大学英语精读第三版第四册课文及课文翻译
临沂人社局-云南师大附中网站
大学英语精读第三版第四册课文及课文翻译
Unit 1
Text
Two college-age boys, unaware that making
money usually involves hard work, are
tempted
by an advertisement that promises them an easy way
to earn a lot of money.
The boys soon learn
that if something seems to good to be true, it
probably is.
BIG BUCKS THE EASY WAY
John G. Hubbell
ought to look into this,I
suggested to our two college-age sons. might
be a way to avoid the indignity of having to
ask for money all the time.
them some magazines
in a plastic bag someone bad hung on our doorknob.
A message
printed on the bag offered
leisurely, lucrative work (
of delivering more
such bags.
it pains me,I
said,find that you both have been panhandling so
long
that it no longer embarrasses you.
The boys said they would look into the magazine-
delivery thing. Pleased, I left
town on a
business trip. By midnight I was comfortably
settled in a hotel room far
from home. The
phone rang. It was my wife. She wanted to know how
my day had gone.
She snapped.
super! And it's only getting started. Another
truck
just pulled up out front.
third one this evening. The first delivered four
thousand Montgomery Wards.
The second brought
four thousand Sears, Roebucks. I don't know what
this one has,
but I'm sure it will be four
thousand of something. Since you are responsible,
I
thought you might like to know what's
happening.
What I was being blamed for, it
turned out, was a newspaper strike which made
it necessary to hand-deliver the advertising
inserts that normally are included with
the
Sunday paper. The company had promised our boys
$$600 for delivering these inserts
to 4,000
houses by Sunday morning.
Six
hundred bucks!His brother had echoed, we can do
the job in two hours!
me.
speak,
two big guys are carrying armloads of paper up the
walk. What do we do about
all this?
do what they have to do.
At noon the
following day I returned to the hotel and found an
urgent message
to telephone my wife. Her voice
was unnaturally high and quavering. There had been
several more truckloads of ad inserts. for
department stores, dime stores,
drugstores,
grocery stores, auto stores and so on. Some are
whole magazine sections.
We have
hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of pages of
advertising here! They
are crammed wall-to-
wall all through the house in stacks taller than
your oldest
son. There's only enough room for
people to walk in, take one each of the eleven
inserts, roll them together, slip a rubber
band around them and slide them into a
plastic
bag. We have enough plastic bags to supply every
takeout restaurant in
America!Her voice kept
rising, as if working its way out of the range of
the human
ear.
and I'll talk to
you later. Got a lunch date.
When I
returned, there was another urgent call from my
wife.
but knew better by now than to
say so.
couple of
neighborhood children to help for five dollars
each. Assembly lines have
been set up. In the
language of diplomacy, there is 'movement.'
it's not,she corrected. very discouraging.
They're been as it for
hours. Plastic bags
have been filled and piled to the ceiling, but all
this hasn't
made a dent, not a dent, in the
situation! It's almost as if the inserts keep
reproducing themselves!
thing,she
continued. college sons must learn that one does
not
get the best out of employees by
threatening them with bodily harm.
Obtaining an audience with son NO. 1, I snarled,
one of those kids again! Idiot! You should be
offering a bonus of a dollar every
hour to the
worker who fills the most bags.
won't be any profit unless those kids enable you
to make all the
deliveries on time. If they
don't, you two will have to remove all that paper
by
yourselves. And there will be no eating or
sleeping until it is removed.
There was a
short, thoughtful silence. Then he said, you have
just worked
a profound change in my
personality.
By the
following evening, there was much for my wife to
report. The bonus program
had worked until
someone demanded to see the color of cash. Then
some activist on
the work force claimed that
the workers had no business settling for $$5 and a
few
competitive bonuses while the bossed
collected hundreds of dollars each. The
organizer had declared that all the workers
were entitled to $$5 per hour! They would
not
work another minute until the bosses agreed.
The strike lasted less than two hours. In
mediation, the parties agreed on $$2
per hour.
Gradually, the huge stacks began to shrink.
As it turned out, the job was completed three
hours before Sunday's 7 . deadline.
By the
time I arrived home, the boys had already settled
their accounts: $$150 in
labor costs,
$$40 for gasoline, and a like amount
for
gifts—boxes of candy for saintly neighbors who had
volunteered station
wagons and help in
delivery and dozen roses for their mother. This
left them with
$$185 each — about two-thirds
the minimum wage for the 91 hours they worked.
Still,
it was as one of them put it, to enable
them to indignityfor quite
a while.
All went well for some weeks. Then one Saturday
morning my attention was drawn
to the odd
goings-on of our two youngest sons. They kept
carrying carton after carton
from various
corners of the house out the front door to
curbside. I assumed their
mother had enlisted
them to remove junk for a trash pickup. Then I
overheard them
discussing finances.
Investigation revealed that they
were offering
library.
might as well make a little money from
them. We wanted to avoid the indignity of
having to ask you for……
一个大学男孩,不清楚赚钱需要付出艰苦
的劳动,被一份许诺轻松赚大钱的广告吸引了。男孩们很快
就明白,如果事情看起来好得不像真的,那多
半确实不是真的。
轻轻松松赚大钱
“你们该看看这个,”我向我们的两个读大学的儿子
建议道。“你们若想避免因为老是向人讨钱而有
失尊严的话,这兴许是一种办法。”我将挂在我们门把手
上的、装在一个塑料袋里的几本杂志拿给他们。
塑料袋上印着一条信息说,需要招聘人投递这样的袋子,
这活儿既轻松又赚钱。(“轻轻松松赚大钱!”)
“我不在乎失不失尊严,”大儿子回答说。
“我可以忍受,”他的弟弟附和道。
“看到你们俩伸手讨钱讨惯了一点也不感到尴尬的样子,真使我痛心,”我说。
孩子们说他
们可以考虑考虑投递杂志的事。我听了很高兴,便离城出差去了。午夜时分,我已远离家
门,在一家旅馆
的房间里舒舒服服住了下来。电话铃响了,是妻子打来的。她想知道我这一天过得可好。
“好极了!”我兴高采烈地说。“你过得怎么样?”我问道。
“棒极了!”她大声挖苦道。“真棒!而且这还仅仅是个开始。又一辆卡车刚在门前停下。”
“又一辆卡车?”
“今晚第三辆了。第一辆运来了四千份蒙哥马利-沃德百货公司的广告;
第二辆运来四千份西尔斯-罗
伯克百货公司的广告。我不知道这一辆装的啥,但我肯定又是四千份什么的
。既然这事是你促成的,我想
你或许想了解事情的进展。”
我之所以受到指责,事情原来是
这样:由于发生了一起报业工人罢工,通常夹在星期日报纸里的广告
插页,必须派人直接投送出去。公司
答应给我们的孩子六百美金,任务是将这些广告插页在星期天早晨之
前投递到四千户人家去。
“不费吹灰之力!”我们上大学的大儿子嚷道。
“六百块!”他的弟弟应声道,“我们两个钟点就能干完!”
“西尔斯和沃德的广告通常都
是报纸那么大的四页,”妻子告诉我说,“现在我们门廊上堆着三万二
千页广告。就在我
们说话的当儿,两个大个子正各抱着一大捆广告走过来。这么多广告,我们可怎么办?”
“你让孩子们快干,”我指示说。“他们都是大学生了。他们自己的事得由他们自己去做。”
第二天中午,我回到旅馆,看到一份紧急留言,要我马上给妻子回电话。她的声音高得很不自然,而
且
有些颤抖。家里又运到了好几卡车的广告插页。“有百货公司的,廉价商店的,杂货店的,食品店的,
汽
车行的,等等。有些像整本杂志那么厚。我们这里有数十万页,说不定是几百万页的广告!我们家整个房
子从东墙到西墙,从南墙到北墙统统堆满了广告,一堆又一堆,比你大儿子还要高。现在只剩下一点点空
间,刚够一个人走进去,从十一种插页中各取一份,卷在一起,套上橡皮筋,再塞进一只塑料袋内。我们
的塑料袋足够供应全美所有的外卖餐厅!”她越讲声音越响,几乎震耳欲聋。“这么多的广告必须在星期日
早晨七点以前统统送出去。”
“嗯,你最好让孩子们尽快地捆扎装袋,等会儿我再跟你谈。我有个午餐约会。”
我餐后回来,妻子又打来一只紧急电话。
“你午餐吃得不错吧?”她用悦耳的声音问道。我吃的牛排好极了,但这次我学乖了,还是不说为妙。
“糟透了,”我报告说。“一种什么酸溜溜的鱼,我想大概是鳗鲡吧。”
“不错嘛。你的大
学生儿子已经雇了他们的弟弟妹妹和两三个邻居的小孩帮忙,工钱一人五块,建起
了流水作业线。用外交
术语来说,事情‘有进展’。”
“这确实令人鼓舞。”
“不,并非如此,”她纠正说。
“相反,非常叫人泄气。他们干了好几个小时了。装好的塑料袋,一
直堆到天花板,但一切努力收效很小
。这些广告宣传品简直就像是不停地自行生产出来一样!”
“还有一件事,”她接着说,“你那上大
学的儿子必须明白,威胁雇员,说要揍他们,是不可能使他
们卖力的。”
我跟大儿子一通上
话,便咆哮道,“你如果再威胁那些孩子,我就对你不客气了!白痴!你应该给奖金,
对装袋最多的工人
每小时奖励一块。”
“可那要减少我们的利润啦,”他提醒道。
“那些孩子不帮你按时
将所有的广告投送出去,你就什么利润也得不到。如果他们不干,你们俩就得
亲手搬走所有的广告。而在
把它们搬掉之前,你们吃不成,也睡不成。”
电话里出现了短暂的沉默,他在思考。接着,他说,“爸爸,你刚才使我深受启迪,令我恍然大悟。”
“那就干吧!”
“是,阁下!”
到第二天傍晚,我妻子就有许多事报告了。奖
金计划行之有效,可后来有人对能否兑现表示怀疑,提
出把钱拿出来给大家看看。接着工人队伍里的一位
活动家声称,老板每人拿几百块钱,工人们决没有理由
满足于每人五块外加一点点竞争性的奖金。劳工组
织人宣布,所有工人的工资都应该达到每小时五块钱!
在老板答应之前,他们不再干活儿,一分钟也不干
。
罢工持续了不到两小时。通过调解,双方达成协议,每小时两块。渐渐地,大堆的广告开始减少。
结果,全部工作比最后限期星期日早晨七点提前三个小时完成。等我回到家里,孩子们已经结了账。劳务支出150元,汽油费????40元,还有40元买礼品——几盒糖果,送给乐于助人的邻居,他们主
动开
出自家的车帮助投递,还有一打玫瑰送给他们的母亲。除去以上开支,他们每人得到185元——大
约相当
于他们所干的91小时的最低工资的三分之二。虽然如此,可正如一个儿子所说,那还是“足够”
他们花一
阵子,使他们“避免那种有失尊严的事。”
几个星期过去了,一切都很好。后来,
一个星期六的上午,我们两个小儿子的奇怪举动引起了我的注
意。他们不停地将一个又一个的纸箱从房屋
四处的角落里搬出,经过前门,送到人行道边。我以为他们的
妈妈在指挥他们清除破烂,好让垃圾车运走
呢。正在这时,我听到他们在议论经济问题。
“哟,我们会赚许多钱呢!”
“我们要发财啦!”
经查问发现,他们正在把我们的全部图书“出售或出租”。
“不成!不成!”我叫道。“不能把我们的书卖了!”
哎唷,爸,我们以为你用不着它们了呢!”
“书永远不会'用'不着的,”我尽力解释道。 “你肯定用不着了。你都看过了,再也不用了。没有错。既然不用,还不如卖点钱。我们想避免那种
有失尊严的事,不再伸手向你要……”
Unit 2
Text
Is there anything we can learn from deer? During
the crisisof 1973-1974
the writer of this
essay was living in northern Minnesota and was
able to observe
how deer survive when winter
arrives. The lessons he learns about he way deer
conserve
energy turn out applicable to our
everyday life.
DEER AND THE ENERGY
CYCLE
Some persons say that love makes the
world go round. Others of a less romantic
and
more practical turn of mind say that it isn't
love; it's money. But the truth
is that it is
energy that makes the world go round. Energy is
the currency of the
ecological system and life
becomes possible only when food is converted into
energy,
which in turn is used to seek more
food to grow, to reproduce and to survive. On
this cycle all life depends.
It is
fairly well known that wild animals survive from
year to year by eating
as much as they can
during times of plenty, the summer and fall,
storing the excess,
usually in the form of
fat, and then using these reserves of fat to
survive during
the hard times in winter when
food is scarce. But it is probably less well known
that even with their stored fat, wild animals
spend less energy to live in winter
than in
summer.
A good case in point is the
whiter-tailed deer. Like most wildlife, deer
reproduce, grow, and store fat in the summer
and fall when there is plenty of
nutritious
food available. A physically mature female deer in
good condition who
has conceived 怀孕in November
and given birth to two fawns during the end of May
or first part of June, must search for food
for the necessary energy not only to
meet her
body's needs but also to produce milk for her
fawns. The best milk production
occurs at the
same time that new plant growth is available. This
is good timing,
because milk production is an
energy consuming process — it requires a lot of
food.
The cost can not be met unless the
region has ample food resources.
As the
summer progresses and the fawns grow, they become
less dependent on their
mother's milk and more
dependent on growing plants as food sources. The
adult males
spend the summer growing antlers
and getting fat. Both males and females continue
to eat high quality food in the fall in order
to deposit body fat for the winter.
In the
case of does and fawns, a great deal of energy is
expended either in milk
production or in
growing, and fat is not accumulated as quickly as
it is in full
grown males. Fat reserves are
like bank accounts to be drawn on in the winter
when
food supplies are limited and sometimes
difficult to reach because of deep snow.
As fall turns into winter, other changes take
place. Fawns lose their spotted
coat. Hair on
all the deer becomes darker and thicker. The
change in the hair coats
is usually complete
by September and maximum hair depths are reached
by November
or December when the
weather becomes cold.
But in addition,
nature provides a further safeguard to help deer
survive the
winter—an internal physiological
response which lowers their metabolism, or rate
of bodily functioning, and hence slows down
their expenditure of energy. The deer
become
somewhat slow and drowsy. The heart rate drops.
Animals that hibernate
practice energy
conservation to a greater extreme than deer do.
Although deer don't
hibernate, they do the
same thing with their seasonal rhythms in
metabolism. Deer
spend more energy and store
fat in the summer and fall when food is abundant,
and
spend less energy and use stored fat in
the winter when food is less available.
When the
in a cabin on the edge of an area
where deer spend the winter in northern Minnesota,
observing the deer as their behavior changed
from more activity in summer and fall
to less
as winter progressed, followed by an increase
again in the spring as the
snow melted. It was
interesting and rather amusing to listen to the
advice given
on the radio:
stay warm, and
turn the thermostat on your furnace
deer
reduce their activity, grow a winter coat of hair,
and reduce their metabolism
as they have for
thousands of years. It is biologically reasonable
for deer to reduce
their cost of living to
increase their chance of surviving in winter.
Not every winter is critical for deer of course.
If the winter has light snow,
survival and
productivity next spring will be high. But if deep
snows come and the
weather remains cold for
several weeks, then the deer must spend more
energy to move
about, food will be harder to
find, and they must then depend more on their fat
reserves to pull them through. If such
conditions go on for too long some will die,
and only the largest and strongest are likely
to survive. That is a fundamental rule
of life
for wild, free wandering animal such as deer.
Yes, life—and death, too -- is a cycle that goes
round and round, and when
animals die their
bodies become food for other life forms to use by
converting them
into energy.
And the cycle
continues.
有什么是我们能从鹿身上学到的吗?在1973-1974年的“能源危
机”期间,本文作者正住在明尼苏达
北部,能够观察当冬天来临时,鹿如何生存。他从鹿储存能量的方法
上得到的经验也能够运用到我们的日
常生活中。
鹿和能量循环
有些人说,爱情驱使
世界运转;另一些并不那么罗曼蒂克而更为注重实际的人则说,不是爱情,而是
金钱。但真实情况是,能
量驱使世界运转。能量是生态系统的货币,只有当食物转变为能量,能量再用来
获取更多的食物以供生长
、繁殖和生存,生命才成为可能。所有生命都维系在这一循环上。
差不多众所周知,野生动物得以年复
一年地生存下去,主要依靠在夏秋生长旺季尽量多吃,通常将多
余的部分以脂肪的形式储存起来,然后到
了冬天食物稀少的艰难时期,就用这些储备的脂肪来维持生命。
然而,很可能鲜为人知的是,即使有储备
的脂肪,野生动物在冬天消耗的能量比夏天要少。
一个很好的例证是白尾鹿。与大多数野生动物一样,
鹿在营养丰富、食物充足的夏秋两季,繁殖、生
长并储存脂肪。一只成熟健壮的母鹿,在十一月份怀胎,
五月底或六月初生下两只幼鹿,这时,它必须寻
找食物以获得必要的能量,这不仅是为了满足自身的需要
,而且也是为了给幼鹿生产乳汁。产乳的最佳期
也正是植物生长茂盛之时。这个时机选择得很好,因为乳
汁生产是一个消耗能量的过程——它需要大量的
食物,除非该地区具有丰富的食物资源,
否则无法满足这种消耗。
夏季一天天过去,幼鹿日渐生长,它们变得较少依赖母鹿的乳汁,而更加依靠
生长中的植物为其食物
来源。雄性成鹿在夏天生长鹿角并养肥身体。在秋天,雄鹿和雌鹿都继续进食高质
量食物,贮存体内脂肪,
以备过冬。至于雌鹿和幼鹿,由于大量的能量用于产奶或生长,脂肪的积累速度
不如完全成熟的雄鹿快。
脂肪储备如同银行里的存款,供冬天食物来源不足时和有时由于雪深难以获得时
,支取使用。
随着秋去冬来,还会发生其他变化: 幼鹿失去皮毛上的斑纹,所有鹿身上的毛长厚,颜
色变深。毛皮
的变化通常持续到9月。到??11月或12月天气变冷时,毛长得最厚。
此外
,大自然还为鹿提供进一步的保护以帮助它们度过冬天——体内生理机能作相应调节,放慢新陈
代谢,亦
即生理活动的速度,从而降低能量的消耗。鹿变得有点动作迟缓、嗜睡。它们的心率减慢。冬眠
的动物保
存能量的习性胜过鹿。虽然鹿不冬眠,但他们随季节改变新陈代谢节奏的习性则是一样的。夏秋
间,食物
充裕的时候,鹿消耗较多的能量并储存脂肪。在冬天食物匮乏时,它们则消耗较少的能量并使用
储存的脂
肪。
1973-1974年间,第一次出现“能源危机”的时候,我正与家人住在明尼苏达州北部一处
鹿群过冬地
方的边缘地带。我们住在一个小屋里,观察鹿的生活习性,观察它们是如何随着冬季来临从夏
秋的活动频
繁状态而变得少动的,而到春暖雪融时,他们的活动又是如何增多起来的。
当时广
播电台常告诫我们:“没有必要不开车,”“多穿衣服好保暖,并请调低锅炉上的恒温器。”
这些话听起
来既有趣又逗笑。因为与此同时,我们一直注视着鹿减少活动,长出越冬的厚毛,并减缓新陈
代谢。几千
年来,他们一贯如此。鹿减少生存所需的能耗以增加越冬生存的机会,从生物学角度来看是合
情合理的。
当然,对鹿来讲,并非每个冬天都处于危难之中。如果冬天雪下得少,存活率和次年春天的繁殖力就高。但如果雪积得深,天气连续数周寒冷,鹿活动起来就得花费较多的能量,觅食会更难,这时它们就得更多地依赖其脂肪储备度过寒冬。如果这种情况持续太久,有些鹿就要死亡,只有体型最大最壮的,才有可能存活。对于像鹿这样四处自由奔走的野生动物来说,这是一条根本的生存规律。
的确,生命—
—还有死亡——周而复始,循环不已。当动物死亡的时候,他们的尸体转化为能量,变
成食物,供其他生
命形式使用。
如此循环,永不止息。
Unit
3
Text
Can you prove that the earth is
round? Go ahead and try! Will you rely on your
senses or will you have to draw on the
opinions of experts?
WHY DO WE BELIEVE
THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND?
George Orwell
Somewhere or other — I think
it is in the preface to saint Joan — Bernard Shaw
remarks that we are more gullible and
superstitious today than we were in the Middle
Ages, and as an example of modern credulity he
cites the widespread belief that the
earth is
round. The average man, says Shaw, can advance not
a single reason for
thinking that the earth is
round. He merely swallows this theory because
there is
something about it that appeals to
the twentieth-century mentality.
Now, Shaw
is exaggerating, but there is something in what he
says, and the
question is worth following up,
for the sake of the light it throws on modern
knowledge. Just why do we believe that the
earth is round? I am not speaking of the
few
thousand astronomers, geographers and so forth who
could give ocular proof, or
have a theoretical
knowledge of the proof, but of the ordinary
newspaper-reading
citizen, such as you
or me.
As for the Flat Earth theory, I
believe I could refute it. If you stand by the
seashore on a clear day, you can see the masts
and funnels of invisible ships passing
along
the horizon. This phenomenon can only be explained
by assuming that the earth's
surface is
curved. But it does not follow that the earth is
spherical. Imagine another
theory called the
Oval Earth theory, which claims that the earth is
shaped like an
egg. What can I say against it?
Against the Oval Earth man, the first card
I can play is the analogy of the sun
and moon.
The Oval Earth man promptly answers that I don't
know, by my own observation,
that those bodies
are spherical. I only know that they are round,
and they may
perfectly well be flat discs. I
have no answer to that one. Besides, he goes on,
what reason have I for thinking that the earth
must be the same shape as the sun
and moon? I
can't answer that one either.
My second
card is the earth's shadow: When cast on the moon
during eclipses,
it appears to be the shadow
of a round object. But how do I know, demands the
Oval
Earth man, that eclipses of the moon are
caused by the shadow of the earth? The answer
is that I don't know, but have taken this
piece of information blindly from newspaper
articles and science booklets.
Defeated in the minor exchanges, I now play my
queen of trumps: the opinion of
the experts.
The Astronomer Royal, who ought to know, tells me
that the earth is
round. The Oval Earth man
covers the queen with his king. Have I tested the
Astronomer
Royal's statement, and would I even
know a way of testing it? Here I bring out my
ace. Yes, I do know one test. The astronomers
can foretell eclipses, and this suggests
that
their opinions about the solar system are pretty
sound. I am, to my delight,
justified in
accepting their say-so about the shape of the
earth.
If the Oval Earth man answers —
what I believe is true — that the ancient
Egyptians, who thought the sun goes round the
earth, could also predict eclipses,
then bang
goes my ace. I have only one card left:
navigation. People can sail ship
round the
world, and reach the places they aim at, by
calculations which assume that
the earth is
spherical. I believe that finishes the Oval Earth
man, though even then
he may possibly have
some kind of counter.
It will be seen that my
reasons for thinking that the earth is round are
rather
precarious ones. Yet this is an
exceptionally elementary piece of information. On
most other questions I should have to fall
back on the expert much earlier, and
would be
less able to test his pronouncements. And much the
greater part of our
knowledge is at this
level. It does not rest on reasoning or on
experiment, but
on authority. And how can it
be otherwise, when the range of knowledge is so
vast
that the expert himself is an ignoramus
as soon as he strays away from his own
specialty? Most people, if asked to prove that
the earth is round, would not even
bother to
produce the rather weak arguments I have outlined
above. They would start
off by saying that the
earth to be round, and if pressed further,
would become angry. In a way Shaw is right.
This is a credulous age, and the burden
of
knowledge which we now have to carry is partly
responsible.
你能证明地球是圆的吗?来试试看吧!你将依靠你自己的智力还是不得不引用专家的观点呢?
我们为什么相信地球是圆的?
记得在什么地方——我想是在《圣女贞德》序言
中——肖伯纳评论说,今天我们比在中世纪时更加轻
信,更加迷信。而作为现代轻信的例证,他举出地圆
说这一广为传播的信念。肖伯纳说,普通人举不出一
条理由来说明为什么相信地球是圆的。他全盘接受这
一理论,只是因为这一理论中有一种迎合20世纪心态
的东西。
当然,肖伯纳是夸大其词了,
但他说的也确实有些道理,这一问题值得进一步探讨,因为它会帮助人
们看清现代知识的真实情况。我们
究竟为什么会相信地球是圆的呢?我说的不是数千位天文学家、地理学家
之类的人,他们可以用观察到的
事实或用理论上的根据来证实这一点,我指的是如同你我之辈的报纸的普
通读者。
至于“地平
说”,我相信我能够加以驳斥。如果你在天气晴朗的日子站立海边,你可以看到船桅和烟
囱沿着地平线移
动而不见船体本身。只有假设地球表面呈曲线状,这一现象才能得到解释。但不能由此推
断地球是球形的
。设想另一个称做“地球卵形说”的理论吧,这一学说声称地球形如蛋状。对此,我能说
什么加以反驳呢
?
面对“地球卵形说”者,我能打的第一张牌是,可以根据太阳和月亮来类推。“地球卵形说”者立即
回敬道,我无法根据自己的观察得知那些天体是球形的。我只能得知他们是圆的,而它们完全可能呈扁平
的圆盘状。我对此无言以答。此外,他还会说,我凭什么理由认为地球一定与太阳和月亮的形状相同?对
此,
我同样无法解答。
我的第二张牌是地球的影子: 月食期间,地球投在月亮上的影子看上
去呈圆形物体状。但“地球卵形
说”者马上要问,我怎么知道月食是由地球的影子造成的呢?回答是,我
并不知道,我只是照搬报刊文章和
科普小册子上的说法而已。
小小交锋受挫,于是我打出一张王牌“Q”: 专家的看法。英国格林威治皇家天文台台长总该是权威<
br>了,他告诉我说地球是圆的。“地球卵形说”者用他的“K”牌压倒我的“Q”牌。天文台台长的话我检验
过没有?再说,我知道怎么个检验法吗?这时候,我打出我的“爱司”。是的,我确实知道一个检验方法
。
天文学家能预报月食,这一点表明他们关于太阳系的看法是非常可信的。因此,令我高兴的是,我接受
他
们关于地球形状的论断是有道理的。
如果“地球卵形说”者反驳道——我以为他反驳得有理
——认为太阳绕地球转的古代埃及人也能预
言月食,那我的“爱司”牌便立刻化为乌有。我只剩下一张牌
: 航海。人们可以扬帆绕地球航行而到达他
们的目的地,其航程的计算,就是以地球是球形的假定为依
据的。我相信这一下可以彻底击败“地球卵形
说”者了。不过即便如此,他还可能有某种回击的办法。
由此可见,我认为地球是圆的,其根据是相当不牢靠的。然而这却是一点极其基本的知识。在别的大多数问题上,我只得更早地依赖专家的理论,且更少有办法检验他的结论了。我们的知识,其绝大部分都停留在这一水平上。它不是依靠推理或实验,而是依赖权威。可是,不这样,又有什么别的法子呢?知识的<
br>范围如此广博,一旦越出其专业范围,专家也会变成一无所知。对大多数人来说,如果要他们证明地球是<
br>圆的话,就连我上面概述的这些相当无力的论据,他们也不愿提供出来。他们一开始就会说: 谁都知道地
球是圆的。要是再加追问,就会生气了。在某种程度上讲,肖伯纳是说对了,如今是一个轻信的时代。究
其缘由,部分在于,我们现今必须掌握的知识实在太多了。
Unit 4
Text
On September 11, 2001, a series
of suicide attacks on the United States took
place. Foreign hijackers took control of four
. airliners. Two were crashed into
the World
Trade Center. The third aircraft was crashed into
the Pentagon. The fourth,
intended, it is
thought, for another government target, crashed
into a field,
apparently after passenger
resistance. This is the story of one of those
passengers
Flight 93:What I never
know
Sunday, September 9, 2001,
was a good day for the three of us. Emmy was just
11 weeks old and we were enjoying her
enormously. After three miscarriages in two
years, she was doubly precious to us. My
husband, Jeremy, who was thinking of changing
jobs, had gone on two interviews and felt they
went well. Since Sunday was rainy,
we just lay
around our house in northern New Jersey. We
laughed a lot, and watched
Emmy, and then went
to bed early.
