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Unit 5
Fame
Fame is very much like an animal
chasing
its own tail who,
when he
captures
it,
does not know what else to do but to
continue chasing it. Fame and the
publicity
that
accompanies it, force the famous person to
participate in his or her own
d
estruction. Ironic, isn’t
it?
Those who gain fame most
often gain it as a result of possessing a single
talent or
skill: singing, dancing,
painting, or writing, etc. The successful
performer develops a
style that gains
some popularity, and it is this popularity that
usually convinces the
performer
to continue
performing in the same
style
, since that is what the public
seems to want and to enjoy.
But in time, the
performer
becomes bored
singing the
same songs in the same way
year after year, or the
painter
becomes bored
painting
similar scenes or portraits,
or the actor is
tired
of
playing the same character
repeatedly
.
The artist becomes the
slave of his or her own success because of the
public demands. If the artist attempts
to change his or her style of writing or dancing
or singing, etc., the
audience
may turn away and look to give
the momentary fame to
another and then,
in time, to another, and so on and so on.
Unit7
Stripping Down to Bare Happiness
“What we’re talking about is
simplification
, not
deprivation
,” explains Sara,
a
friend of mine. “It isn’t that you
can’t do all the things you like, but you change.
You
don’t like them anymore. Some of
the old habits seem so wasteful and unsatisfying
that you really lose your taste for
them. So you still have everything you
want
—
only
on less
money.”
When I first met
them, Sara and Michael were a two-career couple
with a home of
their own, and a large
boat bought with a large loan. They began to take
an
interest
in
the concept of “voluntary
simplicity
” wit
h
the birth of their daughter whom they
wanted to
raise
all by themselves. Neither one of them, it turned
out, was willing to
restrict what they
considered their “real life” into the brief time
before work and the
tired hours
afterwards.
Unit8
The Story of an
Hour
Knowing
that Mrs Mallard was
afflicted
with a heart
trouble, great care was
taken to break
to her as gently as possible the news of her
husband’s death.
It was her
sister Josephine who told her, in broken
sentences,
veiled hints
that
revealed in half
concealing
. Her husband’s
friend Richards was there, too, near her. It
was he who had been in the newspaper
office when intelligence of the railroad
disaster was received, with Brently
Mallard’s name leading the list of
“killed”.
He had
only taken the
time to assure himself of its truth by
a second telegram, and had
hastened
to prevent any less
careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad
message.
Unit 6
Two
Truths to Live by
The art of living is
to know when to hold fast and when to let go. An
ancient man
said long ago: “A man comes
to this world with his fist
clenched
, but when he dies,
his hand is open.”
Surely we ought to
hold fast
to
life, for it is wonderful, and full
of a beauty. We
know that this is so,
but
all too
often we
recognize this truth only in our backward
glance when we remember what it was and
then suddenly realize that it is no more.
Unit 5
1
他试图拯救这家濒临倒闭的企业，但失败了。
(a
ttempt to)
1. He attempted to save the
enterprise which was on the verge of collapse but
failed.
2
总
统
已
经
宣
布
，
在
第
一
个
任
期
结
束
时
不
再
谋<
/p>
求
连
任
。
The president has announced that he will
not seek re-election at the end of his
first
term.
3
那个年轻教师在激发学生努力学习方面很有技巧。
(motivat
e)
3. The young teacher is skilled at
motivating his students to study hard.
4
她喜欢举行社交聚会，只要能找到借口，她就随时举办。
(
find an excuse)
4. She loves giving
parties and does so whenever she can find an
excuse.
5
要在这家公司找到一个管理职位，你恐怕
至少要和
50
个人竞
5.
I’m
afraid
that
you’ll
have to compete
with at least fifty people for an
administrative post in this company. <
/p>
6
坦率地说，就算你对公司很忠诚，我觉得你得到提拔的机会也不
6. To be frank, I
don’t
think you stand a good
chance of getting promoted even if you
are loyal to the company.
7
很显然，他的演讲激发了观众对地震灾难中受害者的极大同
7. It was obvious that his speech aroused the
sympathy of the audience for the
victims of the earthquake.
8
尽管他反复向我保证他有能力推销我们公司的产品，
但在雇用
他之前我还要再
8. Though he has
repeatedly assured me of his ability to promote
our
company’s
products,
I’ll
give him another interview before hiring him.
9
公司的投资之所以以失败而告终是由于总经理的决策错误，于是董事
9. The
company’s
investment ended
in failure due to the wrong strategic decisions of
the general manager and so the board
of directors decided to throw him out.
10
我知道你累了，不过再坚持一会儿吧。再过半个小时我们就要到达顶峰了。
10.I know you are tired but
try to hang on a little bit longer. We will reach
the peak i
n half an hour.