书城外语英文爱藏:天使吻过那片海
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第47章 流年故事 (12)

1. 没有人只因年龄的增长而年老,人们往往因放弃理想而迈入年老。

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2. 岁月可使肌肤长满皱纹,但放弃激情则使心灵布满灰尘。

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3. 我们因充满信心而变得年轻,因心存疑虑而变得年老。

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短语应用

1. These bow the heart and turn the spirit back to dust.

turn back:往回走;阻挡;翻回到

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2. When the wires are all down, and all the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism.

be covered with:被……盖满;充满着……

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快乐吧!

Be Happy!

劳埃德·莫里斯 / Lloyd Morris

劳埃德·莫里斯(1613-1680),英国作家,作品富于机智幽默。著有《格言集》等。

本文以演绎的手法论述快乐对人的影响。作者先借梅斯菲尔德的诗引出“快乐”与“智慧”的关系,接着以人在快乐时的种种心理反应,点出快乐无处不在。最后再给予肯定的结论:快乐是智慧的开端。

“The days that make us happy make us wise.”

________ —John Masefield

When I first read this line by England’ s Poet Laureate, it startled me. What did Masefield mean? Without thinking about it much, I had always assumed that the opposite was true. But his sober assurance was arresting. I could not forget it.

Finally, I seemed to grasp his meaning and realized that here was a profound observation. The wisdom that happiness makes possible lies in clear perception, not fogged by anxiety nor dimmed by despair and boredom, and without the blind spots caused by fear.

Active happiness—not mere satisfaction or contentment—often comes suddenly, like an April shower or the unfolding of a bud. Then you discover what kind of wisdom has accompanied it. The grass is greener, bird songs are sweeter, the shortcomings of your friends are more understandable and more forgivable. Happiness is like a pair of eyeglasses correcting your spiritual vision.

Nor are the insights of happiness limited to what is near around you.Unhappy, with your thoughts turned in upon your emotional woes, your vision is cut short as though by a wall. Happy, the wall crumbles.

The long vista is there for the seeing. The ground at your feet, the world about you—people, thoughts, emotions, pressures—are now fitted into the larger scene. Every thing assumes a fairer proportion. And here is the beginning of wisdom.

“快乐的日子,使我们聪明。”

——约翰?梅斯菲尔德

第一次读到英国桂冠诗人梅斯菲尔德这行诗的时候,我非常惊讶,它真正的寓意是什么呢?不仔细考虑的话,我一直认为这句诗倒过来才对。不过他的冷静与自信却俘获了我,所以我一直无法忘记这句诗。

终于,我好像领会了他的意思,意识到其中蕴含着深刻的观察思考。快乐带来的智慧存在于清晰的心灵感觉中,不因忧虑、担心而困惑,不因绝望、厌烦而迟钝,不因惶恐而出现盲点。

跳动的快乐——不仅是满足或惬意——会突然到来,就像四月的春雨或是花蕾的绽放,然后你发觉智慧已随快乐而来。草儿更绿,鸟儿的歌声更加美妙,朋友的缺点也变得更加可以理解、原谅。快乐就像一副眼镜,可以修正你精神的视力。

快乐的视野并不受你周围事物的局限。只不过当你不快乐的时候,思想便转向你感情上的苦恼,眼界也就被心灵之墙隔断了。而当你快乐的时候,这道墙便崩塌了。

你的眼界更宽了。脚下的大地,身旁的世界——人们、思想、情感、压力——现在都溶进了一个更加宏伟的情境中,每件事都恰如其分。这就是智慧的开端。

心灵小语

在千万种品德里,有谁敢说是智慧的开端?只有快乐,它开启眼睛、开启头脑、开启心灵,这不是智慧吗?

记忆填空

1. Without thinking about it much, I had always assumed that the__was true.__ his sober assurance was arresting. I could____ forget it.

2. The wisdom that__ makes possible lies in clear perception, not fogged by anxiety__ dimmed by despair and boredom, and without the blind spots caused by__ .

3. Happiness is like a pair of eyeglasses__ your spiritual vision.

佳句翻译

1. 快乐的日子,使我们聪明。

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2. 快乐就像一副眼镜,可以修正你精神的视力。

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3. 快乐的视野并不受你周围事物的局限。

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短语应用

1. The wisdom that happiness makes possible lies in clear perception.

lie in:在于

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2. The ground at your feet, the world about you—people, thoughts, emotions, pressures—are now fitted into the larger scene.

fit into:适合;符合

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我生命中最重要的一天

The Most Important Day in My Life

海伦·凯勒/Helen Keller

海伦·凯勒(1880—1968),美国著名残疾人作家、教育家,生于美国亚拉巴马州。两岁时,一场疾病使她变成了盲、聋、哑人。后来,她的父母请来家庭教师莎莉文女士对其进行特殊教育。同时,凯勒通过自身顽强的努力,于1904年毕业于麻省波士顿的拉德克利夫学院。后来,凯勒专职于写作和残疾人教育事业。她一生共写了19本书,其中《我生活的故事》最为著名。

The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.

On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother’ s signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers fingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was. “Light! Give me light!” was the wordless cry of my oil, and the light of love shone on me in that very tour.

I felt approaching footsteps, I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Some one took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me.