The next day, September 10,
was busy, with Jeremy due to fly from Newark to
California on business. I would take Emmy up
to my parents’ house in Windham, New
York, and
he could meet us there when he returned.
For some reason he particularly wanted to take
care of Emmy that morning. So
he fed her and
bathed and dressed her. He packed up both our
cars, made sure Emmy
was tucked into her car
seat, and kissed her. Then he stood waving as we
drove off.
When I got to Windham, Jeremy
called. His flight to San Francisco had been
canceled. He didn’t want to take the next
available flight and get in at 2 .“Screw
it,”
he said. “I’m going to go home, get a good
night’s sleep, and get up early
tomorrow.” He
would grab the first flight out of Newark. United
Flight 93.
Tuesday morning found me in
the kitchen, fumbling with the lid of the doughnut
box, when I heard my father say something
about the World Trade Center. I looked
in the
living room at the TV, and saw the image of the
fire poking through the
blackened holes in the
tower’s silver skin. The phone rang, and my dad
said into
it, “Oh, thank God it’s you.” I ran
into the living room. He held out the phone,
his face pale. “Jeremy,” he said.
I
grabbed the phone.“Jer”I said.
“Hi”he
said.“Listen,there are some bad men on the plane
.”
“What do you mean?”
“These
three guys took over the plane. They put on these
red headbands. They
said they had a bomb.”
I was crying now.
“I love
you,” he said.
“I love you,” I said.
“only have good thoughts”
I
was shaking and nauseated, but I also knew I could
make myself do whatever
was necessary to help
Jeremy.
“I don’t think I’m going to make
it out of here,” he said. And then, “I
don’t
want to die.” And he cursed.
“You’re not
going to die,” I told him. “Jer, put a picture of
me and Emmy
in your head and only have really
good thoughts.”
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Don’t think about anything bad,” I said.
“You’ve got to promise me you’re going to
be happy,” he said. “For Emmy
to know how much
I love her. And that whatever decisions you make
in your life, no
matter what, I’ll support
you.”
After a pause, Jeremy said to me,
“A passenger said they’re crashing planes
into
the World Trade Center. Is that true?”
“Are they going to blow the plane
up or are they going to crash it into
something?” he almost screamed at me.
“They’re not going to the World Trade Center,” I
said.
“Because the whole thing’s on
fire.”
He said there were maybe 30 or 35
passengers, herded to the back. For some reason,
however, no one was guarding them back there.
“What about the pilots?” I asked him. “Has
there been any communication?”
“No. These
guys just stood up and yelled and ran into the
cockpit. After that,
we didn’t hear from the
pilots.”
Just then, we saw something on
TV about a plane crashing into the Pentagon,
and I thought, thank God it isn’t Jeremy’s
plane.
When I told him about this new
attack, Jeremy cursed again. The Pentagon was
probably the jolt that made him see clearly
that his fate and that of his fellow
passengers in the rear of the plane were
completely in their own hands. “Okay, I’m
going to take a vote,” he said. “There’s three
other guys as big as me and we’re
thinking of
attacking the guy with the bomb. What do you
think?”
“No, I didn’t see guns. I saw
knives.” He joked, “I still have my butter
knife from breakfast.” There was a pause, and
then he said, “I know I could take
the guy
with the bomb. Do you think it’s really a bomb?”
I don’t think so. I think they’re
bluffing you.”
“Okay, I’m going to do it,”
Jer said
“screams in the background”
“I think you need to do it,” I told him. “You’re
strong, you’re brave, I
love you.”
“Okay,
I’m going to put the phone down, I’m going to
leave it here, and I’m
going to come right
back to it,”
When my father put the phone to
his ear, he heard nothing on the line for two
or three minutes. Then he heard screams off in
the background. And he thought,
They’re doing
it. It was bound to be noisy. Perhaps a minute and
a half later, there
was another set of
screams, muffled, like people on a roller coaster.
Then silence
I sat on the living room couch
and all my energy seemed to have deserted me.
After a while, I got up and headed for the
kitchen and almost collided with my dad,
who
was coming the other way. He must have just hung
up the phone. He was crying.
He gave me a hug.
I watched him cry, a bit dumbfounded.
Wait,
you think he’s dead?” I said.
He couldn’t
manage anything but to cry harder. I must have
asked the same
question five times. And then,
when it finally sank in, I collapsed on the floor。
“searching for Jeremy”
Over the next
months, I spent a lot of time searching for
Jeremy. Often I heard his
voice in my head,
comforting me when my pain was almost
unendurable. I visited the crash site. I
hungered to know what had happened on Flight
93 and why Jeremy died.
Now I find that my
viewpoint has changed. Not that I don’t want to
know what
happened. It’s just that I’m sure I
will never really make sense of September 11.
Did someone declare war on us for a
principle? Because they were jealous? To show
how tough they were? Did we in this country
somehow overstep, push too hard, tread
on
ancient sensibilities? The world Jeremy and I knew
was never more than the rooms
we lived in, a
few places we walked, a few friends and family we
loved. Now it’s
gone, and no one could ever
really make sense of why.
I think Jeremy
always suspected he had a higher purpose. I don’t
believe it
was an accident that he was on
Flight 93. It wasn’t mere luck that an airline
passenger with precisely the right physical
skills to abort one of the terror
missions
happened to be on the only plane hijacked that day
where there was an
opportunity to do that.
Jeremy was 31 when he died, had been married
to me for five years and knew his
daughter for
barely three months. Yet I consider us blessed. He
and I left nothing
unsaid or undone, and he
managed to give Emmy and me everything we need.
And sometimes,
when I’m watching and
listening, I can still feel him near me, leading
me forward
into the rest of my life.
2001年
9月11日,在美国发生了一系列自杀式的袭击事件。外国的劫机者控制了四架美国的航空公司的
飞机,
两架撞入世界贸易中心,第三架冲进五角大楼,而第四架据传原本要袭击另一政府目标,但显然由
于遭到
乘客的反抗而坠毁于一片田地里。本文说的便是其中一位乘客的故事。
第93次航班:我所无法理解的事
莉兹·格里克?? 丹·泽加特
2001年9月
9日是星期日,对我们三个人来说,是个美好的日子。埃米刚有11周大,我们极其喜欢她。
她是我在两
年内经过连续三次流产后生下的,所以对我们更为珍贵。我的丈夫杰里米当时正考虑换个工作,
已经面试
过两次,自己感觉进行得还顺利。周日那天下雨,我们就在我们位于新泽西北部的自家屋内闲躺
着。我们
嬉笑着,照看着埃米,随后就早早就寝了。
次日,9月10日,我们忙碌起来,杰里米将从纽瓦克飞往
加利福尼亚出差。我将带埃米北上去纽约州温
德姆我父母的家中。这样,杰里米回来时可以去那里接我们
。
那天早晨,不知什么原因,他特想要照料埃米。他给她喂奶、给她洗澡、给她穿衣。他把两辆车的行
李都装好,把埃米在汽车座椅上安置妥当,并吻了吻她。而后当我们开车离开时他站到一边挥手告别。
我到达温德姆时,杰里米打来电话。他飞往旧金山的航班被取消了。他不打算搭乘下一班飞机在凌晨两点到达目的地。“该死,”他说。“我想回家,美美地睡上一夜,明天早点起身。”他将赶上第一班航班飞离纽瓦克。联合航空公司的第93次航班。
星期二早晨我正在厨房里设法打开一盒炸圈饼的
盒盖时,听到父亲在说什么世贸中心的事。我向起居
室的电视瞧去,看见屏幕上出现了从世贸中心大楼的
银色外墙上被燻黑的洞中窜出的大火。这时电话响了,
父亲对着话筒说道,“哦,感谢上帝,是你啊。”
我跑进起居室,父亲脸色苍白地把话筒递了过来。“是
杰里米,”他说。
我夺过话筒,说道,“杰尔。” “你好,”他说。“听着,飞机上有几个坏蛋。”“什么?”“三个<
br>家伙控制了飞机。他们头上戴着红色的束发带,声称带着一颗炸弹。”我当即哭了。“我爱你,”他说。<
br>“我爱你,”我说。
“只往好处想”
我浑身颤抖,想要呕吐,可同时我很清楚,我还是可以尽一切可能帮助杰里米的。
“我感到我是无法从这儿活着出去了,”他说。随后他又说,“我可不想死。”接着他咒骂起来。
“你不会死的,”我对他说。“杰尔,心里就装着我和埃米吧,只往好处去想。”
“好,”他回答道。“不要去想那些糟糕的事,”我说。
“你得答应我,你将来要高高兴兴地
生活下去,”他说。“务必让埃米知道我非常爱她。不论你将来
作出什么决定,我都支持
你。”稍停片刻,杰里米又对我说,“一位乘客说他们正在用飞机撞击世贸中心,
这是真的吗?”
我正站在起居室里看着电视上播放此事,心想:我是否该告诉他?
“他们想要炸毁这架飞机呢,还是想用它去撞击什么东西?”他几乎在对我大声喊叫道。
“他们不会去撞世贸中心了,”我说。“为什么?”“因为整个世贸中心都在燃烧了。”
他说约有30到35位乘客,都被驱赶到客舱的后部,但,不知怎的,却无人看管他们。
“那么驾驶员们的情况如何?”我问道。“你们之间联络过没有?”
“没有。那几个家伙就这
么站了起来,喊叫着冲进了驾驶舱。后来就再也没有听到有关驾驶员们的情
况。”
正在那时,我们从电视上看到一架飞机撞进了五角大楼。心想,上帝保佑那不是杰里米的飞机。
我把新发生的这次攻击告 了杰里米,他再次咒骂起来。五角大楼一事可能使他受到极大震惊,使他认<
br>清他和待在客舱后面的其他乘客的命运完全掌握在他们自己的手中。“好,我这就去进行表决,”他说。<
br>“另外有三个身材和我一样高大的人,我们打算去袭击那个带炸弹的家伙。你看行吗?”
“他们有枪吗?”我问道。
“没有,我没有看到枪。我见到刀子。”他开玩笑说,“我这里还
有早餐用的牛油刀呢。”停了一会
儿,他说,“我想我可以制服那个带炸弹的家伙。你觉得那是一颗真的
炸弹吗?”
“我认为不是真的炸弹,那是在吓唬你们。”
“行,我这就去干,”杰尔说。
“隐隐约约的尖叫声”
“我觉得你必须去干,”我对他说。“你身强力壮,又勇敢,我爱你。”
“好,我这就把话筒
搁下离开这儿,我会马上回来再拿起它的,”杰尔说。我把话筒递给父亲,跑进
盥洗室,在水池上呕吐起
来。
我父亲把话筒放到耳边,有两三分钟光景什么都听不到。而后他听到隐隐约约的尖叫声。他想,
他们
正干上了。这必然会引起喧闹。隔了约莫一分半钟,又传来一阵低沉的尖叫声,就像人们坐过山车时
发出
的叫声那样。随后便沉寂了下来。
我坐在起居室的长沙发上,浑身乏力。过了一会儿,我
起身向厨房走去,几乎与从相反方向走来的父
亲相撞。他想必刚挂上电话,他在哭泣。他拥抱了我。我瞧
着他哭着,我有点麻木了。
“等一等,你是不是认为他死了?”我说。
他除了放声大哭之外
再也说不出话来。我大概重复问了五次之多。接着,当我终于明白过来之后,我
瘫倒在地上。
“寻找杰里米”
在接下的几个月里,我花了大量时间寻觅杰里米。每当我痛楚万分之际,我常
听到他在耳边安慰我的
声音。我去了飞机坠毁的地方。我渴求了解第93次航班上发生的事情以及杰里米
为何而身故。
如今我发现我已改变了看法。不是因为我不想了解到底发生了什么,而恰恰是我相信我
将永远不可能
真正理解911事件。是否有人出于某种原则性的问题向我们宣战了?或是他们出于妒忌?
或是他们想炫耀其
强悍?是否我们这个国家的人越轨了,做得过分了,伤及了人家自古而来的情感?杰里
米和我所熟悉的世
界只不过是我们所居住的房子、几处散步的地方、几个朋友以及我们所热爱的家人。如
今一切全完了,但
却始终无人能真正弄清这到底是怎么回事。
我觉得杰里米一直认为他生来就
肩负有崇高使命。我也并不认为杰里米乘坐上第93次航班是出于偶然。
一位具有足够挫败恐怖行径体能
的旅客正好搭乘了那天被劫持的飞机中唯一一个可以有机会进行反击劫机
者的航班,这不仅仅是一种巧合
。
杰里米去世时31岁,和我结婚了五年,和他的女儿相处了三个月都不到。可我认为我们是幸福的。
他
与我之间未留下任何未尽之言或未竟之事。他总是努力给埃米和我带来我们所需的一切。有时,当我留
神
观察和倾听时,我仍然能感到他就在我的身边,在我有生之年指引我向前。
Unit 5
Text
Is it ever proper for a
medical doctor to lie to his patient? Should he
tell
a patient he is dying? These questions
seem simple enough, but it is not so simple
to
give a satisfactory answer to them. Now a new
light is shed on them.
TO LIE OR
NOT TOLIE—
THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA
Sissela Bok
Should doctors ever lie to
benefit their patients -- to speed recovery or to
conceal the approach of death? In medicine as
in law, government, and other lines
of work,
the requirements of honesty often seem dwarfed by
greater needs: the need
to shelter from brutal
news or to uphold a promise of secrecy; to expose
corruption
or to promote the public interest.
What should doctors say, for example, to a
46-year-old man coming in for a routine
physical checkup just before going on vacation
with his family who, though he feels
in
perfect health, is found to have a form of cancer
that will cause him to die within
six months?
Is it best to tell him the truth? If he asks,
should the doctors deny
that he is ill, or
minimize the gravity of the illness? Should they
at least conceal
the truth until after the
family vacation?
Doctors confront such
choices often and urgently. At times, they see
important
reasons to lie for the patient's own
sake; in their eyes, such lies differ sharply
from self-serving ones.
Studies show
that most doctors sincerely believe that the
seriously ill do not
want to know the truth
about their condition, and that informing them
risks
destroying their hope, so that they may
recover more slowly, or deteriorate faster,
perhaps even commit suicide. As one physician
wrote:
traditionally has been guided by a
precept that transcends the virtue of uttering
the truth for truth's sake, and that is 'as
far as possible do no harm.'
Armed with
such a precept, a number of doctors may slip into
deceptive practices
that they assume will
prescribe innumerable placebos, sound more
encouraging than the facts warrant, and
distort grave news, especially to the
incurably ill and the dying.
But the
illusory nature of the benefits such deception is
meant to produce is
now coming to be
documented. Studies show that, contrary to the
belief of many
physicians, an overwhelming
majority of patients do want to be told the truth,
even
about grave illness, and feel betrayed
when they learn that they have been misled.
We
are also learning that truthful information,
humanely conveyed, helps patients
cope with
illness: helps them tolerate pain better, need
less medicine, and even
recover faster after
surgery.
Not only do lies not provide the
deception; they invade the autonomy of
patients and render them unable to make
informed choices concerning their own health,
including the choice of whether to
be patient
in the first place. We are becoming increasingly
aware of all that can
befall patients in the
course of their illness when information is denied
or
distorted.
Dying patients
especially -- who are easies to mislead and most
often kept in
the dark -- can then not make
decisions about the end of life: about whether or
not
they should enter a hospital, or have
surgery; about where and with whom they should
spend their remaining time; about how they
should bring their affairs to a close
and take
leave.
Lies also do harm to those who tell
them: harm to their integrity and, in the
long
run, to their credibility. Lies hurt their
colleagues as well. The suspicion
of deceit
undercuts the work of the many doctors who are
scrupulously hones with
their patients; it
contributes to the spiral of lawsuits and of
medicine,
and thus it injures, in turn, the
entire medical profession.
Sharp conflicts
are now arising. Patients are learning to press
for answers.
Patients' bills of rights require
that they be informed about their condition and
about alternatives for treatment. Many doctors
go to great lengths to provide such
information. Yet even in hospitals with the
most eloquent bill of rights, believers
in
benevolent deception continue their age-old
practices. Colleagues may disapprove
but
refrain from objecting. Nurses may bitterly resent
having to take part, day
after day, in
deceiving patients, but feel powerless to take a
stand.
There is urgent need to debate this
issue openly. Not only in medicine, but
in
other professions as well, practitioners may find
themselves repeatedly in
difficulty where
serious consequences seem avoidable only through
deception. Yet
the public has every reason to
be wary of professional deception, for such
practices
are peculiarly likely to become
deeply rooted, to spread, and to erode trust.
Neither
in medicine, nor in law, government,
or the social sciences can there be comfort
in
the old saying,
医生可以对病人撒谎吗?医生应该告诉病人他已经病入
膏肓了吗?这些问题看起来很简单,但是要给出
令人满意的回答却并不那么简单。
撒谎还是不撒谎——医生的难题
为了对病人有好处——为了加快病人康复或不让病人知道死亡
的来临——医生到底该不该撒谎?医疗
行业与法律、政府及其他行业一样,往往显得对诚实与否的问题不
那么看重,要紧的倒是另外的一些事情,
譬如,应设法避免可怕的消息造成的打击,或是应考虑恪守保密
的诺言,或是需要揭露腐败行为或促进公
众利益等。
举例说吧。一个46岁的男子,在与家人
外出度假之前进行常规体格检查,虽然他自我感觉良好,但
医生发现他患了某种癌症,6个月内就会死去
。这时,医生该怎么对他讲呢?是不是最好对他讲实话?要是
他问起检查结果,医生该不该否认他得了病
?该不该将病情的严重性缩小到最低限度?该不该将真情至少隐
瞒到他全家度假之后?
医生们
常常面临这样的非常紧迫的选择。他们不时认为,为了病人自身的利益,撒谎很有必要,在他
们看来,这
种谎言与利己的谎言截然不同。
研究结果表明,大多数医生深信身患重病的人不想知道他们的真实病情
,如果将真情相告,则有可能
使他们完全失去希望,结果使他们恢复得更慢或恶化得更快,甚至会自寻短
见。正如一位内科医生写道:
“我们这个职业,传统上恪守一条信条,那就是:'尽可能不造成伤害',
这一信条胜过为讲真话而讲真话
的美德”。
有了这样一个指导原则,一些医生可能渐渐习惯于
采用他们认为对病人很可能有益而“无害”的骗人
做法。他们可能开出无数帖安慰剂,说一些没有事实根
据的打气的话,并歪曲严重的病情,对那些患有不
治之症和濒临死亡的病人,则尤其如此
。
然而,现在开始有人提出证据,说明这种欺骗旨在给病人带来好处的说法是虚幻的。研究结果表明,
与许多医生的想法相反,绝大多数病人确实想知道真实情况,甚至是严重的病情。当他们了解到医生没有
对他们讲真话的时候,他们感到自己被玩弄了。我们还获悉,将真实情况妥当地告诉病人,能帮助他们与
病魔作斗争,有助于他们更好地忍受疼痛,减少用药,甚至在手术后更快地康复。
谎言不仅不
能提供鼓吹“仁慈”欺骗的人们所希望的那种“帮助”,它还侵犯了病人的个人自由,使
他们不能对有关
自己健康的问题作出明达的选择,包括要不要就医这一首要的选择。我们越来越意识到,
病人发病期间,
在不知病情或未被如实地告知病情的情况下,他们会遭到什么样的不幸。
特别是濒临死亡的病人——他
们最易受骗也最会被人蒙在鼓里——因此而不能作出临终前的种种有
关抉择: 是否要住进医院,或进行
手术,在何处与何人度过所剩下的一点时间,以及如何处理完自己的事
务而后与世长辞。
谎言
也伤害说谎的人,损害他们的诚实,并最终损害他们的信誉。谎言还伤害他们的同事。由于病人
怀疑有欺
骗行为,许多对病人十分开诚布公的医生的工作也因此受到影响。病人的不信任使医疗诉讼案增
多,造成
医生避免风险的“防御性诊治”增多,而这些又进而有损于整个医疗事业。
剧烈的冲突正在出现。病人
开始学会催问真实情况。根据病人应享有的权利的规定,医生应将病情和
可供选择的治疗方案通告病人。
许多医生尽可能向病人提供这些情况。然而,即使在对病人的权益考虑得
最周到的医院里,信奉“仁慈”
欺骗的医生们继续他们传统的古老做法。同事们也许不赞同,但避免公开
表示反对。护士们对不得不日复
一日地参与欺骗病人的做法也许深恶痛绝,但要抵制却感到无能为力。
及时对这个问题进行公开辩论非
常必要。不仅在医疗业,而且在其他行业,从业者不断发现,自己常
处于似乎不采用欺骗手段就无法避免
严重后果的困难处境。但是公众完全有理由对职业性欺骗保持警惕,
因为这种做法特别容易变得根深蒂固
,蔓延滋长,并损害信任。无论医疗界、法律界、政府机构还是社会
科学界,都不应从“不知者,不为所
害”这句老话中得到丝毫慰藉。
Unit 6
Text
ever
mark in a book!Thousands of teachers, librarians
and parents have
so advised. But Mortimer
Adler disagrees. He thinks so long as you own the
book and
needn't preserve its physical
appearance, marking it properly will grant you the
ownership of the book in the true sense of the
word and make it a part of yourself.
HOW TO MARK A BOOK
Mortimer J.
Adler
You know you have to read
I want
to persuade you to do something equally important
in the course of your reading.
I want to
persuade you to between the you do, you are not
likely
to do the most efficient kind of
reading.
You shouldn't mark up a book
which isn't yours. Librarians (or your friends)
who lend you books expect you to keep them
clean, and you should. If you decide that
I am
right about the usefulness of marking books, you
will have to buy them.
There are two ways
in which one can own a book. The first is the
property right
you establish by paying for it,
just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But
this
act of purchase is only the prelude to
possession. Full ownership comes only when
you
have made it a part of yourself, and the best way
to make yourself a part of
it is by writing in
it. An illustration may make the point clear. You
buy a beefsteak
and transfer it from the
butcher's icebox to your own. But you do not own
the
beefsteak in the most important sense
until you consume it and get it into your
bloodstream. I am arguing that books,
too, must be absorbed in your bloodstream
to
do you any good.
There are three kinds of
book owners. The first has all the standard sets
and
best-sellers -- unread, untouched. (This
individual owns wood-pulp and ink, not
books.)
The second has a great many books -- a few of them
read through, most of
them dipped into, but
all of them as clean and shiny as the day they
were bought.
(This person would probably like
to make books his own, but is restrained by a
false
respect for their physical appearance.)
The third has a few books or many -- every
one
of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and
loosened by continual use, marked
and
scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns
books.)
Is it false respect, you may ask,
to preserve intact a beautifully printed book,
an elegantly bound edition? Of course not. I'd
no more scribble all over a first
edition of
Rembrandt! I wouldn't mark up a painting or a
statue. Its soul, so to speak, is
inseparable
from its body. And the beauty of a rare edition or
of a richly
manufactured volume is like that
of painting or a statue. If your respect for
magnificent binding or printing gets in the
way, buy yourself a cheap edition and
pay your
respects to the author.
Why is marking up
a book indispensable to reading? First, it keeps
you awake.
(And I don't mean merely conscious;
I mean wide awake.) In the second place, reading,
if it is active, is thinking, and thinking
tends to express itself in words, spoken
or
written. The marked book is usually the thought-
through book. Finally, writing
helps you
remember the thoughts you had, or the thoughts the
author expressed. Let
me develop these three
points.
If reading is to accomplish
anything more than passing time, it must be
active.
you can't let your eyes glide across
the lines of a book and come up with an
understanding of what you have read. Now an
ordinary piece of light fiction, like,
say,
with the Wind,doesn't require the most active kind
of reading. The books
you read for pleasure
can be read in a state of relaxation, and nothing
is lost.
But a great book, rich in ideas and
beauty, a book that raises and tries to answer
great fundamental questions, demands the most
active reading of which you are capable.
You
don't absorb the ideas of John Dewey the way you
absorb the crooning of Mr. Vallee.
You have to
reach for them. That you cannot do while you're
asleep.
If, when you've finished reading a
book, the pages are filled with your notes,
you know that you read actively. The most
famous active reader of great books I know
is
President Hutchins, of the University of Chicago.
He also has the hardest schedule
of business
activities of any man I know. He invariably read
with pencil, and
sometimes, when he picks up a
book and pencil in the evening, he finds himself,
instead of making intelligent notes, drawing
what he calls
the margins. When that happens,
he puts the book down. He knows he's too tired to
read, and he's just wasting time.
But,
you may ask, why is writing necessary? Well, the
physical act of writing,
with your own hand,
brings words and sentences more sharply before
your mind and
preserves them better in your
memory. To set down your reaction to important
words
and sentences you have read, and
the questions they have raised in your mind, is
to preserve those reactions and sharpen those
questions. You can pick up the book
the
following week or year, and there are all your
points of agreement, disagreement,
doubt and
inquiry. It's like resuming an interrupted
conversation with the advantage
of being able
to pick up where you left off.
And that is
exactly what reading a book should be: a
conversation between you
and the author.
