新概念必背36篇

精选新概念必背优秀文章36篇 1 -

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

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

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

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

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

新概念三 Lesson 14 A noble gangster 贵族歹徒

There was a time when the owners of shops and businesses in Chicago had to pay large sums of money to gangsters in return for 'protection.' If the money was not paid promptly, the gangsters would quickly put a man out of business by destroying his shop. Obtaining 'protection money' is not a modern crime. As long ago as the fourteenth century, an Englishman, Sir John Hawkwood, made the remarkable discovery that people would rather pay large sums of money than have their life work destroyed by gangsters. Six hundred years ago, Sir Johan Hawkwood arrived in Italy with a band of soldiers and settled near Florence. He soon made a name for himself and came to be known to the Italians as Giovanni Acuto. Whenever the Italian city-states were at war with each other, Hawkwood used to hire his soldiers to princes who were willing to pay the high price he demanded. In times of peace, when business was bad, Hawkwood and his men would march into a city-state and, after burning down a few farms, would offer to go away if protection money was paid to them. Hawkwood made large sums of money in this way. In spite of this, the Italians regarded him as a sort of hero. When he died at the age of eighty, the Florentines gave him a state funeral and had a pictured painted which was dedicated to the memory of 'the most valiant soldier and most notable leader, Signor Giovanni Haukodue.'

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

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

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

Verrazano, an Italian about whom little is known, sailed into New York Harbour in 1524 and named it Angouleme. He described it as 'a very agreeable situation located within two small hills in the midst of which flowed a great river.' Though Verrazano is by no means considered to be a great explorer, his name will probably remain immortal, for on November 21st, 1964, the longest suspension bridge in the world was named after him. The Verrazano Bridge, which was designed by Othmar Ammann, joins Brooklyn to Staten Island. It has a span of 4,260 feet. The bridge is so long that the shape of the earth had to be taken into account by its designer. Two great towers support four huge cables. The towers are built on immense

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underwater platforms made of steel and concrete. The platforms extend to a depth of over 100 feet under the sea. These alone took sixteen months to build. Above the surface of the water, the towers rise to a height of nearly 700 feet. They support the cables from which the bridge has been suspended. Each of the four cables contains 26,108 lengths of wire. It has been estimated that if the bridge were packed with cars, it would still only be carrying a third of its total capacity. However, size and strength are not the only important things about this bridge. Despite its immensity, it is both simple and elegant, fulfilling its designer's dream to create 'an enormous object drawn as faintly as possible'. 1524年，一位鲜为人知的意大利人维拉萨诺驾船驶进纽约港，并将该港名为安古拉姆。他对该港作了这样的描述：―地理位置十分适宜，位于两座小山的中间，一条大河从中间流过‖。虽然维拉萨诺绝对算不上一个伟大的探险家，但他的名字将流芳百世，因为1964年11月21日建成的一座世界上最长的吊桥是以他的名字命名。

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

Lesson 21 Daniel Mendoza 丹尼尔.门多萨

Boxing matches were very popular in England two hundred years ago. In those days, boxers fought with bare fists for prize money. Because of this, they were known as 'prize-fighters'. However, boxing was very crude, for there were no rules and a prize-fighter could be seriously injured or even killed during a match.

One of the most colourful figures in boxing history was Daniel Mendoza, who was born in 1764. The use of gloves was not introduced until 1860, when the Marquis of Queensberry drew up the first set of rules. Though he was technically a prize-fighter, Mendoza did much to change crude prize-fighting into a sport, for he brought science to the game. In his day, Mendoza enjoyed tremendous popularity. He was adored by rich and poor alike.

Mendoza rose to fame swiftly after a boxing-match when he was only fourteen years old. This attracted the attention of Richard Humphries who was then the most eminent boxer in England. He offered to train Mendoza and his young pupil was quick to learn. In fact, Mendoza soon became so successful that Humphries turned against him. The two men quarrelled bitterly and it was clear that the argument could only be settled by a fight. A match was held at Stilton, where both men fought for an hour. The public bet a great deal of money on Mendoza, but he was defeated. Mendoza met Humphries in the ring on a later occasion and he lost for a second time. It was not until his third match in 1790 that he finally beat Humphries and became Champion of England. Meanwhile, he founded a highly successful Academy and even Lord Byron became one of his pupils. He earned enormous sums of money and was paid as much as 100 pounds for a single appearance. Despite this, he was so extravagant that he was always in debt. After he was defeated by a boxer called Gentleman Jackson, he was quickly forgotten. He was sent to prison for failing to pay his debts and died in poverty in 1836.

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

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

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

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击手击败后很快被遗忘。他因无力还债而被捕入狱，最后于1836年在贫困中死去。

Lesson 24 A skeleton in the cupboard “家丑”

We often read in novels how a seemingly respectable person or family has some terrible secret which has been concealed from strangers for years. The English language possesses a vivid saying to describe this sort of situation. The terrible secret is called ?a skeleton in the cupboard‘. At some dramatic moment in the story, the terrible secret becomes known and a reputation is ruined. The reader's hair stands on end when he reads in the final pages of the novel that the heroine, a dear old lady who had always been so kind to everybody, had, in her youth, poisoned every one of her five husbands. It is all very well for such things to occur in fiction. To varying degrees, we all have secrets which we do not want even our closest friends to learn, but few of us have skeletons in the cupboard. The only person I know who has a skeleton in the cupboard is George Carlton, and he is very proud of the fact. George studied medicine in his youth. Instead of becoming a doctor, however, he became a successful writer of detective stories. I once spent an uncomfortable weekend which I shall never forget at his house. George showed me to the guest-room which, he said, was rarely used. He told me to unpack my things and then come down to dinner. After I had stacked my shirts and underclothes in two empty drawers, I decided to hang one of the two suits I had brought with me in the cupboard. I opened the cupboard door and then stood in front of it petrified. A skeleton was dangling before my eyes. The sudden movement of the door made it sway slightly and it gave me the impression that it was about to leap out at me. Dropping my suit, I dashed downstairs to tell George. This was worse than ?a terrible secret‘; this was a real skeleton! But George was unsympathetic. ?Oh, that,‘ he said with a smile as if he were talking about an old friend. ?That's Sebastian. You forget that I was a medical student once upon a time. ‘

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

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

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

It has been said that everyone lives by selling something. In the light of this statement, teachers live by selling knowledge, philosophers by selling wisdom and priests by selling spiritual comfort. Though it may be possible to measure the value of material good in terms of money, it is extremely difficult to estimate the true value of the services which people perform for us. There are times when we would willingly give everything we possess to save our lives, yet we might grudge paying a surgeon a high fee for offering us precisely this service. The conditions of society are such that skills have to be paid for in the same way that goods are paid for at a shop. Everyone has something to sell.

