Mark Twain-the Mirror of America
Most Americans remember Mark Twain as the father of Huck Finn's idyllic cmi through eternal boyhood and Tom Sawyefs endless summer of freedom and adventure・ In-dccd, this nation^ best-loved author was every bit as ad-venturous, patriotic, romantic, and humorous as anyone has ever imagined・ I found another Twain as well 一 one who grew cynical, bitter, saddened by the profound personal tragedies life dealt him, a man who became obsd with the frailties of the human race, who saw clearly ahead a black wall of night.
在大多数美国人的心目中，马克?吐温是位伟大作家，他描写了哈克?费恩永恒的童年时代中 充满诗情画意的旅程和汤姆?索亚在漫长的夏日里自由自在历险探奇的故事。的确，这位美 国最受人喜爱的作家的探索精神、爱国热情、浪漫气质及幽默笔调都达到了登ee是什么专业H金造极的程度。 但我发现还有另一个不同的马克?吐温一一一个由于深受人生悲剧的打击而变得愤世嫉俗、 尖酸刻薄的马克?吐温，一个为人类品质上的弱点而忧心忡忡、明显地看到前途是一片黑暗 的人。
Tramp printer, river pilot , Confederate guerrilla・ prospector, starry-eyed optimist, acid-tongued cynic: The man who became Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens and he ranged across the nation for more than a third of his life, digesting the new American experience before sharing it with the world as writer and lecturer. He adopted his pen name from the cr>r heard in his steamboat days, signaling two fathoms (12 feet) of water 一 a navigable depth・ His popularity is attested by the fact that more than a score of his books remain in print, and translations are still read around the world.
印刷工、领航员、邦联游击队员、淘金者、耽于幻想的乐天派、语言尖刻的讽刺家：马克? 吐温原轻塞缪尔?朗赫恩?克莱门斯，他一生之中有超过三分之一的时间浪迹美国各地，体验 着美国的新生活，尔后便以作家和演说家的身分将他所感受到的这一切介绍给全世界。他的 笔名取自他在蒸汽船上做工时听到的报告水深为两口寻(12英尺)一一意即可以通航的信号 语。他的作品中有二十几部至今仍在印行，其外文译本仍在世界各地拥有读者，由此可见他 的享誉程度。
The geographic core・ in Twain's early years, was the great valley of the Mississippi Rive
r, main artery of transportation in the young nation's heart. Keelboats , flatboats ・如何写日记 and large rafts carried the first major commerce・ Lumber, corn, tobacco, wheat, and furs moved downstream to the delta country; sugar, molass , cotton, and whiskey traveled north. In the 1850's, before the climax of westward expansion, the vast basin drained three-quarters of the ttled United States.
在马克?吐温青年时代，美国的地理中心是密西西比河流域，而密四西比河是这个年轻 国家中部的交通大动脉。龙竹船、平底船和大木筏载运着最重要的商品。木材、玉米、烟草、 小麦和皮货通过这些运载工具顺流而下，运送到河口三角洲地区，而砂糖、糖浆、棉花和威 士忌酒等货物则被运送到北方。在19世纪50年代，西部领上开发高潮到来之前，辽阔的密 四西比河流域占美国已开发领土的四分之三。
Young Mark Twain entered that world in 1857 as a cub pilot on a steamboat. The cast of characters t before him in his new profession was rich and varied a cosmos. He participated abundantly in this life, listening to pilothou talk of feuds, piracies, lynchings .medicine shows, and savage waterside slums. All would resurface in his books, together with the colorful language that he soaked up with a memory that emed phonographic
1857年，少年马克?吐温作为蒸汽船上的一名小领航员踏人了这片天地。在这个新的工作 岗位上，他接触到的是各式各样的人物，看到的是一个多姿多彩的大干世界。他完全地投身 到这种生活之中，经常在操舵室里听着人们谈论民间争斗、海盗抢劫、私刑案件、游医卖药 以及河边的一些化外民居的故事。所有这一切，连同他那像留声机般准确可靠的记忆所吸收 的丰富多彩的语言，后来都有机会在他的作品中得以再现。
Steamboat decks teemed not only with the main current of pioneering humanity, but its flotsam of hustlers. gamblers, and thugs as well. From them all Mark Twain gained a keen perception of the human race, of the difference between what people claim to be and what they really arc. His four and a half year s in the steamboat trade marked the real beginning of his cducation. and the most lasting part of it. In later life Twain acknowledged that the river had acquainted him with every possible type of human nature・ Tlio acquaintanceships strengthened all his writing, but he never wrote well than when he wrote of the people a-long the great stream.