Presumably he knows more about the subject than
you do; naturally
you'll have the proper
humility as you approach him. But don't let
anybody tell you
that a reader is supposed to
be solely on the receiving end. Understanding is a
two-way operation; learning doesn't consist in
being an empty receptacle. The
learner has to
question himself and question the teacher. He even
has to argue with
the teacher, once he
understands what the teacher is saying. And
marking a book is
literally an expression of
your differences, or agreements of opinion, with
the
author.
There are all kinds of
devices for marking a book intelligently and
fruitfully.
Here's the way I do it:
1.
Underlining: of major points, of important or
forceful statements.
2. Vertical lines at the
margin: to emphasize a statement already
underlined.
3. Star, asterisk, or other doo-
dad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to
emphasize
the ten or twenty most important
statements in the book.
4. Numbers in the
margin: to indicate the sequence of points the
author makes in
developing a single argument.
5. Number of other pages in the margin: to
indicate where else in the book the author
made points relevant to the point marked; to
tie up the ideas in a book, which, though
they
may be separated by many pages, belong together.
6. Circling of key words or phrases.
7.
Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of
the page, for the sake of:
recording questions
(and perhaps answers) which a passage raise in
your mind;
reducing a complicated discussion
to a simple statement; recording the sequence of
major points right through the book. I use the
end-papers at the back of the book
to make a
personal index of the author's points in the order
of their appearance.
The front end-papers are,
to me, the most important. Some people reserve
them
for a fancy bookplate, I reserve them for
fancy thinking. After I have finished
reading
the book and making my personal index on the back
end-papers, I turn to the
front and try to
outline the book, not page by page, or point by
point (I've already
done that at the back),
but as an integrated structure, with a basic unity
and an
order of parts. This outline is, to me,
the measure of my understanding of the work.
“
不要在书上做记号!”无数教师、图书管理员和家长都曾这样建议。但是莫蒂默·艾德勒并不同意。
他认
为只要你拥有这本书而且不需要保护它的外观,做记号将会让你真正意义上拥有这本书并且使它成为
你的
一部分。
怎样在书上做记号
你知道读书要“深入字里行间”,以求最充分的理解。我劝你在
读书过程中做一件同样重要的事情。
我想劝你“在字里行间写字”。不这样做,你的读书就不可能是最有
效的。
你不应该在不是你自己的书上做记号。借给你书的图书管理员 (或你的朋友) 希望你保持书
的整洁,
再说你也应该这样做。如果你认为我说的在书上做记号颇有益处这番话是对的话
,你就得自己买书。
一个人拥有书的方法有两种,第一种是花钱取得财产所有权,就像你花钱买衣服和
家具一样。但花钱
买书只是占有它的前奏。只有在你将它化为你自己的一部分之后,你才完全占有了它。
而把你自己变为书
的一部分的最好方法就是在书中写字。打个比方也许可以把这一点说清楚。你买下一块
牛排,把它从肉铺
的冰箱里转移到你的冰箱中。但从最重要的意义上来说,你还没有占有它,除非你吃下
它并将它吸收进你
的血液之中。我的论点是,书的营养也只有在被吸收进你的血液中时,才能对你有所裨
益。
书籍拥有者可以分为三种。第一种人藏有全部标准的成套书和畅销书——既没有读过,也没有碰过
。
(这位占有的只是纸浆和油墨,而不是书。) 第二种人藏书很多——有几本从头至尾读过,大部分浅
尝辄止,
但全都跟新买时一样整洁光亮。(此君很可能想使书真的为其所有,但因错误地过分关注书籍的
外观而裹足
不前。)第三种人藏书或多或少——因不断使用,每本书都弄成书角卷起,破旧不堪,装订破
损,书页松散,
全书从扉页至末页画满了记号,涂满了字句。(此人是书的真正拥有者。)
你
或许会问,将一本印刷精美、装帧雅致的书保存完好,难道也是不恰当的吗?当然不是。我决不会
在一本
初版的《失乐园》上乱涂乱写,就像我不会把一幅伦勃朗的原作连同一盒蜡笔交给我的婴孩任意涂
抹一样
!我决不会在一幅油画或一尊塑像上画记号。可以说,它们的灵魂与其躯体是不可分开的。一部珍本
或一
本装帧华美的书的美,同一幅油画或一尊塑像的美是一样的。如果你对华美的装帧或印刷的尊重妨碍
你读
书,那就买一种便宜的版本,将你的敬意献给作者。
为什么在书上做记号对阅读是必不可少的呢?首
先,它会使你保持清醒。(我不是仅仅指它让你
神志清醒;我的意思是它能使你全神贯注。)其次,如果
阅读是一种能动的行为,那么它就是思考,而思考
常常需借助口头的或书面的语言来表达。作了记号的书
,通常是读者认真思考过的书。最后,写可以帮助
你记住你阅读时的思想,或作者所表达的思想。让我进
一步就这三点谈一谈。
如果阅读的目的不仅仅是消磨时间,那就应该是一种积极的思维活动。
仅仅让你的眼睛在书上扫视一遍,你就不可能对所读的内容有所理解。当然,一部普通的消遣小说,
譬
如说《飘》,并不需要那种最积极的思维式的阅读。作为消遣的书,可以轻松地读而不会有所失。但一本
思想丰富、文字华美,试图提出带根本性的重大问题并加以回答的伟大着作,则要求你尽可能地进行最积
极的阅读。你不能像欣赏瓦利先生的低声吟唱那样,学到约翰·杜威的思想。你得花费气力方可获得。漫
不经心是做不到这一点的。
如果当你读完一本书的时候,书页上写满了你的批注,你就知道你的阅读是
积极的了。我所知道的最
有名的采用积极方式阅读伟大着作的人,是芝加哥大学的校长哈钦斯。他也是我
所知道的公务最繁忙的人。
他读书时总是拿着铅笔。有时,当他在晚上拿起书和铅笔的时候,发觉自己不
是在做有意义的笔记,而是
在页边空白处画些他称之为“鱼子酱工厂”的东西,一出现这种情况,他就放
下书本。他知道自己太累,
读不下去了,完全是在浪费时间。
但是,你或许会问,写有何必要
呢?要知道,亲手书写的动作会使词语和句子更加鲜明地呈现在你的
脑海里,更好地储存在你的记忆中。
将你对所读的重要词语和句子的感受写下来,将它们在你脑子里引起
的问题记下来,就可以将这些感受长
久保存下来,并可以使那些问题更加明确起来。当你下周或来年重新
拿起这本书的时候,你的各种观点,
同意的、反对的、怀疑的、质询的,统统一目了然。这如同谈话一度
被打断,现在又可以在上次停下的地
方接着谈下去了。
读书就该这么个读法: 你同作者应进行对话。很可能作者在有关的问题上比你懂
得多,你接近
他的时候表示适度的谦恭是很自然的。但不要轻信他人,以为读者只有全盘接受的份儿。理
解是一种双向
活动。学习并不是往空的容器中装东西。学生应当向自己也向教师提问题。一旦理解了教师
所讲的内容,
他甚至还得与教师展开争论。而在书上做记号,实际上就是表达你赞同或不赞同作者观点的
一种方式。
在书上做记号,有各种各样好的、行之有效的方法。现将我的做法叙述如下:
1. 在文字下面划线: 划出主要论点及重要的或者有力的论述。
2.
在页边空白处划竖线: 强调已划线的论述部分。
3.
在页边空白处画五星或六星记号,或其他小符号:
这种记号宜珍惜着用。可用来强调书中十处或
二十处最重要的论述。
4.
在页边空白处写数字: 标明作者展开一个论据的各点顺序。
5. 在页边空处写其他页的页码:
标明作者在本书其他地方所写的与本论点有关的论点,也可以
通过这一办法将书中虽分散各处,但密切有
关的观点联系起来。
6. 在关键字眼或短语上画圆圈。
7.
在页边空白处或上下两端加批注: 其目的是记下某段文章在你脑子里引起的问题 (也许还有答
案);
简要记下复杂的论述;记录贯串全书的一系列的重要论点。我利用书末的衬页将作者的观点按出现的
先后
次序编成一个索引。
书前的衬页对我来说是最重要的。有些人将它们留作贴花哨的藏书票用。我将它们
留作奇思异想的天
地。在我读完一本书并在卷尾衬页上做好我的个人索引之后,我便翻到卷首,试着将全
书作一概述,不是
逐页地或逐点地进行(那个我在卷尾已经做了),而是作为一个整体,基本上前后连贯
,各部分排列有序。
对我来说,这个概述表明了我对该着作理解的程度。
Unit
7
Text
A young man finds it very
difficult to say no to a woman as a result he gets
into trouble. The restaurant to which he has
agreed to take his luncheon date is
far too
expensive for his small pocketbook. How, then,
will he be able to avoid the
embarrassing
situation?
THE LUNCHEON
Maugham
I caught sight of her at the play,
and in answer to her beckoning I went over during
the interval and sat down beside her. It was
long since I had last seen her, and
if someone
had not mentioned her name I hardly think I would
have recognised her.
She addressed me
brightly.
getting any younger. Do you
remember the first time I saw you? You asked me to
luncheon.
Did I remember?
It
was twenty years ago and I was living in Paris. I
had a tiny apartment in
the Latin Quarter
overlooking a cemetery, and I was earning barely
enough money to
keep body and soul together.
She had read a book of mine and had written to me
about
it. I answered, thanking her, and
presently I received from her another letter
saying
that she was passing through Paris and
would like to have a chat with me; but her
time was limited, and the only free moment she
had was on the following Thursday;
she was
spending the morning at the Luxembourg and would I
give her a little luncheon
at Foyot's
afterwards? Foyot's is a restaurant at which the
French senators eat,
and it was so far beyond
my means that I had never even thought of going
there. But
I was flattered, and I was too
young to have learned to say no to a woman. (Few
men,
I may add, learn this until they are too
old to make it of any consequence to a woman
what they say.) I had eight francs (gold
francs) to last me the rest of the month,
and
a modest luncheon should not cost more than
fifteen. If I cut out coffee for
the next two
weeks I could manage well enough.
I
answered that I would meet my friend -- by
correspondence -- at Foyot's on
Thursday at
half past twelve. She was not so young as I
expected and in appearance
imposing
rather than attractive, she was, in fact, a woman
of forty (a charming age,
but not one that
excites a sudden and devastating passion at first
sight), and she
gave me the impression of
having more teeth, white and large and even, than
were
necessary for any practical purpose. She
was talkative, but since she seemed inclined
to talk about me I was prepared to be an
attentive listener.
I was startled when
the bill of fare was brought, for the prices were
a great
deal higher than I had anticipated.
But she reassured me.
little fish, perhaps. I wonder if they have
any salmon.
Well, it was early in the year
for salmon and it was not on the bill of fare,
but I asked the waiter if there was any. Yes,
a beautiful salmon had just come in,
it was
the first they had had. I ordered it for my guest.
The waiter asked her if
she would have
something while it was being cooked.
caviare. I never mind caviare.
My
heart sank a little. I knew I could not afford
caviare, but I could not very
well tell her
that. I told the waiter by all means to bring
caviare. For myself I
chose the cheapest dish
on the menu and that was a mutton chop.
I
think you are unwise to eat meat,she said. I don't
know how you can expect
to work after eating
heavy things like chops. I don't believe in
overloading my
stomach.
Then came the
question of drink.
white wines are so light. They're wonderful
for the digestion.
She gave me a
bright and amicable flash of her white teeth.
I fancy I turned a trifle pale. I ordered
half a bottle. I mentioned casually
that my
doctor had absolutely forbidden me to drink
champagne.
She ate the
caviare and she ate the salmon. She talked gaily
of art and literature
and music. But I
wondered what the bill would come to. When my
mutton chop arrived
she took me quite
seriously to task.
see that you're in the
habit of eating a heavy luncheon. I'm sure it's a
mistake.
Why don't you follow my example and
just eat one thing? I'm sure you'd feel ever
so much better for it.
bill of
fare.
She waved him aside with an airy
gesture.
no, I never eat anything
for luncheon. Just a bite, I never want more than
that, and I eat that more as an excuse for
conversation than anything else. I couldn't
possibly eat anything more unless they had
some of those giant asparagus. I should
be
sorry to leave Paris without having some of them.
My heart sank. I had seen them in the
shops, and I knew that they were horribly
expensive. My mouth had often watered at the
sight of them.
waiter.
I tried
with all my might too will him to say no. A happy
smile spread over his
broad, pries-like face,
and he assured me that they had some so large, so
splendid,
so tender, that it was a marvel.
not in the least hungry,my guest sighed,
if you insist I don't mind
having some
asparagus.
I ordered them.
by all the meat you eat.
We
waited for the asparagus to be cooked. Panic
seized me. It was not a question
now how much
money I should have left over for the rest of the
month, but whether
I had enough to pay the
bill. It would be embarrassing to find myself ten
francs
short and be obliged to borrow from my
guest. I could not bring myself to do that.
I
knew exactly how much I had, and if the bill came
to more I made up my mind that
I would put my
hand in my pocket and with a dramatic cry start up
and say it had
been picked. Of course, it
would be awkward if she had not money enough
either to
pay the bill. Then the only thing
would be to leave my watch and say I would come
back and pay later.
The asparagus
appeared. They were enormous, juicy, and
appetizing. I watched
the wicked woman thrust
them down her throat in large mouthfuls, and in my
polite
way I spoke about the condition of the
drama in the Balkans. At last the finished.
I was past caring now, so I
ordered coffee for myself and an ice-cream and
coffee
for her.
know, there's one
thing I thoroughly believe in,she said, as she ate
the
ice-cream. should always get up from a
meal feeling one could eat a little more.
in the morning and then dinner, but I
never eat more than one thing for luncheon.
I
was speaking for you.
Then a
terrible thing happened. While we were waiting for
the coffee the head
waiter, with an
ingratiating smile on his false face, came up to
us bearing a large
basket full of huge
peaches. They had the blush of an innocent girl;
they had the
rich tone of an Italian
landscape. But surely peaches were not in season
then? Lord
knew what they cost. I knew too --
a little later, for my guest, going on with her
conversation, absentmindedly took one.
little chop --
enjoy a peach.
The
bill came, and when I paid it I found that I had
only enough for a quite
inadequate tip. Her
eyes rested for an instant on the three francs I
left for the
waiter, and I knew that she
thought me mean. But when I walked out of the
restaurant
I had the whole month before me and
not a penny in my pocket.
thing for
luncheon.
do better than that,I retorted.
eat nothing for dinner tonight.
But I
have had my revenge at last. I do not believe that
I am a vindictive man,
but when the immortal
gods take a hand in matter it is pardonable to
observe the
result with complacency. Today she
weighs twenty-one stone.
一个年轻人发觉很难拒绝一位女士,他
因此陷入了困境。他同意进行午餐聚会的那家餐厅对他可怜的
荷包来说实在太昂贵了。那么怎样他才能避
免这种尴尬的处境呢?
午餐
萨默塞特·毛姆
我是在看戏的时候见到她的。幕间
休息时,我应她的招呼走了过去,在她旁边坐下。我上次见到她已
是很久以前的事了,要不是有人提起她
的名字,我想我几乎会认不出她来。她兴致勃勃地跟我谈了起来。
“瞧,自从我们初次相见已经好多年
了。真是光阴似箭啊!我俩都不年轻啦。你还记得我初次见到你
吗?你请我吃的午餐。”
我能不记得吗?
那是20年前的事了,当时我住在巴黎。我在拉丁区租了一套小小的公寓,从
那里往下看去是一个公
墓。我挣的钱只够勉强维持生活。她读过我的一本书,并曾跟我写信谈论该书。我
回信向她致谢。随即我
又收到她的一封信,说她路过巴黎,想跟我谈谈。但她的时间有限,只有下个星期
四有空。那天上午,她
要去卢森堡宫,问我是不是愿意中午请她在福伊约餐厅吃顿便饭。福伊约餐厅是法
国参议员光顾的地方,
去那儿吃饭远远超过我的经济能力,所以以前连想都没有想过。但我当时受宠若惊
,况且年纪太轻,还没
有学会对一位女士说个“不”字。(附带说一句,没有几个男人学会这一招,而到
他们学会时,往往年事已
高,他们说什么对女人来讲已无足轻重了。) 我当月的生活费还有80法郎
(金法郎),一顿便餐花不了15
法郎。如果我下两个星期不喝咖啡,还是满可以对付过去的。
我回信说,我将于下星期四十二点半在福伊约餐厅会见我的朋友。她并不如我想象的那么年轻。她的
外
表与其说美貌动人,毋宁说丰腴魁伟,气概非凡。事实上,她已有40岁了 (这是一个有魅力的年龄,但
不是初次相见就能令你激情迸发、神魂颠倒的那种年纪),长着一口洁白整齐的大牙齿,给我的印象是,其数目之多已超过了实际需要。她很健谈,不过因为她想谈的话题似乎总是关于我的事,所以我便洗耳恭听。
菜单拿来时,我大吃一惊。价格比我预料的要高出许多。但她的话使我宽了心。
我午餐从不吃什么东西,她说。“哦,可别这么说!”我慷慨地回答。
“我从来只吃一道菜。我认为现在人们吃得太多。或许来点鱼还行。我不知道他们有鲑鱼没有。” 啊,吃鲑鱼的季节还没有到,菜单上也没有,但是我还是问了侍者。有,刚刚进了一条头等鲑鱼,这
是他们今年第一次进这种货。我为客人叫了一份。侍者问她在鲑鱼烹制的当儿,要不要吃点别的。
“不要,”她回答说,“我向来只吃一道菜,除非你有鱼子酱。鱼子酱我是从不拒绝的。”
我的心微微一沉。我知道我是吃不起鱼子酱的,但我不便跟她直说,我吩咐侍者务必拿鱼子酱来。我
自己则点了菜单上最便宜的一个菜,这就是羊排。
“我看你吃肉是不明智的,”她说。“我不 知道你吃了羊排这种油腻的东西后还怎么工作。我不赞成
把肚子撑得太饱。”
接着而来的是饮料问题。
“我午餐从不喝饮料,”她说。 “我也是如此,”我马上答道。
“但白葡萄酒例外,”她接着说,就好像我刚才没说似的。“法国的白 葡萄酒非常清淡,十分有助消
化。”
“你想喝点什么?”我依然客气地问道,但算不上热情。
她嫣然一笑,露出一口白牙。 “我的医生只让我喝香槟。”
我猜想我的脸色一定有点发白了。我要了半瓶,顺便提及我的医生绝对禁止我喝香槟酒。
“那你喝什么呢?” “水。”
她吃了鱼子酱,又吃鲑鱼。她兴高采烈,大谈艺术、文学 、音乐。但我心里却在嘀咕,不知这顿饭要
花多少钱。当我的羊排上来时,她一本正经地教训起我来。
“我看你习惯中午吃得很多。我肯定这样不好,你为什么不效法我的样子,只吃一道菜呢?我相信那样你会感觉好得多。”
“我是打算只吃这一道菜,”我说。这时侍者又拿着菜单走了过来。
她轻轻地一挥手,让他走开。
“我可不这样,我午餐从不吃东西。要吃,也只是稍许吃一点, 从不多吃。而我吃这么一点,主要也
是为了借此机会闲谈而已。我可不能再吃什么东西了,除非他们有那 种大芦笋。到了巴黎,不吃点芦笋,
那就太遗憾了。”
我的心一沉。我曾在店里见过芦笋,我知道它贵得可怕。过去我每见芦笋,常常馋涎欲滴。
“夫人想知道你们有没有那种大芦笋,”我问侍者。
我竭尽全力想使他说没有。他那张宽阔的 教士般虔诚的脸上展露出愉快的笑容,他用肯定的语气对我
说,他们有又大、又好、又嫩的芦笋,简直是 罕见的珍品。
“我一点也不饿,”我的客人叹道,“不过如果你执意要请我吃,我也不反对吃点芦笋。”
我便点了这道菜。
“你不吃点吗?”
“不,我从不吃芦笋。”
“我知道有人不喜欢芦笋。事实是,你吃肉太多,伤了胃口。”
我们等着芦笋烹制好送上来。 我突然惊恐起来。现在的问题已不是我还能剩下几个钱来维持这个月的
生计了,而是我的钱够不够付账。 要是我差十法郎,不得不向客人借的话,那就太难堪了。我可做不出那
样的事来。身边到底有多少钱,我 心里有底,倘若账单超过了这个数字,我就决心这么办:伸手往口袋里
一摸,随即故意惊叫一声,跳起来 说钱给小偷扒了。当然,如果她的钱也不够付账的话,那就尴尬了。那
样,唯一的办法就是将我的手表留 下,言明以后再来付。
芦笋端上来了。又大汁又多,令人垂涎不止。我一面看着这个邪恶的女人大口大 口地将芦笋往肚里塞,
一面彬彬有礼地谈论着巴尔干半岛戏剧界的现状。她终于吃完了。
“喝点咖啡?”我说。 “好,就来一客冰淇淋和咖啡吧,”她回答说。
到这时,我什么也不在乎了,为自己叫了咖啡,为她叫了一客冰淇淋和咖啡。
“你知道,我坚 信一点,”她边吃冰淇淋边说道。“当一个人吃完一顿饭站起来时,他应该感到还没
有吃得十分饱。”
“你还饿吗?”我有气无力地问道。
“噢,不,我不饿。你知道,我不吃午餐。我早晨一杯咖 啡,然后到晚上用餐,但我午餐向来最多只
吃一道菜。适才我这样说是为了你啊。”
“哦,我明白啦!”
接着,发生了一件可怕的事情。当我们在等咖啡的时候,
那个领班侍者,带着满脸奉承的笑容,拎来
满满一大篮子特大的桃子,红得酷似天真少女的脸蛋,其色调
之瑰丽犹如一幅意大利风景画。当时桃子肯
定还没有到上市季节,只有上帝晓得买它们得花多少价钱。不
过很快我也晓得了,因为我的客人一边说着
话,一边心不在焉地拿了一只。
“你看,你已经塞
了一肚子肉,”——她是指我那可怜的一小块羊排——“不能再吃什么了。而我只
不过来了点小吃,我还
可以再品尝一只桃子。”
账单来了。付过账后,我发现剩下的钱连付点像样的小费都不够了。她的目光
在我留给侍者的三个法
郎上停了一会儿,我知道她会觉得我是个吝啬鬼。可是等走出餐厅,我面临着的将
是整整一个月的开销要
支付,而口袋里却分文俱无。
“你学学我,”她边握手边说道,“午餐
顶多只吃一道菜。”“我会做得更好,”我回敬道,“我今
晚什么也不吃了。”“幽默家!”她得意洋洋
地大声说着,跳上了一辆马车。“你是个十足的幽默家!”
但是我终于报了仇。我自认不是一个爱报复
的人,但是竟连不朽的众神也被触怒而干预其事时,我怀
着心满意足的心情目睹这个结局,想必也是可以
原谅的了。现今她的体重已达二十一英石(二百九十四磅)。
Unit 8
Text
Would you choose to live underground if
you could gain many advantages from doing
so?
Weather would no longer trouble you. Temperature
would remain the same all the
year round.
Artificial lighting could make the rhythm of our
life uniform everywhere.
And the ecology of
the natural world above ground would be greatly
improved. Still,
the prospect of moving
underground may not be appealing to many people.
THE NEW CAVES
Isaac Asimov
During the ice ages, human
beings exposed to the colder temperatures of the
time
would often make their homes in caves.
There they found greater comfort and security
than they would have in the open.
We
still live in caves called houses, again for
comfort and security. Virtually
no one would
willingly sleep on the ground under the stars. Is
it possible that
someday we may seek to add
further to our comfort and security by building
our houses
underground -- in new, manmade
caves?
It may not seem a palatable
suggestion, at first though. We have so many evil
associations with the underground. In our
myths and legends, the underground is the
realm of evil spirits and of the dead, and is
often the location of an afterlife
of torment.
(This may be because dead bodies are buried
underground, and because
volcanic eruptions
make the underground appear to be a hellish place
of fire and
noxious gases.)
Yet there
are advantages to underground life, too, and
something to be said for
imagining whole
cities, even mankind generally, moving downward;
of having the
outermost mile of the Earth's
crust honeycombed with passages and structures,
like
a gigantic ant hill.
First,
weather would no longer be important, since, it is
primarily a phenomenon
of the atmosphere.
Rain, snow, sleet, fog would not trouble the
underground world.
Even temperature variations
are limited to the open surface and would not
exist
underground. Whether day or night,
summer or winter, temperatures in the underground
world remain equable and nearly
constant. The vast amounts of energy now expended
in warming our surface surroundings when they
are too cold, and cooling them when
they are
too warm, could be saved. The damage done to
manmade structures and to
human beings by
weather would be gone. Transportation over local
distances would
be simplified. (Earthquakes
would remain a danger, of course.)
Second,
local time would no longer be important. On the
surface, the tyranny
of day and night cannot
be avoided, and when it is morning in one place,
it is noon
in another, evening in still
another and midnight in yet another. The rhythm of
human
life therefore varies from place to
place. Underground, where there is no externally
produced day, but only perpetual darkness, it
would be arificial lighting that
produces the
day and this could be adjusted to suit man's
convenience.
The whole world could be on
eight-hour shifts, starting and ending on the
stroke
everywhere, at least as far as business
and community endeavors were concerned. This
could be important in a freely mobile world.
Air transportation over long distances
would
no longer have entail
another continent would
find the society they reached geared to the same
time of
day as at home.
Third, the
ecological structure could be stabilized. To a
certain extent,
mankind encumbers the Earth.
It is not only his enormous numbers that take up
room;
more so, it is all the structures he
builds to house himself and his machines, to
make possible his transportation and
communication, to offer him rest and recreation.
All these things distort the wild, depriving
many species of plants and animals of
their
natural habitat -- and sometimes, involuntarily,
favoring a few, such as rats
and roaches.
If the works of man were removed below ground --
and, mind you, below the level
of the natural
world of the burrowing animals —— man would still
occupy the surface
with his farms, his
forestry, his observation towers, his air
terminals and so on,
but the extent of that
occupation would be enormously decreased. Indeed,
as one
imagines the underground world to
become increasingly elaborate, one can visualize
much of the food supply eventually deriving
from hydroponic growth in artificially
illuminated areas underground. The Earth's
surface might be increasingly turned over
to
park and to wilderness, maintained at ecological
stability.
Fourth, nature would be closer.
It might seem that to withdraw underground is
to withdraw from the natural world, but would
that be so? Would the withdrawal be
more
complete than it is now, when so many people work
in city buildings that are
often windowless
and artificially conditioned? Even where there are
windows, what
is the prospect one views (if
one bothers to) but sun, sky, and buildings to the
horizon -- plus some limited greenery?
And to get away from the city now? To reach the
real countryside? One must travel
horizontally
for miles, first across city pavements and then
across suburban
sprawls.