Tramps seem to be the only exception to this general rule. Beggars almost sell themselves as human beings to arouse the pity of passers-by. But real tramps are not beggars. They have nothing to sell and require nothing from others. In seeking independence, they do not sacrifice their human dignity. A tramp may ask you for money, but he will never ask you to feel sorry for him. He has deliberately chosen to lead the life he leads and is fully aware of the consequences. He may never be sure where the next meal is coming from, but he is free from the thousands of anxieties which afflict other people. His few material possessions make it possible for him to move from place to place with

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ease. By having to sleep in the open, he gets far closer to the world of nature than most of us ever do. He may hunt, beg, or steal occasionally to keep himself alive; he may even, in times of real need, do a little work; but he will never sacrifice his freedom. We often speak of tramps with contempt and put them in the same class as beggars, but how many of us can honestly say that we have not felt a little envious of their simple way of life and their freedom from care?

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

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

Lesson 33 A day to remember 难忘的一天

We have all experienced days when everything goes wrong. A day may begin well enough, but suddenly everything seems to get out of control. What invariably happens is that a great number of things choose to go wrong at precisely the same moment. It is as if a single unimportant event set up a chain of reactions. Let us suppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on the baby at the same time. The telephone rings and this marks the prelude to an unforeseen series of catastrophes. While you are on the phone, the baby pulls the table-cloth off the table, smashing half your best crockery and cutting himself in the process. You hang up hurriedly and attend to baby, crockery, etc. Meanwhile, the meal gets burnt. As if this were not enough to reduce you to tears, your husband arrives, unexpectedly bringing three guests to dinner.

Things can go wrong on a big scale, as a number of people recently discovered in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney. During the rush hour one evening two cars collided and both drivers began to argue. The woman immediately behind the two cars happened to be a learner. She suddenly got into a panic and stopped her car. This made the driver following her brake hard. His wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake. As she was thrown forward, the cake went right through the windscreen and landed on the road. Seeing a cake flying through the air, a lorry–driver who was drawing up alongside the car, pulled up all of a sudden. The lorry was loaded with empty beer bottles and hundreds of them slid off the back of the vehicle and on to the road. This led to yet another angry argument. Meanwhile, the traffic piled up behind. It took the police nearly an hour to get the traffic on the move again. In the meantime, the lorry driver had to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles. Only two stray dogs benefited from all this confusion, for they greedily devoured what was left of the cake. It was just one of those days!

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

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

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Lesson 34 A happy discovery 幸运的发现

Antique shops exert a peculiar fascination on a great many people. The more expensive kind of antique shop where rare objects are beautifully displayed in glass cases to keep them free from dust is usually a forbidding place. But no one has to muster up courage to enter a less pretentious antique shop. There is always hope that in its labyrinth of musty, dark, disordered rooms a real rarity will be found amongst the piles of assorted junk that litter the floors.

No one discovers a rarity by chance. A truly dedicated bargain hunter must have patience, and above all, the ability to recognize the worth of something when he sees it. To do this, he must be at least as knowledgeable as the dealer. Like a scientist bent on making a discovery, he must cherish the hope that one day he will be amply rewarded. My old friend, Frank Halliday, is just such a person. He has often described to me how he picked up a masterpiece for a mere￡50. One Saturday morning, Frank visited an antique shop in my neighbourhood. As he had never been there before, he found a great deal to interest him. The morning passed rapidly and Frank was about to leave when he noticed a large packing-case lying on the floor. The dealer told him that it had just come in, but that he could not be bothered to open it. Frank begged him to do so and the dealer reluctantly prised it open. The contents were disappointing. Apart from an interesting-looking carved dagger, the box was full of crockery, much of it broken. Frank gently lifted the crockery out of the box and suddenly noticed a miniature painting at the bottom of the packing-case. As its Composition and line reminded him of an Italian painting he knew well, he decided to buy it. Glancing at it briefly, the dealer told him that it was worth￡50. Frank could hardly conceal his excitement, for he knew that he had made a real discovery. The tiny painting proved to be an unknown masterpiece by Correggio and was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

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

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

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

Lesson 38 The first calender 最早的日历

Future historians will be in a unique position when they come to record the history of our own times. They will hardly know which facts to select from the great mass of evidence that steadily accumulates. What is more, they will not have to rely solely on the written word. Films, videos, CDs and CD-ROMS are just some of the bewildering amount of information they will have. They will be able, as it were, to see and hear us in action. But the historian attempting to reconstruct the distant past is always faced with a difficult task. He has to deduce what he can from the few scanty clues available. Even seemingly insignificant remains can shed interesting light on the history of early man. Up to now, historians have assumed that calendars came into being with the advent of agriculture, for then man was faced with a real need to understand something about the seasons. Recent scientific evidence seems to indicate that this assumption is incorrect.

Historians have long been puzzled by dots, lines and symbols which have been engraved on walls, bones, and the ivory tusks of mammoths. The nomads who made these markings lived by hunting and fishing during the last Ice Age which began about 35,000 B.C. and ended about 10,000 B.C. By

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correlating markings made in various parts of the world, historians have been able to read this difficult code. They have found that it is connected with the passage of days and the phases of the moon. It is, in fact, a primitive type of calendar. It has long been known that the hunting scenes depicted on walls were not simply a form of artistic expression. They had a definite meaning, for they were as near as early man could get to writing. It is possible that there is a definite relation between these paintings and the markings that sometimes accompany them. It seems that man was making a real effort to understand the seasons 20,000 years earlier than has been supposed.

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

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

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

Lesson 40 Who's who 真假难辨

It has never been explained why university students seem to enjoy practical jokes more than anyone else. Students specialize in a particular type of practical joke: the hoax. Inviting the fire-brigade to put out a non-existent fire is a crude form of deception which no self-respecting student would ever indulge in. Students often create amusing situations which are funny to everyone except the victims. When a student recently saw two workmen using a pneumatic drill outside his university, he immediately telephoned the police and informed them that two students dressed up as workmen were tearing up the road with a pneumatic drill. As soon as he had hung up, he went over to the workmen and told them that if a policeman ordered them to go away, they were not to take him seriously. He added that a student had dressed up as a policeman and was playing all sorts of silly jokes on people. Both the police and the workmen were grateful to the student for this piece of advance information. The student hid in an archway nearby where he could watch and hear everything that went on. Sure enough, a policeman arrived on the scene and politely asked the workmen to go away. When he received a very rude reply from one of the workmen, he threatened to remove them by force. The workmen told him to do as he pleased and the policeman telephoned for help. Shortly afterwards, four more policemen arrived and remonstrated with the workmen. As the men refused to stop working, the police attempted to seize the pneumatic drill. The workmen struggled fiercely and one of them lost his temper. He threatened to call the police. At this, the police pointed out ironically that this would hardly be necessary as the men were already under arrest. Pretending to speak seriously, one of the workmen asked if he might make a telephone call before being taken to the station. Permission was granted and a policeman accompanied him to a pay phone. Only when he saw that the man was actually telephoning the police did he realize that they had all been the victims of a hoax.

