新概念英语第四册补充材料11

精美而华丽的文字描写，堪称英语散文之精品！ 

The January wind has a hundred voices. It can scream, it can bellow, it can whisper, and it can sing a lullaby. It can roar through the leafless oaks and shout down the hillside, and it can murmur in the white pines rooted among the granite ledges where lichen makes strange hieroglyphics. It can whistle down a chimney and set the hearth-flames to dancing. On a sunny day it can pause in a sheltered spot and breathe a promise of spring and violets. In the cold of a lonely night it can rattle the sash and stay there muttering of ice and snow-banks and deep-frozen ponds. 

Sometimes the January wind seems to come from the farthest star in the outer darkness, so remote and so impersonal is its voice. That is the wind of a January dawn, in the half-light that trembles between day night. It is a wind that merely quivers the trees, its force sensed but not seen, a force that might almost hold back the day if it were so directed. Then the east brightens, and the wind relaxes —— the stars, its source, grown dim. 

And sometimes the January wind is so intimate that you know it came only from the next hill, a little wind that plays with leaves and puffs at chimney smoke and whistle like a little boy with puckered lips. It makes the little cedar trees quiver, as with delight. It shadow-boxes with the weather-vane. It tweaks an ear, and whispers laughing words about crocuses and daffodils, and nips the nose and dances off. 

But you never know, until you hear its voice, which wind is here today. Or, more important, which will be here tomorrow. 

一 月 的 风

一月的风有千种声音，万种风情。它时而尖声呼啸，时而大声咆哮，时而柔声细语，时而哼唱一首摇篮曲；它时而怒吼着冲过秃枝的橡树，呐喊着掠下山坡，时而攀上花岗岩壁，在银白色的松林中沙沙私语。在那里青苔描画出奇形怪状的象形文字；它时而钻进烟囱呼呼作响，惹得炉膛内火飞焰舞。阳光明媚的时候，它去找个角落栖息，轻声细语地吟唱着温暖的春光和甜蜜的紫罗兰花香的到来；而在夜寒寂静之际，它又会抖动窗棂，咕哝着冰冻、雪丘和池溏深冻的降临。

有时，一月的风好似来自最为深邃的外层星空，它的声音是那么遥远，那么不可捉摸。这就是那晨曦微露时，幽暗在昼夜间飘摆不定的微光中的一月的风。正是这股一月的晨风，它只能使树枝抖动，它的风力只可感觉到却看不见。如果你愿意，它或许能够挽住白昼的步履，一旦东方破晓，群星——风之源泉渐渐暗淡，风便也停息。 

有时，一月的风是那么的令人亲切可爱，仿佛就象来自自家屋旁的小山坡，它在叶丛中玩耍，或抚弄袅袅炊烟，或像小孩一样撅起小嘴吹响口哨。它能使低矮的雪松欣喜地招手，或与旋转的风标切磋拳术，或拧住你的耳朵细诉藏红花和黄水仙的趣事，然后捏捏你的鼻头，轻轻地飞去。

然而，在你听到它的声音之前，你无法知道今天的风会带来哪种风情，更不知道明天的 风又会是怎样一番情趣。 

ADog's Eye View of Man (1)

JAMES THURBER 

If Man has benefited (1) immeasurably by his association (2) with the dog, what, you may ask, has the dog got out of it? His scroll (3) has, of course, been heavily charged with punishments: he has known the muzzle (4), the leash (5), and the tether; (6) he has suffered the indignities of the show bench (7), the tin can on the tail, the ribbon in the hair; his love life with the other sex of his species has been regulated by the frigid hand of authority, his digestion ruined by the macaroons (8) and marshmallows (9) of doting (10) women. The list of his woes (11) could be continued indefinitely. But he has also had his fun, for he has been privileged to live with and study at close range (12) they only creature with reason, the most unreasonable of creatures. 

The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals. The dog has long been bemused (13) by the singular activities and the curious practices of men, cocking (14) his head inquiringly to one side, intently watching and listening to the strangest goings-on (15) in the world. He has seen men sing together and fight one another in the same evening. He has watched them go to bed when it is time to get up, and get up when it is time to go to bed. He has observed them destroying the soil in vast areas, and nurturing (16) it in small patches. He has stood by white men built strong and solid houses for rest and quiet, and the filled them with lights and bells and machinery. His sensitive nose, which can detect what cooking in the next township, has caught at one and the same time the bewildering smells of the hospital and the munitions factory (17). He has seen men raise up great cities to heaven and then blow them to hell.

[Selected from The Norton Reader] 

Notes:

1．詹姆斯瑟伯（1894—1961）：美国作家漫画家创作了大量的随笔小品文代表作有My Life and Hard Times, Men, Women and Dogs以及Fables for Our Times。本文便是一篇优秀的小品文作者巧妙地运用Abird's view这个短语把 bird换成 dog。但题目让人耳目一新。 

狗 瞰 人 类

詹伯斯•瑟伯

倘若人类与狗交往则受益无穷，君则要问，狗与人交往有何所得？毫无疑问，狗之周身受刑累累：他领教了口套，皮带与链绳之约束；畜犬展览会的陈列台，尾巴上的洋铁罐，毛发中的装饰带，皆使他尊严丧尽，有苦难言；他与同类异性的恋爱生活，也被主人那冷若冰霜之手牢牢控制；那溺爱成性的女人，又用饼干糖果败坏了他的消化功能。其苦其痛，可谓罄竹难书矣，但他亦自得其乐因为能与万物之中独有理智又最不讲情理的生灵同吃同住，而且可就近观察研究，也算其受惠非浅矣。

狗之乐取之于人，多于人之乐取之于狗，其故显而易见：两种动物相比，人类更为可笑。长期以来，狗被人类那些异常活动和古怪做法弄得迷离茫然，他翘起脑袋，若有所询地倾向一边，专心致志地观看，聆听天下最奇最怪之事。他亲眼目睹过人类齐声欢唱，而就在同天晚上大打出手。他亦曾见过人们该起床时却睡觉，或是该睡觉时却起床。他还见过人类恣意毁掉广袤之壤，却对弹丸之地精心照料。他曾经袖手旁观，看人类建造用之歇息和安宁的坚固房屋之后却装上电灯，安上钟铃，再塞进各式机器设备。他那只能嗅出邻区何物之炊香的敏锐之鼻，却在某一时刻闻到了医院和军火工厂散发出的令人困惑的臭气。他目睹人类筑起高耸云霄的座座巨城，然后再把它们兀然炸毁，送入地狱。 

 

新概念英语第四册补充材料的延伸阅读——如何更好地学习新概念英语

 

　　第一部分，听力。

　　大家完全可以把《新概念英语》当成是一套很好的听力教材。《新概念英语》的配套磁带有英音的和美音的两种。大家可以根据自己的实际需要去选择购买。

　　第二部分，词汇。

　　新概念教材课文里所学习的单词都是最基本、最常用的词汇，所以大家一定要掌握。对于意思不太明白的，最好用英英词典或者双解词典查阅并掌握其含义。

　　第三部分，语法和阅读。

建议大家进行课后的习题练习和同步测试，巩固学习内容，检验学习效果。尤其是，新概念每课都有一个自己的核心语法内容，这就要求学生要将每课的这一个语法掌握。查看全文>>>>