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新视野大学英语课文第四册.doc

Unit 1A

An artist who seeks fame is like a dog chasing his own tail who, when he captures it, does not know what else to do but to continue chasing it.

The cruelty of success is that it often leads those who seek such success to participate in their own destruction.

"Don't quit your day job!" is advice frequently given by understandably pessimistic family members and friends to a budding artist who is trying hard to succeed.

The conquest of fame is difficult at best, and many end up emotionally if not financially bankrupt.

Still, impure motives such as the desire for worshipping fans and praise from peers may spur the artist on.

The lure of drowning in fame's imperial glory is not easily resisted.

Those who gain fame most often gain it as a result of exploiting their talent for singing, dancing, painting, or writing, etc.

They develop a style that agents market aggressively to hasten popularity, and their ride on the express elevator to the top is a blur.

Most would be hard-pressed to tell you how they even got there.

Artists cannot remain idle, though.

When the performer, painter or writer becomes bored, their work begins to show a lack of continuity in its appeal and it becomes difficult to sustain the attention of the public.

After their enthusiasm has dissolved, the public simply moves on to the next flavor of the month.

Artists who do attempt to remain current by making even minute changes to their style of writing, dancing or singing, run a significant risk of losing the audience's favor.

The public simply discounts styles other than those for which the artist has become famous.

Famous authors' styles—a Tennessee Williams play or a plot by Ernest Hemingway or a poem by Robert Frost or T.S. Eliot—are easily recognizable.

The same is true of painters like Monet, Renoir, or Dali and moviemakers like Hitchcock, Fellini, Spielberg, Chen Kaige or Zhang Yimou.

Their distinct styles marked a significant change in form from others and gained them fame and fortune.

However, they paid for it by giving up the freedom to express themselves with other styles or forms.

Fame's spotlight can be hotter than a tropical jungle—a fraud is quickly exposed, and the pressure of so much attention is too much for most to endure.

It takes you out of yourself: You must be what the public thinks you are, not what you really are or could be.

The performer, like the politician, must often please his or her audiences by saying things

he or she does not mean or fully believe.

One drop of fame will likely contaminate the entire well of a man's soul, and so an artist who remains true to himself or herself is particularly amazing.

You would be hard-pressed to underline many names of those who have not compromised and still succeeded in the fame game.

An example, the famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde, known for his uncompromising behavior, both social and sexual, to which the public objected, paid heavily for remaining true to himself.

The mother of a young man Oscar was intimate with accused him at a banquet in front of his friends and fans of sexually influencing her son.

Extremely angered by her remarks, he sued the young man's mother, asserting that she had damaged his "good" name.

He should have hired a better attorney, though.

The judge did not second Wilde's call to have the woman pay for damaging his name, and instead fined Wilde.

He ended up in jail after refusing to pay, and even worse, was permanently expelled from the wider circle of public favor.

When things were at their worst, he found that no one was willing to risk his or her name in his defense.

His price for remaining true to himself was to be left alone when he needed his fans the most.

Curiously enough, it is those who fail that reap the greatest reward: freedom!

They enjoy the freedom to express themselves in unique and original ways without fear of losing the support of fans.

Failed artists may find comfort in knowing that many great artists never found fame until well after they had passed away or in knowing that they did not sell out.

They may justify their failure by convincing themselves their genius is too sophisticated for contemporary audiences.

Single-minded artists who continue their quest for fame even after failure might also like to know that failure has motivated some famous people to work even harder to succeed. Thomas Wolfe, the American novelist, had his first novel Look Homeward, Angel rejected 39 times before it was finally published.

Beethoven overcame his father, who did not believe that he had any potential as a musician, to become the greatest musician in the world.

And Pestalozzi, the famous Swiss educator in the 19th century, failed at every job he ever had until he came upon the idea of teaching children and developing the fundamental theories to produce a new form of education.

Thomas Edison was thrown out of school in the fourth grade, because he seemed to his teacher to be quite dull.

Unfortunately for most people, however, failure is the end of their struggle, not the

beginning.

I say to those who desperately seek fame and fortune: good luck.

But alas, you may find that it was not what you wanted.

The dog who catches his tail discovers that it is only a tail.

The person who achieves success often discovers that it does more harm than good.

So instead of trying so hard to achieve success, try to be happy with who you are and what you do.

Try to do work that you can be proud of.

Maybe you won't be famous in your own lifetime, but you may create better art.

Unit 1B

One summer day my father sent me to buy some wire and fencing to put around our barn to pen up the bull.

At 16, I liked nothing better than getting behind the wheel of our truck and driving into town on the old mill road.

Water from the mill's wheel sprayed in the sunshine making a rainbow over the canal and I often stopped there on my way to bathe and cool off for a spell—natural air conditioning. The sun was so hot, I did not need a towel as I was dry by the time I climbed the clay banks and crossed the road ditch to the truck.

Just before town, the road shot along the sea where I would collect seashells or gather seaweed beneath the giant crane unloading the ships.

This trip was different, though.

My father had told me I'd have to ask for credit at the store.

It was 1976, and the ugly shadow of racism was still a fact of life.

I'd seen my friends ask for credit and then stand, head down, while a storeowner enquired into whether they were "good for it".

Many store clerks watched black youths with the assumption that they were thieves every time they even went into a grocery.

My family was honest.

We paid our debts.

But just before harvest, all the money flowed out.

There were no new deposits at the bank.

Cash was short.

At Davis Brothers' General Store, Buck Davis stood behind the register, talking to a middle-aged farmer.

Buck was a tall, weathered man in a red hunting shirt and I nodded as I passed him on my way to the hardware section to get a container of nails, a coil of binding wire and fencing.

I pulled my purchases up to the counter and placed the nails in the tray of the scale, saying carefully, "I need to put this on credit."

My brow was moist with nervous sweat and I wiped it away with the back of my arm.

The farmer gave me an amused, cynical look, but Buck's face didn't change. "Sure," he said easily, reaching for his booklet where he kept records for credit.

I gave a sigh of relief.

"Your daddy is always good for it."

He turned to the farmer.

"This here is one of James Williams' sons.

They broke the mold when they made that man."

The farmer nodded in a neighborly way.

I was filled with pride.

"James Williams' son."

Those three words had opened a door to an adult's respect and trust.

As I heaved the heavy freight into the bed of the truck, I did so with ease, feeling like a stronger man than the one that left the farm that morning.

I had discovered that a good name could furnish a capital of good will of great value. Everyone knew what to expect from a Williams: a decent person who kept his word and respected himself too much to do wrong.

My great grandfather may have been sold as a slave at auction, but this was not an excuse to do wrong to others.

Instead my father believed the only way to honor him was through hard work and respect for all men.

We children—eight brothers and two sisters—could enjoy our good name, unearned, unless and until we did something to lose it.

We had an interest in how one another behaved and our own actions as well, lest we destroy the name my father had created.

Our good name was and still is the glue that holds our family tight together.

The desire to honor my father's good name spurred me to become the first in our family to go to university.

I worked my way through college as a porter at a four-star hotel. Eventually, that good name provided the initiative to start my own successful public relations firm in Washington, D.C.

