers the boy. “It’s cool behind you, I think.”Passage 17.Father’s HobbyMy dad works from Monday to Friday in a bank. he uses the computer to count money. His job is very important in the bank.Dad is also busy at home. At weekends he cooks dinner. Usually he cooks Italian food. On Sundays he makesfive pieces of pizza. Sometimes hecooks chicken and makes Chinese food. My mum watches and helps him. I help my dad, too. I wash the dishes.Many people think it is strange for a man to cook. But my dad enjoys his hobby. Cooking relaxes him. He is a weekend cook.Passage 18.I don’t think soJack is a good boy but he doesn’t like to use his head. He often says something withou thinking.It makes others unhappy.Mr. Black teaches math in a school. He’s old now and he likes children.On the Friday Mr. Black doesn’t go to work, because he’s ill in a hospital. And Jack’s mother will see him after dinner. “I want to be there with you.”says Jack. “You’re a rude boy. I can’t take you there.’’sayshis mother. “Don’t worry, mum. I won’t do that again. Please believe me. ”says Jack. In the hospital, Jack says nothing at first. When they’re leaving , he says to Mr. Black, “You look fine. The doctor says you’re going to die, but I don’t think so. ”Passage 19.Seven days in a weekThere are about fifty-two weeks in a year. And there are seven days in each week. The first day of a week is Sunday. The other days of a week between SundayandSaturdayare Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday and Friday. Monday is the second day, Tuesday is the third day, Wednesday is the fourth day, Thursday is the fifth day, and Friday is the sixth day. What’s the last day? Do you know?Passage 20.My special FriendI have a friend in the U.S. His name is Don Adams. I know him very well, but I have never met him. We write to each other all the time. My letters are very short. It is still hard for me to write in English. I received a letter from Don yesterday. It makes me very happy. He is coming to my country for a visit next summer. We are going to see each other for the first time.Passage 21.A Day in My LifeMy family lives on this street. In the morning, my father goes to work and all the children go to school. My mother takes us to school everyday. She does the housework. She always has her lunch at home, and sees her friends in the afternoon. In the evening all the children come home from school. They always get home early. My father goes home from work and he is often late. After supper my two brothers and I do our homework. We go to bed at ten.Passage 22. The SeaWhat do know about the sea? Some people have seen it but others haven’t. The sea looks beautiful on a fine sunny day and it can be very tough when there is a strong wind. What other things do you know about it? Of course, the sea is very large. In the world there is more sea than land. If you have swum in the sea, you know that the sea is salty. Rivers carry salt from the land into the sea. Some places of the sea are saltier than the other places. Do you know the Dead Sea? It is so salty that you can’t sink when you are in the water! And fish cannot live in it!Passage 23.A Good Young PioneerLi Hua is a Yong Pioneer. He is going to the park. Now he is waiting for a bus. Suddenly he finds a watchon theground.He askssome people, “Whose watch is it?”But the watch isn’t theirs. So he gives the watch to a policeman.Now Li Hua gets on the bus. He is sitting near the window. An old woman gets on the bus. Shehas no seat. So he stands up and says, “Here is a seat for you, Granny. Please sit here”Passage 24.Sea horseThere are all kinds of horses in the world. But one of them you can’t ride. It doesn’t live on land, but in the sea. It looks like the head of horse. So the people call it sea horse. In fact, the sea horse is a small fish. It likes to live in warm water. A sea horse stands up in the water when it swims.Father horse carries the eggs to keep them safe in its pouch. Whenthe eggsare hatched, the baby horses swim away.Passage 25.A Cat and a BirdThere are three trees near the house. There is a big tree, and two small trees.In the big tree there is a bird. Can the bird sing? Yes, it can. What’s under the big tree? It’s a cat.“I want some food,”thinks the cat. “Bird, my good friend, Come here! It’s time to play games”says the cat.“No today, thank you!”says the bird, “You can’t catch me! Goodbye!”Look! The bird is flying!Passage 26.A Flying FoxA flying fox is not a fox at all. It is a bat. But this bat looks like a fox. A flying fox is very big. It likes to eat fruit. Sometimes the flying fox is called fruit bat.The flying fox flies into fruit trees. Then the bat eats all the fruit. So fruit farmers do not like the flying fox.Passage 27.Flying BirdsBirds don’t fly high up in the sky. The air is too thin.It is hard for birds to breathe in thin air. Thin air doesn’t hold them up.Birds fly near the ground so that they can see where they are. The birds look for places they know. Then they do not get lost. Some birds fly so low over the ocean that the waves often hide them. Many birds fly a long distance in the spring and autumn.Passage 28.AirAir is all around us. It is around us as we walk and play. From the time we were born air is around us on every side. When we sit down, it is around us. When we go to bed, air is also around us. We live in air. We can live without food or water for a few days, but we cannot live for more than a few minutes without air. We take in air. When we are working or running we need more air. When we are asleep, we need less air. We live in air, but we cannot see it. We can only feel it when it is moving. Moving air is called wind. How can we make air move? Here is one way. Hold an open book in front of your face, close it quickly. What can you feel? What you feel is air.Passage 29.ClocksThere are many clocks in the Brown’s house. They are in different rooms.A big clock stands in a corner of the sitting room. It is a very, very old clock, but it still keeps good time. Mr. Brown winds it once a week.Passage 30. SwimmingSwimming is a good sport. It’s popular. People like swimming because the water makes people feel cool. But if they swim in a wrong place, it is very dangerous. These years, some people died when they were enjoying themselves in water and most of them were students. Summer holiday will be there again. I want to give you some advice. First, don’t get into the water when you are alone. Second, don’t get into the water if there is a No swimming sign. Third, you should be careful in the water. If you remember these, swimming will be safe and it’s good for your health.。
英语经典美文诵读100篇（MP3...