In an
underworld culture, the countryside would be right
there, a few hundred
yards above the upper
level of the cities -- wherever you are. The
surface would
have to be protected from too
frequent, or too intense, or too careless
visiting,
but however carefully
restricted the upward trips might be, the chances
are that
the dwellers of the new caves would
see more greenery, under ecologically healthier
conditions, than dwellers of surface cities to
today.
However odd and repulsive underground
living may seem at first thought, there
are
tings to be said for it -- and I haven't even said
them all.
如果你能从中获得很多好处,你会选择住在地下吗?天气再也不会带来麻烦。全年
恒温。人造光源使
全世界的生活节奏保持一致。地面上自然世界的生态将大幅改善。虽然移居地下的前景
对很多人来说并不
具吸引力,艾萨克·阿西摩夫却对此十分热衷。
新洞穴
艾萨克·阿西摩夫
在冰河时代,人类当时面临较为寒冷的气温,常常在洞穴里安家。他们发现在洞里生
活要比在野外更
舒适,更安全。
我们现今仍然住在被称作房子的洞穴里,目的还是为了舒适
和安全。事实上,没有人愿意露宿在星空
下的野地里。会不会有朝一日为了更加舒适和安全起见,我们把
房屋建造在地下——建造在新的人造洞穴
里呢?
乍一想来,这一建议似乎并不可取。说起地
下,我们会产生许许多多不愉快的联想。在神话和传说里,
地下是魔鬼和亡灵的世界,它常常是人们死后
遭受折磨的地方。(这可能因为尸体总是埋在地下的缘故,而
火山爆发又给人们一种印象,似乎地下充满
着火与毒气,如同地狱一般。)
然而生活在地下也有其有利之处,设想将整座城市,乃至全人类搬入
地下是有一定的道理的。如果将
地壳最表层一英里厚的地方筑满通道和建筑物,就像一个巨大的蚁冢,这
会给人类带来各种好处。
首先,气候将变得无关紧要,因为它主要是大气层的一种现象。雨、雪、霰
、雾将不会给地下世界带
来麻烦。甚至气温的变化也局限于露天地表,而在地下则不存在这种变化。不论
白天黑夜,炎夏寒冬,地
下世界的温度将保持平稳,近乎恒温。如今,当我们的地表环境太冷时,则需要
取暖,而太暖时,又需降
温,耗费大量的能量。若搬到地下生活,则统统可以省去。天气对人造的建筑物
以及人类本身的损害将不
复存在。地区性的交通问题也将大为简化。(当然,地震将依然是个危险。)?
??
其次,地方时间将无关紧要。地球表面昼夜分明,谁也无法避免,一处是早晨,另一处是中午,
再一
处是黄昏,又一处是午夜。所以人类生活的节奏因地而异。在地下,没有外界生成的白天,而只有永
恒的
黑暗,人工照明形成白昼,这就可以根据人的需要加以调整。
整个世界都可以实行八小
时轮班制,各地都可能做到同时上班,同时下班,至少公务活动和社会活动
可以如此。这对于一个自由流
动的社会来说极为重要。乘飞机长途旅行将不会再引起“时差反应”。抵达
大洋彼岸或另一片大陆的人会
发现他们所到的那个社会与自己家乡一样都是按照同一时间运行的。
第三,生态结构将会稳定下来。
在一定程度上,人类拖累了地球。这不仅仅是指众多的人口占据了地
球的空间,更多的是指人类为住家和
安装机器构筑的房子,为交通运输、为休息、娱乐建造的各种设施。
这一切致使荒野面目全非,剥夺了许
多种动植物栖息、生长的天然场所——有时候,无意中还促进了诸如
老鼠和蟑螂之类的某些生物的繁衍。
如果人类的建筑物都搬到地下——请注意,要搬到穴居动物生活的地层以下——人类仍将占据地球表面,种地、植林、造了望台和航空站等等,但占有的程度将大大减小。的确,可以想见随着地下世界变得越来越精巧复杂,大部分食物将最终来自地下人工照明地区的水栽生物。地球表面有可能越来越多地让位于公园和荒野,从而得以维持生态平衡稳定。
第四,人们与自然界的距离将会缩短。退到地下,看起来似乎是远离了自然界,但果真如此吗? 现今,
这么多人在城市的建筑物内工作,那里常常没有窗户,而靠人工调节一切。即便有窗户,你又能看到什么
呢(如果你肯费心看一看的话)? 无非是太阳,天空,以及一直伸展到天边的建筑物——外加一点有限的
绿色草木而已。搬到地下以后,与自然界隔绝的情况还会胜过于此吗?
现在你想离开城市吗?
到真正的乡村去吗?
你必须旅行数英里,先得走过城市的街道,然后还得走过
郊区杂乱无章的建筑群。 <
br>在地下世界文化中,乡村就在城市上面几百码远的地方——不管你在哪里都是这样。地表当然必须得
到保护,不允许过分频繁地、过分集中地、或过分随便地参观访问,但不管对向上的旅行作出多么认真的
限制,新洞穴里的居民们将有可能比今天地面城市的居民在更为健康的生态环境下生活,并见到更多的青
枝绿叶。
尽管地下生活乍想起来多么的奇怪和不那么令人喜欢,它的好处可以举出好多——而我在
这里只不过
是略说一二。
Unit 9
Text
Idly watching fish swimming in a pond and allowing
the mind to wander can
lead to some surprising
results
THE EDUCATION OF A PHYSICIST
MICHIO KAKU
Two incidents from my
childhood greatly enriched my understanding of the
world
and sent me on a course to become a
theoretical physicist.
I remember that my
parents would sometimes take me to visit the
famous Japanese
Tea Garden in San Francisco.
One of my happiest childhood memories is of
crouching
next to the pond, fascinated by the
brilliantly colored carp swimming slowly beneath
the water lilies.
In these quiet moments,
I felt free to let my imagination wander; I would
ask
myself silly questions that only a child
might ask, such as how the carp in that
pond
would view the world around them. I thought, What
a strange world theirs must
be!
Living
their entire lives in the shallow pond, the carp
would believe that their
“universe” consisted
of the dark water and the lilies. Spending most of
their time
moving around for food on the
bottom of the pond, they would be only dimly aware
that an alien world could exist above the
surface. The nature of my world was beyond
their comprehension. I was intrigued that I
could sit only a few inches from the
carp, yet
be separated from them by a very huge gap. The
carp and I spent our lives
in two distinct
universes, never entering each other’s world, yet
were separated
by only the thinnest barrier,
the water’s surface.
I once imagined that
there may be carp “scientists” living among the
fish.
They would, I thought, laugh at any fish
who proposed that a parallel world could
exist
just above the lilies. To a carp “scientist,” the
only things that were real
were what the fish
could see or touch. The pond was everything. An
unseen world beyond
the pond made no
scientific sense.
Once I was caught in a
rainstorm. I noticed that the pond’s surface was
bombarded
by thousands of tiny raindrops. The
pond’s surface became turbulent, and the water
lilies were being pushed in all directions by
water waves. Taking shelter from the
wind and
the rain, I wondered how all this appeared to the
carp. To them, the water
lilies would appear
to be moving around by themselves, without
anything pushing them.
Since the water they
lived in would appear invisible, much like the air
and space
around us, they would be baffled
that the water lilies could move around by
themselves.
Their
“scientists,” I imagined, would make up a clever
invention called a
“force” in order to hide
their ignorance. Unable to comprehend that there
could
be waves on the unseen surface, they
would conclude that lilies could move without
being touched because a mysterious invisible
entity called a force acted between
them. They
might give this illusion impressive, lofty names
(such as
action-at-a-distance, or the ability
of the lilies to move without anything touching
them).
Once I imagined what would
happen if I reached down and lifted one of the
carp
“scientists” out of the pond. Before I
threw him back into the water, he might
struggle furiously as I examined him. I
wondered how this would appear to the rest
of
the carp. To them, it would be a truly unsettling
event. They would first notice
that one of
their “scientists” had disappeared from their
universe. Simply
vanished, without leaving a
trace. Wherever they would look, there would be no
evidence of the missing carp in their
universe. Then, seconds later, when I threw
him back into the pond ,the “scientist” would
abruptly reappear out of the other
carp,it
would appear that a miracle had happened.
After collecting his wits, the “scientist” would
tell a truly amazing story.
“Without warning,”
he would say, “I was somehow lifted out of the
universe (the
pond) and hurled into a
mysterious world, with blinding lights and
strangely shaped
objects that I had never seen
before. The strangest of all was the creature who
held
me prisoner, who did not resemble a fish
in the slightest. I was shocked to see that
it
had no fins whatsoever, but nevertheless could
move without them. It struck me
that the
familiar laws of nature no longer applied in this
other world. Then, just
as suddenly,I found
myself thrown back into our universe.” (This
story, of course,
of a journey beyond the
universe would be so fantastic that most of the
carp would
dismiss it as utter nonsense.)
I often think that we are like the carp
swimming contentedly in that pond. We
live out
our lives in our own “pond,” confident that our
universe consists of only
those things we can
see or touch. Like the carp, our universe consists
of only the
familiar and the visible. We
smugly refuse to admit that parallel universes or
dimensions can exist next to ours, just beyond
our grasp. If our scientists invent
concepts
like forces, it is only because they cannot
visualize the invisible
vibrations that fill
the empty space around us.
A second incident
from my childhood also made a deep, lasting
impression on me.
When I was 8 years old, I
heard a story that would stay with me for the rest
of my
life. I remember my schoolteachers
telling the class about a great scientist who
had just died. They talked about him with
great reverence, calling him one of the
greatest scientists in all history. They said
that very few people could understand
his
ideas, but that his discoveries changed the entire
world and everything around
us. I didn't
understand much of what they were trying to tell
us, but what most
intrigued me about this man
was that he died before he could complete his
greatest
discovery. They said he spent years
on this theory, but he died with his unfinished
papers still sitting on his desk.
I was
fascinated by the story. To a child, this was a
great mystery. What was
his unfinished
work? What was in those papers on his desk? What
problem could possibly
be so difficult and so
important that such a great scientist would
dedicate years
of his life to its pursuit?
Curious, I decided to learn all I could about
Albert
Einstein and his unfinished theory.
I still have warm memories of spending many
quiet hours reading every book I
could find
about this great man and his theories. When I
exhausted the books in
our local library, I
began to visit libraries and bookstores across the
city, eagerly
searching for more clues. I soon
learned that the unfinished papers on Einstein’s
desk were an attempt to construct what he
called the unified field theory, a theory
that
could explain all the laws of nature, from the
tiniest atom to the largest
galaxy. However,
being a child, I didn't understand that perhaps
there was a link
between the carp swimming in
the Tea Garden and the unfinished papers lying on
Einstein’s desk. I didn’t understand that
higher dimensions might be the key to
solving
the unified field theory.
Nevertheless,I could
see that this story was far more and more exciting
than
any murder mystery and more important
than anything I could ever imagine. I decided
that I would try to get to the root of this
mystery, even if I had to become a
theoretical
physicist to do it.
一个物理学家受过的教育 米基奥?凯科
我孩提时代发生的两件事大大加深了我对这个世界的理解,还把我送上了成长为理论物理学家的道路。
我记得父母亲有时带我到坐落在旧金山的有名的日本茶园去玩。我记忆中儿时最快乐的事情之一是,自己蹲在池塘边,沉醉于观看那些在睡莲下缓缓游动的色彩斑斓的鲤鱼。
在这样的一些安静时刻,
我听凭自己的想像力漫游;我常常会问自己只有小孩才会问的愚蠢问题,比
如说,池塘里的鲤鱼会怎样看
待它们周围的世界。我心里在想,他们的世界肯定千奇百怪!
鲤鱼一生生活在浅浅的池塘中,他们会认
为他们的“天地”是由暗色的水和睡莲组成的。他们大部分
时间都在游来游去寻找池塘底上的食物,所以
至多只会模模糊糊地觉得水面上方可能有一个陌生的世界。
他们不理解我的世界的本质。我可以坐在距鲤
鱼只有几英寸的地方,但却被一条鸿沟与他们分隔开来,对
此我深感好奇。鲤鱼和我生活在两个不同的天
地中,都永远不会进入对方的世界,但把双方隔离开来的只
是一道最薄的障碍——水面
我曾想像过,鱼群中也许会有鲤鱼“科学家”。我想,他们会嘲笑那些提出就在睡莲上方可能存在另一
个
平行的世界这种看法的鱼儿。对鲤鱼“科学家”来说,只有鱼儿能看到或能碰到的才是真实的东西。池
塘
就是一切。从科学的角度看,要说池塘外有一个没有见过的世界,那是没有道理的。
有一次我遇上暴风
雨。我看到万千小雨点连续击打池塘的水面。水面汹涌澎湃,睡莲被波浪冲得向四
面散去。我一边躲避风
雨,一边在纳闷鲤鱼是怎样看待这一切的。在他们看来,睡莲似乎是自己在不停漂
移,没有什么东西推着
它们动。正如我们看不见周围的空气和空间那样,他们也看不见自己生活在其中的
水,所以对睡莲能自己
不停移动这一点他们会感到迷惑不解。
我曾设想,他们的“科学家”为了掩饰自己的无知会编造出叫作
“力”的巧妙谎话。他们无法理解在
看不见的水面上会有波浪,于是断定,睡莲之所以能在没有外物触碰
的情况下移动是因为有一种叫做力的
看不见的神秘实体在它们之间起着作用。他们也许会给这种错误观念
起一些令人敬畏的、冠冕堂皇的名字
(比如远距离活动,或者睡莲在没有任何东西触碰的情况下移动之能
耐)。
有一次我设想,如果我把手伸进水去,从池塘里捞出一个鲤鱼“科学家”来,那将会怎样。在
我把他
扔回水里去之前,我细细观察他时他也许会拼命挣扎。我不知道其他鲤鱼会怎样看待这事。他们会
觉得这
是一件真正令人不安的事件。他们先是察觉他们的一位“科学家”从他们的世界中消失了。就这么
突然不
见了,无影无踪。不管他们往哪儿找,在他们的世界中都看不到失踪鲤鱼的踪迹。然后,不过片刻
功夫,
我把他扔回了池塘,其时那位“科学家”不知从什么地方突然重又冒了出来。在其
余那些鲤鱼看来,这是
发生了奇迹。
“科学家”镇定下来后,会讲一个真正令人惊异的故事
。他说:“在预先毫不知情的情况下,我就不
知怎的被人从这个世界(池塘)提了起来,扔进了一个神秘
世界,那里有令人眩目的灯火,有我过去从未
见过的奇形怪状的物件。最奇怪的是扣留我的那个怪物,一
点也不像鱼。见它身上压根儿没长鳍但却能移
动,我感到十分震惊。我突然想到,熟悉的自然法则在另一
个世界里不再适用了。后来,也是那么突然,
我被扔回了我们的世界。”(当然,这个关于去别的世界旅
行的故事太荒诞,大多数鲤鱼会把它当作无稽
之谈而不予理会。)
我常想我们就像在池塘
里心满意足地游水的鲤鱼。我们在自己的“池塘”里度过一生,确信我们的世
界仅仅是由我们看得到或摸
得着的那些东西组成的。与鲤鱼一样,我们认为我们的世界只有熟知的和看得
见的东西。我们自我陶醉地
拒不承认在我们近旁,就在我们抓不到摸不着的地方可能存在其它相似的世界
或维。假若我们的科学家发
明了像力这样的概念,那只是因为他们不能想像我们周围的空间充斥着看不见
的振动。
我儿时
发生的第二件事也给我留下了深刻持久的印象。我八岁时听到了一个终生难忘的故事。我记得
老师们向班
上的同学讲了一位刚去世的伟大科学家的事。他们怀着极其崇敬的心情谈论他,称他为有史以
来最伟大的
科学家之一。他们说没有多少人能理解他的思想,但是他的种种发现改变了整个世界和我们周
围的一切。
对于他们试图告诉我们的这番话,我有许多地方都不太懂,但此人最让我感到好奇的是,他在
完成他最重
大的发现前去世了。他们说他花了多年时间研究这一理论,但未完成的论文还搁在书桌上他就
去世了。
这个故事深深吸引住了我。对孩子来说,这是个巨大的谜。他尚未做完的是些什么工作?他书桌上的那些论文里写些什么?什么问题会那么难,那么重要,以致于如此伟大的一位科学家花多年时间去研究它?<
br>由于好奇,我决定尽力弄清阿尔伯特?爱因斯坦其人和他还未完成的理论。
我现在仍能激动地忆
起,那时我花了好多时间安静地阅读我能找到的有关这个伟人和他理论的所有书
籍。我读完了邻近图书馆
的藏书,就开始去市里别的图书馆和书店,急切地搜寻更多线索。不久我便获悉,
爱因斯坦书桌上未完成
的论文旨在建立一种他称之为统一场论的理论,这种理论能够解释所有自然法则,
从最小的原子到最大的
星系。不过,当时我还是个孩子,不懂得茶园里游水的鲤鱼和爱因斯坦书桌上未完
成的论文之间也许有关
联。我不懂得高维也许是解决统一场论的关键。
但是,我懂得这个故事比任何凶杀疑案作品都惊心动魄
得多,比任何我能想像的事物都重要。我决心
想方设法揭开这个谜的谜底,哪怕我得为此做一个理论物理
学家
UNIT 10
Text
Do you view
work as a burden or an opportunity? Are you the
kind of person who
looks for ways to save your
energy or the kind that finds spending your energy
satisfying? Why do people like to complain
about work? Find the answers to question
like
these in the following essay.
WHY PEOPLE
WORK
Leonard R. Sayles
Jobs and work do much more than most of us realize
to provide happiness sand
contentment. We're
all used to thinking that work provides the
material things of
life -- the goods and
services that make possible our modern
civilization. But we
are much less conscious
of the extent to which work provides the more
intangible,
but more crucial, psychological
well-being that can make the difference between
a full and an empty life.
Historically, work has been associated with
slavery and sin and punishment.
And in
our own day we are used to hearing the traditional
complaints: can't wait
for my vacation,
got
too much work to do and not enough time to do t
this background,
it may well come as a
surprise to learn that not only psychologists but
other
behavioral scientists have come to
accept the positive contribution of work to the
individual's happiness and sense of personal
achievement. Work is more than a
necessity for
most human beings; it is the focus of their lives,
the source of their
identity and creativity.
Rather than a punishment or a burden, work
is the opportunity to realize one's
potential.
Many psychiatrists heading mental health clinics
have observed its
healing effect. A good many
patients who feel depressed in clinics gain
renewed
self-confidence when gainfully
employed and lose some, if not all, of their most
acute symptoms. Increasingly, institutions
dealing with mental health problems are
establishing workshops wherein those too sick
to get a job in
can work, while every effort
is exerted to arrange jobs for those well enough
to work outside.
And the reverse is
true, too. For large numbers of people, the
absence of work
is harmful to their health.
Retirement often brings many problems surrounding
the
Large numbers of people regularly get
headaches and other illnesses on weekends when
they don't have their jobs to go to, and must
fend for themselves. It has been observed
that
unemployment, quite aside from exerting financial
pressures, brings enormous
psychological
troubles and that many individuals deteriorate
rapidly when jobless.
But why? Why should
work be such a significant source of human
satisfaction?
A good share of the answer rests
in the kind of pride that is stimulated by the
job,
by the activity of accomplishing.
Pride in Accomplishment
The human
being longs for a sense of being accomplished, of
being able to do
things, with his hand, with
his mind, with his will. Each of us wants to feel
he
or she has the ability to do something that
is meaningful and that serves as a tribute
to
our inherent abilities.
It is easiest to
see this in the craftsman who lovingly shapes some
cheap material
into an object that may be
either useful or beautiful or both. You can see
the
carpenter or bricklayer stand aside and
admire the product of his personal skill.
But even where there is no obvious end product
that is solely attributable to
one person's
skill, researchers have found that employees find
pride in
accomplishment. Our own research in
hospitals suggests that even the houskeeping
and laundry staffs take pride in the fact that
in their own ways they are helping
to cure
sick people -- and thus accomplishing good deal.
We're often misled by the complaints
surrounding difficult work; deep down most
people regard their won capacity to conquer
the tough job as the mark of their own
unique
personality. Complaining is just part of working
After all, how else do you
know who you are,
except as you can demonstrate the ability of your
mind to control
you limbs ad hands and
words? You are, in significant measure, what you
can do.
Some are deceived into thinking
that people like to store up energy, to rest
and save themselves as much as possible. Just
the opposite. It is energy expenditure
that is
satisfying.
Just watch an employee who
must deal with countless other people because his
or her job is at some central point in a
communications network: a salesman at a
busy
counter, a stock broker on the phone, a customer
representative. They will tell
you how much
skill and experience it takes to answer countless
questions and handle
various kinds of
personalities every hour of the day. Not everyone
can interact with
such persistence and over
long hours, but those who do, pride themselves on
a
distinctive ability that contributes
mightily to the running of the organization.
But work is more than accomplishment and pride
in being able to command the
job, because
except for a few craftsmen and artists most work
takes place
the world,
人为什么工作 伦纳德?R?塞尔斯 <
br>职业和工作在使人得到幸福与满足方面所起的作用比我们大多数人意识到的要多得多。我们都习惯于
认为工作为人生提供物质的东西——提供使我们的现代文明成为可能的商品和服务。但是我们对工作在促
进精神生活方面所起的作用则知之甚少。这方面的作用难以捉摸,却更加至关重要,它是人生过得充实还
是空虚的决定性因素。
在历史上,工作一直与奴役、罪恶和惩罚联系在一起。现今我们还常常听到
那些老一套的怨言:“我
巴不得早点放假”,“今天我要是呆在家里该多好”,“我的老板待我不好”,
“我的事情多得来不及做”
等等。在这种情况下,当你得悉心理学家们以及其他的行为科学家们都认为,
工作对个人幸福和个人成就
起着积极作用时,你很可能会感到惊奇。对大多数人来说,工作不仅仅是一种
必需,它还是人们生活的焦
点,是他们的个性和创造性的源泉。
工作不是惩罚,也不是负担,
工作为个人潜在能力的发挥提供机会。许多精神病诊所的主治医生观察
到工作的治疗作用。许许多多在诊
所里显得精神抑郁的病人,一旦受聘从事有一定收益的工作时,便重新
获得自信,并失去部分
(如果不是全部的话) 最严重的症状。越来越多的处理精神病问题的机构建立起工
场,病情过重在“外
面的”工厂里找不到工作的病人,可以在那里工作。与此同时,这些机构还竭尽全力
为那些身体条件尚可
在外面工作的人,安排“真正的”工作。
反过来也是一样。对许多人来说,没有工作反而对他们的健
康有害。退休即使没有引起经济上的忧
虑,也常常带来“今后我该怎样生活才好?”之类的许多问题。许
多人一到周末因为不上班而必须自行安排
生活便产生头痛及其他不适。人们还观察到,失业除了产生经济
压力之外,还造成许多心理上的病痛,很
多人一旦失业,身体便迅速恶化。
这是为什么呢?为
什么工作竟然是人们获得满足的如此重要的源泉呢?最主要的答案就在于,工作和通
过工作所取得的成就
,能激起一种自豪感。
对成就的自豪
人们渴求取得成就,渴望有能力用自己的手,用自己的
脑,凭自己的意志办成事情。我们每个人都希
望自己能够做出有意义、并能显示出自己天赋的事来。 <
br>这一点最容易在工匠身上看出来。他深情地将某一种价值不高的材料做成一件或是有用,或是美观,
或是两者兼备的东西。你可以看到木匠或砖瓦匠常站到一边,欣赏自己的产品。
研究人员还发现,
即使在没有明显的最终产品可以显示个人专长的场合,雇员们也对工作成就感到
自豪。我们自己在医院的
调查表明,即便勤杂人员和洗衣房的职工,也对自己的工作引以为荣,他们通过
自身的工作协助治好了病
人——因而也就作出了不少成绩。
我们常常被抱怨工作困难的言论所误导。在内心深处,多数人把自己
善于解决棘手问题的本领看作个
人的出众之处。发牢骚也是工作的一部分。说到底,如果
你不显示出驾驭自己言行的能力,那你还有什么
别的办法来认识你自己呢?在很大程度上,你就是你所能
成就的事情。
有些人误认为人们喜欢积蓄精力,喜欢休息,并尽可能保养自己。事实恰恰相反。消耗
精力才真正
给人以满足。
试看一位因其工作处于某个通信网络的中心位置而必须与无数的其他人打交道的雇员: 一个繁忙柜台上的售货员,一个手不离电话的股票经纪人,或是一个客户代理人,他们会告诉你,每时每刻回答无数个问题以及应付各种各样的人物该需要怎样的本领和经验。不是每个人都能以这样的韧性长时间地与人周旋的。但是能够这样做的人,都为自己具有出众才能,能对所在单位的运转作出巨大贡献而感到自豪 但是工作不光是成就和能够胜任工作的自豪,因为除了少数工匠和艺术家的工作而外,大部分工作是
在“外面”进行的,是与别人合作或通过别人来完成的。
团体精神
或许一个例子就能把这点说明白。
我记得曾在一家椅子厂见过6个工人,他们的工作是将几
根钢管弯曲并组成一把折椅。虽然同在一
起工作的有10个或20个这样的“组”,有一个组因配合默契
、动作神速而特别有名。这班人深知自己能
干。他们常常要猛干二三十分钟才肯休息一会儿——以便向自
己、向旁观者以及向其他班组展示技术高超、
善于自我克制的全厂最佳的班组是一个什么样儿
当我与他们交谈时,他们每个人都为自己是最快最好的班组一员而深感自豪。这种自己属于一个有
娴熟技
巧的班组的意识,是工作带来的最突出的满足感之一。
关于从工作班组中获得满足还要再讲一点。与
生活中许多其他方面不同的是,工作人员之间的关系
趋于简单,不那么复杂,且较少感情色彩。这不是说
工作中,没有争论、嫉妒。但总的来讲,行为科学研
究揭示,工作中人与人之间较好相处。这或许是因为
工作上的人际关系较有规律,更易于预料,因此更容
易协调,而在社会上,人与人之间的关系是断断续续
的,比较紧张,而且较少有规律可循。另外,工作班
组也会对其成员稍稍施加压力,促使他们学会相互协
调,消除“摩擦”,因为人们知道他们每天都要共同
努力,相互协作,才能完成一定的工作。
在工作班、组之上又有更高一级的组织,它或许是公司、医院,或许是大学。在一个更大的集体中工
作,
如同在一个配合默契的成功的单位工作一样,其成员也能获得同样的自豪。在一个被公认为是社会上
最好
的公司之一工作,可以给雇员带来社会地位和自信心。他们常常不无道理地认为,因为他们是与一个
“胜
利者”,一个有威望的机构联系在一起的,别人更加看重他们,甚至羡慕他们。他们也自认比普通人
更能
干。事实上,我们常常沉浸在这种机构所折射出的荣誉里洋洋自得,我们还想方设法表明自己的这种
身份
,以使别人了解并承认自己的好运气。
大学英语精读第三版第四册课文及课文翻译
Unit 1
Text
Two college-age boys, unaware that making
money usually involves hard work, are
tempted
by an advertisement that promises them an easy way
to earn a lot of money.