America needs to restore a sense of shame in its neighborhoods.

Doing drugs, spending all your money at the liquor store, stealing, or getting a young woman pregnant with no intent to marry her should induce a deep sense of embarrassment.

But it doesn't.

Nearly one out of three births in America is to a single mother. Many of these children will grow up without the security and guidance they need to become honorable members of society.

Once the social ties and mutual obligations of the family melt away, communities fall apart. While the population has increased only 40 percent since 1960, violent crime in America has increased a staggering 550 percent—and we've become exceedingly used to it. Teen drug use has also risen.

In one North Carolina County, police arrested 73 students from 12 secondary schools for dealing drugs, some of them right in the classroom.

Meanwhile, the small signs of civility and respect that hold up civilization are vanishing from schools, stores and streets.

Phrases like "yes, ma'am", "no, sir", "thank you" and "please" get a yawn from kids today who are encouraged instead by cursing on television and in music.

They simply shrug off the rewards of a good name.

The good name passed on by my father and maintained to this day by my brothers and sisters and me is worth as much now as ever.

Even today, when I stop into Buck Davis' shop or my hometown barbershop for a haircut, I am still greeted as James Williams' son.

My family's good name did pave the way for me.

Unit 2A

He was born in a poor area of South London.

He wore his mother's old red stockings cut down for ankle socks.

His mother was temporarily declared mad.

Dickens might have created Charlie Chaplin's childhood.

But only Charlie Chaplin could have created the great comic character of "the Tramp", the little man in rags who gave his creator permanent fame.

Other countries—France, Italy, Spain, even Japan—have provided more applause (and profit) where Chaplin is concerned than the land of his birth.

Chaplin quit Britain for good in 1913 when he journeyed to America with a group of performers to do his comedy act on the stage, where talent scouts recruited him to work for Mack Sennett, the king of Hollywood comedy films.

Sad to say, many English people in the 1920s and 1930s thought Chaplin's Tramp a bit, well, "crude".

Certainly middle-class audiences did; the working-class audiences were more likely to

clap for a character who revolted against authority, using his wicked little cane to trip it up, or aiming the heel of his boot for a well-placed kick at its broad rear.

All the same, Chaplin's comic beggar didn't seem all that English or even working-class. English tramps didn't sport tiny moustaches, huge pants or tail coats: European leaders and Italian waiters wore things like that.

Then again, the Tramp's quick eye for a pretty girl had a coarse way about it that was considered, well, not quite nice by English audiences—that's how foreigners behaved, wasn't it?

But for over half of his screen career, Chaplin had no screen voice to confirm his British nationality.

Indeed, it was a headache for Chaplin when he could no longer resist the talking movies and had to find "the right voice" for his Tramp.

He postponed that day as long as possible: In Modern Times in 1936, the first film in which he was heard as a singing waiter, he made up a nonsense language which sounded like no known nationality.

He later said he imagined the Tramp to be a college-educated gentleman who'd come down in the world.

But if he'd been able to speak with an educated accent in those early short comedies, it's doubtful if he would have achieved world fame.

And the English would have been sure to find it "odd". No one was certain whether Chaplin did it on purpose but this helped to bring about his huge success.

He was an immensely talented man, determined to a degree unusual even in the ranks of Hollywood stars.

His huge fame gave him the freedom—and, more importantly, the money—to be his own master.

He already had the urge to explore and extend a talent he discovered in himself as he went along.

"It can't be me. Is that possible? How extraordinary," is how he greeted the first sight of himself as the Tramp on the screen.

But that shock roused his imagination.

Chaplin didn't have his jokes written into a script in advance; he was the kind of comic who used his physical senses to invent his art as he went along.

Lifeless objects especially helped Chaplin make "contact" with himself as an artist.

He turned them into other kinds of objects.

Thus, a broken alarm clock in the movie The Pawnbroker became a "sick" patient undergoing surgery; boots were boiled in his film The Gold Rush and their soles eaten with salt and pepper like prime cuts of fish (the nails being removed like fish bones).

This physical transformation, plus the skill with which he executed it again and again, is surely the secret of Chaplin's great comedy.

He also had a deep need to be loved—and a corresponding fear of being betrayed.

The two were hard to combine and sometimes—as in his early marriages—the collision between them resulted in disaster.

Yet even this painfully-bought self-knowledge found its way into his comic creations.

The Tramp never loses his faith in the flower girl who'll be waiting to walk into the sunset with him; while the other side of Chaplin makes Monsieur Verdoux, the French wife killer, into a symbol of hatred for women.

It's a relief to know that life eventually gave Charlie Chaplin the stability and happiness it had earlier denied him.

In Oona O'Neill Chaplin, he found a partner whose stability and affection spanned the 37 years age difference between them, which had seemed so threatening, that when the official who was marrying them in 1942 turned to the beautiful girl of 17 who'd given notice of their wedding date, he said, "And where is the young man? "—Chaplin, then 54, had cautiously waited outside.

As Oona herself was the child of a large family with its own problems, she was well prepared for the battle that Chaplin's life became as many unfounded rumors surrounded them both—and, later on, she was the center of calm in the quarrels that Chaplin sometimes sparked in his own large family of talented children.

Chaplin died on Christmas Day 1977.

A few months later, a couple of almost comic body thieves stole his body from the family burial chamber and held it for money.

The police recovered it with more efficiency than Mack Sennett's clumsy Keystone Cops would have done, but one can't help feeling Chaplin would have regarded this strange incident as a fitting memorial—his way of having the last laugh on a world to which he had given so many.

Unit 2B

Modest and soft-spoken, Agatha Muthoni Mbogo, 24, is hardly the image of a revolutionary.

Yet, six months ago, she did a most revolutionary thing: She ran for mayor of Embu, Kenya, and won.

Ms. Mbogo's victory was even more surprising because she was voted in by her colleagues on the District Council, all men.

For the thousands of women in this farming area two hours northeast of Nairobi, Ms. Mbogo suddenly became a symbol of the increasingly powerful political force women have become in Kenya and across Africa.

Ms. Mbogo launched her dream of a career in politics in 1992 by running for the Embu Council, facing the obstacles that often trouble African women running for political office.

She had little money.

She had no political experience.

She faced ridiculous questions about her personal life.

"My opponent kept insisting that I was going to get married to somebody in another town and move away," Ms. Mbogo said.

Ms. Mbogo also faced misunderstanding among the town's women, many of whom initially were unwilling to vote for her.

She became an ambassador for women's political rights, giving speeches before women's groups and going from door to door, handbag in hand, spending hours at a time giving a combination of speech and government lesson.

"I was delighted when she won the election, because men elected her," said Lydiah Kimani, an Embu farmer and political activist.

"It was the answer to my prayers because it seemed to be a victory over this idea that 'women can't lead'."

Education of African women has become a top priority for political activists.

One organization has held dozens of workshops in rural Kenya to help women understand the nation's constitution and the procedures and theory behind a democratic political system.

One veteran female political activist said that many women had not been taught the basics of political participation.

They are taught to vote for the one who "gives you a half kilo sack of flour, 200 grams of salt, or a loaf of bread" during the campaign, said the activist.