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

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

那学生躲在附近一拱形门廊里，在那儿可以看见、听到现场发生的一切。果然，警察来了，有礼貌地请工人离开此地；但其中一个工人粗鲁地回了几句。于是警察威胁要强行使他们离开。工人说，悉听尊便。警察去打电话叫人。一会儿工夫，又来了4个警察，规劝工人离开。由于工人拒绝停下手中的活，警察想夺风钻。两个工人奋力抗争，其中一个发了火，威

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胁说要去叫警察。警察听后讥讽地说，这大可不必，因为他俩已被逮捕了。其中一个工人装模作样地问道，在被带往警察局之前，是否可以打一个电话。警察同意了，陪他来到一个投币电话前。当他看到那个工人真的是给警察挂电话，才恍然大悟，原来他们都成了一场骗局的受害者。

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

The quiet life of the country has never appealed to me. City born and city bred, I have always regarded the country as something you look at through a train window, or something you occasionally visit during the weekend. Most of my friends live in the city, yet they always go into raptures at the mere mention of the country. Though they extol the virtues of the peaceful life, only one of them has ever gone to live in the country and he was back in town within six months. Even he still lives under the illusion that country life is somehow superior to town life. He is forever talking about the friendly people, the clean atmosphere, the closeness to nature and the gentle pace of living. Nothing can be compared, he maintains, with the first cock crow, the twittering of birds at dawn, the sight of the rising sun glinting on the trees and pastures. This idyllic pastoral scene is only part of the picture. My friend fails to mention the long and friendless winter evenings in front of the TV ---- virtually the only form of entertainment. He says nothing about the poor selection of goods in the shops, or about those unfortunate people who have to travel from the country to the city every day to get to work. Why people are prepared to tolerate a four-hour journey each day for the dubious privilege of living in the country is beyond me. They could be saved so much misery and expense if they chose to live in the city where they rightly belong. If you can do without the few pastoral pleasures of the country, you will find the city can provide you with the best that life can offer. You never have to travel miles to see your friends. They invariably live nearby and are always available for an informal chat or an evening's entertainment. Some of my acquaintances in the country come up to town once or twice a year to visit the theatre as a special treat. For them this is a major operation which involves considerable planning. As the play draws to its close, they wonder whether they will ever catch that last train home. The city dweller never experiences anxieties of this sort. The latest exhibitions, films, or plays are only a short bus ride away. Shopping, too, is always a pleasure. There is so much variety that you never have to make do with second best. Country people run wild when they go shopping in the city and stagger home loaded with as many of the exotic items as they can carry. Nor is the city without its moments of beauty. There is something comforting about the warm glow shed by advertisements on cold wet winter nights. Few things could be more impressive than the peace that descends on deserted city streets at weekends when the thousands that travel to work every day are tucked away in their homes in the country. It has always been a mystery to me why city dwellers, who appreciate all these things, obstinately pretend that they would prefer to live in the country.

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

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

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Lesson 42 Modern cavemen 现代洞穴人

Cave exploration, or pot-holing, as it has come to be known, is a relatively new sport. Perhaps it is the desire for solitude or the chance of making an unexpected discovery that lures people down to the depths of the earth. It is impossible to give a satisfactory explanation for a pot-holer's motives. For him, caves have the same peculiar fascination which high mountains have for the climber. They arouse instincts which can only be dimly understood. Exploring really deep caves is not a task for the Sunday afternoon rambler. Such undertakings require the precise planning and foresight of military operations. It can take as long as eight days to rig up rope ladders and to establish supply bases before a descent can be made into a very deep cave. Precautions of this sort are necessary, for it is impossible to foretell the exact nature of the difficulties which will confront the pot-holer. The deepest known cave in the world is the Gouffre Berger near Grenoble. It extends to a depth of 3,723 feet. This immense chasm has been formed by an underground stream which has tunneled a course through a flaw in the rocks. The entrance to the cave is on a plateau in the Dauphine Alps. As it is only six feet across, it is barely noticeable. The cave might never have been discovered had not the entrance been spotted by the distinguished French pot-holer, Berger. Since its discovery, it has become a sort of pot-holers' Everest(珠峰). Though a number of descents have been made, much of it still remains to be explored.

A team of pot-holers recently went down the Gouffre Berger. After entering the narrow gap on the plateau, they climbed down the steep sides of the cave until they came to narrow corridor. They had to edge their way along this, sometimes wading across shallow streams, or swimming across deep pools. Suddenly they came to a waterfall which dropped into an underground lake at the bottom of the cave. They plunged into the lake, and after loading their gear on an inflatable rubber dinghy, let the current carry them to the other side. To protect themselves from the icy water, they had to wear special rubber suits. At the far end of the lake, they came to huge piles of rubble which had been washed up by the water. In this part of the cave, they could hear an insistent booming sound which they found was caused by a small water-spout shooting down into a pool from the roof of the cave. Squeezing through a cleft in the rocks, the pot-holers arrived at an enormous cavern, the size of a huge concert hall. After switching on powerful arc lights, they saw great stalagmites -- some of them over forty feet high -- rising up like tree-trunks to meet the stalactites suspended from the roof. Round about, piles of limestone glistened in all the colours of the rainbow. In the eerie（可怕的） silence of the cavern, the only sound that could be heard was made by water which dripped continuously from the high dome above them.

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

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

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

Lesson 43 Fully insured 全保险

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Insurance companies are normally willing to insure anything. Insuring public or private property is a standard practice in most countries in the world. If, however, you were holding an open air garden party or a fete it would be equally possible to insure yourself in the event of bad weather. Needless to say, the bigger the risk an insurance company takes, the higher the premium you will have to pay. It is not uncommon to hear that a shipping company has made a claim for the cost of salvaging a sunken ship. But the claim made by a local authority to recover the cost of salvaging a sunken pie dish must surely be unique.

