6英语美文欣赏

The power of determination

The little country schoolhouse was heated by a coal stove. A little boy had the job of coming to school early each day to start the fire and warm the room before his teacher and classmates arrived.

One morning they arrived to find the schoolhouse in flames. They dragged the unconscious little boy out of the bruning building. He had major burns over the lower half of his body and was taken to a nearby county hospital.

From his bed the seriously burned little boy faintly heard the doctor talking to his mother. The doctor told his mother that her son would surely die because the terrible fire had destroyed the lower half of his body.

But the brave boy didn’t want to die. He made up his mind that he would survive. Somehow, to the amazement of the physician, he did survive. When the danger was past, he again heard the doctor and his mother speaking quietly. The mother was told that since the fire had destroyed so much flesh in the lower part of his body, he was doomed (注定) to be a lifetime cripple.

Once more the boy made up his mind. He would not be a cripple. He would walk. But unfortunately from the waist down, he had no motor ability. His thin legs were lifeless.

Later he was released from the hospital. Every day his mother would massage his little legs, but there was no feeling. Yet his determination that he would walk was as strong as ever.

When he wasn’t in bed, he had to sit on a wheelchair. One sunny day his mother wheeled him out into the yard to get some fresh air. This day, instead of sitting there, he threw himself from the chair, and pulled himself across the grass, dragging his legs behind him.

He wanted to get over the white fence. With great effort, he raised himself up on the fence and began dragging himself along it. He started to do this every day until he wore a smooth path all around the yard beside the fence. There was nothing he wanted more than to develop life in those legs.

Finally through his daily massages, his iron persistence and his determination, he did develop the ability to stand up, then to walk haltingly(蹒跚地), then to walk by himself — and then — to run.

He began to walk to school, then to run to school, and finally to run for the joy of running. Later in college he joined the track team.

Still later in Madison Square Garden this young man who was not expected to survive, who would surely never walk, and who could never hope to run — this determined young man, Dr Glenn Cunningham, ran the world’s fastest mile!

Did the Earth Move for You

eleven-year-old angela was stricken with a debilitating disease involving her nervous system.
she was unable to walk and her movement was restricted in other ways as well.
the doctors did not hold out much hope of her ever recovering from this illness.
they predicted she’d spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.
they said that few, if any, were able t

o come back to normal after contracting this disease.
the little girl was undaunted.
there, lying in her hospital bed, she would vow to anyone who’d listen that she was definitely going to be walking again someday.
she was transferred to a specialized rehabilitation hospital in the san francisco bay area.
whatever therapies could be applied to her case were used.
the therapists were charmed by her undefeatable spirit.
they taught her about imaging — about seeing herself walking.
if it would do nothing else, it would at least give her hope and something positive to do in the long waking hours in bed.
angela would work as hard as possible in physical therapy, in whirlpools and in exercise sessions.
but she worked just as hard lying there faithfully doing her imaging, visualizing herself moving, moving, moving!
one day, as she was using all her might to imagine her legs moving again, it seemed as though one miracle had happened:
the bed moved! she screamed out, “look what i’m doing! look! look! i can do it! i moved, i moved!”
of course, at this very moment everyone else in the hospital was screaming, too, and running for cover.
people were screaming, equipment was falling and glass was breaking.
you see, it was the recent san francisco earthquake.
but don’t tell that to angela.
she’s convinced that she did it.
and now only a few years later, she’s back in school.
you see, anyone who can shake the earth between san francisco and oakland can conquer a piddling little disease, can’t they?

Hold Your Head up High
作者: Vickie Leach | 发布日期: 2004-3-28 22:38:08
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I was fifteen months old, a happy carefree kid . . . until the day I fell. It was a bad fall. I landed on a glass rabbit which cut my eye badly enough to blind it. Trying to save the eye, the doctors stitched the eyeball together where it was cut, leaving a big ugly scar in the middle of my eye. The attempt failed, but my mama, in all of her wisdom, found a doctor who knew that if the eye were removed entirely, my face would grow up badly distorted, so my scarred, sightless, cloudy and gray eye lived on with me. And as I grew, this sightless eye in so many ways controlled me.

I walked with my face looking at the floor so people would not see the ugly me. Sometimes people, even strangers, asked me embarrassing questions or made hurtful remarks. When the kids played games, I was always the "monster." I grew up imagining that everyone looked at me with disdain, as if my appearance were my fault. I always felt like I was a freak.

Yet Mama would say to me, at every turn, "Hold your head up high and face the world." It became a litany that I relied on. She had started when I was young. She would hold me in her arms and stroke my hair and say, "If you

hold your head up high, it will be okay, and people will see your beautiful soul." She continued this message whenever I wanted to hide.

Those words have meant different things to me over the years. As a little child, I thought Mama meant, "Be careful or you will fall down or bump into something because you are not looking." As an adolescent, even though I tended to look down to hide my shame, I found that sometimes when I held my head up high and let people know me, they liked me. My mama's words helped me begin to realize that by letting people look at my face, I let them recognize the intelligence and beauty behind both eyes even if they couldn't see it on the surface.

In high school I was successful both academically and socially. I was even elected class president, but on the inside I still felt like a freak. All I really wanted was to look like everyone else. When things got really bad, I would cry to my mama and she would look at me with loving eyes and say, "Hold your head up high and face the world. Let them see the beauty that is inside."

When I met the man who became my partner for life, we looked each other straight in the eye, and he told me I was beautiful inside and out. He meant it. My mama's love and encouragement were the spark that gave me the confidence to overcome my own doubt. I had faced adversity, encountered my problems head on, and learned not only to appreciate myself but to have deep compassion for others.

"Hold your head up high," has been heard many times in my home. Each of my children has felt its invitation. The gift my mama gave me lives on in another generation.