Women politicians and activists say they are fighting deeply-held cultural traditions. Those traditions teach that African women cook, clean, take care of children, sow and harvest crops and support their husbands.

They typically do not inherit land, divorce their husband, control their finances or hold political office.

Yet, political activity among Kenyan women is not a new phenomenon.

During the struggle for independence in the 1950s, Kenyan women often secretly provided troops with weapons and spied on the positions of colonial forces.

But after independence, leaders jealous to protect their power shut them out of politics, a situation repeated across the continent.

Today, men still have the upper hand.

Women in Kenya make up 60 percent of the people who vote, but only 3 percent of the National Assembly.

No Kenyan woman has ever held a cabinet post.

Against that background, Agatha Mbogo began her political career.

After winning her council seat, she declined a spot on the education and social services committee after a colleague called it "a woman's committee".

She instead joined the town planning committee, a much more visible assignment.

Then last year, she decided to challenge Embu's mayor, a veteran politician.

Ms. Mbogo said she had become frustrated because the donor groups that provide substantial aid to Kenya's rural areas "did not want to come here".

"We weren't seeing things done for the community," she said.

"It was a scandal—the donors' money seemed to be going to individuals."

After a fierce campaign, the council elected her, 7 to 6.

She said women in Embu celebrated.

Men were puzzled; some were hostile.

They asked, "How could all of those men vote for a woman? " she recalled.

Ms. Mbogo has not met with the kinds of abuse that other female politicians have been subjected to, however.

Some have said their supporters are sometimes attacked with clubs after rallies.

Last June, Kenyan police attempted to break up a women's political meeting northwest of Nairobi, insisting it was illegal and might start a riot.

When the 100 women, including a member of the National Assembly, refused to go, officers tore down their banners and beat them with clubs and fists, witnesses reported.

In contrast, Ms. Mbogo generally receives warm greetings from the men of Embu, and many say they are now glad the council chose her.

Donor groups are now funding projects in Embu in earnest.

A new market is going up downtown.

A 200-bed section for new mothers is being added to the hospital.

A dormitory-style home has been built for the dozens of homeless street children who once wandered the city.

Ms. Mbogo is especially proud of the market and the hospital because "they have an impact on women".

At the current market, where hundreds of people, shaded by umbrellas, lay out fruits and vegetables, one person who sells lemons said she liked the new mayor.

"I feel like if I have a problem, I can go to her office," she said.

"The other mayor shouted. He acted like an emperor. He did not want to hear my problems."

Nearby, a man said he found Ms. Mbogo a refreshing change.

"I'm tired of men," he said, watching over his pile of onions.

"They give us so many promises, but they don't deliver the goods. As long as she keeps giving us what we want, she is all right."

Unit 3A

A welfare client is supposed to cheat. Everybody expects it.

Faced with sharing a dinner of raw pet food with the cat, many people in wheelchairs I know bleed the system for a few extra dollars.

They tell the government that they are getting two hundred dollars less than their real pension so they can get a little extra welfare money.

Or, they tell the caseworker that the landlord raised the rent by a hundred dollars.

I have opted to live a life of complete honesty.

So instead, I go out and drum up some business and draw cartoons.

I even tell welfare how much I make!

Oh, I'm tempted to get paid under the table.

But even if I yielded to that temptation, big magazines are not going to get involved in some sticky situation.

They keep my records, and that information goes right into the government's computer. Very high-profile.

As a welfare client I'm expected to bow before the caseworker.

Deep down, caseworkers know that they are being made fools of by many of their clients, and they feel they are entitled to have clients bow to them as compensation. I'm not being bitter.

Most caseworkers begin as college-educated liberals with high ideals.

But after a few years in a system that practically requires people to lie, they become like the one I shall call "Suzanne", a detective in shorts.

Not long after Christmas last year, Suzanne came to inspect my apartment and saw some new posters pasted on the wall.

"Where'd you get the money for those? " she wanted to know.

"Friends and family."

"Well, you'd better have a receipt for it, by God. You have to report any donations or gifts." This was my cue to beg.

Instead, I talked back.

"I got a cigarette from somebody on the street the other day. Do I have to report that? "

"Well, I'm sorry, but I don't make the rules, Mr. Callahan."

Suzanne tries to lecture me about repairs to my wheelchair, which is always breaking down because welfare won't spend money maintaining it properly.

"You know, Mr. Callahan, I've heard that you put a lot more miles on that wheelchair than average."

Of course I do.

I'm an active worker, not a vegetable.

I live near downtown, so I can get around in a wheelchair.

I wonder what she'd think if she suddenly broke her hip and had to crawl to work. Government cuts in welfare have resulted in hunger and suffering for a lot of people, not just me.

But people with spinal cord injuries felt the cuts in a unique way: The government stopped taking care of our chairs.

Each time mine broke down, lost a screw, needed a new roller bearing, the brake wouldn't work, etc., and I called Suzanne, I had to endure a little lecture.

Finally, she'd say, "Well, if I can find time today, I'll call the medical worker."

She was supposed to notify the medical worker, who would certify that there was a problem.

Then the medical worker called the wheelchair repair companies to get the cheapest bid. Then the medical worker alerted the main welfare office at the state capital.

They considered the matter for days while I lay in bed, unable to move.

Finally, if I was lucky, they called back and approved the repair.

When welfare learned I was making money on my cartoons, Suzanne started "visiting" every fortnight instead of every two months.

She looked into every corner in search of unreported appliances, or maids, or a roast pig in the oven, or a new helicopter parked out back.

She never found anything, but there was always a thick pile of forms to fill out at the end of each visit, accounting for every penny.

There is no provision in the law for a gradual shift away from welfare.

I am an independent businessman, slowly building up my market.

It's impossible to jump off welfare and suddenly be making two thousand dollars a month. But I would love to be able to pay for some of my living and not have to go through an embarrassing situation every time I need a spare part for my wheelchair.

There needs to be a lawyer who can act as a champion for the rights of welfare clients, because the system so easily lends itself to abuse by the welfare givers as well as by the

clients.

Welfare sent Suzanne to look around in my apartment the other day because the chemist said I was using a larger than usual amount of medical supplies.

I was, indeed: The hole that has been surgically cut to drain urine had changed size and the connection to my urine bag was leaking.

While she was taking notes, my phone rang and Suzanne answered it.

The caller was a state senator, which scared Suzanne a little.

Would I sit on the governor's committee and try to do something about the thousands of welfare clients who, like me, could earn part or all of their own livings if they were allowed to do so, one step at a time?

Hell, yes, I would!

Someday people like me will thrive under a new system that will encourage them, not seek to convict them of cheating.

They will be free to develop their talents without guilt or fear—or just hold a good, steady job.

Unit 3B

It was late afternoon when the chairman of our Bangkok-based company gave me an assignment: I would leave the next day to accompany an important Chinese businessman to tourist sites in northern Thailand.

Silently angry, I stared at my desk.

The stacks of paper bore witness to a huge amount of work waiting to be done, even though I had been working seven days a week.

How will I ever catch up? I wondered.

After a one-hour flight the next morning, we spent the day visiting attractions along with hundreds of other tourists, most of them loaded with cameras and small gifts.