Admittedly it was an unusual pie dish, for it was eighteen feet long and six feet wide. It had been purchased by a local authority so that an enormous pie could be baked for an annual fair. The pie committee decided that the best way to transport the dish would be by canal, so they insured it for the trip. Shortly after it was launched, the pie committee went to a local inn to celebrate. At the same time, a number of teenagers climbed on to the dish and held a little party of their own. Dancing proved to be more than the dish could bear, for during the party it capsized and sank in seven feet of water. The pie committee telephoned a local garage owner who arrived in a recovery truck to salvage the pie dish. Shivering in their wet clothes, the teenagers looked on while three men dived repeatedly into the water to locate the dish. They had little difficulty in finding it, but hauling it out of the water proved to be a serious problem. The sides of the dish were so smooth that it was almost impossible to attach hawsers and chains to the rim without damaging it. Eventually chains were fixed to one end of the dish and a powerful winch was put into operation. The dish rose to the surface and was gently drawn towards the canal bank. For one agonizing moment, the dish was perched precariously on the bank of the canal, but it suddenly overbalanced and slid back into the water. The men were now obliged to try once more. This time they fixed heavy metal clamps to both sides of the dish so that they could fasten the chains. The dish now had to be lifted vertically because one edge was resting against the side of the canal. The winch was again put into operation and one of the men started up the truck. Several minutes later, the dish was successfully hauled above the surface of the water. Water streamed in torrents over its sides with such force that it set up a huge wave in the canal. There was a danger that the wave would rebound off the other side of the bank and send the dish plunging into the water again. By working at tremendous speed, the men managed to get the dish on to dry land before the wave returned.

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

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

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

Lesson 44 Speed and comfort 又快捷又舒适

People, traveling long distances frequently have to decide whether they would prefer to go by land, sea, or air. Hardly anyone can positively enjoy sitting in a train for more than a few hours. Train compartments soon get cramped and stuffy. It is almost impossible to take your mind off the journey. Reading is only a partial solution, for the monotonous rhythm of the wheels clicking on the rails soon

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lulls you to sleep. During the day, sleep comes in snatches. At night, when you really wish to go to sleep, you rarely manage to do so. If you are lucky enough to get a sleeper, you spend half the night staring at the small blue light in the ceiling, or fumbling to find your ticket for inspection. Inevitably you arrive at your destination almost exhausted. Long car journeys are even less pleasant, for it is quite impossible even to read. On motorways you can, at least, travel fairly safely at high speeds, but more often than not, the greater part of the journey is spent on roads with few service stations and too much traffic. By comparison, ferry trips or cruises offer a great variety of civilized comforts. You can stretch your legs on the spacious decks, play games, meet interesting people and enjoy good food----always assuming, of course, that the sea is calm. If it is not, and you are likely to get sea-sick, no form of transport could be worse. Even if you travel in ideal weather, sea journeys take a long time. Relatively few people are prepared to sacrifice holiday time for the pleasure of travelling by sea. Aeroplanes have the reputation of being dangerous and even hardened travellers are intimidated by them. They also have the disadvantage of being an expensive form of transport. But nothing can match them for speed and comfort. Travelling at a height of 30, 000 feet, far above the clouds, and at over 500 miles an hour is an exhilarating experience. You do not have to devise ways of taking your mind off the journey, for an aeroplane gets you to your destination rapidly. For a few hours, you settle back in a deep armchair to enjoy the flight. The real escapist can watch a film and sip champagne on some services. But even when such refinements are not available, there is plenty to keep you occupied. An aeroplane offers you an unusual and breathtaking view of the world. You soar effortlessly over high mountains and deep valleys. You really see the shape of the land. If the landscape is hidden from view, you can enjoy the extraordinary sight of unbroken cloud plains that stretch out for miles before you, while the sun shines brilliantly in a clear sky. The journey is so smooth that there is nothing to prevent you from reading or sleeping. However you decide to spend your time, one thing is certain: you will arrive at your destination fresh and uncrumpled. You will not have to spend the next few days recovering from a long and arduous journey. 出远门的人常常需要决定是走旱路、水路，还是坐飞机。很少有人能够真正喜欢坐几个小时以上的火车。车厢很快就变得拥挤、闷热，想摆脱开旅途的困扰是很难的。看书只能解决部分问题。车轮与铁轨间单调的嘎喳声很快就会送你进入梦乡。白天是忽睡忽醒，到了夜晚，你真想睡了，却很难入睡。即使你走运弄到一个卧铺，夜间有一半时间你会盯着车顶那盏小蓝灯而睡不着觉；要不然就为查票摸索你的车票。一旦抵达目的地，你总是疲惫不堪。乘汽车作长途旅行则更加不舒服，因为连看书都几乎不可能。在公路上还好，你至少能以相当快的速度安全地向前行。但旅行的大部分时间都花在路上，而且只有很少的服务设施，交通也很拥挤。相比之下，坐船旅行或环游可以得到文明世界的各种享受。你可以在甲板上伸展四肢、做游戏，还能见到各种有趣的人，能享用各种美味佳肴——当然，这一切只有在大海风平浪静的情况下才有可能。如果大海肆虐起来，你就可能晕船，那种难受劲儿是任何一种别的旅行方式都不会带来的。即便风平浪静，坐船旅行也要占用很长时间。没有多少人会为了享受坐船旅行的乐趣而牺牲假期的时间。

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

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

In democratic countries any efforts to restrict the freedom of the Press are rightly condemned. However, this freedom can easily be abused. Stories about people often attract far more public attention than political events. Though we may enjoy reading about the lives of others, it is extremely doubtful whether we would equally enjoy reading about ourselves. Acting on the contention that facts are sacred, reporters can cause untold suffering to individuals by publishing details about their private lives. Newspapers exert such tremendous influence that they can not only bring about major changes to the lives of ordinary people but can even overthrow a government.

The story of a poor family that acquired fame and fortune overnight, dramatically illustrates the

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power of the press. The family lived in Aberdeen, a small town of 23, 000 inhabitants in South Dakota. As the parents had five children, life was a perpetual struggle against poverty. They were expecting their sixth child and were faced with even more pressing economic problems. If they had only had one more child, the fact would have passed unnoticed. They would have continued to struggle against economic odds and would have lived in obscurity. But they suddenly became the parents of quintuplets, four girls and a boy, an event which radically changed their lives. The day after the birth of the five children, an aeroplane arrived in Aberdeen bringing sixty reporters and photographers. The rise to fame was swift. Television cameras and newspapers carried the news to everyone in the country. Newspapers and magazines offered the family huge sums for the exclusive rights to publish stories and photographs. Gifts poured in not only from unknown people, but from baby food and soap manufacturers who wished to advertise their products. The old farmhouse the family lived in was to be replaced by a new ＄500, 000 home. Reporters kept pressing for interviews so lawyers had to be employed to act as spokesmen for the family at press conferences. While the five babies were still quietly sleeping in oxygen tents in a hospital nursery, their parents were paying the price for fame. It would never again be possible for them to lead normal lives. They had become the victims of commercialization, for their names had acquired a market value. Instead of being five new family members, these children had immediately become a commodity.

