經典英語美文閱讀賞析

英語的學習很寫作是很多人頭大的問題，小編今天就給大家整理了英語美文欣賞，快點行動起來吧

　　傾聽先人的聲音

I believe we are not alone.

我相信我們並不孤單。

Even if I am on the other side of the world from the farmhouse I live in, I still dream of the ancient vines out the window, and the shed out back that my grandfather’s father built in 1870 with eucalyptus trunks. As long as I can recreate these images, I never quite leave home.

即使我處身地球的另一端，遠離我家農莊，我仍然能夢見窗外那古老的藤蔓，夢見我爺爺的父親在1870年用桉樹建造的棚屋。只要這些影像還在我腦中浮現，我就離家不遠。

I don’t think farming in the same place for six generations is a dead weight that keeps you shackled, doing the identical thing year in and year out. Instead, it is a rare link to others before me, who pruned the same vines and painted the same barn that I have. If those in this house survived the Panic of 1893 or the Great Depression, or bathed with cold water and used an outhouse, then surely I know I can weather high gas prices.

我不認爲六代人在同一地方過着耕種的生活，年復一年地幹着同樣的活是一種讓人喘不過氣來的負擔。相反，我與這些先人修剪着相同的藤蔓、給同一座穀倉上漆，這是我與他們之間難得的紐帶。如果在這間屋子裏住過的人能夠挺過1893年的金融恐慌或是經濟大蕭條，能夠忍受冷水浴、戶外廁所，那麼我也肯定能夠應付攀升的汽油價格。

I believe that all of us need some grounding in our modern world of constant moving, buying, selling, meeting and leaving. Some find constancy in religion. Others lean on friends or community for permanence. But we need some daily signposts that we are not novel, not better, not worse from those who came before us.

我相信在這個現代社會，在不停的遷移、買賣、相聚、分離的生活中，所有人都需要一些寄託。一些人寄情於宗教，另一些人依賴於朋友或社區來尋求安穩，但我們還需要一些日常的標誌物提醒我們：我們也和前人一樣，並沒有更新潮、更好或更糟。

For me, this house, this farm, these ancient vines are those roots. Although I came into this world alone and will leave alone, I am not alone.

對我來說，這房子、這農莊、這些古老的藤蔓，都是我生活的根基。雖然我孤獨地來到這個世界，也將獨自離去，但我並不孤單。

There are ghosts of dozens of conversations in the hallways, stories I remember about buying new plows that now rust in the barnyard and ruined crops from the same vines that we are now harvesting.

在屋裏的門廊裏迴盪着許多舊時的對話，提到一些我記憶猶新的往事，如購買新新的犁頭——如今已鏽蝕在場院中，還有那曾被毀壞的作物，而我們現正在同一個藤架上獲得收成。

I believe all of us are natural links in a long chain of being: I need to know what time of day it is, what season is coming, whether the wind is blowing north or from the east, and if the moon is still full tomorrow night, just as the farmers who came before me did.

我相信我們與前人都是人類長長紐帶上的不同環節。與以前的農民一樣，我需要知道現在是一天裏的什麼時間，接下來是什麼季節，會吹南方還是東風，明晚的月亮是否還是圓的。

The physical world around us changes constantly; human nature does not. We must struggle in our brief existence to find some transcendent meaning during reoccurring heartbreak and disappointment and so find solace in the knowledge that our ancestors have all gone through this before.

我們周圍的現實世界在不斷地改變，但人類的本性不會變。在短暫的一生中，憂傷及失望會不斷出現，我們必須努力找出超越現實的意義，要認識到我們的祖先都經歷過了這些生活坎坷，從而得到心靈的慰藉。

You may find all that too intrusive, living with the past as present. I find it exhilarating. I believe there is an old answer for every new problem, that wise whispers of the past are with us to assure us that if we just listen and remember, we are not alone; we have been here before.