英语经典美文诵读100篇（MP3...英语经典美文诵读100篇(MP3+LRC)•英语经典美文诵读100篇汇总（MP3+LRC）•英语经典美文诵读100篇：001.life is to be whole•英语经典美文诵读100篇：002.home•英语经典美文诵读100篇：003.too dear for the whistle•英语经典美文诵读100篇：004.youth•英语经典美文诵读100篇：005.on punctuality•英语经典美文诵读100篇：006.work and pleasure•英语经典美文诵读100篇：007.april days•英语经典美文诵读100篇：008.man and nature•英语经典美文诵读100篇：009.who moved my cheese•英语经典美文诵读100篇：010.the smile•英语经典美文诵读100篇：011.love•英语经典美文诵读100篇：dy first•英语经典美文诵读100篇：012.hope is the thing with feathers•英语经典美文诵读100篇：013.the story of life•英语经典美文诵读100篇：014.night•英语经典美文诵读100篇：016.a better tomorrow•英语经典美文诵读100篇：017.the watch•英语经典美文诵读100篇：018.true nobility•英语经典美文诵读100篇：019.a mother’s letter to the world•英语经典美文诵读100篇：020.a to z•英语经典美文诵读100篇：022.science and art•英语经典美文诵读100篇：021.successful english learning•英语经典美文诵读100篇：023.tactics for job-hunt success •英语经典美文诵读100篇：024. ambition•英语经典美文诵读100篇：025.to —•英语经典美文诵读100篇：026.learn to live in the present moment•英语经典美文诵读100篇：027.the telephone•英语经典美文诵读100篇：028.courage•英语经典美文诵读100篇：029.the gift of love•英语经典美文诵读100篇：030.be an optimist•英语经典美文诵读100篇：031.on lying•英语经典美文诵读100篇：032.my heart’s in the highlands •英语经典美文诵读100篇：033.the road to success•英语经典美文诵读100篇：034.eyes can speak•英语经典美文诵读100篇：035.relish the moment•英语经典美文诵读100篇：036.on motes and beams•英语经典美文诵读100篇：037.a leap in thought•英语经典美文诵读100篇：038.our family creed•英语经典美文诵读100篇：039.mother’s day and father’s day•英语经典美文诵读100篇：040.expressing one’s individuality•英语经典美文诵读100篇：041.if•英语经典美文诵读100篇：042.true and false simplicity•英语经典美文诵读100篇：st letters home from an american soldier who died in iraq•英语经典美文诵读100篇：044.jimmy carter’s nobel lecture (Ⅰ)•英语经典美文诵读100篇：045.jimmy carter’s nobel lecture (Ⅱ)•英语经典美文诵读100篇：046.a visit to an american court •英语经典美文诵读100篇：047.the man and the opportunity •英语经典美文诵读100篇：048.the daffodils•英语经典美文诵读100篇：049.man will prevail•英语经典美文诵读100篇：051.the art of living•英语经典美文诵读100篇：050.an october sunrise•英语经典美文诵读100篇：052.the american character•英语经典美文诵读100篇：053.the pleasure of reading•英语经典美文诵读100篇：054.a knack of wal-mart’s success•英语经典美文诵读100篇：057.the road not taken•英语经典美文诵读100篇：055.gettysburg address•英语经典美文诵读100篇：058.on leadership•英语经典美文诵读100篇：056.the love of beauty•英语经典美文诵读100篇：059.address to the millennium summit•英语经典美文诵读100篇：060.napoleon to josephine•英语经典美文诵读100篇：061.questions asked in a interview•英语经典美文诵读100篇：062.what i have lived for•英语经典美文诵读100篇：063.cars•英语经典美文诵读100篇：064.the lover and the beloved•英语经典美文诵读100篇：065.human life like a poem•英语经典美文诵读100篇：067.perseverance•英语经典美文诵读100篇：066.benjamin franklin•英语经典美文诵读100篇：068.paris, a romantic capital•英语经典美文诵读100篇：069.eulogy for a dog•英语经典美文诵读100篇：070.the reward of solitary life•英语经典美文诵读100篇：071.life is a game•英语经典美文诵读100篇：072.globalization•英语经典美文诵读100篇：073.self-control•英语经典美文诵读100篇：074.the four freedoms•英语经典美文诵读100篇：076.conservatism of the englishpeople•英语经典美文诵读100篇：075.a psalm of life•英语经典美文诵读100篇：078.april fool’s day•英语经典美文诵读100篇：077.you are what you do•英语经典美文诵读100篇：079.bill gate’s speech t o qinghua university(1)•英语经典美文诵读100篇：080.bill gate’s speech to qinghua university(2)•英语经典美文诵读100篇：081.love your life•英语经典美文诵读100篇：082.privacy as border•英语经典美文诵读100篇：083.of studies•英语经典美文诵读100篇：084.the urgency•英语经典美文诵读100篇：085.the happy door•英语经典美文诵读100篇：086.success is a choice•英语经典美文诵读100篇：087.living in big cities。
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1. Beauty is MeaninglessA young man sees a sunset and, unable to understand or to express the emotion that it rouses in him, concludes that it must be the gateway to a world that lies beyond. It is difficult for any of us in moments of intense aesthetic experience to resist the suggestion that we are catching a glimpse of a light that shines down to us from a different realm of existence, different and, because the experience is intensely moving, in some way higher. And, though the gleams blind and dazzle, yet they do convey a hint of beauty and serenity greater than we have known or imagined. Greater too than we can describe, for language, which was invented to convey the meanings of this world, cannot readily be fitted to the uses of another.年轻人看到日落，由于无法理解或表达心中激起的那种强烈感情，便断定日落处一定是通往遥远世界的大门。