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

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

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

Lesson 47 Too high a price? 代价太高？

Pollution is the price we pay for an overpopulated, over industrialized planet. When you come to think about it, there are only four ways you can deal with rubbish: dump it, burn it, turn it into something you can use again, attempt to produce less of it. We keep trying all four methods, but he sheer volume of rubbish we produce worldwide threatens to overwhelm us. Rubbish, however, is only part of the problem of polluting our planet. The need to produce ever-increasing quantities of cheap food leads to a different kind of pollution. Industrialized farming methods produce cheap meat products: beef, pork and chicken. The use of pesticides and fertilizers produces cheap grain and vegetables. The price we pay for cheap food may be already too high: Mad Cow Disease (BSE) in cattle, salmonella in chicken and eggs, and wisteria in dairy products. And if you think you'll abandon meat and become a vegetarian, you have the choice of very expensive organically-grown vegetables or a steady diet of pesticides every time you think you're eating fresh salads and vegetables, or just having an innocent glass of water!

However, there is an even more insidious kind of pollution that particularly affects urban areas and invades our daily lives, and that is noise. Burglar alarms going off at any time of the day or night serve only to annoy passers-by and actually assist burglars to burgle. Car alarms constantly scream at us in the street and are a source of profound irritation. A recent survey of the effects of noise revealed (surprisingly?) that dogs barking incessantly in the night rated the highest form of noise pollution on a

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scale ranging from 1 to 7. The survey revealed a large number of sources of noise that we really dislike. Lawn mowers whining on a summer's day, late-night parties in apartment blocks, noisy neighbors, vehicles of al kinds, especially large container trucks thundering through quiet village, planes and helicopters flying overhead, large radios carried round in public places and played at maximum volume. New technology has also made its own contribution to noise. A lot of people object to mobile phones, especially when they are used in public places like restaurants or on public transport. Loud conversations on mobile phones invade our thoughts or interrupt the pleasure of meeting friends for a quiet chat. The noise pollution survey revealed a rather spurring and possibly amusing old fashioned source of noise. It turned out to be snoring! Men were found to be the worst offenders. It was revealed that 20% of men in their mid-thirties snore. This figure rises to a staggering 60% of men in their sixties. Against these figures, it was found that only 5% of women snore regularly, while the rest are constantly woken or kept awake by their trumpeting partners. Whatever the source of noise, one thing is certain: silence, it seems, has become a golden memory. 污染就是我们为这个人口过密，过度工业化的星球所付出的代价。当我们开始考虑垃圾问题时，我们只有4种对付垃圾的方法：倾倒、焚烧、把垃圾变成再生材料或试图少产生一些垃圾。我们一直在试这4种方式，但是，我们在世界范围内仅产生的垃圾的量就有把我们覆盖的危险。

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

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

Lesson 50 New Year resolutions 新年的决心

The New Year is a time for resolutions. Mentally, at least, most of us could compile formidable lists of ?dos‘ and ?don'ts‘. The same old favourites recur year in year out with monotonous regularity. We resolve to get up earlier each morning, eat less, find more time to play with the children, do a thousand and one jobs about the house, be nice to people we don't like, drive carefully, and take the dog for a walk every day. Past experience has taught us that certain accomplishments are beyond attainment. If we remain inveterate smokers, it is only because we have so often experienced the frustration that results from failure. Most of us fail in our efforts at self-improvement because our schemes are too ambitious and we never have time to carry them out. We also make the fundamental error of announcing our resolutions to everybody so that we look even more foolish when we slip back into our bad old ways. Aware of these pitfalls, this year I attempted to keep my resolutions to myself. I limited myself to two modest ambitions: to do physical exercises every morning and to read more of an evening. An all-night party on New Year's Eve provided me with a good excuse for not carrying on either of these new resolutions on the first day of the year, but on the second, I applied myself assiduously to the task. The daily exercises lasted only eleven minutes and I proposed to do them early in the morning before anyone had got up. The self-discipline required to drag myself out of bed eleven minutes earlier than usual was considerable. Nevertheless, I managed to creep down into the living-room for two

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days before anyone found me out. After jumping about on the carpet and twisting the human frame into uncomfortable positions, I sat down at the breakfast table in an exhausted condition. It was this that betrayed me. The next morning the whole family trooped in to watch the performance. That was really unsettling, but I fended off the taunts and jibes of the family good-humouredly and soon everybody got used to the idea. However, my enthusiasm waned. The time I spent at exercise gradually diminished. Little by little the eleven minutes fell to zero. By January 10th, I was back to where I had started from. I argued that if I spent less time exhausting myself at exercises in the morning, I would keep my mind fresh for reading when I got home from work. Resisting the hypnotizing effect of television, I sat in my room for a few evenings with my eyes glued to a book. One night, however, feeling cold and lonely, I went downstairs and sat in front of the television pretending to read. That proved to be my undoing, for I soon got back to my old bad habit of dozing off in front of the screen. I still haven't given up my resolution to do more reading. In fact, I have just bought a book entitled How to Read a Thousand Words a Minute. Perhaps it will solve my problem, but I just haven't had time to read it!

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

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

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

The Scandinavian countries are much admired all over the world for their enlightened social policies. Sweden has evolved an excellent system for protecting the individual citizen from high-handed or incompetent public officers. The system has worked so well, that it has been adopted in other countries too.

The Swedes were the first to recognize that public officials like civil servants, police officers, health inspectors or tax-collectors can make mistakes or act over-zealously in the belief that they are serving the public. As long ago as 1809, the Swedish Parliament introduced a scheme to safeguard the interest of the individual. A parliamentary committee representing all political parties appoints a person who is suitably qualified to investigate private grievances against the State. The official title of the person is ?Justiteombudsman‘, but the Swedes commonly refer to him as the ?J. O.‘ or ?Ombudsman‘. The Ombudsman is not subject to political pressure. He investigates complaints large and small that come to him from all levels of society. As complaints must be made in writing, the Ombudsman receives an average of 1, 200 letters a year. He has eight lawyer assistants to help him and he examines every single letter in detail. There is nothing secretive about the Ombudsman's work, for his correspondence is open to public inspection. If a citizen's complaint is justified, the Ombudsman will act on his behalf. The action he takes varies according to the nature of the complaint. He may gently reprimand an official or even suggest to parliament that a law be altered. The following case is a typical example of the Ombudsman's work. A foreigner living in a Swedish village wrote to the Ombudsman complaining that he had been ill-treated by the police, simply because he was a foreigner. The Ombudsman immediately wrote to the

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Chief of Police in the district asking him to send a record of the case. There was nothing in the record to show that the foreigner's complaint was justified and the Chief of Police strongly denied the accusation. It was impossible for the Ombudsman to take action, but when he received a similar complaint from another foreigner in the same village, he immediately sent one of his lawyers to investigate the matter. The lawyer ascertained that a policeman had indeed dealt roughly with foreigners on several occasions. The fact that the policeman was prejudiced against foreigners could not be recorded in the official files. It was only possible for the Ombudsman to find this out by sending one of his representatives to check the facts. The policeman in question was severely reprimanded and was informed that if any further complaints were lodged against him, he would be prosecuted. The Ombudsman's prompt action at once put an end to an unpleasant practice which might have gone unnoticed.