你或者會覺得生活中有先人的介入太難接受，但我卻發現這很令人振奮。我相信每個新問題都有傳統的答案，前人充滿智慧的肺腑之言無處不在，只要我們能用心傾聽、銘記，我們就不會孤單，因爲我們以前也曾有過相同的經歷。

　　寬容之心

It is curious that our own offenses should seem so much less heinous than the offenses of others. I suppose the reason is that we know all the circumstances that have occasioned them and so manage to excuse in ourselves what we cannot excuse in others. We turn our attention away from our own defects, and when we are forced by untoward events to consider them, find it easy to condone them. For all I know we are right to do this; they are part of us and we must accept the good and bad in ourselves together.

讓人奇怪的是，和別人的過錯比起來，我們自身的過錯往往不是那樣的可惡。我認爲，其原因應該是我們知曉一切導致自己犯錯的情況，因此能夠設法諒解自己的錯誤，而別人的錯誤卻不能諒解。我們對自己的缺點不甚關注，即便是深陷困境而不得不正視它們的時候，我們也會很容易就寬恕自己。據我所知，我們這樣做是正確的。缺點是我們自身的一部分，我們必須接納自己的好和壞。

But when we come to judge others, it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge hem, but by an image that we have formed of ourselves from which we have left out everything that offends our vanity or would discredit us in the eyes of the world. To take a trivial stance: how scornful we are when we catch someone out telling a lie; but who can say that he has ever told not one, but a hundred?

但是當我們評判別人的時候，情況就不同了。我們不是通過真實的自我來評判別人，而是用一種自我形象來評判，這種自我形象完全摒棄了在任何世人眼中會傷害到自己的虛榮或者體面的東西。舉一個小例子來說：當覺察到別人說謊時，我們是多麼地蔑視他啊!但是，誰能夠說自從未說過謊?可能還不止一百次呢。

There is not much to choose between men. They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and tininess, of virtue and vice, of nobility and baseness. Some have more strength of character, or more opportunity, and so in one direction or another give their instincts freer play, but initially they are the same. For my part, I do not think I am any better or any worse than most people, but I know that if I set down every action in my life and every thought that has crossed my mind, the world would consider me a monster of depravity. The knowledge that these reveries are common to all men should inspire one with tolerance to oneself as well as to others. It is well also if they enable us to look upon our fellows, even the most eminent and respectable, with humor, and if they lead us to take ourselves not too seriously.

人和人之間沒什麼大的差別。他們皆是偉大與渺小，善良與*，高尚與低俗的混合體。有的人性格比較堅毅，機會也比較多，因而這個或那個方面，能夠更自由地發揮自己的稟賦，但是人類的潛能卻都是相同的。至於我自己，我認爲自己並不比大多數人更好或者更差，但是我知道，假如我記下我生命中每一次舉動和每一個掠過我腦海的想法的話，世界就會將我視爲一個*的怪物。每個人都會有這樣的怪念頭，這樣的認識應當能夠啓發我們寬容自己，也寬容他人。同時，假如因此我們得以用幽默的態度看待他人，即使是天下秀最令人尊敬的人，而且假如我們也因此不把自己看得過於重要，那是很有裨益的。

　　閱讀好書

Reading Good Books

Devote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book- lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long as they have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the company. From good books, moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few companions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit~ they may not be deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed pages are stored up, to be worked over by the imagination for their future profit.

[參考譯文]

閱讀好書

我再說一遍，把你的一部分空閒時光用來培養閱讀好書的愛好吧。那些設法把自己培養成爲真正愛好讀書的人，確實是幸運的。因爲愛讀書的人比之別人有着明顯的好處。只要手頭有書，他們就從來不知寂寞。書越好，讀來越是津津有味。他們從好書中不但得到樂趣，而且受到很多教益。他們從中獲得的那種精神食糧，從其他地方是很難得到的。即使是在工作休息時，通過讀書，他們的工作效率也能更加提高，儘管他們未必有意識地想到讀書是爲了提高才智。在全然不知不覺中，他們從書中吸取的知識積累起來，經過想想象力的加工，對將來大有用處。