The boys soon learn
that if something seems to good to be true, it
probably is.
BIG BUCKS THE EASY WAY
John G. Hubbell
ought to look into this,I
suggested to our two college-age sons. might
be a way to avoid the indignity of having to
ask for money all the time.
them some magazines
in a plastic bag someone bad hung on our doorknob.
A message
printed on the bag offered
leisurely, lucrative work (
of delivering more
such bags.
it pains me,I
said,find that you both have been panhandling so
long
that it no longer embarrasses you.
The boys said they would look into the magazine-
delivery thing. Pleased, I left
town on a
business trip. By midnight I was comfortably
settled in a hotel room far
from home. The
phone rang. It was my wife. She wanted to know how
my day had gone.
She snapped.
super! And it's only getting started. Another
truck
just pulled up out front.
third one this evening. The first delivered four
thousand Montgomery Wards.
The second brought
four thousand Sears, Roebucks. I don't know what
this one has,
but I'm sure it will be four
thousand of something. Since you are responsible,
I
thought you might like to know what's
happening.
What I was being blamed for, it
turned out, was a newspaper strike which made
it necessary to hand-deliver the advertising
inserts that normally are included with
the
Sunday paper. The company had promised our boys
$$600 for delivering these inserts
to 4,000
houses by Sunday morning.
Six
hundred bucks!His brother had echoed, we can do
the job in two hours!
me.
speak,
two big guys are carrying armloads of paper up the
walk. What do we do about
all this?
do what they have to do.
At noon the
following day I returned to the hotel and found an
urgent message
to telephone my wife. Her voice
was unnaturally high and quavering. There had been
several more truckloads of ad inserts. for
department stores, dime stores,
drugstores,
grocery stores, auto stores and so on. Some are
whole magazine sections.
We have
hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of pages of
advertising here! They
are crammed wall-to-
wall all through the house in stacks taller than
your oldest
son. There's only enough room for
people to walk in, take one each of the eleven
inserts, roll them together, slip a rubber
band around them and slide them into a
plastic
bag. We have enough plastic bags to supply every
takeout restaurant in
America!Her voice kept
rising, as if working its way out of the range of
the human
ear.
and I'll talk to
you later. Got a lunch date.
When I
returned, there was another urgent call from my
wife.
but knew better by now than to
say so.
couple of
neighborhood children to help for five dollars
each. Assembly lines have
been set up. In the
language of diplomacy, there is 'movement.'
it's not,she corrected. very discouraging.
They're been as it for
hours. Plastic bags
have been filled and piled to the ceiling, but all
this hasn't
made a dent, not a dent, in the
situation! It's almost as if the inserts keep
reproducing themselves!
thing,she
continued. college sons must learn that one does
not
get the best out of employees by
threatening them with bodily harm.
Obtaining an audience with son NO. 1, I snarled,
one of those kids again! Idiot! You should be
offering a bonus of a dollar every
hour to the
worker who fills the most bags.
won't be any profit unless those kids enable you
to make all the
deliveries on time. If they
don't, you two will have to remove all that paper
by
yourselves. And there will be no eating or
sleeping until it is removed.
There was a
short, thoughtful silence. Then he said, you have
just worked
a profound change in my
personality.
By the
following evening, there was much for my wife to
report. The bonus program
had worked until
someone demanded to see the color of cash. Then
some activist on
the work force claimed that
the workers had no business settling for $$5 and a
few
competitive bonuses while the bossed
collected hundreds of dollars each. The
organizer had declared that all the workers
were entitled to $$5 per hour! They would
not
work another minute until the bosses agreed.
The strike lasted less than two hours. In
mediation, the parties agreed on $$2
per hour.
Gradually, the huge stacks began to shrink.
As it turned out, the job was completed three
hours before Sunday's 7 . deadline.
By the
time I arrived home, the boys had already settled
their accounts: $$150 in
labor costs,
$$40 for gasoline, and a like amount
for
gifts—boxes of candy for saintly neighbors who had
volunteered station
wagons and help in
delivery and dozen roses for their mother. This
left them with
$$185 each — about two-thirds
the minimum wage for the 91 hours they worked.
Still,
it was as one of them put it, to enable
them to indignityfor quite
a while.
All went well for some weeks. Then one Saturday
morning my attention was drawn
to the odd
goings-on of our two youngest sons. They kept
carrying carton after carton
from various
corners of the house out the front door to
curbside. I assumed their
mother had enlisted
them to remove junk for a trash pickup. Then I
overheard them
discussing finances.
Investigation revealed that they
were offering
library.
might as well make a little money from
them. We wanted to avoid the indignity of
having to ask you for……
一个大学男孩,不清楚赚钱需要付出艰苦
的劳动,被一份许诺轻松赚大钱的广告吸引了。男孩们很快
就明白,如果事情看起来好得不像真的,那多
半确实不是真的。
轻轻松松赚大钱
“你们该看看这个,”我向我们的两个读大学的儿子
建议道。“你们若想避免因为老是向人讨钱而有
失尊严的话,这兴许是一种办法。”我将挂在我们门把手
上的、装在一个塑料袋里的几本杂志拿给他们。
塑料袋上印着一条信息说,需要招聘人投递这样的袋子,
这活儿既轻松又赚钱。(“轻轻松松赚大钱!”)
“我不在乎失不失尊严,”大儿子回答说。
“我可以忍受,”他的弟弟附和道。
“看到你们俩伸手讨钱讨惯了一点也不感到尴尬的样子,真使我痛心,”我说。
孩子们说他
们可以考虑考虑投递杂志的事。我听了很高兴,便离城出差去了。午夜时分,我已远离家
门,在一家旅馆
的房间里舒舒服服住了下来。电话铃响了,是妻子打来的。她想知道我这一天过得可好。
“好极了!”我兴高采烈地说。“你过得怎么样?”我问道。
“棒极了!”她大声挖苦道。“真棒!而且这还仅仅是个开始。又一辆卡车刚在门前停下。”
“又一辆卡车?”
“今晚第三辆了。第一辆运来了四千份蒙哥马利-沃德百货公司的广告;
第二辆运来四千份西尔斯-罗
伯克百货公司的广告。我不知道这一辆装的啥,但我肯定又是四千份什么的
。既然这事是你促成的,我想
你或许想了解事情的进展。”
我之所以受到指责,事情原来是
这样:由于发生了一起报业工人罢工,通常夹在星期日报纸里的广告
插页,必须派人直接投送出去。公司
答应给我们的孩子六百美金,任务是将这些广告插页在星期天早晨之
前投递到四千户人家去。
“不费吹灰之力!”我们上大学的大儿子嚷道。
“六百块!”他的弟弟应声道,“我们两个钟点就能干完!”
“西尔斯和沃德的广告通常都
是报纸那么大的四页,”妻子告诉我说,“现在我们门廊上堆着三万二
千页广告。就在我
们说话的当儿,两个大个子正各抱着一大捆广告走过来。这么多广告,我们可怎么办?”
“你让孩子们快干,”我指示说。“他们都是大学生了。他们自己的事得由他们自己去做。”
第二天中午,我回到旅馆,看到一份紧急留言,要我马上给妻子回电话。她的声音高得很不自然,而
且
有些颤抖。家里又运到了好几卡车的广告插页。“有百货公司的,廉价商店的,杂货店的,食品店的,
汽
车行的,等等。有些像整本杂志那么厚。我们这里有数十万页,说不定是几百万页的广告!我们家整个房
子从东墙到西墙,从南墙到北墙统统堆满了广告,一堆又一堆,比你大儿子还要高。现在只剩下一点点空
间,刚够一个人走进去,从十一种插页中各取一份,卷在一起,套上橡皮筋,再塞进一只塑料袋内。我们
的塑料袋足够供应全美所有的外卖餐厅!”她越讲声音越响,几乎震耳欲聋。“这么多的广告必须在星期日
早晨七点以前统统送出去。”
“嗯,你最好让孩子们尽快地捆扎装袋,等会儿我再跟你谈。我有个午餐约会。”
我餐后回来,妻子又打来一只紧急电话。
“你午餐吃得不错吧?”她用悦耳的声音问道。我吃的牛排好极了,但这次我学乖了,还是不说为妙。
“糟透了,”我报告说。“一种什么酸溜溜的鱼,我想大概是鳗鲡吧。”
“不错嘛。你的大
学生儿子已经雇了他们的弟弟妹妹和两三个邻居的小孩帮忙,工钱一人五块,建起
了流水作业线。用外交
术语来说,事情‘有进展’。”
“这确实令人鼓舞。”
“不,并非如此,”她纠正说。
“相反,非常叫人泄气。他们干了好几个小时了。装好的塑料袋,一
直堆到天花板,但一切努力收效很小
。这些广告宣传品简直就像是不停地自行生产出来一样!”
“还有一件事,”她接着说,“你那上大
学的儿子必须明白,威胁雇员,说要揍他们,是不可能使他
们卖力的。”
我跟大儿子一通上
话,便咆哮道,“你如果再威胁那些孩子,我就对你不客气了!白痴!你应该给奖金,
对装袋最多的工人
每小时奖励一块。”
“可那要减少我们的利润啦,”他提醒道。
“那些孩子不帮你按时
将所有的广告投送出去,你就什么利润也得不到。如果他们不干,你们俩就得
亲手搬走所有的广告。而在
把它们搬掉之前,你们吃不成,也睡不成。”
电话里出现了短暂的沉默,他在思考。接着,他说,“爸爸,你刚才使我深受启迪,令我恍然大悟。”
“那就干吧!”
“是,阁下!”
到第二天傍晚,我妻子就有许多事报告了。奖
金计划行之有效,可后来有人对能否兑现表示怀疑,提
出把钱拿出来给大家看看。接着工人队伍里的一位
活动家声称,老板每人拿几百块钱,工人们决没有理由
满足于每人五块外加一点点竞争性的奖金。劳工组
织人宣布,所有工人的工资都应该达到每小时五块钱!
在老板答应之前,他们不再干活儿,一分钟也不干
。
罢工持续了不到两小时。通过调解,双方达成协议,每小时两块。渐渐地,大堆的广告开始减少。
结果,全部工作比最后限期星期日早晨七点提前三个小时完成。等我回到家里,孩子们已经结了账。劳务支出150元,汽油费????40元,还有40元买礼品——几盒糖果,送给乐于助人的邻居,他们主
动开
出自家的车帮助投递,还有一打玫瑰送给他们的母亲。除去以上开支,他们每人得到185元——大
约相当
于他们所干的91小时的最低工资的三分之二。虽然如此,可正如一个儿子所说,那还是“足够”
他们花一
阵子,使他们“避免那种有失尊严的事。”
几个星期过去了,一切都很好。后来,
一个星期六的上午,我们两个小儿子的奇怪举动引起了我的注
意。他们不停地将一个又一个的纸箱从房屋
四处的角落里搬出,经过前门,送到人行道边。我以为他们的
妈妈在指挥他们清除破烂,好让垃圾车运走
呢。正在这时,我听到他们在议论经济问题。
“哟,我们会赚许多钱呢!”
“我们要发财啦!”
经查问发现,他们正在把我们的全部图书“出售或出租”。
“不成!不成!”我叫道。“不能把我们的书卖了!”
哎唷,爸,我们以为你用不着它们了呢!”
“书永远不会'用'不着的,”我尽力解释道。 “你肯定用不着了。你都看过了,再也不用了。没有错。既然不用,还不如卖点钱。我们想避免那种
有失尊严的事,不再伸手向你要……”
Unit 2
Text
Is there anything we can learn from deer? During
the crisisof 1973-1974
the writer of this
essay was living in northern Minnesota and was
able to observe
how deer survive when winter
arrives. The lessons he learns about he way deer
conserve
energy turn out applicable to our
everyday life.
DEER AND THE ENERGY
CYCLE
Some persons say that love makes the
world go round. Others of a less romantic
and
more practical turn of mind say that it isn't
love; it's money. But the truth
is that it is
energy that makes the world go round. Energy is
the currency of the
ecological system and life
becomes possible only when food is converted into
energy,
which in turn is used to seek more
food to grow, to reproduce and to survive. On
this cycle all life depends.
It is
fairly well known that wild animals survive from
year to year by eating
as much as they can
during times of plenty, the summer and fall,
storing the excess,
usually in the form of
fat, and then using these reserves of fat to
survive during
the hard times in winter when
food is scarce. But it is probably less well known
that even with their stored fat, wild animals
spend less energy to live in winter
than in
summer.
A good case in point is the
whiter-tailed deer. Like most wildlife, deer
reproduce, grow, and store fat in the summer
and fall when there is plenty of
nutritious
food available. A physically mature female deer in
good condition who
has conceived 怀孕in November
and given birth to two fawns during the end of May
or first part of June, must search for food
for the necessary energy not only to
meet her
body's needs but also to produce milk for her
fawns. The best milk production
occurs at the
same time that new plant growth is available. This
is good timing,
because milk production is an
energy consuming process — it requires a lot of
food.
The cost can not be met unless the
region has ample food resources.
As the
summer progresses and the fawns grow, they become
less dependent on their
mother's milk and more
dependent on growing plants as food sources. The
adult males
spend the summer growing antlers
and getting fat. Both males and females continue
to eat high quality food in the fall in order
to deposit body fat for the winter.
In the
case of does and fawns, a great deal of energy is
expended either in milk
production or in
growing, and fat is not accumulated as quickly as
it is in full
grown males. Fat reserves are
like bank accounts to be drawn on in the winter
when
food supplies are limited and sometimes
difficult to reach because of deep snow.
As fall turns into winter, other changes take
place. Fawns lose their spotted
coat. Hair on
all the deer becomes darker and thicker. The
change in the hair coats
is usually complete
by September and maximum hair depths are reached
by November
or December when the
weather becomes cold.
But in addition,
nature provides a further safeguard to help deer
survive the
winter—an internal physiological
response which lowers their metabolism, or rate
of bodily functioning, and hence slows down
their expenditure of energy. The deer
become
somewhat slow and drowsy. The heart rate drops.
Animals that hibernate
practice energy
conservation to a greater extreme than deer do.
Although deer don't
hibernate, they do the
same thing with their seasonal rhythms in
metabolism. Deer
spend more energy and store
fat in the summer and fall when food is abundant,
and
spend less energy and use stored fat in
the winter when food is less available.
When the
in a cabin on the edge of an area
where deer spend the winter in northern Minnesota,
observing the deer as their behavior changed
from more activity in summer and fall
to less
as winter progressed, followed by an increase
again in the spring as the
snow melted. It was
interesting and rather amusing to listen to the
advice given
on the radio:
stay warm, and
turn the thermostat on your furnace
deer
reduce their activity, grow a winter coat of hair,
and reduce their metabolism
as they have for
thousands of years. It is biologically reasonable
for deer to reduce
their cost of living to
increase their chance of surviving in winter.
Not every winter is critical for deer of course.
If the winter has light snow,
survival and
productivity next spring will be high. But if deep
snows come and the
weather remains cold for
several weeks, then the deer must spend more
energy to move
about, food will be harder to
find, and they must then depend more on their fat
reserves to pull them through. If such
conditions go on for too long some will die,
and only the largest and strongest are likely
to survive. That is a fundamental rule
of life
for wild, free wandering animal such as deer.
Yes, life—and death, too -- is a cycle that goes
round and round, and when
animals die their
bodies become food for other life forms to use by
converting them
into energy.
And the cycle
continues.
有什么是我们能从鹿身上学到的吗?在1973-1974年的“能源危
机”期间,本文作者正住在明尼苏达
北部,能够观察当冬天来临时,鹿如何生存。他从鹿储存能量的方法
上得到的经验也能够运用到我们的日
常生活中。
鹿和能量循环
有些人说,爱情驱使
世界运转;另一些并不那么罗曼蒂克而更为注重实际的人则说,不是爱情,而是
金钱。但真实情况是,能
量驱使世界运转。能量是生态系统的货币,只有当食物转变为能量,能量再用来
获取更多的食物以供生长
、繁殖和生存,生命才成为可能。所有生命都维系在这一循环上。
差不多众所周知,野生动物得以年复
一年地生存下去,主要依靠在夏秋生长旺季尽量多吃,通常将多
余的部分以脂肪的形式储存起来,然后到
了冬天食物稀少的艰难时期,就用这些储备的脂肪来维持生命。
然而,很可能鲜为人知的是,即使有储备
的脂肪,野生动物在冬天消耗的能量比夏天要少。
一个很好的例证是白尾鹿。与大多数野生动物一样,
鹿在营养丰富、食物充足的夏秋两季,繁殖、生
长并储存脂肪。一只成熟健壮的母鹿,在十一月份怀胎,
五月底或六月初生下两只幼鹿,这时,它必须寻
找食物以获得必要的能量,这不仅是为了满足自身的需要
,而且也是为了给幼鹿生产乳汁。产乳的最佳期
也正是植物生长茂盛之时。这个时机选择得很好,因为乳
汁生产是一个消耗能量的过程——它需要大量的
食物,除非该地区具有丰富的食物资源,
否则无法满足这种消耗。
夏季一天天过去,幼鹿日渐生长,它们变得较少依赖母鹿的乳汁,而更加依靠
生长中的植物为其食物
来源。雄性成鹿在夏天生长鹿角并养肥身体。在秋天,雄鹿和雌鹿都继续进食高质
量食物,贮存体内脂肪,
以备过冬。至于雌鹿和幼鹿,由于大量的能量用于产奶或生长,脂肪的积累速度
不如完全成熟的雄鹿快。
脂肪储备如同银行里的存款,供冬天食物来源不足时和有时由于雪深难以获得时
,支取使用。
随着秋去冬来,还会发生其他变化: 幼鹿失去皮毛上的斑纹,所有鹿身上的毛长厚,颜
色变深。毛皮
的变化通常持续到9月。到??11月或12月天气变冷时,毛长得最厚。
此外
,大自然还为鹿提供进一步的保护以帮助它们度过冬天——体内生理机能作相应调节,放慢新陈
代谢,亦
即生理活动的速度,从而降低能量的消耗。鹿变得有点动作迟缓、嗜睡。它们的心率减慢。冬眠
的动物保
存能量的习性胜过鹿。虽然鹿不冬眠,但他们随季节改变新陈代谢节奏的习性则是一样的。夏秋
间,食物
充裕的时候,鹿消耗较多的能量并储存脂肪。在冬天食物匮乏时,它们则消耗较少的能量并使用
储存的脂
肪。
1973-1974年间,第一次出现“能源危机”的时候,我正与家人住在明尼苏达州北部一处
鹿群过冬地
方的边缘地带。我们住在一个小屋里,观察鹿的生活习性,观察它们是如何随着冬季来临从夏
秋的活动频
繁状态而变得少动的,而到春暖雪融时,他们的活动又是如何增多起来的。
当时广
播电台常告诫我们:“没有必要不开车,”“多穿衣服好保暖,并请调低锅炉上的恒温器。”
这些话听起
来既有趣又逗笑。因为与此同时,我们一直注视着鹿减少活动,长出越冬的厚毛,并减缓新陈
代谢。几千
年来,他们一贯如此。鹿减少生存所需的能耗以增加越冬生存的机会,从生物学角度来看是合
情合理的。
当然,对鹿来讲,并非每个冬天都处于危难之中。如果冬天雪下得少,存活率和次年春天的繁殖力就高。但如果雪积得深,天气连续数周寒冷,鹿活动起来就得花费较多的能量,觅食会更难,这时它们就得更多地依赖其脂肪储备度过寒冬。如果这种情况持续太久,有些鹿就要死亡,只有体型最大最壮的,才有可能存活。对于像鹿这样四处自由奔走的野生动物来说,这是一条根本的生存规律。
的确,生命—
—还有死亡——周而复始,循环不已。当动物死亡的时候,他们的尸体转化为能量,变
成食物,供其他生
命形式使用。
如此循环,永不止息。
Unit
3
Text
Can you prove that the earth is
round? Go ahead and try! Will you rely on your
senses or will you have to draw on the
opinions of experts?
WHY DO WE BELIEVE
THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND?
George Orwell
Somewhere or other — I think
it is in the preface to saint Joan — Bernard Shaw
remarks that we are more gullible and
superstitious today than we were in the Middle
Ages, and as an example of modern credulity he
cites the widespread belief that the
earth is
round. The average man, says Shaw, can advance not
a single reason for
thinking that the earth is
round. He merely swallows this theory because
there is
something about it that appeals to
the twentieth-century mentality.
Now, Shaw
is exaggerating, but there is something in what he
says, and the
question is worth following up,
for the sake of the light it throws on modern
knowledge. Just why do we believe that the
earth is round? I am not speaking of the
few
thousand astronomers, geographers and so forth who
could give ocular proof, or
have a theoretical
knowledge of the proof, but of the ordinary
newspaper-reading
citizen, such as you
or me.
As for the Flat Earth theory, I
believe I could refute it. If you stand by the
seashore on a clear day, you can see the masts
and funnels of invisible ships passing
along
the horizon. This phenomenon can only be explained
by assuming that the earth's
surface is
curved. But it does not follow that the earth is
spherical. Imagine another
theory called the
Oval Earth theory, which claims that the earth is
shaped like an
egg. What can I say against it?
Against the Oval Earth man, the first card
I can play is the analogy of the sun
and moon.
The Oval Earth man promptly answers that I don't
know, by my own observation,
that those bodies
are spherical. I only know that they are round,
and they may
perfectly well be flat discs. I
have no answer to that one. Besides, he goes on,
what reason have I for thinking that the earth
must be the same shape as the sun
and moon? I
can't answer that one either.
My second
card is the earth's shadow: When cast on the moon
during eclipses,
it appears to be the shadow
of a round object. But how do I know, demands the
Oval
Earth man, that eclipses of the moon are
caused by the shadow of the earth? The answer
is that I don't know, but have taken this
piece of information blindly from newspaper
articles and science booklets.
Defeated in the minor exchanges, I now play my
queen of trumps: the opinion of
the experts.
The Astronomer Royal, who ought to know, tells me
that the earth is
round. The Oval Earth man
covers the queen with his king. Have I tested the
Astronomer
Royal's statement, and would I even
know a way of testing it? Here I bring out my
ace. Yes, I do know one test. The astronomers
can foretell eclipses, and this suggests
that
their opinions about the solar system are pretty
sound. I am, to my delight,
justified in
accepting their say-so about the shape of the
earth.
If the Oval Earth man answers —
what I believe is true — that the ancient
Egyptians, who thought the sun goes round the
earth, could also predict eclipses,
then bang
goes my ace. I have only one card left:
navigation. People can sail ship
round the
world, and reach the places they aim at, by
calculations which assume that
the earth is
spherical. I believe that finishes the Oval Earth
man, though even then
he may possibly have
some kind of counter.
It will be seen that my
reasons for thinking that the earth is round are
rather
precarious ones. Yet this is an
exceptionally elementary piece of information. On
most other questions I should have to fall
back on the expert much earlier, and
would be
less able to test his pronouncements. And much the
greater part of our
knowledge is at this
level. It does not rest on reasoning or on
experiment, but
on authority. And how can it
be otherwise, when the range of knowledge is so
vast
that the expert himself is an ignoramus
as soon as he strays away from his own
specialty? Most people, if asked to prove that
the earth is round, would not even
bother to
produce the rather weak arguments I have outlined
above. They would start
off by saying that the
earth to be round, and if pressed further,
would become angry. In a way Shaw is right.
This is a credulous age, and the burden
of
knowledge which we now have to carry is partly
responsible.
你能证明地球是圆的吗?来试试看吧!你将依靠你自己的智力还是不得不引用专家的观点呢?
我们为什么相信地球是圆的?
记得在什么地方——我想是在《圣女贞德》序言
中——肖伯纳评论说,今天我们比在中世纪时更加轻
信,更加迷信。而作为现代轻信的例证,他举出地圆
说这一广为传播的信念。肖伯纳说,普通人举不出一
条理由来说明为什么相信地球是圆的。他全盘接受这
一理论,只是因为这一理论中有一种迎合20世纪心态
的东西。
当然,肖伯纳是夸大其词了,
但他说的也确实有些道理,这一问题值得进一步探讨,因为它会帮助人
们看清现代知识的真实情况。我们
究竟为什么会相信地球是圆的呢?我说的不是数千位天文学家、地理学家
之类的人,他们可以用观察到的
事实或用理论上的根据来证实这一点,我指的是如同你我之辈的报纸的普
通读者。
至于“地平
说”,我相信我能够加以驳斥。如果你在天气晴朗的日子站立海边,你可以看到船桅和烟
囱沿着地平线移
动而不见船体本身。只有假设地球表面呈曲线状,这一现象才能得到解释。但不能由此推
断地球是球形的
。设想另一个称做“地球卵形说”的理论吧,这一学说声称地球形如蛋状。对此,我能说
什么加以反驳呢
?
面对“地球卵形说”者,我能打的第一张牌是,可以根据太阳和月亮来类推。“地球卵形说”者立即
回敬道,我无法根据自己的观察得知那些天体是球形的。我只能得知他们是圆的,而它们完全可能呈扁平
的圆盘状。我对此无言以答。此外,他还会说,我凭什么理由认为地球一定与太阳和月亮的形状相同?对
此,
我同样无法解答。
我的第二张牌是地球的影子: 月食期间,地球投在月亮上的影子看上
去呈圆形物体状。但“地球卵形
说”者马上要问,我怎么知道月食是由地球的影子造成的呢?回答是,我
并不知道,我只是照搬报刊文章和
科普小册子上的说法而已。
小小交锋受挫,于是我打出一张王牌“Q”: 专家的看法。英国格林威治皇家天文台台长总该是权威<
br>了,他告诉我说地球是圆的。“地球卵形说”者用他的“K”牌压倒我的“Q”牌。天文台台长的话我检验
过没有?再说,我知道怎么个检验法吗?这时候,我打出我的“爱司”。是的,我确实知道一个检验方法
。
天文学家能预报月食,这一点表明他们关于太阳系的看法是非常可信的。因此,令我高兴的是,我接受
他
们关于地球形状的论断是有道理的。
如果“地球卵形说”者反驳道——我以为他反驳得有理
——认为太阳绕地球转的古代埃及人也能预
言月食,那我的“爱司”牌便立刻化为乌有。我只剩下一张牌
: 航海。人们可以扬帆绕地球航行而到达他
们的目的地,其航程的计算,就是以地球是球形的假定为依
据的。我相信这一下可以彻底击败“地球卵形
说”者了。不过即便如此,他还可能有某种回击的办法。
由此可见,我认为地球是圆的,其根据是相当不牢靠的。然而这却是一点极其基本的知识。在别的大多数问题上,我只得更早地依赖专家的理论,且更少有办法检验他的结论了。我们的知识,其绝大部分都停留在这一水平上。它不是依靠推理或实验,而是依赖权威。可是,不这样,又有什么别的法子呢?知识的<
br>范围如此广博,一旦越出其专业范围,专家也会变成一无所知。对大多数人来说,如果要他们证明地球是<
br>圆的话,就连我上面概述的这些相当无力的论据,他们也不愿提供出来。他们一开始就会说: 谁都知道地
球是圆的。要是再加追问,就会生气了。在某种程度上讲,肖伯纳是说对了,如今是一个轻信的时代。究
其缘由,部分在于,我们现今必须掌握的知识实在太多了。
Unit 4
Text
On September 11, 2001, a series
of suicide attacks on the United States took
place. Foreign hijackers took control of four
. airliners. Two were crashed into
the World
Trade Center. The third aircraft was crashed into
the Pentagon. The fourth,
intended, it is
thought, for another government target, crashed
into a field,
apparently after passenger
resistance. This is the story of one of those
passengers
Flight 93:What I never
know
Sunday, September 9, 2001,
was a good day for the three of us. Emmy was just
11 weeks old and we were enjoying her
enormously. After three miscarriages in two
years, she was doubly precious to us. My
husband, Jeremy, who was thinking of changing
jobs, had gone on two interviews and felt they
went well. Since Sunday was rainy,
we just lay
around our house in northern New Jersey. We
laughed a lot, and watched
Emmy, and then went
to bed early.