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

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

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

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

We have been brought up to fear insects. We regard them as unnecessary creatures that do more harm than good. We continually wage war on them, for they contaminate our food, carry diseases, or devour our crops. They sting or bite without provocation; they fly uninvited into our rooms on summer nights, or beat ageist our lighted windows. We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless one like moths. Reading about them increases our understanding without dispelling our fears. Knowing that the industrious ant lives in a highly organized society does nothing to prevent us from being filled with revulsion when we find hordes of them crawling over a carefully prepared picnic lunch. No matter how much we like honey, or how much we have read about the uncanny sense of direction which bees possess, we have a horror of being stung. Most of our fears are unreasonable, but they are impossible to erase. At the same time, however, insects are strangely fascinating. We enjoy reading about them, especially when we find that, like the praying mantis, they lead perfectly horrible lives. We enjoy staring at them, entranced as they go about their business, unaware (we hope) of our presence. Who has not stood in awe at the sight of a spider pouncing on a fly, or a column of ants triumphantly bearing home an enormous dead beetle? Last summer I spent days in the garden watching thousands of ants crawling up the trunk of my prize peach tree. The tree has grown against a warm wall on a sheltered side of the house. I am especially proud of it, not only because it has survived several severe winters, but because it occasionally produces luscious peaches. During the summer, I noticed that the leaves of the tree were beginning to wither. Clusters of tiny insects called aphides were to be found on the underside of the leaves. They were visited by a large colony of ants which obtained a sort of honey from them. I immediately embarked on an experiment which, even though if failed to get rid of the ants, kept me

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fascinated for twenty-four hours. I bound the base of the tree with sticky tape, making it impossible for the ants to reach the aphides. The tape was so stick that they did not dare to cross it. For a long time. I watched them scurrying around the base of the tree in bewilderment. I even went out at midnight with a torch and noted with satisfaction (and surprise) that the ants were still swarming around the sticky tape without being able to do anything about it. I got up early next morning hoping to find that the ants had given up in despair. Instead, I saw that they had discovered a new route. They were climbing up the wall of the house and then on to the leaves of the tree. I realized sadly that I had been completely defeated by their ingenuity. The ants had been quick to find an answer to my thoroughly unscientific methods!

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

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

lesson 59 Collecting 收藏

People tend to amass possessions, sometimes without being aware of doing so. Indeed they can have a delightful surprise when they find something useful which they did not know they owned. Those who never have to move house become indiscriminate collectors of what can only be described as clutter. They leave unwanted objects in drawers, cupboards and attics for years, in the belief that they may one day need just those very things. As they grow old, people also accumulate belongings for two other reasons, lack of physical and mental energy, both of which are essential in turning out and throwing away, and sentiment. Things owned for a long time are full of associations with the past, perhaps with relatives who are dead, and so they gradually acquire a value beyond their true worth. Some things are collected deliberately in the home in an attempt to avoid waste. Among these I would list string and brown paper, kept by thrifty people when a parcel has been opened, to save buying these two requisites. Collecting small items can easily become a mania. I know someone who always cuts sketches out from newspapers of model clothes that she would like to buy, if she had the money. As she is not rich, the chances that she will ever be able to afford such purchases are remote; but she is never sufficiently strongminded to be able to stop the practice. It is a harmless habit, but it litters up her desk to such an extent that every time she opens it; loose bits of paper fall out in every direction. Collecting as a serious hobby is quite different and has many advantages. It provides relaxation for leisure hours, as just looking at one's treasures is always a joy. One does not have to go outside for amusement, since the collection is housed at home. Whatever it consists of, stamps, records, first editions of books, china, glass, antique furniture, pictures, model cars, stuffed birds, toy animals, there is always something to do in connection with it, from finding the right place for the latest addition, to verifying facts in reference books. This hobby educates one not only in the chosen subject, but also in 15

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Lesson 32 Galileo reborn 伽利略的复生

In his own lifetime Galileo was the centre of violent controversy; but the scientific dust has long since settled, and today we can see even his famous clash with the Inquisition in something like its proper perspective. But, in contrast, it is only in modern times that Galileo has become a problem child for historians of science.

The old view of Galileo was delightfully uncomplicated. He was, above all, a man who experimented: who despised the prejudices and book learning of the Aristotelians, who put his questions to nature instead of to the ancients, and who drew his conclusions fearlessly. He had been the first to turn a telescope to the sky, and he had seen there evidence enough to overthrow Aristotle and Ptolemy together. He was the man who climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped various weights from the top, who rolled balls down inclined planes, and then generalized the results of his many experiments into the famous law of free fall.

But a closer study of the evidence, supported by a deeper sense of the period, and particularly by a new consciousness of the philosophical undercurrents in the scientific revolution, has profoundly modified this view of Galileo. Today, although the old Galileo lives on in many popular writings, among historians of science a new and more sophisticated picture has emerged. At the same time our sympathy for Galileo's opponents has grown somewhat. His telescopic observations are justly immortal; they aroused great interest at the time, they had important theoretical consequences, and they provided a striking demonstration of the potentialities hidden in instruments and apparatus. But can we blame those who looked and failed to see what Galileo saw, if we remember that to use a telescope at the limit of its powers calls for long experience and intimate familiarity with one's instrument? Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo's telescope more culpable than those who alleged that the spiral nebulae observed with Lord Rosse's great telescope in the eighteen-forties were scratches left by the grinder? We can perhaps forgive those who said the moons of Jupiter were produced by Galileo's spyglass if we recall that in his day, as for centuries before, curved glass was the popular contrivance for producing not truth but illusion, untruth; and if a single curved glass would distort nature, how much more would a pair of them?

