【英语美文】高二年级 八篇美文欣赏(下)

高二年级

八篇美文欣赏（下）

Passage Five

Children are Wiser than Elders

Leo Tolstoy was a great writer. He was a Russian. Tolstoy was

a man of

peace

. He wrote many good stories. Each story has a

valuable moral

. Some

of his stories are long. And some of his stories are short. The following is one

of his stories. It is written in simple English

for your sake

.

It was rainy season in Russia. In a certain village in Russia the rain water was

flowing in streams in a street. It had rained and stopped a little while ago.

Two little girls were playing in the street water. It was festival time. They

were wearing new frocks. Malasha was the younger of the two little girls.

Akulya was the older girl.

Malasha

stamp

ed her foot in the water. It was a little muddy. The muddy

water splashed. It fell on Akulya’s new frock. Akulya was just rubbing out the

mud. At that time Akulya’s mother was walking that way. She looked at her

daughter’s dress. She

scold

ed her daughter.

“How can you make your new dress so dirty?

“Malasha splashed the water on me, mother,

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Akulya’s mother caught Malasha. She gave two or three

slap

s on the back of

Malasha. Malasha started weeping loudly. Malasha’s house

was close by.

Malasha’s mother heard her daughter Malasha’s

weep

ing. She came out in a

hurry.

“Why are you weeping?

“Akulya’s mother beat me on my back,

Malasha’s mother turned to Akulya’s mother in an angry

mood

. Ma

lasha’s

mother

abuse

d Akulya’s mother. Soon they started

quarrel

ling loudly. They

called each other names. Their shouting continued.

Other women joined them soon. Some supported Akulya’s mother. Some

supported Malasha’s mother. The two fighting groups

became bigger and

bigger. The men also joined in the fighting. The quarrel became never ending.

At that time the grandmother of Akulya came out of the house. She told the

men and the women not to

fight

. “It is festival time. People should not

quarrel,

No one listened to her. No one cared for her words. In the meantime

, Malasha

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and Akulya forgot about their quarrel. They became friends again. They

moved away from the fighting crowd. They started letting paper boats in the

running water. Now the old woman said to the fighting groups.

“Look at the

children. They have forgotten their quarrel. They have started playing again.

They have become friends again. But you men and women still keep

quarrelling.

Are

you not

ashamed of

your tendency?

The men and the women looked at the little girls. They felt ashamed. They

went back to their houses quietly.

Children forget and

forgive

very easily. The elders learnt this lesson from the

little girls.

Passage Six

Find your own destiny

Once five men were caught in a thick forest.

The first man said,

“I will go left. Because my

intuition

said so.”

The second one said,

“I will go the right, because the right comes from the

word rightness.

”

The third one said,

“I will go back the way we came.”

The fourth one said,

“I will go straight. We should move forward, the forest

will end and we will go somewhere new.

”

The fifth said,

“You are all wrong. There is a better

solution

. Wait for me.

”

He climbed the tallest tree he could find while everyone else went their own

way.

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From above he saw the shortest way to

exit

. He could also see the order in

which the others would exit. He understood the problem and found the best

solution!

He knew that he did everything right. The others were wrong. They were

stubborn

and they didn’t listen to him. He was the real Wise Man!

But he was wrong. Everyone was right. They were all wise.

The man who went to the left found himself in the thicket. He had to

starve

and fight with wild animals, but he learned how to

survive

in the forest. He

became a part of the forest and could teach others the same.

The man who went to the right

was robbed of

everything and was

force

d to

join them. After some time, he had reminded the thieves of something they

had forgotten -

humanity

and

compassion

.

The man who went back created a

trail

through the forest which soon became

a road for those who wanted to enjoy the forest without the

fear

of getting

lost.

The man who went straight became a

pioneer

. He went to places where

nobody else had been before and created new

opportunities

for others.

The man who climbed the tree became a

guide

. People turned to him when

they wanted to find the most

efficient

ways to deal with their problems.

These five wise men created their

destiny

by listening to their intuition. You

can create your own path.

Listen to yourself and you will find your destiny.

Passage Seven

Good company and bad company

Two parrots had built their nest on a banyan tree. The female parrot

laid

two eggs in the nest. After sometime, the eggs latched. Two chicks came out

of them. The parent birds took good care of them. After few weeks, the young

birds were able to fly for some distances.

The father bird said, “We have taken good care of our youn

g ones. We have

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fed them well too. They have played together. They have learned to fly. Now

they can take care of themselves. Let us slowly leave them to decide on their

own.

Every morning the parent birds flew out to

fetch

food for the young birds.

Then they returned in the evening with food for their young children.

A hunter saw this

behavior

of these birds. He learned that the old birds went

out in the morning. He decided to catch the young birds after the old birds

would go away in the morning.

As planned

he caught the young birds. The

young birds

struggled

their best

to

free themselves from the clutches of the

hunter. One of the two young birds

escap

ed from the hunter. The other bird

was taken in a cage by the hunter to his house.

“I caught t

wo birds. But I lost one ,

further added to his children, “Keep this parrot safely in the cage and play

with this parrot.

The hunter’s children played with the parrot. Very soon the parrot in the

house of the hunter learnt to speak few words. The children said to their

father, “Dad, our parrot has learnt to say a few words.”

The other parrot flew away. It had escaped from the hunter. It flew for some

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