I remember feeling annoyed at this dense collection of humanity.

That evening my Chinese companion and I climbed into a chartered van to go to dinner and a show, one which I had attended many times before.

While he chatted with other tourists, I exchanged polite conversation in the dark with a man seated in front of me, a Belgian who spoke fluent English.

I wondered why he held his head motionless at an odd angle, as though he were in prayer. Then the truth struck me.

He was blind.

Behind me someone switched on a light, and I could see his thick silvery hair and strong, square jaw.

His eyes seemed to contain a white mist.

"Could I please sit beside you at the dinner?" he asked.

"And I'd love it if you'd describe a little of what you see."

"I'd be happy to," I replied.

My guest walked ahead toward the restaurant with newly found friends.

The blind man and I followed.

My hand held his elbow to steer him, but he stepped forward with no sign of hesitation or stoop, his shoulders squared, his head high, as though he were guiding me.

We found a table close to the stage.

He ordered half a liter of beer and I ordered a grape soda.

As we waited for our drinks, the blind man said, "The music seems out of tune to our Western ears, but it has charm. Please describe the musicians."

I hadn't noticed the five men performing at the side of the stage as an introduction to the show.

"They're seated cross-legged on a rug, dressed in loose white cotton shirts and large black trousers, with fabric around their waists that has been dyed bright red.

Three are young lads, one is middle-aged and one is elderly.

One beats a small drum, another plays a wooden stringed instrument, and the other three have smaller, violin-like pieces they play with a bow."

As the lights dimmed, the blind man asked, "What do your fellow tourists look like?"

"All nationalities, colors, shapes and sizes, a gallery of human faces," I whispered.

As I lowered my voice further and spoke close to his ear, the blind man leaned his head eagerly toward me.

I had never before been listened to with such intensity.

"Very close to us is an elderly Japanese woman," I said.

"Just beyond her a yellow-haired Scandinavian boy of about five is leaning forward, his face just below hers.

They're motionless, waiting for the performance to start.

It's the perfect living portrait of childhood and old age, of Europe and Asia."

"Yes, yes, I see them," the blind man said quietly, smiling.

A curtain at the back of the stage opened.

Six young girls appeared, and I described their violet-colored silk skirts, white blouses, and gold-colored hats like small crowns, with flexible points that moved in rhythm with the dance.

"On the tips of their fingers are golden nails perhaps 8 centimeters long," I told the blind man.

"The nails highlight each elegant movement of their hands. It's a delightful effect."

He smiled and nodded.

"How wonderful—I would love to touch one of those golden nails."

The first performance ended just as we finished dessert, and I excused myself and went to talk to the theater manager.

Upon returning, I told my companion, "You've been invited backstage."

A few minutes later he was standing next to one of the dancers, her little crowned head hardly reaching his chest.

She shyly extended both hands toward him, the brass fingernails shining in the overhead light.

His hands, four times as large, reached out slowly and held them as though they were holding up two tiny birds.

As he felt the smooth, curving sharpness of the metal tips, the girl stood quite still, gazing up into his face with an expression of wonder.

A lump formed in my throat.

After taking a cab back to the inn, with my Chinese guest still with the others, the blind man patted my shoulder, then pulled me toward him and embraced me tightly.

"How beautifully you saw everything for me," he whispered.

"I can never thank you enough."

Later I thought: I should have thanked him.

I was the one who had been blind, my eyes merely skimming the surface of things.

He had helped me lift the veil that grows so quickly over our eyes in this busy world, to see a whole new realm I'd failed to appreciate before.

About a week after our trip, the chairman told me the Chinese executive had called to express great satisfaction with the trip.

"Well done," the chairman said, smiling.

"I knew you could do your magic."

I was not able to tell him that the magic had been done on me.

Unit 4A

A transformation is occurring that should greatly boost living standards in the developing world.

Places that until recently were deaf and dumb are rapidly acquiring up-to-date telecommunications that will let them promote both internal and foreign investment.

It may take a decade for many countries in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe to improve transportation, power supplies, and other utilities.

But a single optical fiber with a diameter of less than half a millimete can carry more information than a large cable made of coppe wires.

By installing optical fiber, digital switches, and the latest wireless transmission systems, a parade of urban centers and industrial zones from Beijing to Budapest are stepping directly into the Information Age.

A spider's web of digital and wireless communication links is already reaching most of Asia and parts of Eastern Europe.

All these developing regions see advanced communications as a way to leap over whole stages of economic development.

Widespread access to information technologies, for example, promises to condense the time required to change from labor-intensive assembly work to industries that involve engineering, marketing, and design.

Modern communications "will give countries like China and Vietnam a huge advantage over countries stuck with old technology".

How fast these nations should push ahead is a matter of debate.

Many experts think Vietnam is going too far by requiring that all mobile phones be expensive digital models, when it is desperate for any phones, period.

"These countries lack experience in weighing costs and choosing between technologies," says one expert.

Still, there's little dispute that communications will be a key factor separating the winners from the losers.

Consider Russia.

Because of its strong educational system in mathematics and science, it should thrive in the Information Age.

The problem is its national phone system is a rusting antiqu that dates from the l930s.

To lick this problem, Russia is starting to install optical fiber and has a strategic plan to pump $40 billion into various communications projects.

But its economy is stuck in recession and it barely has the money to even scratch the surface of the problem.

Compare that with the mainland of China. Over the next decade, it plans to pour some $100 billion into telecommunications equipment.

In a way, China's backwardness is an advantage, because the expansion occurs just as new technologies are becoming cheaper than copper wire systems.

By the end of 1995, each of China's provincial capitals except for Lhasa will have digital switches and high-capacity optical fiber links.

This means that major cities are getting the basic infrastructure to become major parts of the information superhighway, allowing people to log on to the most advanced services available.

Telecommunications is also a key to Shanghai's dream of becoming a top financial center. To offer peak performance in providing the electronic data and paperless trading global investors expect, Shanghai plans telecommunications networks as powerful as those in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, Hungary also hopes to jump into the modern world.

Currently, 700,000 Hungarians are waiting for phones.

To partially overcome the problem of funds and to speed the import of Western technology, Hungary sold a 30% stake in its national phone company to two Western companies.

To further reduce the waiting list for phones, Hungary has leased rights to a Dutch-Scandinavian group of companies to build and operate what it says will be one of the most advanced digital mobile phone systems in the world.

In fact, wireless is one of the most popular ways to get a phone system up fast in developing countries.

It's cheaper to build radio towers than to string lines across mountain ridges, and businesses eager for reliable service are willing to accept a significantly higher price tag for a wireless call—the fee is typically two to four times as much as for calls made over fixed lines.

Wireless demand and usage have also exploded across the entire width and breadth of Latin America.

For wireless phone service providers, nowhere is business better than in Latin America—having an operation there is like having an endless pile of money at your disposal.

BellSouth Corporation, with operations in four wireless markets, estimates its annual revenu per average customer at about $2,000 as compared to $860 in the United States. That's partly because Latin American customers talk two to four times as long on the phone as people in North America.

Thailand is also turning to wireless, as a way to allow Thais to make better use of all the time they spend stuck in traffic.