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

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

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

Lesson 33 Education 教育

Education is one of the key words of our time. A man without an education, many of us believe, is an unfortunate victim of adverse circumstances, deprived of one of the greatest twentieth-century opportunities. Convinced of the importance of education, modern states ?invest‘ in institutions of learning to get back ?interest‘ in the form of a large group of enlightened young men and women who are potential leaders. Education, with its cycles of instruction so carefully worked out, punctuated by text-books----those purchasable wells of wisdom----what would civilization be like without its benefits?

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So much is certain: that we would have doctors and preachers, lawyers and defendants, marriages and births---but our spiritual outlook would be different. We would lay less stress on ?facts and figures‘ and more on a good memory, on applied psychology, and on the capacity of a man to get along with his fellow-citizens. If our educational system were fashioned after its bookless past we would have the most democratic form of ?college‘ imaginable. Among tribal people all knowledge inherited by tradition is shared by all; it is taught to every member of the tribe so that in this respect everybody is equally equipped for life.

It is the ideal condition of the ?equal start‘ which only our most progressive forms of modern education try to regain. In primitive cultures the obligation to seek and to receive the traditional instruction is binding to all. There are no ?illiterates‘----if the term can be applied to peoples without a script----while our own compulsory school attendance became law in Germany in 1642, in France in 1806, and in England in 1876, and is still non-existent in a number of ?civilized‘ nations. This shows how long it was before we deemed it necessary to make sure that all our children could share in the knowledge accumulated by the ?happy few‘ during the past centuries.

Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means. All are entitled to an equal start. There is none of the hurry which, in our society, often hampers the full development of a growing personality. There, a child grows up under the ever-present attention of his parents; therefore the jungles and the savannahs know of no ?juvenile delinquency‘. No necessity of making a living away from home results in neglect of children, and no father is confronted with his inability to ?buy‘ an education for his child. 教育是我们这个时代的关键词之一。我们许多人都相信，一个没有受过教育的人，是逆境的牺牲品，被剥夺了20世纪最优越的机会之一。现代国家深深懂得教育的重要性，对教育机构投资，收回的―利息‖便是培养出大批有知识的男女青年，这些人可能会成为未来的栋梁。教育，以其教学周期如此精心地安排，并以教科书—那些可以买到的智慧源泉—予以强化，如果不受其惠，文明将会是个什么样子呢？

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

这就是我们最进步的现代教育试图恢复的―平等起步‖的理想状况。在原始文化中，寻求和接受传统教育的义务对全民都有约束力，因而没有―文盲‖（如果这个字眼儿可以用于没有文字的民族的话）。而我们的义务教育成为法律在德国是在1642年，在法国是在1806年，在英国是在1876年。今天，在许多―文明‖国家里，义务教育迄今尚未实行。这说明，经过了多么漫长的时间之后，我们才认识到，有必要确保我们的孩子享有多少个世纪以来由―少数幸运者‖所积累起来的知识。 荒凉地区的教育不是钱的问题，所有的人都享有平等起步的权利。那里没有我们今天社会中的匆忙生活，而匆忙的生活常常妨碍个性的全面发展。荒凉地区的孩子无时无刻不在父母关怀下成长。因此，丛林和荒凉地区不知道什么叫―青少年犯罪‖。人们没有必要离家谋生，所以不会产生孩子无人管的问题，也不存在父亲无力为孩子支付教育费用而犯难的问题。

Lesson 34 Adolescence 青春期

Parents are often upset when their children praise the homes of their friends and regard it as a slur on their own cooking, or cleaning, or furniture, and often are foolish enough to let the adolescents see that they are annoyed. They may even accuse them of disloyalty, or make some spiteful remark about the friends' parents. Such a loss of dignity and descent into childish behavior on the part of the adults deeply shocks the adolescents, and makes them resolve that in future they will not talk to their parents about the places or people they visit. Before very long the parents will be complaining that the child is so secretive and never tells them anything, but they seldom realize that they have brought this on themselves. Disillusionment with the parents, however good and adequate they may be both as parents and as individuals, is to some degree inevitable. Most children have such a high ideal of their parents, unless the parents themselves have been unsatisfactory, that it can hardly hope to stand up to a realistic evaluation. Parents would be greatly surprised and deeply touched if they realized how much belief their children usually have in their character and infallibility, and how much this faith means to a child. If parents were prepared for this adolescent reaction, and realized that it was a sign that the

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child was growing up and developing valuable powers of observation and independent judgment, they would not be so hurt, and therefore would not drive the child into opposition by resenting and resisting it.

The adolescent, with his passion for sincerity, always respects a parent who admits that he is wrong, or ignorant, or even that he has been unfair or unjust. What the child cannot forgive is the parents' refusal to admit these charges if the child knows them to be true.

Victorian parents believed that they kept their dignity by retreating behind an unreasoning authoritarian attitude; in fact they did nothing of the kind, but children were then too cowed to let them know how they really felt. Today we tend to go to the other extreme, but on the whole this is a healthier attitude both for the child and the parent. It is always wiser and safer to face up to reality, however painful it may be at the moment. 当家长听到孩子赞扬自己朋友的家时，总感到不安，认为这是孩子在嫌弃自家的饭菜、卫生、或家具，而且愚蠢地让孩子看出自己的烦恼。他们甚至责备孩子不忠，或者讲些小朋友家长的坏话。家长这种有失身份和孩子气的作法使青春期的孩子大为震惊，决心以后不再向父母讲述去过的地方和见过的人。不要很久，家长就会抱怨孩子守口如瓶，什么事也不告诉他们，殊不知这是他们自找的。

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

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

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

Lesson 36 The cost of government 政府的开支

If a nation is essentially disunited, it is left to the government to hold it together. This increases the expense of government, and reduces correspondingly the amount of economic resources that could be used for developing the country. And it should not be forgotten how small those resources are in a poor and backward country. Where the cost of government is high, resources for development are correspondingly low.

This may be illustrated by comparing the position of a nation with that of a private business enterprise. An enterprise has to incur certain costs and expenses in order to stay in business. For our purposes, we are concerned only with one kind of cost---the cost of managing and administering the business. Such administrative overheads in a business are analogous to the cost of government in a nation. The administrative overheads of a business are low to the extent that everyone working in the business can be trusted to behave in a way that best promotes the interests of the firm. If they can each be trusted to take such responsibilities, and to exercise such initiative as falls within their sphere, then administrative overhead will be low. It will be low because it will be necessary to have only one man looking after each job, without having another man to check upon what he is doing, keep him in line, and report on him to someone else. But if no one can be trusted to act in a loyal and responsible manner towards his job, then the business will require armies of administrators, checkers, and foremen, and administrative overheads will rise correspondingly. As administrative overhead rises, so the earnings of the business, after meeting the expense of administration, will fall; and the business will have less money to distribute as dividends or invest directly in its future progress and development.