The next day, September 10,
was busy, with Jeremy due to fly from Newark to
California on business. I would take Emmy up
to my parents’ house in Windham, New
York, and
he could meet us there when he returned.
For some reason he particularly wanted to take
care of Emmy that morning. So
he fed her and
bathed and dressed her. He packed up both our
cars, made sure Emmy
was tucked into her car
seat, and kissed her. Then he stood waving as we
drove off.
When I got to Windham, Jeremy
called. His flight to San Francisco had been
canceled. He didn’t want to take the next
available flight and get in at 2 .“Screw
it,”
he said. “I’m going to go home, get a good
night’s sleep, and get up early
tomorrow.” He
would grab the first flight out of Newark. United
Flight 93.
Tuesday morning found me in
the kitchen, fumbling with the lid of the doughnut
box, when I heard my father say something
about the World Trade Center. I looked
in the
living room at the TV, and saw the image of the
fire poking through the
blackened holes in the
tower’s silver skin. The phone rang, and my dad
said into
it, “Oh, thank God it’s you.” I ran
into the living room. He held out the phone,
his face pale. “Jeremy,” he said.
I
grabbed the phone.“Jer”I said.
“Hi”he
said.“Listen,there are some bad men on the plane
.”
“What do you mean?”
“These
three guys took over the plane. They put on these
red headbands. They
said they had a bomb.”
I was crying now.
“I love
you,” he said.
“I love you,” I said.
“only have good thoughts”
I
was shaking and nauseated, but I also knew I could
make myself do whatever
was necessary to help
Jeremy.
“I don’t think I’m going to make
it out of here,” he said. And then, “I
don’t
want to die.” And he cursed.
“You’re not
going to die,” I told him. “Jer, put a picture of
me and Emmy
in your head and only have really
good thoughts.”
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Don’t think about anything bad,” I said.
“You’ve got to promise me you’re going to
be happy,” he said. “For Emmy
to know how much
I love her. And that whatever decisions you make
in your life, no
matter what, I’ll support
you.”
After a pause, Jeremy said to me,
“A passenger said they’re crashing planes
into
the World Trade Center. Is that true?”
“Are they going to blow the plane
up or are they going to crash it into
something?” he almost screamed at me.
“They’re not going to the World Trade Center,” I
said.
“Because the whole thing’s on
fire.”
He said there were maybe 30 or 35
passengers, herded to the back. For some reason,
however, no one was guarding them back there.
“What about the pilots?” I asked him. “Has
there been any communication?”
“No. These
guys just stood up and yelled and ran into the
cockpit. After that,
we didn’t hear from the
pilots.”
Just then, we saw something on
TV about a plane crashing into the Pentagon,
and I thought, thank God it isn’t Jeremy’s
plane.
When I told him about this new
attack, Jeremy cursed again. The Pentagon was
probably the jolt that made him see clearly
that his fate and that of his fellow
passengers in the rear of the plane were
completely in their own hands. “Okay, I’m
going to take a vote,” he said. “There’s three
other guys as big as me and we’re
thinking of
attacking the guy with the bomb. What do you
think?”
“No, I didn’t see guns. I saw
knives.” He joked, “I still have my butter
knife from breakfast.” There was a pause, and
then he said, “I know I could take
the guy
with the bomb. Do you think it’s really a bomb?”
I don’t think so. I think they’re
bluffing you.”
“Okay, I’m going to do it,”
Jer said
“screams in the background”
“I think you need to do it,” I told him. “You’re
strong, you’re brave, I
love you.”
“Okay,
I’m going to put the phone down, I’m going to
leave it here, and I’m
going to come right
back to it,”
When my father put the phone to
his ear, he heard nothing on the line for two
or three minutes. Then he heard screams off in
the background. And he thought,
They’re doing
it. It was bound to be noisy. Perhaps a minute and
a half later, there
was another set of
screams, muffled, like people on a roller coaster.
Then silence
I sat on the living room couch
and all my energy seemed to have deserted me.
After a while, I got up and headed for the
kitchen and almost collided with my dad,
who
was coming the other way. He must have just hung
up the phone. He was crying.
He gave me a hug.
I watched him cry, a bit dumbfounded.
Wait,
you think he’s dead?” I said.
He couldn’t
manage anything but to cry harder. I must have
asked the same
question five times. And then,
when it finally sank in, I collapsed on the floor。
“searching for Jeremy”
Over the next
months, I spent a lot of time searching for
Jeremy. Often I heard his
voice in my head,
comforting me when my pain was almost
unendurable. I visited the crash site. I
hungered to know what had happened on Flight
93 and why Jeremy died.
Now I find that my
viewpoint has changed. Not that I don’t want to
know what
happened. It’s just that I’m sure I
will never really make sense of September 11.
Did someone declare war on us for a
principle? Because they were jealous? To show
how tough they were? Did we in this country
somehow overstep, push too hard, tread
on
ancient sensibilities? The world Jeremy and I knew
was never more than the rooms
we lived in, a
few places we walked, a few friends and family we
loved. Now it’s
gone, and no one could ever
really make sense of why.
I think Jeremy
always suspected he had a higher purpose. I don’t
believe it
was an accident that he was on
Flight 93. It wasn’t mere luck that an airline
passenger with precisely the right physical
skills to abort one of the terror
missions
happened to be on the only plane hijacked that day
where there was an
opportunity to do that.
Jeremy was 31 when he died, had been married
to me for five years and knew his
daughter for
barely three months. Yet I consider us blessed. He
and I left nothing
unsaid or undone, and he
managed to give Emmy and me everything we need.
And sometimes,
when I’m watching and
listening, I can still feel him near me, leading
me forward
into the rest of my life.
2001年
9月11日,在美国发生了一系列自杀式的袭击事件。外国的劫机者控制了四架美国的航空公司的
飞机,
两架撞入世界贸易中心,第三架冲进五角大楼,而第四架据传原本要袭击另一政府目标,但显然由
于遭到
乘客的反抗而坠毁于一片田地里。本文说的便是其中一位乘客的故事。
第93次航班:我所无法理解的事
莉兹·格里克?? 丹·泽加特
2001年9月
9日是星期日,对我们三个人来说,是个美好的日子。埃米刚有11周大,我们极其喜欢她。
她是我在两
年内经过连续三次流产后生下的,所以对我们更为珍贵。我的丈夫杰里米当时正考虑换个工作,
已经面试
过两次,自己感觉进行得还顺利。周日那天下雨,我们就在我们位于新泽西北部的自家屋内闲躺
着。我们
嬉笑着,照看着埃米,随后就早早就寝了。
次日,9月10日,我们忙碌起来,杰里米将从纽瓦克飞往
加利福尼亚出差。我将带埃米北上去纽约州温
德姆我父母的家中。这样,杰里米回来时可以去那里接我们
。
那天早晨,不知什么原因,他特想要照料埃米。他给她喂奶、给她洗澡、给她穿衣。他把两辆车的行
李都装好,把埃米在汽车座椅上安置妥当,并吻了吻她。而后当我们开车离开时他站到一边挥手告别。
我到达温德姆时,杰里米打来电话。他飞往旧金山的航班被取消了。他不打算搭乘下一班飞机在凌晨两点到达目的地。“该死,”他说。“我想回家,美美地睡上一夜,明天早点起身。”他将赶上第一班航班飞离纽瓦克。联合航空公司的第93次航班。
星期二早晨我正在厨房里设法打开一盒炸圈饼的
盒盖时,听到父亲在说什么世贸中心的事。我向起居
室的电视瞧去,看见屏幕上出现了从世贸中心大楼的
银色外墙上被燻黑的洞中窜出的大火。这时电话响了,
父亲对着话筒说道,“哦,感谢上帝,是你啊。”
我跑进起居室,父亲脸色苍白地把话筒递了过来。“是
杰里米,”他说。
我夺过话筒,说道,“杰尔。” “你好,”他说。“听着,飞机上有几个坏蛋。”“什么?”“三个<
br>家伙控制了飞机。他们头上戴着红色的束发带,声称带着一颗炸弹。”我当即哭了。“我爱你,”他说。<
br>“我爱你,”我说。
“只往好处想”
我浑身颤抖,想要呕吐,可同时我很清楚,我还是可以尽一切可能帮助杰里米的。
“我感到我是无法从这儿活着出去了,”他说。随后他又说,“我可不想死。”接着他咒骂起来。
“你不会死的,”我对他说。“杰尔,心里就装着我和埃米吧,只往好处去想。”
“好,”他回答道。“不要去想那些糟糕的事,”我说。
“你得答应我,你将来要高高兴兴地
生活下去,”他说。“务必让埃米知道我非常爱她。不论你将来
作出什么决定,我都支持
你。”稍停片刻,杰里米又对我说,“一位乘客说他们正在用飞机撞击世贸中心,
这是真的吗?”
我正站在起居室里看着电视上播放此事,心想:我是否该告诉他?
“他们想要炸毁这架飞机呢,还是想用它去撞击什么东西?”他几乎在对我大声喊叫道。
“他们不会去撞世贸中心了,”我说。“为什么?”“因为整个世贸中心都在燃烧了。”
他说约有30到35位乘客,都被驱赶到客舱的后部,但,不知怎的,却无人看管他们。
“那么驾驶员们的情况如何?”我问道。“你们之间联络过没有?”
“没有。那几个家伙就这
么站了起来,喊叫着冲进了驾驶舱。后来就再也没有听到有关驾驶员们的情
况。”
正在那时,我们从电视上看到一架飞机撞进了五角大楼。心想,上帝保佑那不是杰里米的飞机。
我把新发生的这次攻击告 了杰里米,他再次咒骂起来。五角大楼一事可能使他受到极大震惊,使他认<
br>清他和待在客舱后面的其他乘客的命运完全掌握在他们自己的手中。“好,我这就去进行表决,”他说。<
br>“另外有三个身材和我一样高大的人,我们打算去袭击那个带炸弹的家伙。你看行吗?”
“他们有枪吗?”我问道。
“没有,我没有看到枪。我见到刀子。”他开玩笑说,“我这里还
有早餐用的牛油刀呢。”停了一会
儿,他说,“我想我可以制服那个带炸弹的家伙。你觉得那是一颗真的
炸弹吗?”
“我认为不是真的炸弹,那是在吓唬你们。”
“行,我这就去干,”杰尔说。
“隐隐约约的尖叫声”
“我觉得你必须去干,”我对他说。“你身强力壮,又勇敢,我爱你。”
“好,我这就把话筒
搁下离开这儿,我会马上回来再拿起它的,”杰尔说。我把话筒递给父亲,跑进
盥洗室,在水池上呕吐起
来。
我父亲把话筒放到耳边,有两三分钟光景什么都听不到。而后他听到隐隐约约的尖叫声。他想,
他们
正干上了。这必然会引起喧闹。隔了约莫一分半钟,又传来一阵低沉的尖叫声,就像人们坐过山车时
发出
的叫声那样。随后便沉寂了下来。
我坐在起居室的长沙发上,浑身乏力。过了一会儿,我
起身向厨房走去,几乎与从相反方向走来的父
亲相撞。他想必刚挂上电话,他在哭泣。他拥抱了我。我瞧
着他哭着,我有点麻木了。
“等一等,你是不是认为他死了?”我说。
他除了放声大哭之外
再也说不出话来。我大概重复问了五次之多。接着,当我终于明白过来之后,我
瘫倒在地上。
“寻找杰里米”
在接下的几个月里,我花了大量时间寻觅杰里米。每当我痛楚万分之际,我常
听到他在耳边安慰我的
声音。我去了飞机坠毁的地方。我渴求了解第93次航班上发生的事情以及杰里米
为何而身故。
如今我发现我已改变了看法。不是因为我不想了解到底发生了什么,而恰恰是我相信我
将永远不可能
真正理解911事件。是否有人出于某种原则性的问题向我们宣战了?或是他们出于妒忌?
或是他们想炫耀其
强悍?是否我们这个国家的人越轨了,做得过分了,伤及了人家自古而来的情感?杰里
米和我所熟悉的世
界只不过是我们所居住的房子、几处散步的地方、几个朋友以及我们所热爱的家人。如
今一切全完了,但
却始终无人能真正弄清这到底是怎么回事。
我觉得杰里米一直认为他生来就
肩负有崇高使命。我也并不认为杰里米乘坐上第93次航班是出于偶然。
一位具有足够挫败恐怖行径体能
的旅客正好搭乘了那天被劫持的飞机中唯一一个可以有机会进行反击劫机
者的航班,这不仅仅是一种巧合
。
杰里米去世时31岁,和我结婚了五年,和他的女儿相处了三个月都不到。可我认为我们是幸福的。
他
与我之间未留下任何未尽之言或未竟之事。他总是努力给埃米和我带来我们所需的一切。有时,当我留
神
观察和倾听时,我仍然能感到他就在我的身边,在我有生之年指引我向前。
Unit 5
Text
Is it ever proper for a
medical doctor to lie to his patient? Should he
tell
a patient he is dying? These questions
seem simple enough, but it is not so simple
to
give a satisfactory answer to them. Now a new
light is shed on them.
TO LIE OR
NOT TOLIE—
THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA
Sissela Bok
Should doctors ever lie to
benefit their patients -- to speed recovery or to
conceal the approach of death? In medicine as
in law, government, and other lines
of work,
the requirements of honesty often seem dwarfed by
greater needs: the need
to shelter from brutal
news or to uphold a promise of secrecy; to expose
corruption
or to promote the public interest.
What should doctors say, for example, to a
46-year-old man coming in for a routine
physical checkup just before going on vacation
with his family who, though he feels
in
perfect health, is found to have a form of cancer
that will cause him to die within
six months?
Is it best to tell him the truth? If he asks,
should the doctors deny
that he is ill, or
minimize the gravity of the illness? Should they
at least conceal
the truth until after the
family vacation?
Doctors confront such
choices often and urgently. At times, they see
important
reasons to lie for the patient's own
sake; in their eyes, such lies differ sharply
from self-serving ones.
Studies show
that most doctors sincerely believe that the
seriously ill do not
want to know the truth
about their condition, and that informing them
risks
destroying their hope, so that they may
recover more slowly, or deteriorate faster,
perhaps even commit suicide. As one physician
wrote:
traditionally has been guided by a
precept that transcends the virtue of uttering
the truth for truth's sake, and that is 'as
far as possible do no harm.'
Armed with
such a precept, a number of doctors may slip into
deceptive practices
that they assume will
prescribe innumerable placebos, sound more
encouraging than the facts warrant, and
distort grave news, especially to the
incurably ill and the dying.
But the
illusory nature of the benefits such deception is
meant to produce is
now coming to be
documented. Studies show that, contrary to the
belief of many
physicians, an overwhelming
majority of patients do want to be told the truth,
even
about grave illness, and feel betrayed
when they learn that they have been misled.
We
are also learning that truthful information,
humanely conveyed, helps patients
cope with
illness: helps them tolerate pain better, need
less medicine, and even
recover faster after
surgery.
Not only do lies not provide the
deception; they invade the autonomy of
patients and render them unable to make
informed choices concerning their own health,
including the choice of whether to
be patient
in the first place. We are becoming increasingly
aware of all that can
befall patients in the
course of their illness when information is denied
or
distorted.
Dying patients
especially -- who are easies to mislead and most
often kept in
the dark -- can then not make
decisions about the end of life: about whether or
not
they should enter a hospital, or have
surgery; about where and with whom they should
spend their remaining time; about how they
should bring their affairs to a close
and take
leave.
Lies also do harm to those who tell
them: harm to their integrity and, in the
long
run, to their credibility. Lies hurt their
colleagues as well. The suspicion
of deceit
undercuts the work of the many doctors who are
scrupulously hones with
their patients; it
contributes to the spiral of lawsuits and of
medicine,
and thus it injures, in turn, the
entire medical profession.
Sharp conflicts
are now arising. Patients are learning to press
for answers.
Patients' bills of rights require
that they be informed about their condition and
about alternatives for treatment. Many doctors
go to great lengths to provide such
information. Yet even in hospitals with the
most eloquent bill of rights, believers
in
benevolent deception continue their age-old
practices. Colleagues may disapprove
but
refrain from objecting. Nurses may bitterly resent
having to take part, day
after day, in
deceiving patients, but feel powerless to take a
stand.
There is urgent need to debate this
issue openly. Not only in medicine, but
in
other professions as well, practitioners may find
themselves repeatedly in
difficulty where
serious consequences seem avoidable only through
deception. Yet
the public has every reason to
be wary of professional deception, for such
practices
are peculiarly likely to become
deeply rooted, to spread, and to erode trust.
Neither
in medicine, nor in law, government,
or the social sciences can there be comfort
in
the old saying,
医生可以对病人撒谎吗?医生应该告诉病人他已经病入
膏肓了吗?这些问题看起来很简单,但是要给出
令人满意的回答却并不那么简单。
撒谎还是不撒谎——医生的难题
为了对病人有好处——为了加快病人康复或不让病人知道死亡
的来临——医生到底该不该撒谎?医疗
行业与法律、政府及其他行业一样,往往显得对诚实与否的问题不
那么看重,要紧的倒是另外的一些事情,
譬如,应设法避免可怕的消息造成的打击,或是应考虑恪守保密
的诺言,或是需要揭露腐败行为或促进公
众利益等。
举例说吧。一个46岁的男子,在与家人
外出度假之前进行常规体格检查,虽然他自我感觉良好,但
医生发现他患了某种癌症,6个月内就会死去
。这时,医生该怎么对他讲呢?是不是最好对他讲实话?要是
他问起检查结果,医生该不该否认他得了病
?该不该将病情的严重性缩小到最低限度?该不该将真情至少隐
瞒到他全家度假之后?
医生们
常常面临这样的非常紧迫的选择。他们不时认为,为了病人自身的利益,撒谎很有必要,在他
们看来,这
种谎言与利己的谎言截然不同。
研究结果表明,大多数医生深信身患重病的人不想知道他们的真实病情
,如果将真情相告,则有可能
使他们完全失去希望,结果使他们恢复得更慢或恶化得更快,甚至会自寻短
见。正如一位内科医生写道:
“我们这个职业,传统上恪守一条信条,那就是:'尽可能不造成伤害',
这一信条胜过为讲真话而讲真话
的美德”。
有了这样一个指导原则,一些医生可能渐渐习惯于
采用他们认为对病人很可能有益而“无害”的骗人
做法。他们可能开出无数帖安慰剂,说一些没有事实根
据的打气的话,并歪曲严重的病情,对那些患有不
治之症和濒临死亡的病人,则尤其如此
。
然而,现在开始有人提出证据,说明这种欺骗旨在给病人带来好处的说法是虚幻的。研究结果表明,
与许多医生的想法相反,绝大多数病人确实想知道真实情况,甚至是严重的病情。当他们了解到医生没有
对他们讲真话的时候,他们感到自己被玩弄了。我们还获悉,将真实情况妥当地告诉病人,能帮助他们与
病魔作斗争,有助于他们更好地忍受疼痛,减少用药,甚至在手术后更快地康复。
谎言不仅不
能提供鼓吹“仁慈”欺骗的人们所希望的那种“帮助”,它还侵犯了病人的个人自由,使
他们不能对有关
自己健康的问题作出明达的选择,包括要不要就医这一首要的选择。我们越来越意识到,
病人发病期间,
在不知病情或未被如实地告知病情的情况下,他们会遭到什么样的不幸。
特别是濒临死亡的病人——他
们最易受骗也最会被人蒙在鼓里——因此而不能作出临终前的种种有
关抉择: 是否要住进医院,或进行
手术,在何处与何人度过所剩下的一点时间,以及如何处理完自己的事
务而后与世长辞。
谎言
也伤害说谎的人,损害他们的诚实,并最终损害他们的信誉。谎言还伤害他们的同事。由于病人
怀疑有欺
骗行为,许多对病人十分开诚布公的医生的工作也因此受到影响。病人的不信任使医疗诉讼案增
多,造成
医生避免风险的“防御性诊治”增多,而这些又进而有损于整个医疗事业。
剧烈的冲突正在出现。病人
开始学会催问真实情况。根据病人应享有的权利的规定,医生应将病情和
可供选择的治疗方案通告病人。
许多医生尽可能向病人提供这些情况。然而,即使在对病人的权益考虑得
最周到的医院里,信奉“仁慈”
欺骗的医生们继续他们传统的古老做法。同事们也许不赞同,但避免公开
表示反对。护士们对不得不日复
一日地参与欺骗病人的做法也许深恶痛绝,但要抵制却感到无能为力。
及时对这个问题进行公开辩论非
常必要。不仅在医疗业,而且在其他行业,从业者不断发现,自己常
处于似乎不采用欺骗手段就无法避免
严重后果的困难处境。但是公众完全有理由对职业性欺骗保持警惕,
因为这种做法特别容易变得根深蒂固
,蔓延滋长,并损害信任。无论医疗界、法律界、政府机构还是社会
科学界,都不应从“不知者,不为所
害”这句老话中得到丝毫慰藉。
Unit 6
Text
ever
mark in a book!Thousands of teachers, librarians
and parents have
so advised. But Mortimer
Adler disagrees. He thinks so long as you own the
book and
needn't preserve its physical
appearance, marking it properly will grant you the
ownership of the book in the true sense of the
word and make it a part of yourself.
HOW TO MARK A BOOK
Mortimer J.
Adler
You know you have to read
I want
to persuade you to do something equally important
in the course of your reading.
I want to
persuade you to between the you do, you are not
likely
to do the most efficient kind of
reading.
You shouldn't mark up a book
which isn't yours. Librarians (or your friends)
who lend you books expect you to keep them
clean, and you should. If you decide that
I am
right about the usefulness of marking books, you
will have to buy them.
There are two ways
in which one can own a book. The first is the
property right
you establish by paying for it,
just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But
this
act of purchase is only the prelude to
possession. Full ownership comes only when
you
have made it a part of yourself, and the best way
to make yourself a part of
it is by writing in
it. An illustration may make the point clear. You
buy a beefsteak
and transfer it from the
butcher's icebox to your own. But you do not own
the
beefsteak in the most important sense
until you consume it and get it into your
bloodstream. I am arguing that books,
too, must be absorbed in your bloodstream
to
do you any good.
There are three kinds of
book owners. The first has all the standard sets
and
best-sellers -- unread, untouched. (This
individual owns wood-pulp and ink, not
books.)
The second has a great many books -- a few of them
read through, most of
them dipped into, but
all of them as clean and shiny as the day they
were bought.
(This person would probably like
to make books his own, but is restrained by a
false
respect for their physical appearance.)
The third has a few books or many -- every
one
of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and
loosened by continual use, marked
and
scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns
books.)
Is it false respect, you may ask,
to preserve intact a beautifully printed book,
an elegantly bound edition? Of course not. I'd
no more scribble all over a first
edition of
Rembrandt! I wouldn't mark up a painting or a
statue. Its soul, so to speak, is
inseparable
from its body. And the beauty of a rare edition or
of a richly
manufactured volume is like that
of painting or a statue. If your respect for
magnificent binding or printing gets in the
way, buy yourself a cheap edition and
pay your
respects to the author.
Why is marking up
a book indispensable to reading? First, it keeps
you awake.
(And I don't mean merely conscious;
I mean wide awake.) In the second place, reading,
if it is active, is thinking, and thinking
tends to express itself in words, spoken
or
written. The marked book is usually the thought-
through book. Finally, writing
helps you
remember the thoughts you had, or the thoughts the
author expressed. Let
me develop these three
points.
If reading is to accomplish
anything more than passing time, it must be
active.
you can't let your eyes glide across
the lines of a book and come up with an
understanding of what you have read. Now an
ordinary piece of light fiction, like,
say,
with the Wind,doesn't require the most active kind
of reading. The books
you read for pleasure
can be read in a state of relaxation, and nothing
is lost.
But a great book, rich in ideas and
beauty, a book that raises and tries to answer
great fundamental questions, demands the most
active reading of which you are capable.
You
don't absorb the ideas of John Dewey the way you
absorb the crooning of Mr. Vallee.
You have to
reach for them. That you cannot do while you're
asleep.
If, when you've finished reading a
book, the pages are filled with your notes,
you know that you read actively. The most
famous active reader of great books I know
is
President Hutchins, of the University of Chicago.
He also has the hardest schedule
of business
activities of any man I know. He invariably read
with pencil, and
sometimes, when he picks up a
book and pencil in the evening, he finds himself,
instead of making intelligent notes, drawing
what he calls
the margins. When that happens,
he puts the book down. He knows he's too tired to
read, and he's just wasting time.
But,
you may ask, why is writing necessary? Well, the
physical act of writing,
with your own hand,
brings words and sentences more sharply before
your mind and
preserves them better in your
memory. To set down your reaction to important
words
and sentences you have read, and
the questions they have raised in your mind, is
to preserve those reactions and sharpen those
questions. You can pick up the book
the
following week or year, and there are all your
points of agreement, disagreement,
doubt and
inquiry. It's like resuming an interrupted
conversation with the advantage
of being able
to pick up where you left off.
And that is
exactly what reading a book should be: a
conversation between you
and the author.
Presumably he knows more about the subject than
you do; naturally
you'll have the proper
humility as you approach him. But don't let
anybody tell you
that a reader is supposed to
be solely on the receiving end. Understanding is a
two-way operation; learning doesn't consist in
being an empty receptacle. The
learner has to
question himself and question the teacher. He even
has to argue with
the teacher, once he
understands what the teacher is saying. And
marking a book is
literally an expression of
your differences, or agreements of opinion, with
the
author.