And it isn't that easy to call or fax from the office: The waiting list for phone lines has from one to two million names on it.

So mobile phones have become the rage among businesspeople who can remain in contact despite the traffic jams.

Vietnam is making one of the boldest leaps.

Despite a per person income of just $220 a year, all of the 300,000 lines Vietnam plans to add annually will be optical fiber with digital switching, rather than cheaper systems that

send electrons over copper wires.

By going for next-generation technology now, Vietnamese telecommunications officials say they'll be able to keep pace with anyone in Asia for decades.

For countries that have lagged behind for so long, the temptation to move ahead in one jump is hard to resist.

And despite the mistakes they'll make, they'll persist—so that one day they can cruise alongside Americans and Western Europeans on the information superhighway.

Unit 4B

Are you too tired to go to the video store but you want to see the movie Beauty and the Beast at home?

Want to listen to your favorite guitar player's latest jazz cassette?

Need some new reading material, like a magazine or book?

No problem.

Just sit down in front of your home computer or TV and enter what you want, when you want it, from an electronic catalogue containing thousands of titles.

Your school has no professors of Japanese, a language you want to learn before visiting Japan during the coming summer holiday.

Don't worry.

Just sign up for the language course offered by a school in another district or city, have the latest edition of the course teaching materials sent to your computer, and attend by video. If you need extra help with a translation assignment or your pronunciation, a tutor can give you feedback via your computer.

Welcome to the information superhighway.

While nearly everyone has heard of the information superhighway, even experts differ on exactly what the term means and what the future it promises will look like.

Broadly speaking, however, the superhighway refers to the union of today's broadcasting, cable, video, telephone, and computer and semiconductor industries into one large all-connected industry.

Directing the union are technological advances that have made it easier to store and rapidly transmit information into homes and offices.

Fiber-optic cable, for example—made up of hair-thin glass fibers—is a tremendously efficient carrier of information.

Lasers shooting light through glass fiber can transmit 250,000 times as much data as a standard telephone wire, or tens of thousands of paragraphs such as this one every second.

The greatly increased volume and speed of data transmission that these technologies permit can be compared to the way in which a highway with many lanes allows more cars to move at faster speeds than a two-lane highway—hence, the information superhighway.

The closest thing to an information superhighway today is the Internet, the system of linked computer networks that allows up to 25 million people in 135 countries to exchange information.

But while the Internet primarily moves words, the information superhighway will soon make routine the electronic transmission of data in other formats, such as audio files and images.

That means, for example, that a doctor in Europe who is particularly learned will be able to treat patients in America after viewing their records via computer, deciding the correct dose of medicine to give the patient, or perhaps even remotely controlling a blade wielding robot during surgery.

"Sending a segment of video mail down the hall or across the country will be easier than typing out a message on a keyboard," predicts one correspondent who specializes in technology.

The world is on "the eve of a new era", says the former United States vice-president Al Gore, the Clinton administration's leading high technology advocate.

Gore wants the federal government to play the leading role in shaping the superhighway. However, in an era of smaller budgets, the United States government is unlikely to come up with the money needed during the next 20 years to construct the superhighway.

That leaves private industry—computer, phone, and cable companies—to move into the vacuum left by the government's absence.

And while these industries are pioneering the most exciting new technologies, some critics fear that profit-minded companies will only develop services for the wealthy.

"If left in the hands of private enterprise, the data highway could become little more than a synthetic universe for the rich," worries Jeffrey Chester, president of the Center for Media Education in Washington, D.C.

Poor people must also have access to high technology, says another expert.

"Such access will be crucial to obtaining a high-quality education and getting a good job. So many transactions and exchanges are going to be made through this medium—banking, shopping, communication, and information—that those who have to rely on the postman to send their correspondence risk really falling behind," he says. Some experts were alarmed earlier this year when diagrams showed that four regional phone companies who are building components of the superhighway were only connecting

wealthy communities.

The companies denied they were avoiding the poor, but conceded that the wealthy would likely be the first to benefit.

"We had to start building some-place," says a spokesman for one of the companies, "and that was in areas where there are customers we believe will buy the service. This is a business."

Advocates for the poor want the companies building the data highway to devote a portion of their profits to insuring universal access.

Advocates of universal access have already launched a number of projects of their own. In Berkeley, California, the city's Community Memory Project has placed computer terminals in public buildings and subway stations, where a message can be sent for 25 cents.

In Santa Monica, California, computers have replaced typewriters in all public libraries, and anyone, not just librarians, can send correspondence via computer.

Many challenges face us as we move closer to the reality of the information superhighway. In order for it to be of value to most people, individuals need to become informed about what is possible and how being connected will be of benefit.

The possibilities are endless but in order for the information superhighway to become a reality, some concrete steps need to be taken to get the process started.

Unit 5A

Here we are, all by ourselves, all 22 million of us by recent count, alone in our rooms, some of us liking it that way and some of us not.

Some of us divorced, some widowed, some never yet committed.

Loneliness may be a sort of national disease here, and it's more embarrassing for us to admit than any other sin.

On the other hand, to be alone on purpose, having rejected company rather than been cast out by it, is one characteristic of an American hero.

The solitary hunter or explorer needs no one as they venture out among the deer and wolves to tame the great wild areas.

Thoreau, alone in his cabin on the pond, his back deliberately turned to the town. Now, that's character for you.

Inspiration in solitude is a major commodity for poets and philosophers.

They're all for it.

They all speak highly of themselves for seeking it out, at least for an hour or even two

before they hurry home for tea.

Consider Dorothy Wordsworth, for instance, helping her brother William put on his coat, finding his notebook and pencil for him, and waving as he sets forth into the early spring sunlight to look at flowers all by himself.

"How graceful, how benign, is solitude," he wrote.

No doubt about it, solitude is improved by being voluntary.

Look at Milton's daughters arranging his cushions and blankets before they silently creep away, so he can create poetry.

Then, rather than trouble to put it in his own handwriting, he calls the girls to come back and write it down while he dictates.

You may have noticed that most of these artistic types went outdoors to be alone.

The indoors was full of loved ones keeping the kettle warm till they came home.

The American high priest of solitude was Thoreau.

We admire him, not for his self-reliance, but because he was all by himself out there at Walden Pond, and he wanted to be—all alone in the woods.

Actually, he lived a mile, or 20 minutes' walk, from his nearest neighbor; half a mile from the railroad; three hundred yards from a busy road.

He had company in and out of the hut all day, asking him how he could possibly be so noble.

Apparently the main point of his nobility was that he had neither wife nor servants, used his own axe to chop his own wood, and washed his own cups and saucers.

I don't know who did his laundry; he doesn't say, but he certainly doesn't mention doing his own, either.

Listen to him: "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude." Thoreau had his own self-importance for company.

Perhaps there's a message here: The larger the ego, the less the need for other egos around.

The more modest and humble we feel, the more we suffer from solitude, feeling ourselves inadequate company.

If you live with other people, their temporary absence can be refreshing.

Solitude will end on Thursday.

If today I use a singular personal pronoun to refer to myself, next week I will use the plural form.

