1995听天由命
I, by comparison, living in my overpriced city apartment, walking to work past putrid sacks of street garbage, paying usurious taxes to local and state governments I generally abhor, I am rated middle class. This caus me to wonder, do the measurement make n? Are we measuring only that which is easily measured--- the numbers on the money chart --- and ignoring values more central to the good life?
For my sons there is of cour the rural bounty of fresh-grown vegetables, line-caught fish and the shared riches of neighbours’ orchards and gardens. There is the unpaid baby-sitter for who children my daughter-in-law baby-sits in return, and neighbours who barter their skills and labour. But more than that, how do you measure renity? Sen if lf?
I don’t want to idealize life in small places. There are times when the outside world intrudes brutally, as when the cost of gasoline goes up or developers cast their eyes on untouched farmland. There are cruelties, there is intolerance, there are all the many vices and meanness in small places that exist in large cities. Furthermore, it is harder to ignore them when they cannot be banished psychologically to another part of town or excud as t
he whims of alien groups --- when they have to be acknowledged as “part of us.”
Nor do I want to belittle the opportunities for small decencies in cities --- the eruptions of one-stranger-to-another caring that always surpri and delight. But the are,sadly,more exceptions than rules and are often overwhelmed by the awful corruptions and dangers that surround us.
der是什么意思参考译文：
对我的几个儿子来说，乡村当然有充足的新鲜蔬菜，垂钓来的鱼，邻里菜园和果园里可供分享的丰盛瓜果。乡下有不用付报酬便可请来照看孩子的邻居，作为回报，我儿媳也帮着照看其孩子。乡邻之间互相交换技能和劳动。但比之更重要的是，你如何来衡量那静谧与安详？如何来衡量自我价值呢？
早教中心哪个好我无意将小地方的生活理想化。因为有时外面的世界会无情地侵入：比如汽油价格上涨，开发商把眼睛盯住尚未开发的农田；那里充斥着凶残和偏狭，大城市的种种卑劣行径，小地方也一应俱全。不仅如此，当人们无法自欺欺人地硬把那些丑恶现象想象成只是小地方的一小部分或将它们解释为异乡人的为所欲为，而又不得不承认这一切是我们的一部分时，
就更难以忽视它们。
二月英文1996
It should have been easy. They were battle-tested veterans with long ties to Reagan and even longer ties to the Republican party, men who understood presidential politics as well as any in the country. The backdrop of the campaign was hospitable, with lots of good news to work with: America was at peace, and the nation’s economy, a key factor in any election, was rebounding vigorously after recession. Furthermore, the campaign itlf was lavishly financed, with plenty of money for a top-flight staff, travel, and television commercials. And, most important, their candidate was Ronald Reagan, a president of tremendous personal popularity and dazzling communication skills. Reagan has succeed more than any president since John F. Kennedy in projecting a broad vision of America – a nation of renewed military strength, individual initiative, and smaller federal government.
参考译文：
hard是什么意思这应该不是件难事。这都是些跟着里根多年、久经沙场的老将，他们跟共和党则有更深厚的渊源，是这个国家里最熟悉总统政治的人。竞选的背景也很有利，也很多好消息可供炒作。例如，美国上下一片和平，美国经济这一竞选要素也在经过一段时间的衰退之后开始强劲反弹。此外，这次竞选本身得到了慷慨资助，因此有充裕的资用于组织一流的竞选班子、支付巡回演讲和电视广告的费用。而最重要的一点是，他们的候选人是罗纳德·里根，他可是位极具个人魅力和沟通技巧的总统。自约翰·F·肯尼迪总统以来，里根是最成功地勾勒出美国蓝图的总统：一个军事力量复兴、富有个人进取心、联邦政府得以精简的国家。
1997
Opera is expensive: that much is inevitable. But expensive things are not inevitably the province of the rich unless we abdicate society’s power of choice. We can choo to make opera, and other expensive forms of culture, accessible to tho who cannot individually pay for it. The question is: why should we? Nobody denies the imperatives of food, shelter, defence, health and education. But even in a prehistoric cave, mankind stre
tched out a hand not just to eat, drink or fight, but also to draw. The impul towards culture, the desire to express and explore the world through imagination and reprentation is fundamental. In Europe, this desire has found fulfillment in the masterpieces of our music, art, literature and theatre. The masterpieces are the touchstones for all our efforts; they are the touchstones for the possibilities to which human thought and imagination may aspire; they carry the most profound messages that can be nt from one human to another.
参考译文：
聆听歌剧，无疑昂贵至极。但是，昂贵的事物并非必定属于富人的范畴，除非我们放弃社会的选择权。我们可以选择去使歌剧以及其他某些昂贵的文化形式也能为那些不具备个人支付能力的人所享受。但问题是，我们有必要这么做吗？没人会否认食物、居所、防护、健康与教育的不可或缺性。但即便是在史前时代的洞穴中，人类伸出手来，早就不单纯是为了吃、喝或搏杀，而且亦进行绘画创作。人类对于文化的冲动，通过形象思维和再现手
段来表现并探索世界的欲望，乃亘古有之。在欧洲，这一欲望在我们的音乐、艺术、文学和戏剧杰作中寻找到了其实现形式。这些杰作构成了我们全部努力的试金石。作为试金石，它们能衡量出人类的思想和想象力所可能企及的程度。它们携带着最寓意深刻的主题，可在人类彼此间相互传递。
pleasure1998quarrelling
I agree to some extent with my imaginary English reader. American literary historians are perhaps prone to view their own national scene too narrowly, mistaking prominence for uniqueness. They do over-phra their own literature, or certainly its minor figures. And Americans do swing from aggressive over phra of their literature to an equally unfortunate, imitative deference. But then, the English themlves are somewhat insular in their literary appraisals. Moreover, in fields where they are not pre-eminent — e. g. in painting and music —they too alternate between boasting of native products and copying tho of the Continent. How many English paintings try to look as though they were done
eamin Paris; how many times have we read in articles that they really reprent an “English tradition” after all.
voa官网 To speak of American literature, then, is not to asrt that it is completely unlike that of Europe. Broadly speaking, America and Europe have kept step. At any given moment the traveler could find examples in both of the same architecture, the same styles in dress, the same books on the shelves. Ideas have crosd the Atlantic as freely as men and merchandi, though sometimes more slowly. When I refer to American habit, thoughts, etc., I intend some sort of qualification to precede the word, for frequently the difference between America and Europe (especially England) will be one of degree, sometimes only of a small degree. The amount of divergence is a subtle affair, liable to perplex the Englishman when he looks at America. He is looking at a country which in important ns grew out of his own, which in veral ways still rembles his own — and which is yet a foreign country. There are odd overlappings and abrupt unfamiliarities; kinship yields to a sudden alienation, as when we hail a person across the street, only to discover from his blank respon that we have mistaken a stranger for a friend. dual life