我们任何人在强烈感受到美的时刻都不禁联想到：我们似乎瞥见从一个不同世界射向我们的一线光芒，不仅不同，而且因为这种美具有强烈的感染力，所以在某种程度上更高级。
还有，尽管这光芒使人眼花缭乱，但它确实传送了一种我们未曾经历的和无法想像的美和静谧的启示。
这种美和静谧是我们所不能描述的，因为人们创造语言的目的是表达我们的世界的各种意义，无法轻易地运用于另一个世界。
That all great art has this power of suggesting a world beyond is undeniable. In some moods, nature shares it. There is no sky in June so blue that it does not point forward to a bluer, no sunset so beautiful that it does not wake the vision of a greater beauty, a vision which passes before it is fully glimpsed, and in passing leaves an indefinable longing and regret. But, if this world is not merely a bad joke, life a vulgar flare amid the cool radiance of the stars, and existence an empty laugh braying across the mysteries, if these intimations of a something behind and beyond are not evil humor born of indigestion, or whimsies sent by the devil to mock and madden us, if, in a word, beauty means something, yet we must not seek to interpret the meaning. If we glimpse the unutterable, it is unwise to try to utter it, nor should we seek to invest with significance that which we cannot grasp. Beauty is in the terms of human meanings is meaningless.不可否认，一切伟大的艺术都具有使人超尘脱俗的浮想的力量。
在某种状态下，大自然就具有这种魅力。
六月的天空不是蓝得不能再蓝，日落不是美得不能再唤起一个更美的景象，一个未被饱览就消失的、而且在消失的时候留给人们一种莫名的渴望和遗憾的景象。
但是，如果这个世界不只是一场恶作剧的话，如果生命不只是惨淡的星光里的平凡的一闪的话，如果存在不只是神秘的宗教发出的一阵空虚的笑声的话，如果对某种玄妙的事物的暗示不是由于消化不良而引起的不好情绪，或者不是一种魔鬼送来嘲笑我们并使我们发狂的怪念头的话，一句话，如果美有某种意义的话，我们千万不要设法去阐明它的意义。
如果我们瞥见难以言传的东西，企图用语言把它表达出来是不明智的。
我们也不应该设法给我们所不理解的事物赋予意义。
从人生各种意义来看，美是难以言传的。
2. Don't Give UpIf we should ever accomplish anything in life, let us not forget that we must persevere. If we would learn our lessons in school, we must be diligent and not give up whenever we come to anything difficult. We shall find many of our lessons very hard, but let us consider that the harder they are the better they will do to us if we will persevere and learn them thoroughly. But there are some among us who are ready to give up when they come to a hard example in mathematics, and say, "I can't do this." They never will if they feel so. I can't never did anything worth while; but I'll try accomplish wonders.不要忘记，在人生的道路上，要想做成什么事，我们必须持之以恒。
如果我们在学校里想要学好功课，就必须得勤奋，任何时候遇到难题都不要放弃。
我们会发现，许多功课非常难，但是我们得记住，那些功课越难，将来对我们的益处就越大--只要我们能持之以恒，完全弄懂。
不过，我们当中有一些人，一遇到数学难题就轻易放弃，说："这道题我做不出来。
"如果他们这么认为，那他们永远也做不出来。
说"我不能"的人永远干不成任何有价值的事，而说"我会努力"的人则可以创造奇迹。
Let us remember that we shall meet with difficulties all through life. They are in the pathway of everyone. If we will only try and keep trying, we shall be sure to conquer and overcome every difficulty we meet with. If we have a hard lesson today, let us strive to learn it well and then we shall be prepared for a harder one tomorrow. And if we learn to master hard lessons in school, it will prepare us to overcome the hard things that we shall meet in life, when our school days are over.让我们记住，在我们一生中，总要遇到各种难题。
这些难题就横亘在每一个人的人生道路上。
只要我们努力，再努力，就一定会征服所遇到的每一个困难。
假如我们今天功课上遇到一个难题，那就让我们竭力解决它，然后我们就可以做好准备应付明天更大的难题。
假如我们在学校里就学会驾驭功课上的难题，将来离开学校后，我们就可以准备好克服我们在人生道路上遇到的各种难题。