While the others are absent you can stretch out your soul until it fills up the whole room, and use your freedom, coming and going as you please without apology, staying up late to

新视野大学英语全部课文原文

Unit1 Americans believe no one stands still. If you are not moving ahead, you are falling behind. This attitude results in a nation of people committed to researching, experimenting and exploring. Time is one of the two elements that Americans save carefully, the other being labor. "We are slaves to nothing but the clock,” it has been said. Time is treated as if it were something almost real. We budget it, save it, waste it, steal it, kill it, cut it, account for it; we also charge for it. It is a precious resource. Many people have a rather acute sense of the shortness of each lifetime. Once the sands have run out of a person’s hourglass, they cannot be replaced. We want every minute to count. A foreigner’s first impression of the U.S. is li kely to be that everyone is in a rush -- often under pressure. City people always appear to be hurrying to get where they are going, restlessly seeking attention in a store, or elbowing others as they try to complete their shopping. Racing through daytime meals is part of the pace

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Unit 1 Section A 艺术家追求成名，如同狗自逐其尾，一旦追到手，除了继续追逐不知还能做些什么。成功之残酷正在于它常常让那些追逐成功者自寻毁灭。对一名正努力追求成功并刚刚崭露头角的艺术家，其亲朋常常会建议“正经的饭碗不能丢～”他们的担心不无道理。追求出人头地，最乐观地说也困难重重，许多人到最后即使不是穷困潦倒，也是几近精神崩溃。尽管如此，希望赢得追星族追捧和同行赞扬之类的不太纯洁的动机却在激励着他们向前。享受成功的无上光荣，这种诱惑不是能轻易抵挡的。成名者之所以成名，大多是因为发挥了自己在歌唱、舞蹈、绘画或写作等方面的特长，并能形成自己的风格。为了能迅速走红，代理人会极力吹捧他们这种风格。他们青云直上的过程让人看不清楚。他们究竟是怎么成功的，大多数人也都说不上来。尽管如此，艺术家仍然不能闲下来。若表演者、画家或作家感到无聊，他们的作品就难以继续保持以前的吸引力，也就难以保持公众的注意力。公众的热情消磨以后，就会去追捧下一个走红的人。有些艺术家为了不落伍，会对他们的写作、跳舞或唱歌的风格稍加变动，但这将冒极大的失宠的危险。公众对于他们藉以成名的艺术风格以外的任何形式都将不屑一顾。知名作家的文风一眼就能看出来，如田纳西?威廉斯的戏剧、欧内斯特?海明威的情节安排、罗伯特?弗罗斯特或 T.S.艾略特的诗歌等。

同样，像莫奈、雷诺阿、达利这样的画家，希区柯克、费里尼、斯皮尔伯格、陈凯歌或张艺谋这样的电影制作人也是如此。他们鲜明独特的艺术风格标志着与别人不同的艺术形式上的重大变革，这让他们名利双收，但也让他们付出了代价，那就是失去了用其他风格或形式表现自我的自由。名气这盏聚光灯可比热带丛林还要炙热。骗局很快会被揭穿，过多的关注带来的压力会让大多数人难以承受。它让你失去自我。你必须是公众认可的那个你，而不是真实的你或是可能的你。艺人，就像政客一样，必须常常说些违心或连自己都不完全相信的话来取悦听众。一滴名气之水有可能玷污人的心灵这一整口井，因此一个艺术家若能保持真我，会格外让人惊叹。你可能答不上来哪些人没有妥协，却仍然在这场名利的游戏中获胜。一个例子就是爱尔兰著名作家奥斯卡?王尔德，他在社交行为和性行为方面以我行我素而闻名于世。虽然他的行为遭到公众的反对，却依然故我，他也因此付出了惨痛的代价。在一次宴会上，他一位密友的母亲当着他的朋友和崇拜者的面，指责他在性方面影响了她的儿子。他听了她的话以后大为光火，起诉了这个年轻人的母亲，声称她毁了自己的“好”名声。但是，他真该请一个更好的律师。结果是，法官不仅不支持他提出的让这个女人赔偿他名声损失费的请求，反而对他本人进行了罚款。他由于拒交罚款最终还被送进了监狱。更糟糕的是，他再也无法获得更多公众的宠爱。在最糟糕的时候，他发现没有一个人愿意拿自己的名声冒险来替他说话。

新概念英语第四册原文翻译详细笔记

Finding fossil man 发现化?石?人 Why are legends handed down by storytellers useful? We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of storytellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago. But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from. Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.　读到flint 打?火?石anthropomorphic ?人格化拟1anthropo ?人类的让步?一?一trace back date back read of read about a trace of ?一些

新视野大学英语第四册课文翻译

UNIT1 艺术家追求成名,如同狗自逐其尾,一旦追到手,除了继续追逐不知还能做些什么.成功之残酷正在于它常常让那些追逐成功者自寻毁灭. 对一名正努力追求成功并刚刚崭露头角地艺术家,其亲朋常常会建议“正经地饭碗不能丢！”他们地担心不无道理.追求出人头地,最乐观地说也困难重重,许多人到最后即使不是穷困潦倒,也是几近精神崩溃.尽管如此,希望赢得追星族追捧和同行赞扬之类地不太纯洁地动机却在激励着他们向前.享受成功地无上光荣,这种诱惑不是能轻易抵挡地. 成名者之所以成名,大多是因为发挥了自己在歌唱.舞蹈.绘画或写作等方面地特长,并能形成自己地风格.为了能迅速走红,代理人会极力吹捧他们这种风格.他们青云直上地过程让人看不清楚.他们究竟是怎么成功地,大多数人也都说不上来.尽管如此,艺术家仍然不能闲下来.若表演者.画家或作家感到无聊,他们地作品就难以继续保持以前地吸引力,也就难以保持公众地注意力.公众地热情消磨以后,就会去追捧下一个走红地人.有些艺术家为了不落伍,会对他们地写作.跳舞或唱歌地风格稍加变动,但这将冒极大地失宠地危险.公众对于他们藉以成名地艺术风格以外地任何形式都将不屑一顾. 知名作家地文风一眼就能看出来,如田纳西·威廉斯地戏剧.欧内斯特·海明威地情节安排.罗伯特·弗罗斯特或T.S.艾略特地诗歌等.同样,像莫奈.雷诺阿.达利这样地画家,希区柯克.费里尼.斯皮尔伯格.陈凯歌或张艺谋这样地电影制作人也是如此.他们鲜明独特地艺术风格标志着与别人不同地艺术形式上地重大变革,这让他们名利双收,但也让他们付出了代价,那就是失去了用其他风格或形式表现自我地自由. 名气这盏聚光灯可比热带丛林还要炙热.骗局很快会被揭穿,过多地关注带来地压力会让大多数人难以承受.它让你失去自我.你必须是公众认可地那个你,而不