It is precisely the same with a nation. To the extent that the people can be relied upon to behave in a loyal and responsible manner, the government does not require armies of police and civil servants to keep them in order. But if a nation is disunited, the government cannot be sure that the actions of the people will be in the interests of the nation; and it will have to watch, check, and control the people accordingly. A disunited nation therefore has to incur unduly high costs of government.

如果一个国家实际上处于分裂状态，使之联合起来就是政府的事了。这样一来就增加了政府的开支，从而相应地减少了

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可以用来发展国家的那部分经济资源。不应忘记，在一个贫穷落后的国家里，那部分财力是很有限的。凡是政府管理费用高的地方，用于发展国家经济的资金就会相应地减少。

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

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

Lesson 37 The process of ageing 衰老过程

At the age of twelve years, the human body is at its most vigorous. It has yet to reach its full size and strength, and its owner his or her full intelligence; but at this age the likelihood of death is least. Earlier, we were infants and young children, and consequently more vulnerable; later, we shall undergo a progressive loss of our vigour and resistance which, though imperceptible at first, will finally become so steep that we can live no longer, however well we look after ourselves, and however well society, and our doctors, look after us. This decline in vigour with the passing of time is called ageing. It is one of the most unpleasant discoveries which we all make that we must decline in this way, that if we escape wars, accidents and diseases we shall eventually ?die of old age‘, and that this happens at a rate which differs little from person to person, so that there are heavy odds in favour of our dying between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. Some of us will die sooner, a few will live longer----on into a ninth or tenth decade. But the chances are against it, and there is a virtual limit on how long we can hope to remain alive, however lucky and robust we are.

Normal people tend to forget this process unless and until they are reminded of it. We are so familiar with the fact that man ages, that people have for years assumed that the process of losing vigour with time, of becoming more likely to die the older we get, was something self-evident, like the cooling of a hot kettle or the wearing-out of a pair of shoes. They have also assumed that all animals, and probably other organisms such as trees, or even the universe itself, must in the nature of things ?wear out‘. Most animals we commonly observe do in fact age as we do, if given the chance to live long enough; and mechanical systems like a wound watch, or the sun, do in fact run out of energy in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics (whether the whole universe does so is a moot point at present). But these are not analogous to what happens when man ages. A run-down watch is still a watch and can be rewound. An old watch, by contrast, becomes so worn and unreliable that it eventually is not worth mending. But a watch could never repair itself----it does not consist of living parts, only of metal, which wears away by friction. We could, at one time, repair ourselves----well enough, at least, to overcome all but the most instantly fatal illnesses and accidents. Between twelve and eighty years we gradually lose this power; an illness which at twelve would knock us over, at eighty can knock us out, and into our grave. If we could stay as vigorous as we are at twelve, it would take about 700 years for half of us to die, and another 700 for the survivors to be reduced by half again.

人体在12岁时是生命力最旺盛的时期。虽然在这个时期人的身材、体力和智力还有待发展和完善，但在这个年龄死

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

衰老的过程，不经提起，正常人容易忘记；一经提醒，才会记起。我们对人总是要衰老的现象并不陌生，多年来就已认识到。生命力随着时间流失而丧失活力，人随着年龄的增长而接近死亡，这是不言而喻的，就像一壶热水迟早会凉下来，一双鞋渐渐会磨破一样。人们不但认识到所有的动物，大概也认识到所有的有机物，如树木，甚至宇宙本身，从事物的本质上

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来说都会―磨损掉‖。我们通常看到的大多数动物，即使能让它们活得足够长久的话，也会像我们一样衰老的。像上紧发条的手表那样的机械装置，或太阳，也都会消耗完其能量（整个宇宙是否如此，目前尚有争论）。不过，这些衰老的情况同人并不相似。手表停了依然是只手表，还可以重上好发条。然而一只老掉牙的手表，磨损太厉害，老得一点儿也不准了，最终会不值得修理了。但是，手表决不会自行修理，它不是由有生命的部件组成，而是由金属组成，而金属可以随着磨擦而磨损殆尽。而我们人，在一定时间内是可以自行修复的，除了暴病而死或意外事故外，至少足以克服一切一般疾病和事故。在12岁至80岁之间，我们逐渐丧失这种能力。能使我们在12岁时病倒的疾病，到了80岁可能会使我们一蹶不振而进入坟墓。假如我们能保持12岁时的旺盛生命力，那么我们当中的一半人过700年才死去，剩下的一半人再过700年，才会又减少一半。

Lesson 39 What every writer wants 作家之所需

I have known very few writers, but those I have known, and whom I respect, confess at once that they have little idea where they are going when they first set pen to paper. They have a character, perhaps two; they are in that condition of eager discomfort which passes for inspiration; all admit radical changes of destination once the journey has begun; one, to my certain knowledge, spent nine months on a novel about Kashmir, then reset the whole thing in the Scottish Highlands. I never heard of anyone making a ?skeleton’, as we were taught at school. In the breaking and remaking, in the timing, interweaving, beginning afresh, the writer comes to discern things in his material which were not consciously in his mind when he began. This organic process, often leading to moments of extraordinary self-discovery, is of an indescribable fascination. A blurred image appears; he adds a brushstroke and another, and it is gone; but something was there, and he will not rest till he has captured it. Sometimes the yeast within a writer outlives a book he has written. I have heard of writers who read nothing but their own books; like adolescents they stand before the mirror, and still cannot fathom the exact outline of the vision before them. For the same reason, writers talk interminably about their own books, winkling out hidden meanings, super-imposing new ones, begging response from those around them. Of course a writer doing this is misunderstood: he might as well try to explain a crime or a love affair. He is also, incidentally, an unforgivable bore. This temptation to cover the distance between himself and the reader, to study his image in the sight of those who do not know him, can be his undoing: he has begun to write to please. A young English writer made the pertinent observation a year or two back that the talent goes into the first draft, and the art into the drafts that follow. For this reason also the writer, like any other artist, has no resting place, no crowd or movement in which he may take comfort, no judgment from outside which can replace the judgment from within. A writer makes order out of the anarchy of his heart; he submits himself to a more ruthless discipline than any critic dreamed of, and when he flirts with fame, he is taking time off from living with himself, from the search for what his world contains at its inmost point.

我所认识的作家寥寥无几，然而凡是我所认识和尊敬的作家，都立即承认在他们动笔时，不清楚要写什么，怎么写。

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

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

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

Lesson 44 Patterns of culture 文化的模式

Custom has not commonly been regarded as a subject of any great moment. The inner workings

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