There are all kinds of
devices for marking a book intelligently and
fruitfully.
Here's the way I do it:
1.
Underlining: of major points, of important or
forceful statements.
2. Vertical lines at the
margin: to emphasize a statement already
underlined.
3. Star, asterisk, or other doo-
dad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to
emphasize
the ten or twenty most important
statements in the book.
4. Numbers in the
margin: to indicate the sequence of points the
author makes in
developing a single argument.
5. Number of other pages in the margin: to
indicate where else in the book the author
made points relevant to the point marked; to
tie up the ideas in a book, which, though
they
may be separated by many pages, belong together.
6. Circling of key words or phrases.
7.
Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of
the page, for the sake of:
recording questions
(and perhaps answers) which a passage raise in
your mind;
reducing a complicated discussion
to a simple statement; recording the sequence of
major points right through the book. I use the
end-papers at the back of the book
to make a
personal index of the author's points in the order
of their appearance.
The front end-papers are,
to me, the most important. Some people reserve
them
for a fancy bookplate, I reserve them for
fancy thinking. After I have finished
reading
the book and making my personal index on the back
end-papers, I turn to the
front and try to
outline the book, not page by page, or point by
point (I've already
done that at the back),
but as an integrated structure, with a basic unity
and an
order of parts. This outline is, to me,
the measure of my understanding of the work.
“
不要在书上做记号!”无数教师、图书管理员和家长都曾这样建议。但是莫蒂默·艾德勒并不同意。
他认
为只要你拥有这本书而且不需要保护它的外观,做记号将会让你真正意义上拥有这本书并且使它成为
你的
一部分。
怎样在书上做记号
你知道读书要“深入字里行间”,以求最充分的理解。我劝你在
读书过程中做一件同样重要的事情。
我想劝你“在字里行间写字”。不这样做,你的读书就不可能是最有
效的。
你不应该在不是你自己的书上做记号。借给你书的图书管理员 (或你的朋友) 希望你保持书
的整洁,
再说你也应该这样做。如果你认为我说的在书上做记号颇有益处这番话是对的话
,你就得自己买书。
一个人拥有书的方法有两种,第一种是花钱取得财产所有权,就像你花钱买衣服和
家具一样。但花钱
买书只是占有它的前奏。只有在你将它化为你自己的一部分之后,你才完全占有了它。
而把你自己变为书
的一部分的最好方法就是在书中写字。打个比方也许可以把这一点说清楚。你买下一块
牛排,把它从肉铺
的冰箱里转移到你的冰箱中。但从最重要的意义上来说,你还没有占有它,除非你吃下
它并将它吸收进你
的血液之中。我的论点是,书的营养也只有在被吸收进你的血液中时,才能对你有所裨
益。
书籍拥有者可以分为三种。第一种人藏有全部标准的成套书和畅销书——既没有读过,也没有碰过
。
(这位占有的只是纸浆和油墨,而不是书。) 第二种人藏书很多——有几本从头至尾读过,大部分浅
尝辄止,
但全都跟新买时一样整洁光亮。(此君很可能想使书真的为其所有,但因错误地过分关注书籍的
外观而裹足
不前。)第三种人藏书或多或少——因不断使用,每本书都弄成书角卷起,破旧不堪,装订破
损,书页松散,
全书从扉页至末页画满了记号,涂满了字句。(此人是书的真正拥有者。)
你
或许会问,将一本印刷精美、装帧雅致的书保存完好,难道也是不恰当的吗?当然不是。我决不会
在一本
初版的《失乐园》上乱涂乱写,就像我不会把一幅伦勃朗的原作连同一盒蜡笔交给我的婴孩任意涂
抹一样
!我决不会在一幅油画或一尊塑像上画记号。可以说,它们的灵魂与其躯体是不可分开的。一部珍本
或一
本装帧华美的书的美,同一幅油画或一尊塑像的美是一样的。如果你对华美的装帧或印刷的尊重妨碍
你读
书,那就买一种便宜的版本,将你的敬意献给作者。
为什么在书上做记号对阅读是必不可少的呢?首
先,它会使你保持清醒。(我不是仅仅指它让你
神志清醒;我的意思是它能使你全神贯注。)其次,如果
阅读是一种能动的行为,那么它就是思考,而思考
常常需借助口头的或书面的语言来表达。作了记号的书
,通常是读者认真思考过的书。最后,写可以帮助
你记住你阅读时的思想,或作者所表达的思想。让我进
一步就这三点谈一谈。
如果阅读的目的不仅仅是消磨时间,那就应该是一种积极的思维活动。
仅仅让你的眼睛在书上扫视一遍,你就不可能对所读的内容有所理解。当然,一部普通的消遣小说,
譬
如说《飘》,并不需要那种最积极的思维式的阅读。作为消遣的书,可以轻松地读而不会有所失。但一本
思想丰富、文字华美,试图提出带根本性的重大问题并加以回答的伟大着作,则要求你尽可能地进行最积
极的阅读。你不能像欣赏瓦利先生的低声吟唱那样,学到约翰·杜威的思想。你得花费气力方可获得。漫
不经心是做不到这一点的。
如果当你读完一本书的时候,书页上写满了你的批注,你就知道你的阅读是
积极的了。我所知道的最
有名的采用积极方式阅读伟大着作的人,是芝加哥大学的校长哈钦斯。他也是我
所知道的公务最繁忙的人。
他读书时总是拿着铅笔。有时,当他在晚上拿起书和铅笔的时候,发觉自己不
是在做有意义的笔记,而是
在页边空白处画些他称之为“鱼子酱工厂”的东西,一出现这种情况,他就放
下书本。他知道自己太累,
读不下去了,完全是在浪费时间。
但是,你或许会问,写有何必要
呢?要知道,亲手书写的动作会使词语和句子更加鲜明地呈现在你的
脑海里,更好地储存在你的记忆中。
将你对所读的重要词语和句子的感受写下来,将它们在你脑子里引起
的问题记下来,就可以将这些感受长
久保存下来,并可以使那些问题更加明确起来。当你下周或来年重新
拿起这本书的时候,你的各种观点,
同意的、反对的、怀疑的、质询的,统统一目了然。这如同谈话一度
被打断,现在又可以在上次停下的地
方接着谈下去了。
读书就该这么个读法: 你同作者应进行对话。很可能作者在有关的问题上比你懂
得多,你接近
他的时候表示适度的谦恭是很自然的。但不要轻信他人,以为读者只有全盘接受的份儿。理
解是一种双向
活动。学习并不是往空的容器中装东西。学生应当向自己也向教师提问题。一旦理解了教师
所讲的内容,
他甚至还得与教师展开争论。而在书上做记号,实际上就是表达你赞同或不赞同作者观点的
一种方式。
在书上做记号,有各种各样好的、行之有效的方法。现将我的做法叙述如下:
1. 在文字下面划线: 划出主要论点及重要的或者有力的论述。
2.
在页边空白处划竖线: 强调已划线的论述部分。
3.
在页边空白处画五星或六星记号,或其他小符号:
这种记号宜珍惜着用。可用来强调书中十处或
二十处最重要的论述。
4.
在页边空白处写数字: 标明作者展开一个论据的各点顺序。
5. 在页边空处写其他页的页码:
标明作者在本书其他地方所写的与本论点有关的论点,也可以
通过这一办法将书中虽分散各处,但密切有
关的观点联系起来。
6. 在关键字眼或短语上画圆圈。
7.
在页边空白处或上下两端加批注: 其目的是记下某段文章在你脑子里引起的问题 (也许还有答
案);
简要记下复杂的论述;记录贯串全书的一系列的重要论点。我利用书末的衬页将作者的观点按出现的
先后
次序编成一个索引。
书前的衬页对我来说是最重要的。有些人将它们留作贴花哨的藏书票用。我将它们
留作奇思异想的天
地。在我读完一本书并在卷尾衬页上做好我的个人索引之后,我便翻到卷首,试着将全
书作一概述,不是
逐页地或逐点地进行(那个我在卷尾已经做了),而是作为一个整体,基本上前后连贯
,各部分排列有序。
对我来说,这个概述表明了我对该着作理解的程度。
Unit
7
Text
A young man finds it very
difficult to say no to a woman as a result he gets
into trouble. The restaurant to which he has
agreed to take his luncheon date is
far too
expensive for his small pocketbook. How, then,
will he be able to avoid the
embarrassing
situation?
THE LUNCHEON
Maugham
I caught sight of her at the play,
and in answer to her beckoning I went over during
the interval and sat down beside her. It was
long since I had last seen her, and
if someone
had not mentioned her name I hardly think I would
have recognised her.
She addressed me
brightly.
getting any younger. Do you
remember the first time I saw you? You asked me to
luncheon.
Did I remember?
It
was twenty years ago and I was living in Paris. I
had a tiny apartment in
the Latin Quarter
overlooking a cemetery, and I was earning barely
enough money to
keep body and soul together.
She had read a book of mine and had written to me
about
it. I answered, thanking her, and
presently I received from her another letter
saying
that she was passing through Paris and
would like to have a chat with me; but her
time was limited, and the only free moment she
had was on the following Thursday;
she was
spending the morning at the Luxembourg and would I
give her a little luncheon
at Foyot's
afterwards? Foyot's is a restaurant at which the
French senators eat,
and it was so far beyond
my means that I had never even thought of going
there. But
I was flattered, and I was too
young to have learned to say no to a woman. (Few
men,
I may add, learn this until they are too
old to make it of any consequence to a woman
what they say.) I had eight francs (gold
francs) to last me the rest of the month,
and
a modest luncheon should not cost more than
fifteen. If I cut out coffee for
the next two
weeks I could manage well enough.
I
answered that I would meet my friend -- by
correspondence -- at Foyot's on
Thursday at
half past twelve. She was not so young as I
expected and in appearance
imposing
rather than attractive, she was, in fact, a woman
of forty (a charming age,
but not one that
excites a sudden and devastating passion at first
sight), and she
gave me the impression of
having more teeth, white and large and even, than
were
necessary for any practical purpose. She
was talkative, but since she seemed inclined
to talk about me I was prepared to be an
attentive listener.
I was startled when
the bill of fare was brought, for the prices were
a great
deal higher than I had anticipated.
But she reassured me.
little fish, perhaps. I wonder if they have
any salmon.
Well, it was early in the year
for salmon and it was not on the bill of fare,
but I asked the waiter if there was any. Yes,
a beautiful salmon had just come in,
it was
the first they had had. I ordered it for my guest.
The waiter asked her if
she would have
something while it was being cooked.
caviare. I never mind caviare.
My
heart sank a little. I knew I could not afford
caviare, but I could not very
well tell her
that. I told the waiter by all means to bring
caviare. For myself I
chose the cheapest dish
on the menu and that was a mutton chop.
I
think you are unwise to eat meat,she said. I don't
know how you can expect
to work after eating
heavy things like chops. I don't believe in
overloading my
stomach.
Then came the
question of drink.
white wines are so light. They're wonderful
for the digestion.
She gave me a
bright and amicable flash of her white teeth.
I fancy I turned a trifle pale. I ordered
half a bottle. I mentioned casually
that my
doctor had absolutely forbidden me to drink
champagne.
She ate the
caviare and she ate the salmon. She talked gaily
of art and literature
and music. But I
wondered what the bill would come to. When my
mutton chop arrived
she took me quite
seriously to task.
see that you're in the
habit of eating a heavy luncheon. I'm sure it's a
mistake.
Why don't you follow my example and
just eat one thing? I'm sure you'd feel ever
so much better for it.
bill of
fare.
She waved him aside with an airy
gesture.
no, I never eat anything
for luncheon. Just a bite, I never want more than
that, and I eat that more as an excuse for
conversation than anything else. I couldn't
possibly eat anything more unless they had
some of those giant asparagus. I should
be
sorry to leave Paris without having some of them.
My heart sank. I had seen them in the
shops, and I knew that they were horribly
expensive. My mouth had often watered at the
sight of them.
waiter.
I tried
with all my might too will him to say no. A happy
smile spread over his
broad, pries-like face,
and he assured me that they had some so large, so
splendid,
so tender, that it was a marvel.
not in the least hungry,my guest sighed,
if you insist I don't mind
having some
asparagus.
I ordered them.
by all the meat you eat.
We
waited for the asparagus to be cooked. Panic
seized me. It was not a question
now how much
money I should have left over for the rest of the
month, but whether
I had enough to pay the
bill. It would be embarrassing to find myself ten
francs
short and be obliged to borrow from my
guest. I could not bring myself to do that.
I
knew exactly how much I had, and if the bill came
to more I made up my mind that
I would put my
hand in my pocket and with a dramatic cry start up
and say it had
been picked. Of course, it
would be awkward if she had not money enough
either to
pay the bill. Then the only thing
would be to leave my watch and say I would come
back and pay later.
The asparagus
appeared. They were enormous, juicy, and
appetizing. I watched
the wicked woman thrust
them down her throat in large mouthfuls, and in my
polite
way I spoke about the condition of the
drama in the Balkans. At last the finished.
I was past caring now, so I
ordered coffee for myself and an ice-cream and
coffee
for her.
know, there's one
thing I thoroughly believe in,she said, as she ate
the
ice-cream. should always get up from a
meal feeling one could eat a little more.
in the morning and then dinner, but I
never eat more than one thing for luncheon.
I
was speaking for you.
Then a
terrible thing happened. While we were waiting for
the coffee the head
waiter, with an
ingratiating smile on his false face, came up to
us bearing a large
basket full of huge
peaches. They had the blush of an innocent girl;
they had the
rich tone of an Italian
landscape. But surely peaches were not in season
then? Lord
knew what they cost. I knew too --
a little later, for my guest, going on with her
conversation, absentmindedly took one.
little chop --
enjoy a peach.
The
bill came, and when I paid it I found that I had
only enough for a quite
inadequate tip. Her
eyes rested for an instant on the three francs I
left for the
waiter, and I knew that she
thought me mean. But when I walked out of the
restaurant
I had the whole month before me and
not a penny in my pocket.
thing for
luncheon.
do better than that,I retorted.
eat nothing for dinner tonight.
But I
have had my revenge at last. I do not believe that
I am a vindictive man,
but when the immortal
gods take a hand in matter it is pardonable to
observe the
result with complacency. Today she
weighs twenty-one stone.
一个年轻人发觉很难拒绝一位女士,他
因此陷入了困境。他同意进行午餐聚会的那家餐厅对他可怜的
荷包来说实在太昂贵了。那么怎样他才能避
免这种尴尬的处境呢?
午餐
萨默塞特·毛姆
我是在看戏的时候见到她的。幕间
休息时,我应她的招呼走了过去,在她旁边坐下。我上次见到她已
是很久以前的事了,要不是有人提起她
的名字,我想我几乎会认不出她来。她兴致勃勃地跟我谈了起来。
“瞧,自从我们初次相见已经好多年
了。真是光阴似箭啊!我俩都不年轻啦。你还记得我初次见到你
吗?你请我吃的午餐。”
我能不记得吗?
那是20年前的事了,当时我住在巴黎。我在拉丁区租了一套小小的公寓,从
那里往下看去是一个公
墓。我挣的钱只够勉强维持生活。她读过我的一本书,并曾跟我写信谈论该书。我
回信向她致谢。随即我
又收到她的一封信,说她路过巴黎,想跟我谈谈。但她的时间有限,只有下个星期
四有空。那天上午,她
要去卢森堡宫,问我是不是愿意中午请她在福伊约餐厅吃顿便饭。福伊约餐厅是法
国参议员光顾的地方,
去那儿吃饭远远超过我的经济能力,所以以前连想都没有想过。但我当时受宠若惊
,况且年纪太轻,还没
有学会对一位女士说个“不”字。(附带说一句,没有几个男人学会这一招,而到
他们学会时,往往年事已
高,他们说什么对女人来讲已无足轻重了。) 我当月的生活费还有80法郎
(金法郎),一顿便餐花不了15
法郎。如果我下两个星期不喝咖啡,还是满可以对付过去的。
我回信说,我将于下星期四十二点半在福伊约餐厅会见我的朋友。她并不如我想象的那么年轻。她的
外
表与其说美貌动人,毋宁说丰腴魁伟,气概非凡。事实上,她已有40岁了 (这是一个有魅力的年龄,但
不是初次相见就能令你激情迸发、神魂颠倒的那种年纪),长着一口洁白整齐的大牙齿,给我的印象是,其数目之多已超过了实际需要。她很健谈,不过因为她想谈的话题似乎总是关于我的事,所以我便洗耳恭听。
菜单拿来时,我大吃一惊。价格比我预料的要高出许多。但她的话使我宽了心。
我午餐从不吃什么东西,她说。“哦,可别这么说!”我慷慨地回答。
“我从来只吃一道菜。我认为现在人们吃得太多。或许来点鱼还行。我不知道他们有鲑鱼没有。” 啊,吃鲑鱼的季节还没有到,菜单上也没有,但是我还是问了侍者。有,刚刚进了一条头等鲑鱼,这
是他们今年第一次进这种货。我为客人叫了一份。侍者问她在鲑鱼烹制的当儿,要不要吃点别的。
“不要,”她回答说,“我向来只吃一道菜,除非你有鱼子酱。鱼子酱我是从不拒绝的。”
我的心微微一沉。我知道我是吃不起鱼子酱的,但我不便跟她直说,我吩咐侍者务必拿鱼子酱来。我
自己则点了菜单上最便宜的一个菜,这就是羊排。
“我看你吃肉是不明智的,”她说。“我不 知道你吃了羊排这种油腻的东西后还怎么工作。我不赞成
把肚子撑得太饱。”
接着而来的是饮料问题。
“我午餐从不喝饮料,”她说。 “我也是如此,”我马上答道。
“但白葡萄酒例外,”她接着说,就好像我刚才没说似的。“法国的白 葡萄酒非常清淡,十分有助消
化。”
“你想喝点什么?”我依然客气地问道,但算不上热情。
她嫣然一笑,露出一口白牙。 “我的医生只让我喝香槟。”
我猜想我的脸色一定有点发白了。我要了半瓶,顺便提及我的医生绝对禁止我喝香槟酒。
“那你喝什么呢?” “水。”
她吃了鱼子酱,又吃鲑鱼。她兴高采烈,大谈艺术、文学 、音乐。但我心里却在嘀咕,不知这顿饭要
花多少钱。当我的羊排上来时,她一本正经地教训起我来。
“我看你习惯中午吃得很多。我肯定这样不好,你为什么不效法我的样子,只吃一道菜呢?我相信那样你会感觉好得多。”
“我是打算只吃这一道菜,”我说。这时侍者又拿着菜单走了过来。
她轻轻地一挥手,让他走开。
“我可不这样,我午餐从不吃东西。要吃,也只是稍许吃一点, 从不多吃。而我吃这么一点,主要也
是为了借此机会闲谈而已。我可不能再吃什么东西了,除非他们有那 种大芦笋。到了巴黎,不吃点芦笋,
那就太遗憾了。”
我的心一沉。我曾在店里见过芦笋,我知道它贵得可怕。过去我每见芦笋,常常馋涎欲滴。
“夫人想知道你们有没有那种大芦笋,”我问侍者。
我竭尽全力想使他说没有。他那张宽阔的 教士般虔诚的脸上展露出愉快的笑容,他用肯定的语气对我
说,他们有又大、又好、又嫩的芦笋,简直是 罕见的珍品。
“我一点也不饿,”我的客人叹道,“不过如果你执意要请我吃,我也不反对吃点芦笋。”
我便点了这道菜。
“你不吃点吗?”
“不,我从不吃芦笋。”
“我知道有人不喜欢芦笋。事实是,你吃肉太多,伤了胃口。”
我们等着芦笋烹制好送上来。 我突然惊恐起来。现在的问题已不是我还能剩下几个钱来维持这个月的
生计了,而是我的钱够不够付账。 要是我差十法郎,不得不向客人借的话,那就太难堪了。我可做不出那
样的事来。身边到底有多少钱,我 心里有底,倘若账单超过了这个数字,我就决心这么办:伸手往口袋里
一摸,随即故意惊叫一声,跳起来 说钱给小偷扒了。当然,如果她的钱也不够付账的话,那就尴尬了。那
样,唯一的办法就是将我的手表留 下,言明以后再来付。
芦笋端上来了。又大汁又多,令人垂涎不止。我一面看着这个邪恶的女人大口大 口地将芦笋往肚里塞,
一面彬彬有礼地谈论着巴尔干半岛戏剧界的现状。她终于吃完了。
“喝点咖啡?”我说。 “好,就来一客冰淇淋和咖啡吧,”她回答说。
到这时,我什么也不在乎了,为自己叫了咖啡,为她叫了一客冰淇淋和咖啡。
“你知道,我坚 信一点,”她边吃冰淇淋边说道。“当一个人吃完一顿饭站起来时,他应该感到还没
有吃得十分饱。”
“你还饿吗?”我有气无力地问道。
“噢,不,我不饿。你知道,我不吃午餐。我早晨一杯咖 啡,然后到晚上用餐,但我午餐向来最多只
吃一道菜。适才我这样说是为了你啊。”
“哦,我明白啦!”
接着,发生了一件可怕的事情。当我们在等咖啡的时候,
那个领班侍者,带着满脸奉承的笑容,拎来
满满一大篮子特大的桃子,红得酷似天真少女的脸蛋,其色调
之瑰丽犹如一幅意大利风景画。当时桃子肯
定还没有到上市季节,只有上帝晓得买它们得花多少价钱。不
过很快我也晓得了,因为我的客人一边说着
话,一边心不在焉地拿了一只。
“你看,你已经塞
了一肚子肉,”——她是指我那可怜的一小块羊排——“不能再吃什么了。而我只
不过来了点小吃,我还
可以再品尝一只桃子。”
账单来了。付过账后,我发现剩下的钱连付点像样的小费都不够了。她的目光
在我留给侍者的三个法
郎上停了一会儿,我知道她会觉得我是个吝啬鬼。可是等走出餐厅,我面临着的将
是整整一个月的开销要
支付,而口袋里却分文俱无。
“你学学我,”她边握手边说道,“午餐
顶多只吃一道菜。”“我会做得更好,”我回敬道,“我今
晚什么也不吃了。”“幽默家!”她得意洋洋
地大声说着,跳上了一辆马车。“你是个十足的幽默家!”
但是我终于报了仇。我自认不是一个爱报复
的人,但是竟连不朽的众神也被触怒而干预其事时,我怀
着心满意足的心情目睹这个结局,想必也是可以
原谅的了。现今她的体重已达二十一英石(二百九十四磅)。
Unit 8
Text
Would you choose to live underground if
you could gain many advantages from doing
so?
Weather would no longer trouble you. Temperature
would remain the same all the
year round.
Artificial lighting could make the rhythm of our
life uniform everywhere.
And the ecology of
the natural world above ground would be greatly
improved. Still,
the prospect of moving
underground may not be appealing to many people.
THE NEW CAVES
Isaac Asimov
During the ice ages, human
beings exposed to the colder temperatures of the
time
would often make their homes in caves.
There they found greater comfort and security
than they would have in the open.
We
still live in caves called houses, again for
comfort and security. Virtually
no one would
willingly sleep on the ground under the stars. Is
it possible that
someday we may seek to add
further to our comfort and security by building
our houses
underground -- in new, manmade
caves?
It may not seem a palatable
suggestion, at first though. We have so many evil
associations with the underground. In our
myths and legends, the underground is the
realm of evil spirits and of the dead, and is
often the location of an afterlife
of torment.
(This may be because dead bodies are buried
underground, and because
volcanic eruptions
make the underground appear to be a hellish place
of fire and
noxious gases.)
Yet there
are advantages to underground life, too, and
something to be said for
imagining whole
cities, even mankind generally, moving downward;
of having the
outermost mile of the Earth's
crust honeycombed with passages and structures,
like
a gigantic ant hill.
First,
weather would no longer be important, since, it is
primarily a phenomenon
of the atmosphere.
Rain, snow, sleet, fog would not trouble the
underground world.
Even temperature variations
are limited to the open surface and would not
exist
underground. Whether day or night,
summer or winter, temperatures in the underground
world remain equable and nearly
constant. The vast amounts of energy now expended
in warming our surface surroundings when they
are too cold, and cooling them when
they are
too warm, could be saved. The damage done to
manmade structures and to
human beings by
weather would be gone. Transportation over local
distances would
be simplified. (Earthquakes
would remain a danger, of course.)
Second,
local time would no longer be important. On the
surface, the tyranny
of day and night cannot
be avoided, and when it is morning in one place,
it is noon
in another, evening in still
another and midnight in yet another. The rhythm of
human
life therefore varies from place to
place. Underground, where there is no externally
produced day, but only perpetual darkness, it
would be arificial lighting that
produces the
day and this could be adjusted to suit man's
convenience.
The whole world could be on
eight-hour shifts, starting and ending on the
stroke
everywhere, at least as far as business
and community endeavors were concerned. This
could be important in a freely mobile world.
Air transportation over long distances
would
no longer have entail
another continent would
find the society they reached geared to the same
time of
day as at home.
Third, the
ecological structure could be stabilized. To a
certain extent,
mankind encumbers the Earth.
It is not only his enormous numbers that take up
room;
more so, it is all the structures he
builds to house himself and his machines, to
make possible his transportation and
communication, to offer him rest and recreation.
All these things distort the wild, depriving
many species of plants and animals of
their
natural habitat -- and sometimes, involuntarily,
favoring a few, such as rats
and roaches.
If the works of man were removed below ground --
and, mind you, below the level
of the natural
world of the burrowing animals —— man would still
occupy the surface
with his farms, his
forestry, his observation towers, his air
terminals and so on,
but the extent of that
occupation would be enormously decreased. Indeed,
as one
imagines the underground world to
become increasingly elaborate, one can visualize
much of the food supply eventually deriving
from hydroponic growth in artificially
illuminated areas underground. The Earth's
surface might be increasingly turned over
to
park and to wilderness, maintained at ecological
stability.
Fourth, nature would be closer.
It might seem that to withdraw underground is
to withdraw from the natural world, but would
that be so? Would the withdrawal be
more
complete than it is now, when so many people work
in city buildings that are
often windowless
and artificially conditioned? Even where there are
windows, what
is the prospect one views (if
one bothers to) but sun, sky, and buildings to the
horizon -- plus some limited greenery?
And to get away from the city now? To reach the
real countryside? One must travel
horizontally
for miles, first across city pavements and then
across suburban
sprawls.
In an
underworld culture, the countryside would be right
there, a few hundred
yards above the upper
level of the cities -- wherever you are. The
surface would
have to be protected from too
frequent, or too intense, or too careless
visiting,
but however carefully
restricted the upward trips might be, the chances
are that
the dwellers of the new caves would
see more greenery, under ecologically healthier
conditions, than dwellers of surface cities to
today.