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新视野三版读写B2U4Text A College sweethearts 1I smile at my two lovely daughters and they seem so much more mature than we,their parents,when we were college sweethearts.Linda,who's21,had a boyfriend in her freshman year she thought she would marry,but they're not together anymore.Melissa,who's19,hasn't had a steady boyfriend yet.My daughters wonder when they will meet"The One",their great love.They think their father and I had a classic fairy-tale romance heading for marriage from the outset.Perhaps,they're right but it didn't seem so at the time.In a way, love just happens when you least expect it.Who would have thought that Butch and I would end up getting married to each other?He became my boyfriend because of my shallow agenda:I wanted a cute boyfriend! 2We met through my college roommate at the university cafeteria.That fateful night,I was merely curious,but for him I think it was love at first sight."You have beautiful eyes",he said as he gazed at my face.He kept staring at me all night long.I really wasn't that interested for two reasons.First,he looked like he was a really wild boy,maybe even dangerous.Second,although he was very cute,he seemed a little weird. 3Riding on his bicycle,he'd ride past my dorm as if"by accident"and pretend to be surprised to see me.I liked the attention but was cautious about his wild,dynamic personality.He had a charming way with words which would charm any girl.Fear came over me when I started to fall in love.His exciting"bad boy image"was just too tempting to resist.What was it that attracted me?I always had an excellent reputation.My concentration was solely on my studies to get superior grades.But for what?College is supposed to be a time of great learning and also some fun.I had nearly achieved a great education,and graduation was just one semester away.But I hadn't had any fun;my life was stale with no component of fun!I needed a boyfriend.Not just any boyfriend.He had to be cute.My goal that semester became: Be ambitious and grab the cutest boyfriend I can find. 4I worried what he'd think of me.True,we lived in a time when a dramatic shift in sexual attitudes was taking place,but I was a traditional girl who wasn't ready for the new ways that seemed common on campus.Butch looked superb!I was not immune to his personality,but I was scared.The night when he announced to the world that I was his girlfriend,I went along

新视野大学英语第四册课文原文

1A An artist who seeks fame is like a dog chasing his own tail who, when he captures it, does not know what else to do but to continue chasing it. The cruelty of success is that it often leads those who seek such success to participate in their own destruction. "Don't quit your day job!" is advice frequently given by understandably pessimistic family members and friends to a budding artist who is trying hard to succeed. The conquest of fame is difficult at best, and many end up emotionally if not financially bankrupt. Still, impure motives such as the desire for worshipping fans and praise from peers may spur the artist on. The lure of drowning in fame's imperial glory is not easily resisted. Those who gain fame most often gain it as a result of exploiting their talent for singing, dancing, painting, or writing, etc. They develop a style that agents market aggressively to hasten popularity, and their ride on the express elevator to the top is a blur. Most would be hard-pressed to tell you how they even got there. Artists cannot remain idle, though. When the performer, painter or writer becomes bored, their work begins to show a lack of continuity in its appeal and it becomes difficult to sustain the attention of the public. After their enthusiasm has dissolved, the public simply moves on to the next flavor of the month. Artists who do attempt to remain current by making even minute changes to their style of writing, dancing or singing, run a significant risk of losing the audience's favor. The public simply discounts styles other than those for which the artist has become famous. Famous authors' styles—a Tennessee Williams play or a plot by Ernest Hemingway or a poem by Robert Frost or T.S. Eliot—are easily recognizable. The same is true of painters like Monet, Renoir, or Dali and moviemakers like Hitchcock, Fellini, Spielberg, Chen Kaige or Zhang Yimou. Their distinct styles marked a significant change in form from others and gained them fame and fortune. However, they paid for it by giving up the freedom to express themselves with other styles or forms. Fame's spotlight can be hotter than a tropical jungle—a fraud is quickly exposed, and the pressure of so much attention is too much for most to endure. It takes you out of yourself: You must be what the public thinks you are, not what you really are or could be. The performer, like the politician, must often please his or her audiences by saying things he or she does not mean or fully believe. One drop of fame will likely contaminate the entire well of a man's soul, and so an artist who remains true to himself or herself is particularly amazing. You would be hard-pressed to underline many names of those who have not compromised and still succeeded in the fame game. An example, the famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde, known for his uncompromising behavior, both social and sexual, to which the public objected, paid heavily for remaining true to himself. The mother of a young man Oscar was intimate with accused him at a banquet in front of his friends and fans of sexually influencing her son. Extremely angered by her remarks, he sued the young man's mother, asserting that she had damaged his "good" name. He should have hired a better attorney, though. The judge did not second Wilde's call to have the woman pay for damaging his name, and instead fined Wilde. He ended up in jail after refusing to pay, and even worse, was permanently expelled from the wider circle of public favor. When things were at their worst, he found that no one was willing to risk his or her name in his defense. His price for remaining true to himself was to be left alone when he needed his fans the most. Curiously enough, it is those who fail that reap the greatest reward: freedom! They enjoy the freedom to express themselves in unique and original ways without fear of losing the support of fans. Failed artists may find comfort in knowing that many great artists never found fame until well after they had passed away or in knowing that they did not sell out. They may justify their failure by convincing themselves their genius is too sophisticated for contemporary audiences. Single-minded artists who continue their quest for fame even after failure might also like to know that failure has motivated some famous people to work even harder to succeed. Thomas Wolfe, the American novelist, had his first novel Look Homeward, Angel rejected 39 times before it was finally published. Beethoven overcame his father, who did not believe that he had any potential as a musician, to become the greatest musician in the world. And Pestalozzi, the famous Swiss educator in the 19th century, failed at every job he ever had until he came upon the idea of teaching children and developing the fundamental theories to produce a new form of education. Thomas Edison was thrown out of school in the fourth grade, because he seemed to his teacher to be quite dull. Unfortunately for most people, however, failure is the end of their struggle, not the beginning. I say to those who desperately seek fame and fortune: good luck. But alas, you may find that it was not what you wanted. The dog who catches his tail discovers that it is only a tail. The person who achieves success often discovers that it does more harm than good. So instead of trying so hard to achieve success, try to be happy with who you are and what you do. Try to do work that you can be proud of. Maybe you won't be famous in your own lifetime, but you may create better art. 1B One summer day my father sent me to buy some wire and fencing to put around our barn to pen up the bull. At 16, I liked nothing better than getting behind the wheel of our truck and driving into town

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新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记：Lesson10 【课文】 First listen and then answer the following question. 听录音，然后回答以下问题。 What does the computer industry thrive on apart from anarchy? Technology trends may push Silicon Valley back to the future. Carver Mead, a pioneer in integrated circuits and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology, notes there are now work-stations that enable engineers to design, test and produce chips right on their desks, much the way an editor creates a newsletter on a Macintosh. As the time and cost of making a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars, engineers may soon be free to let their imaginations soar without being penalized by expensive failures. Mead predicts that inventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend at the office -- spawning a new generation of garage start-ups and giving the U.S. a jump on its foreign rivals in getting new products to market fast. 'We've got more garages with smart people,' Mead observes. 'We really thrive on anarchy.' And on Asians. Already, orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering staffs at many Valley firms. And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from California's colleges. As the heads of next-generation start-ups, these Asian innovators can draw on customs and languages to forge tighter