蒸汽船的甲板上不仅挤满了富有开拓精神的人们，而且也载着一些娼妓、赌棍和歹徒等 社
破字成语
会渣滓。从所有这些形形色色的人身上，马克?叶温敏锐地认识了人类，认识了人们的言 与行之间的差距。他在蒸汽船上工作的四年半时间是他真正接受教育的开端，而且也是最具 有深远意义的教育。到了晚年，马克?吐温还声言是密西四比河使他了解了务种各样的人的 本性。这种生活体验对他的全部创作都起了促进作用，然而他描写得最为成功的还是那些密 西西比河上的人物。语文答题模板
When railroads began drying up the demand for steam-boat pilots and the Civil War halted commerce. Mark Twain left the river country; He tried soldiering for two weeks with a motley band of Confederate guerrillas who diligently avoided contact with the enemy岭上逢久别者又别・ Twain quit after deciding,,r... I knew more about retreating than the man that invented retreating・”
随着铁路运输的发展，社会上对汽船领航员的需求日渐减少，而内战的爆发又阻碍了商 业贸易的发展。这时，马克?吐温便离开了密西四比河流域。他在南方邦联游击队的一支杂 牌队伍里当了两个星期的兵。那支队伍想方设法避免与敌军交战。在确信“我比发明撤退的 人更精通撤退”之后，马克?吐温离开了那支队伍。
He went west by stagecoach and succumbed to the epidemic of gold and silver fever in Nevada*s Washoe region・ For eight months he flirted with the colossal wealth available to the lucky and the persistent, and was rebuffed. Broke and discouraged, he accepted a job as reporter with the Virginia City Territorial Enterpri, to literature's enduring gratitude.
他乘驿站马车来到西部，在内华达州的华苏地区受到当时正流行的淘金热的诱惑。同那 只有既幸运而又锲而不舍的追求者才能取得的巨大财富三心二总地打了八个月交道之后，他 遭到了失败。在破产和灰心之余，他接受了为弗吉尼亚市《领上开发报》当记者的工作，这 一行动将获得文学界永久的感激。
From the discouragement of his mining failures, Mark Twain began digging his way to regional fame as a newspaper reporter and humorist. The instant riches of a mining strike would not be his in the reporting trade, but for making money, his pen would prove mightier than his pickax .In the spring of 1864, less than two years after joining the Territorial Enterpri, he boarded the stagecoach for San Francisco, then and now a hotbed of hopeful young writers・
自从他因淘金失败而感到心灰意冷之后，马克?吐温便开始努力博取作为一爼报社记者 和幽默作家的地区性声望。从事新闻报道工作当然不能使他像淘金成功者一样立成巨富，但 在挣钱方而他的笔杆却比他的锄镐要有效得多.1864年春季，在他加盟《领丄开发报》还 不足两年之时，他又乘驿站马车前往旧金山，那儿在当时和现在都是有前途的年轻作家成长 的摇篮。
Mark Twain honed and experimented with his new writing muscles, but he had to leave the city for a while becau of some scathing columns he wrote新疆特产・ Attacks on the city government, concerning such issues as mistreatment of Chine, so angered officials that he fled to the goldfields in the Sacramento Valley. His descriptions of the rough-country ttlers there ring familiarly in modern world accustomed to trend tting on the West Coast. "It was a splendid population 一 for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterpris and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or conquences, which she bears unto this day 一 and when she projects a new surpri, the grave world smiles as usual, and says 'Well, that is Calif
经典朗诵诗歌
ornia all over.
金华万达