However odd and repulsive underground
living may seem at first thought, there
are
tings to be said for it -- and I haven't even said
them all.
如果你能从中获得很多好处,你会选择住在地下吗?天气再也不会带来麻烦。全年
恒温。人造光源使
全世界的生活节奏保持一致。地面上自然世界的生态将大幅改善。虽然移居地下的前景
对很多人来说并不
具吸引力,艾萨克·阿西摩夫却对此十分热衷。
新洞穴
艾萨克·阿西摩夫
在冰河时代,人类当时面临较为寒冷的气温,常常在洞穴里安家。他们发现在洞里生
活要比在野外更
舒适,更安全。
我们现今仍然住在被称作房子的洞穴里,目的还是为了舒适
和安全。事实上,没有人愿意露宿在星空
下的野地里。会不会有朝一日为了更加舒适和安全起见,我们把
房屋建造在地下——建造在新的人造洞穴
里呢?
乍一想来,这一建议似乎并不可取。说起地
下,我们会产生许许多多不愉快的联想。在神话和传说里,
地下是魔鬼和亡灵的世界,它常常是人们死后
遭受折磨的地方。(这可能因为尸体总是埋在地下的缘故,而
火山爆发又给人们一种印象,似乎地下充满
着火与毒气,如同地狱一般。)
然而生活在地下也有其有利之处,设想将整座城市,乃至全人类搬入
地下是有一定的道理的。如果将
地壳最表层一英里厚的地方筑满通道和建筑物,就像一个巨大的蚁冢,这
会给人类带来各种好处。
首先,气候将变得无关紧要,因为它主要是大气层的一种现象。雨、雪、霰
、雾将不会给地下世界带
来麻烦。甚至气温的变化也局限于露天地表,而在地下则不存在这种变化。不论
白天黑夜,炎夏寒冬,地
下世界的温度将保持平稳,近乎恒温。如今,当我们的地表环境太冷时,则需要
取暖,而太暖时,又需降
温,耗费大量的能量。若搬到地下生活,则统统可以省去。天气对人造的建筑物
以及人类本身的损害将不
复存在。地区性的交通问题也将大为简化。(当然,地震将依然是个危险。)?
??
其次,地方时间将无关紧要。地球表面昼夜分明,谁也无法避免,一处是早晨,另一处是中午,
再一
处是黄昏,又一处是午夜。所以人类生活的节奏因地而异。在地下,没有外界生成的白天,而只有永
恒的
黑暗,人工照明形成白昼,这就可以根据人的需要加以调整。
整个世界都可以实行八小
时轮班制,各地都可能做到同时上班,同时下班,至少公务活动和社会活动
可以如此。这对于一个自由流
动的社会来说极为重要。乘飞机长途旅行将不会再引起“时差反应”。抵达
大洋彼岸或另一片大陆的人会
发现他们所到的那个社会与自己家乡一样都是按照同一时间运行的。
第三,生态结构将会稳定下来。
在一定程度上,人类拖累了地球。这不仅仅是指众多的人口占据了地
球的空间,更多的是指人类为住家和
安装机器构筑的房子,为交通运输、为休息、娱乐建造的各种设施。
这一切致使荒野面目全非,剥夺了许
多种动植物栖息、生长的天然场所——有时候,无意中还促进了诸如
老鼠和蟑螂之类的某些生物的繁衍。
如果人类的建筑物都搬到地下——请注意,要搬到穴居动物生活的地层以下——人类仍将占据地球表面,种地、植林、造了望台和航空站等等,但占有的程度将大大减小。的确,可以想见随着地下世界变得越来越精巧复杂,大部分食物将最终来自地下人工照明地区的水栽生物。地球表面有可能越来越多地让位于公园和荒野,从而得以维持生态平衡稳定。
第四,人们与自然界的距离将会缩短。退到地下,看起来似乎是远离了自然界,但果真如此吗? 现今,
这么多人在城市的建筑物内工作,那里常常没有窗户,而靠人工调节一切。即便有窗户,你又能看到什么
呢(如果你肯费心看一看的话)? 无非是太阳,天空,以及一直伸展到天边的建筑物——外加一点有限的
绿色草木而已。搬到地下以后,与自然界隔绝的情况还会胜过于此吗?
现在你想离开城市吗?
到真正的乡村去吗?
你必须旅行数英里,先得走过城市的街道,然后还得走过
郊区杂乱无章的建筑群。 <
br>在地下世界文化中,乡村就在城市上面几百码远的地方——不管你在哪里都是这样。地表当然必须得
到保护,不允许过分频繁地、过分集中地、或过分随便地参观访问,但不管对向上的旅行作出多么认真的
限制,新洞穴里的居民们将有可能比今天地面城市的居民在更为健康的生态环境下生活,并见到更多的青
枝绿叶。
尽管地下生活乍想起来多么的奇怪和不那么令人喜欢,它的好处可以举出好多——而我在
这里只不过
是略说一二。
Unit 9
Text
Idly watching fish swimming in a pond and allowing
the mind to wander can
lead to some surprising
results
THE EDUCATION OF A PHYSICIST
MICHIO KAKU
Two incidents from my
childhood greatly enriched my understanding of the
world
and sent me on a course to become a
theoretical physicist.
I remember that my
parents would sometimes take me to visit the
famous Japanese
Tea Garden in San Francisco.
One of my happiest childhood memories is of
crouching
next to the pond, fascinated by the
brilliantly colored carp swimming slowly beneath
the water lilies.
In these quiet moments,
I felt free to let my imagination wander; I would
ask
myself silly questions that only a child
might ask, such as how the carp in that
pond
would view the world around them. I thought, What
a strange world theirs must
be!
Living
their entire lives in the shallow pond, the carp
would believe that their
“universe” consisted
of the dark water and the lilies. Spending most of
their time
moving around for food on the
bottom of the pond, they would be only dimly aware
that an alien world could exist above the
surface. The nature of my world was beyond
their comprehension. I was intrigued that I
could sit only a few inches from the
carp, yet
be separated from them by a very huge gap. The
carp and I spent our lives
in two distinct
universes, never entering each other’s world, yet
were separated
by only the thinnest barrier,
the water’s surface.
I once imagined that
there may be carp “scientists” living among the
fish.
They would, I thought, laugh at any fish
who proposed that a parallel world could
exist
just above the lilies. To a carp “scientist,” the
only things that were real
were what the fish
could see or touch. The pond was everything. An
unseen world beyond
the pond made no
scientific sense.
Once I was caught in a
rainstorm. I noticed that the pond’s surface was
bombarded
by thousands of tiny raindrops. The
pond’s surface became turbulent, and the water
lilies were being pushed in all directions by
water waves. Taking shelter from the
wind and
the rain, I wondered how all this appeared to the
carp. To them, the water
lilies would appear
to be moving around by themselves, without
anything pushing them.
Since the water they
lived in would appear invisible, much like the air
and space
around us, they would be baffled
that the water lilies could move around by
themselves.
Their
“scientists,” I imagined, would make up a clever
invention called a
“force” in order to hide
their ignorance. Unable to comprehend that there
could
be waves on the unseen surface, they
would conclude that lilies could move without
being touched because a mysterious invisible
entity called a force acted between
them. They
might give this illusion impressive, lofty names
(such as
action-at-a-distance, or the ability
of the lilies to move without anything touching
them).
Once I imagined what would
happen if I reached down and lifted one of the
carp
“scientists” out of the pond. Before I
threw him back into the water, he might
struggle furiously as I examined him. I
wondered how this would appear to the rest
of
the carp. To them, it would be a truly unsettling
event. They would first notice
that one of
their “scientists” had disappeared from their
universe. Simply
vanished, without leaving a
trace. Wherever they would look, there would be no
evidence of the missing carp in their
universe. Then, seconds later, when I threw
him back into the pond ,the “scientist” would
abruptly reappear out of the other
carp,it
would appear that a miracle had happened.
After collecting his wits, the “scientist” would
tell a truly amazing story.
“Without warning,”
he would say, “I was somehow lifted out of the
universe (the
pond) and hurled into a
mysterious world, with blinding lights and
strangely shaped
objects that I had never seen
before. The strangest of all was the creature who
held
me prisoner, who did not resemble a fish
in the slightest. I was shocked to see that
it
had no fins whatsoever, but nevertheless could
move without them. It struck me
that the
familiar laws of nature no longer applied in this
other world. Then, just
as suddenly,I found
myself thrown back into our universe.” (This
story, of course,
of a journey beyond the
universe would be so fantastic that most of the
carp would
dismiss it as utter nonsense.)
I often think that we are like the carp
swimming contentedly in that pond. We
live out
our lives in our own “pond,” confident that our
universe consists of only
those things we can
see or touch. Like the carp, our universe consists
of only the
familiar and the visible. We
smugly refuse to admit that parallel universes or
dimensions can exist next to ours, just beyond
our grasp. If our scientists invent
concepts
like forces, it is only because they cannot
visualize the invisible
vibrations that fill
the empty space around us.
A second incident
from my childhood also made a deep, lasting
impression on me.
When I was 8 years old, I
heard a story that would stay with me for the rest
of my
life. I remember my schoolteachers
telling the class about a great scientist who
had just died. They talked about him with
great reverence, calling him one of the
greatest scientists in all history. They said
that very few people could understand
his
ideas, but that his discoveries changed the entire
world and everything around
us. I didn't
understand much of what they were trying to tell
us, but what most
intrigued me about this man
was that he died before he could complete his
greatest
discovery. They said he spent years
on this theory, but he died with his unfinished
papers still sitting on his desk.
I was
fascinated by the story. To a child, this was a
great mystery. What was
his unfinished
work? What was in those papers on his desk? What
problem could possibly
be so difficult and so
important that such a great scientist would
dedicate years
of his life to its pursuit?
Curious, I decided to learn all I could about
Albert
Einstein and his unfinished theory.
I still have warm memories of spending many
quiet hours reading every book I
could find
about this great man and his theories. When I
exhausted the books in
our local library, I
began to visit libraries and bookstores across the
city, eagerly
searching for more clues. I soon
learned that the unfinished papers on Einstein’s
desk were an attempt to construct what he
called the unified field theory, a theory
that
could explain all the laws of nature, from the
tiniest atom to the largest
galaxy. However,
being a child, I didn't understand that perhaps
there was a link
between the carp swimming in
the Tea Garden and the unfinished papers lying on
Einstein’s desk. I didn’t understand that
higher dimensions might be the key to
solving
the unified field theory.
Nevertheless,I could
see that this story was far more and more exciting
than
any murder mystery and more important
than anything I could ever imagine. I decided
that I would try to get to the root of this
mystery, even if I had to become a
theoretical
physicist to do it.
一个物理学家受过的教育 米基奥?凯科
我孩提时代发生的两件事大大加深了我对这个世界的理解,还把我送上了成长为理论物理学家的道路。
我记得父母亲有时带我到坐落在旧金山的有名的日本茶园去玩。我记忆中儿时最快乐的事情之一是,自己蹲在池塘边,沉醉于观看那些在睡莲下缓缓游动的色彩斑斓的鲤鱼。
在这样的一些安静时刻,
我听凭自己的想像力漫游;我常常会问自己只有小孩才会问的愚蠢问题,比
如说,池塘里的鲤鱼会怎样看
待它们周围的世界。我心里在想,他们的世界肯定千奇百怪!
鲤鱼一生生活在浅浅的池塘中,他们会认
为他们的“天地”是由暗色的水和睡莲组成的。他们大部分
时间都在游来游去寻找池塘底上的食物,所以
至多只会模模糊糊地觉得水面上方可能有一个陌生的世界。
他们不理解我的世界的本质。我可以坐在距鲤
鱼只有几英寸的地方,但却被一条鸿沟与他们分隔开来,对
此我深感好奇。鲤鱼和我生活在两个不同的天
地中,都永远不会进入对方的世界,但把双方隔离开来的只
是一道最薄的障碍——水面
我曾想像过,鱼群中也许会有鲤鱼“科学家”。我想,他们会嘲笑那些提出就在睡莲上方可能存在另一
个
平行的世界这种看法的鱼儿。对鲤鱼“科学家”来说,只有鱼儿能看到或能碰到的才是真实的东西。池
塘
就是一切。从科学的角度看,要说池塘外有一个没有见过的世界,那是没有道理的。
有一次我遇上暴风
雨。我看到万千小雨点连续击打池塘的水面。水面汹涌澎湃,睡莲被波浪冲得向四
面散去。我一边躲避风
雨,一边在纳闷鲤鱼是怎样看待这一切的。在他们看来,睡莲似乎是自己在不停漂
移,没有什么东西推着
它们动。正如我们看不见周围的空气和空间那样,他们也看不见自己生活在其中的
水,所以对睡莲能自己
不停移动这一点他们会感到迷惑不解。
我曾设想,他们的“科学家”为了掩饰自己的无知会编造出叫作
“力”的巧妙谎话。他们无法理解在
看不见的水面上会有波浪,于是断定,睡莲之所以能在没有外物触碰
的情况下移动是因为有一种叫做力的
看不见的神秘实体在它们之间起着作用。他们也许会给这种错误观念
起一些令人敬畏的、冠冕堂皇的名字
(比如远距离活动,或者睡莲在没有任何东西触碰的情况下移动之能
耐)。
有一次我设想,如果我把手伸进水去,从池塘里捞出一个鲤鱼“科学家”来,那将会怎样。在
我把他
扔回水里去之前,我细细观察他时他也许会拼命挣扎。我不知道其他鲤鱼会怎样看待这事。他们会
觉得这
是一件真正令人不安的事件。他们先是察觉他们的一位“科学家”从他们的世界中消失了。就这么
突然不
见了,无影无踪。不管他们往哪儿找,在他们的世界中都看不到失踪鲤鱼的踪迹。然后,不过片刻
功夫,
我把他扔回了池塘,其时那位“科学家”不知从什么地方突然重又冒了出来。在其
余那些鲤鱼看来,这是
发生了奇迹。
“科学家”镇定下来后,会讲一个真正令人惊异的故事
。他说:“在预先毫不知情的情况下,我就不
知怎的被人从这个世界(池塘)提了起来,扔进了一个神秘
世界,那里有令人眩目的灯火,有我过去从未
见过的奇形怪状的物件。最奇怪的是扣留我的那个怪物,一
点也不像鱼。见它身上压根儿没长鳍但却能移
动,我感到十分震惊。我突然想到,熟悉的自然法则在另一
个世界里不再适用了。后来,也是那么突然,
我被扔回了我们的世界。”(当然,这个关于去别的世界旅
行的故事太荒诞,大多数鲤鱼会把它当作无稽
之谈而不予理会。)
我常想我们就像在池塘
里心满意足地游水的鲤鱼。我们在自己的“池塘”里度过一生,确信我们的世
界仅仅是由我们看得到或摸
得着的那些东西组成的。与鲤鱼一样,我们认为我们的世界只有熟知的和看得
见的东西。我们自我陶醉地
拒不承认在我们近旁,就在我们抓不到摸不着的地方可能存在其它相似的世界
或维。假若我们的科学家发
明了像力这样的概念,那只是因为他们不能想像我们周围的空间充斥着看不见
的振动。
我儿时
发生的第二件事也给我留下了深刻持久的印象。我八岁时听到了一个终生难忘的故事。我记得
老师们向班
上的同学讲了一位刚去世的伟大科学家的事。他们怀着极其崇敬的心情谈论他,称他为有史以
来最伟大的
科学家之一。他们说没有多少人能理解他的思想,但是他的种种发现改变了整个世界和我们周
围的一切。
对于他们试图告诉我们的这番话,我有许多地方都不太懂,但此人最让我感到好奇的是,他在
完成他最重
大的发现前去世了。他们说他花了多年时间研究这一理论,但未完成的论文还搁在书桌上他就
去世了。
这个故事深深吸引住了我。对孩子来说,这是个巨大的谜。他尚未做完的是些什么工作?他书桌上的那些论文里写些什么?什么问题会那么难,那么重要,以致于如此伟大的一位科学家花多年时间去研究它?<
br>由于好奇,我决定尽力弄清阿尔伯特?爱因斯坦其人和他还未完成的理论。
我现在仍能激动地忆
起,那时我花了好多时间安静地阅读我能找到的有关这个伟人和他理论的所有书
籍。我读完了邻近图书馆
的藏书,就开始去市里别的图书馆和书店,急切地搜寻更多线索。不久我便获悉,
爱因斯坦书桌上未完成
的论文旨在建立一种他称之为统一场论的理论,这种理论能够解释所有自然法则,
从最小的原子到最大的
星系。不过,当时我还是个孩子,不懂得茶园里游水的鲤鱼和爱因斯坦书桌上未完
成的论文之间也许有关
联。我不懂得高维也许是解决统一场论的关键。
但是,我懂得这个故事比任何凶杀疑案作品都惊心动魄
得多,比任何我能想像的事物都重要。我决心
想方设法揭开这个谜的谜底,哪怕我得为此做一个理论物理
学家
UNIT 10
Text
Do you view
work as a burden or an opportunity? Are you the
kind of person who
looks for ways to save your
energy or the kind that finds spending your energy
satisfying? Why do people like to complain
about work? Find the answers to question
like
these in the following essay.
WHY PEOPLE
WORK
Leonard R. Sayles
Jobs and work do much more than most of us realize
to provide happiness sand
contentment. We're
all used to thinking that work provides the
material things of
life -- the goods and
services that make possible our modern
civilization. But we
are much less conscious
of the extent to which work provides the more
intangible,
but more crucial, psychological
well-being that can make the difference between
a full and an empty life.
Historically, work has been associated with
slavery and sin and punishment.
And in
our own day we are used to hearing the traditional
complaints: can't wait
for my vacation,
got
too much work to do and not enough time to do t
this background,
it may well come as a
surprise to learn that not only psychologists but
other
behavioral scientists have come to
accept the positive contribution of work to the
individual's happiness and sense of personal
achievement. Work is more than a
necessity for
most human beings; it is the focus of their lives,
the source of their
identity and creativity.
Rather than a punishment or a burden, work
is the opportunity to realize one's
potential.
Many psychiatrists heading mental health clinics
have observed its
healing effect. A good many
patients who feel depressed in clinics gain
renewed
self-confidence when gainfully
employed and lose some, if not all, of their most
acute symptoms. Increasingly, institutions
dealing with mental health problems are
establishing workshops wherein those too sick
to get a job in
can work, while every effort
is exerted to arrange jobs for those well enough
to work outside.
And the reverse is
true, too. For large numbers of people, the
absence of work
is harmful to their health.
Retirement often brings many problems surrounding
the
Large numbers of people regularly get
headaches and other illnesses on weekends when
they don't have their jobs to go to, and must
fend for themselves. It has been observed
that
unemployment, quite aside from exerting financial
pressures, brings enormous
psychological
troubles and that many individuals deteriorate
rapidly when jobless.
But why? Why should
work be such a significant source of human
satisfaction?
A good share of the answer rests
in the kind of pride that is stimulated by the
job,
by the activity of accomplishing.
Pride in Accomplishment
The human
being longs for a sense of being accomplished, of
being able to do
things, with his hand, with
his mind, with his will. Each of us wants to feel
he
or she has the ability to do something that
is meaningful and that serves as a tribute
to
our inherent abilities.
It is easiest to
see this in the craftsman who lovingly shapes some
cheap material
into an object that may be
either useful or beautiful or both. You can see
the
carpenter or bricklayer stand aside and
admire the product of his personal skill.
But even where there is no obvious end product
that is solely attributable to
one person's
skill, researchers have found that employees find
pride in
accomplishment. Our own research in
hospitals suggests that even the houskeeping
and laundry staffs take pride in the fact that
in their own ways they are helping
to cure
sick people -- and thus accomplishing good deal.
We're often misled by the complaints
surrounding difficult work; deep down most
people regard their won capacity to conquer
the tough job as the mark of their own
unique
personality. Complaining is just part of working
After all, how else do you
know who you are,
except as you can demonstrate the ability of your
mind to control
you limbs ad hands and
words? You are, in significant measure, what you
can do.
Some are deceived into thinking
that people like to store up energy, to rest
and save themselves as much as possible. Just
the opposite. It is energy expenditure
that is
satisfying.
Just watch an employee who
must deal with countless other people because his
or her job is at some central point in a
communications network: a salesman at a
busy
counter, a stock broker on the phone, a customer
representative. They will tell
you how much
skill and experience it takes to answer countless
questions and handle
various kinds of
personalities every hour of the day. Not everyone
can interact with
such persistence and over
long hours, but those who do, pride themselves on
a
distinctive ability that contributes
mightily to the running of the organization.
But work is more than accomplishment and pride
in being able to command the
job, because
except for a few craftsmen and artists most work
takes place
the world,
人为什么工作 伦纳德?R?塞尔斯 <
br>职业和工作在使人得到幸福与满足方面所起的作用比我们大多数人意识到的要多得多。我们都习惯于
认为工作为人生提供物质的东西——提供使我们的现代文明成为可能的商品和服务。但是我们对工作在促
进精神生活方面所起的作用则知之甚少。这方面的作用难以捉摸,却更加至关重要,它是人生过得充实还
是空虚的决定性因素。
在历史上,工作一直与奴役、罪恶和惩罚联系在一起。现今我们还常常听到
那些老一套的怨言:“我
巴不得早点放假”,“今天我要是呆在家里该多好”,“我的老板待我不好”,
“我的事情多得来不及做”
等等。在这种情况下,当你得悉心理学家们以及其他的行为科学家们都认为,
工作对个人幸福和个人成就
起着积极作用时,你很可能会感到惊奇。对大多数人来说,工作不仅仅是一种
必需,它还是人们生活的焦
点,是他们的个性和创造性的源泉。
工作不是惩罚,也不是负担,
工作为个人潜在能力的发挥提供机会。许多精神病诊所的主治医生观察
到工作的治疗作用。许许多多在诊
所里显得精神抑郁的病人,一旦受聘从事有一定收益的工作时,便重新
获得自信,并失去部分
(如果不是全部的话) 最严重的症状。越来越多的处理精神病问题的机构建立起工
场,病情过重在“外
面的”工厂里找不到工作的病人,可以在那里工作。与此同时,这些机构还竭尽全力
为那些身体条件尚可
在外面工作的人,安排“真正的”工作。
反过来也是一样。对许多人来说,没有工作反而对他们的健
康有害。退休即使没有引起经济上的忧
虑,也常常带来“今后我该怎样生活才好?”之类的许多问题。许
多人一到周末因为不上班而必须自行安排
生活便产生头痛及其他不适。人们还观察到,失业除了产生经济
压力之外,还造成许多心理上的病痛,很
多人一旦失业,身体便迅速恶化。
这是为什么呢?为
什么工作竟然是人们获得满足的如此重要的源泉呢?最主要的答案就在于,工作和通
过工作所取得的成就
,能激起一种自豪感。
对成就的自豪
人们渴求取得成就,渴望有能力用自己的手,用自己的
脑,凭自己的意志办成事情。我们每个人都希
望自己能够做出有意义、并能显示出自己天赋的事来。 <
br>这一点最容易在工匠身上看出来。他深情地将某一种价值不高的材料做成一件或是有用,或是美观,
或是两者兼备的东西。你可以看到木匠或砖瓦匠常站到一边,欣赏自己的产品。
研究人员还发现,
即使在没有明显的最终产品可以显示个人专长的场合,雇员们也对工作成就感到
自豪。我们自己在医院的
调查表明,即便勤杂人员和洗衣房的职工,也对自己的工作引以为荣,他们通过
自身的工作协助治好了病
人——因而也就作出了不少成绩。
我们常常被抱怨工作困难的言论所误导。在内心深处,多数人把自己
善于解决棘手问题的本领看作个
人的出众之处。发牢骚也是工作的一部分。说到底,如果
你不显示出驾驭自己言行的能力,那你还有什么
别的办法来认识你自己呢?在很大程度上,你就是你所能
成就的事情。
有些人误认为人们喜欢积蓄精力,喜欢休息,并尽可能保养自己。事实恰恰相反。消耗
精力才真正
给人以满足。
试看一位因其工作处于某个通信网络的中心位置而必须与无数的其他人打交道的雇员: 一个繁忙柜台上的售货员,一个手不离电话的股票经纪人,或是一个客户代理人,他们会告诉你,每时每刻回答无数个问题以及应付各种各样的人物该需要怎样的本领和经验。不是每个人都能以这样的韧性长时间地与人周旋的。但是能够这样做的人,都为自己具有出众才能,能对所在单位的运转作出巨大贡献而感到自豪 但是工作不光是成就和能够胜任工作的自豪,因为除了少数工匠和艺术家的工作而外,大部分工作是
在“外面”进行的,是与别人合作或通过别人来完成的。
团体精神
或许一个例子就能把这点说明白。
我记得曾在一家椅子厂见过6个工人,他们的工作是将几
根钢管弯曲并组成一把折椅。虽然同在一
起工作的有10个或20个这样的“组”,有一个组因配合默契
、动作神速而特别有名。这班人深知自己能
干。他们常常要猛干二三十分钟才肯休息一会儿——以便向自
己、向旁观者以及向其他班组展示技术高超、
善于自我克制的全厂最佳的班组是一个什么样儿
当我与他们交谈时,他们每个人都为自己是最快最好的班组一员而深感自豪。这种自己属于一个有
娴熟技
巧的班组的意识,是工作带来的最突出的满足感之一。
关于从工作班组中获得满足还要再讲一点。与
生活中许多其他方面不同的是,工作人员之间的关系
趋于简单,不那么复杂,且较少感情色彩。这不是说
工作中,没有争论、嫉妒。但总的来讲,行为科学研
究揭示,工作中人与人之间较好相处。这或许是因为
工作上的人际关系较有规律,更易于预料,因此更容
易协调,而在社会上,人与人之间的关系是断断续续
的,比较紧张,而且较少有规律可循。另外,工作班
组也会对其成员稍稍施加压力,促使他们学会相互协
调,消除“摩擦”,因为人们知道他们每天都要共同
努力,相互协作,才能完成一定的工作。
在工作班、组之上又有更高一级的组织,它或许是公司、医院,或许是大学。在一个更大的集体中工
作,
如同在一个配合默契的成功的单位工作一样,其成员也能获得同样的自豪。在一个被公认为是社会上
最好
的公司之一工作,可以给雇员带来社会地位和自信心。他们常常不无道理地认为,因为他们是与一个
“胜
利者”,一个有威望的机构联系在一起的,别人更加看重他们,甚至羡慕他们。他们也自认比普通人
更能
干。事实上,我们常常沉浸在这种机构所折射出的荣誉里洋洋自得,我们还想方设法表明自己的这种
身份
,以使别人了解并承认自己的好运气。