新视野大学英语第四册课文翻译1-5

Unit 1 一个正派女人受到的诱惑得知丈夫请了他的朋友古韦内尔来种植园小住一两周，巴罗达太太有点不快。古韦内尔生性沉默，这令巴罗达太太颇为不解。在一起待了几天，她仍感到对他很陌生。她只得大部分时间让丈夫陪着客人, 但发现自己不在场几乎并未引起古韦内尔的注意。而后她执意要陪他散步到磨坊去, 试图打破他这种并非有意的沉默，但仍不奏效。 "你的朋友，他什么时候走？" 有一天她问丈夫，"我觉得他太讨厌了。" "还不到一周呢，亲爱的。我真不明白，他并没给你添麻烦呀。" "是没有。他要是真能添点麻烦，我倒喜欢他一些了。真希望他能像别人一样，那样我倒可以做点什么使他过得舒心。" 加斯顿拉了拉妻子的衣袖，双手搂着她的腰，快乐地望着她那充满困惑的眼睛。 "你可真让人吃惊，" 他说，"我都说不准你什么时候会怎么做。瞧你对古韦内尔顶真的样子，对他那么大惊小怪，这可是他最不希望的。" "大惊小怪！" 她急急回道，"瞎说，你怎么这么说！大惊小怪，真是！但你可说过他挺聪明的。" "他是聪明。但工作太多，这可怜的家伙累垮了，所以我才请他来这儿休息一阵。" "你常说他是个风趣的人，"太太仍在生气，"我以为他至少该风趣点。明早我进城去试春装。古韦内尔走了你告诉我。他走之前我就住姑妈家。"

那晚她独自一人坐在路边橡树下的长凳上，思绪从未这么乱过，就像头顶飞着的蝙蝠一样，忽东忽西。她理不出丝毫头绪，只感到有一点很明确：她必须第二天一早就离开这里。巴罗达太太听到从谷仓那边传来了脚步声，她知道那是古韦内尔。她不想让他看见自己，但她的白色长袍泄露了踪迹。他在她身旁的长凳上坐下，丝毫不曾想到她可能会反对他坐在那儿。 "您丈夫要我把这个带给您，巴罗达太太，"说着，他递上一块白色纱巾，这是她有时用来做披肩的。她接了过来，放在腿上。他照例说了些诸如这个季节的夜风对身体不好之类的话。后来，望着茫茫夜色，他开始谈了起来。古韦内尔可不是个腼腆的人。他的沉默寡言决非天性，而是情绪使然。坐在巴罗达太太身边，他的沉默暂时消失了。他以低沉迟缓的嗓音亲切而无拘束地娓娓而谈，谈他在大学里与加斯顿是好朋友，谈那时曾雄心勃勃，志向高远。而现在他只求能生存，只是偶尔才体验到一丝真正的生活的气息，就像此刻。巴罗达太太只是模模糊糊地感到他在说些什么。他的话变成了一串毫无意义的动词、名词、副词和形容词；她陶醉在他的声音里。她想在夜色里伸出手去触摸他--要不是个正派女子，她真会这么做。她越想靠近他，结果却越往后退。为使自己不显得失礼，她借机假装打了个哈欠，起身离开了他。那晚，巴罗达太太很想把自己的一时荒唐告诉丈夫--也是她的朋友，但还是忍住了。她是个正派体面的女人，也是个非常明智的女人。

新视野大学英语读写教程第一册课文翻译及课后答案

Unit 1 1学习外语是我一生中最艰苦也是最有意义的经历之一。虽然时常遭遇挫折，但却非常有价值。 2我学外语的经历始于初中的第一堂英语课。老师很慈祥耐心，时常表扬学生。由于这种积极的教学方法，我踊跃回答各种问题，从不怕答错。两年中，我的成绩一直名列前茅。 3到了高中后，我渴望继续学习英语。然而，高中时的经历与以前大不相同。以前，老师对所有的学生都很耐心，而新老师则总是惩罚答错的学生。每当有谁回答错了，她就会用长教鞭指着我们，上下挥舞大喊：“错！错！错！”没有多久，我便不再渴望回答问题了。我不仅失去了回答问题的乐趣，而且根本就不想再用英语说半个字。 4好在这种情况没持续多久。到了大学，我了解到所有学生必须上英语课。与高中老师不。大学英语老师非常耐心和蔼，而且从来不带教鞭！不过情况却远不尽如人意。由于班大，每堂课能轮到我回答的问题寥寥无几。上了几周课后，我还发现许多同学的英语说得比我要好得多。我开始产生一种畏惧感。虽然原因与高中时不同，但我却又一次不敢开口了。看来我的英语水平要永远停步不前了。 5直到几年后我有机会参加远程英语课程，情况才有所改善。这种课程的媒介是一台电脑、一条电话线和一个调制解调器。我很快配齐了必要的设备并跟一个朋友学会了电脑操作技术，于是我每周用5到7天在网上的虚拟课堂里学习英语。 6网上学习并不比普通的课堂学习容易。它需要花许多的时间，需要学习者专心自律，以跟上课程进度。我尽力达到课程的最低要求，并按时完成作业。 7我随时随地都在学习。不管去哪里，我都随身携带一本袖珍字典和笔记本，笔记本上记着我遇到的生词。我学习中出过许多错，有时是令人尴尬的错误。有时我会因挫折而哭泣，有时甚至想放弃。但我从未因别的同学英语说得比我快而感到畏惧，因为在电脑屏幕上作出回答之前，我可以根据自己的需要花时间去琢磨自己的想法。突然有一天我发现自己什么都懂了，更重要的是，我说起英语来灵活自如。尽管我还是常常出错，还有很多东西要学，但我已尝到了刻苦学习的甜头。 8学习外语对我来说是非常艰辛的经历，但它又无比珍贵。它不仅使我懂得了艰苦努力的意义，而且让我了解了不同的文化，让我以一种全新的思维去看待事物。学习一门外语最令人兴奋的收获是我能与更多的人交流。与人交谈是我最喜欢的一项活动，新的语言使我能与陌生人交往，参与他们的谈话，并建立新的难以忘怀的友谊。由于我已能说英语，别人讲英语时我不再茫然不解了。我能够参与其中，并结交朋友。我能与人交流，并能够弥合我所说的语言和所处的文化与他们的语言和文化之间的鸿沟。 III. 1. rewarding 2. communicate 3. access 4. embarrassing 5. positive 6. commitment 7. virtual 8. benefits 9. minimum 10. opportunities IV. 1. up 2. into 3. from 4. with 5. to 6. up 7. of 8. in 9. for 10.with V. 1.G 2.B 3.E 4.I 5.H 6.K 7.M 8.O 9.F 10.C Sentence Structure VI. 1. Universities in the east are better equipped, while those in the west are relatively poor. 2. Allan Clark kept talking the price up, while Wilkinson kept knocking it down. 3. The husband spent all his money drinking, while his wife saved all hers for the family. 4. Some guests spoke pleasantly and behaved politely, while others wee insulting and impolite. 5. Outwardly Sara was friendly towards all those concerned, while inwardly she was angry. VII. 1. Not only did Mr. Smith learn the Chinese language, but he also bridged the gap between his culture and ours. 2. Not only did we learn the technology through the online course, but we also learned to communicate with friends in English. 3. Not only did we lose all our money, but we also came close to losing our lives.