3. Every Living Person Has Problems(Every mountain has a peak)What is the secret ingredient of tough people that enables them to succeed? Why do they survive the tough times when others are overcome by them? Why do they win when others lose? Why do they soar when others sink?The answer is very simple. It’s all in how they perce ive their problems. Yes, every living person has problems. A problem-free life is an illusion- a mirage in the desert. Accept that fact.Every mountain has a peak. Every valley has its low point. Life has its ups and downs, its peaks and its valleys. No one is up all the time, nor are they down allthe time. Problems do end. They are all resolved in time.You may not be able to control the times, but you can compose your responses. You can turn your pain into profanity -or into poetry. The choice is up to you.You may not have chosen your tough time, but you can choose how you will react to it. For instance, what is the positive reaction to a terrible financial setback? In this situation would it be the positive reaction to cop out and run away? Escape through alcohol, drug, or suicide? No! such negative reactions only produce greater problems by promising a temporary “solution” to the pressing problem. The positive solution to a problem may require courage to initiate it. When you control your reaction to the seemingly uncontrollable problem of life, them in fact you do control the problem’s effect on you. Your reaction to the problem is the last word! That’s the bottom line. What will you let this problem do to you? It can make you tender or tough. It can make you better or bitter. It all depends on you.In the final analysis, the tough people who survive the tough times do so because they’ve chosen to react positively to their predicament. Tough times never last, but tough people do. Tough people stick it out. History teaches us that every problem has a lifespan. No problem is permanent. Storms always give way to the sun. Winter always thaws into springtime. Your storm will pass. Your winter will thaw. Your problem will be solved.4. Helen Keller & Anne SullivanThe most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher,Anne Mansfield Sullivan,came to me.I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between two lives which it connects.It was the third of March,1887,three months before I was seven years old!On the afternoon of that eventful day,I stood on the porch,dump,expectant.I gussed vaguely from my mother's signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something was about to happen,so I went to the door,and waited on the steps.The afternoon sun penetrated the mass honeysuchle that covered the porch,and fell on my upturned face.My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the meet Southern spring.I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me.Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a deep languor succeede passionate struggle!Have you ever at sea in a dense fog,when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in,and the greatship,tense and anxious,groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line,and you waited with beating heart for something to happen?I was like the ship before my education began,only I was without compass or sounding-line,and had no way of knowinghow near the haobor was."Light!Give me light"was the wordless cry of my soul,and the light of love shone on me in that very hour!5.What I Have Lived For?Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love ,the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy -- ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it , next, because it relieves loneliness-- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world , into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what -- at last -- I have found.With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux.A little of this, but not much I have achievedLove and knowlidge , so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of lonelines, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I'm too suffer.This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.我为什么活着三股简单而非凡强烈的激情一直控制着我的一生：对爱的渴望，对知识的追求和对人类苦难不堪忍受的怜悯。