新概念必背优秀文章36篇(风中劲草).pdf
新 概 念 三Lesson 14 A noble gangster贵族歹徒There was a time when the owners of shops and businesses in Chicago had to pay large sums of money toQancisters in return for protection.If the money was not paid promptly,the gangsters would quickly put a man outof business by destroying his shop.Obtaining protection money*is not a modern crime.As long ago as thefourteenth century,an Englishman,Sir John Hawkwood,made the remarkable discovery that people would ratherpay large sums of money than have theiHife work destroyed by gangsters.Six hundred years ago,Sir Johan Hawkwood arrived in Italy with a band of soldiers and settled near Florence.He soon made a name for himself and came to be known to the Italians as Giovanni Acuto.Whenever the Italiancity-states were at war with each other,Hawkwood used to hire his soldiers to princes who were willing to pay thehigh price he demanded.In times of peace,when business was bad,Hawkwood and his men would march into acity-state and,after burning down a few farms,would offer to go away if protection money was paid to them.Hawkwood made large sums of money in this way.In spite of this,the Italians regarded him as a sort of hero.When he died at the age of eighty,the Florentines gave him a state funeral and had a pictured painted which wasdedicated to the memory of the most valiant soldier and most notable leader,Signor Giovanni Haukodue.,Lesson 17 The longest suspension bridge in the world 世界上景长的吊桥Verrazano,an Italian about whom little is known,sailed into New York Harbour in 1524 and named it Angouleme.He described it as a very agreeable situation located within two small hills in the midst of which flowed a greatriver.Though Verrazano is bv no means considered to be a great explorer,his name will probably remainimmortal,for on November 21st,1964,the longest suspension bridge in the world was named after him.The Verrazano Bridge,which was designed by Othmar Ammann,joins Brooklyn to Staten Island.It has a spanof 4,260 feet.The bridge is so long that the shape of the earth had to be taken into account by its designer.Twogreat towers support four huge cables.The towers are built on immense underwater platforms made of steel andconcrete.The platforms extend to a depth of over 100 feet under the sea.These alone took sixteen months to build.Above the surface of the water,the towers rise to a height of nearly 700 feet.They support the cables from whichthe bridge has been suspended.Each of the four cables contains 26,108 lengths of wire.It has been estimatedthat if the bridge were packed with cars,it would still only be carrying a third of its total capacity.However,size andstrength are not the only important things about this bridge.Despite its immens计v,it is both simple and elegant,fulfilling its designers dream t。create an enormous object drawn as faintly as possible.Lesson 21 Daniel Mendoza 丹尼东.门多萨Boxing matches were very popular in England two hundred years ago.In those days,boxers fought with barefists for prize money.Because of this,they were known as prize-fighters.However,boxing was very crude,forthere were no rules and a prize-fighter could be seriously injured or even killed during a match.One of the most colourful figures in boxing history was Daniel Mendoza,who was born ic 1764.The use ofgloves was not introduced until 1860,when the Marquis of Queensberry drew up the first set of rules.Though hewas technically a prize-fighter,Mendoza did much to change crude prize-fighting into a sport,for he brought scienceto the aame.In his dav.Mendoza enioved tremendous popularity.He was adored by rich and poor alike.Mendoza rose to fame swiftly after a boxing-match when he was only fourteen years old.This attracted theattention of Richard Humphries who was then the most eminent boxer in England.He offered to train Mendoza andhis young pupil was quick to learn.In fact,Mendoza soon became so successful that Humphries turned against him.The two men quarrelled bitterly and it was clear that the argument could only be settled by a fight.A match was heldat Stilton,where both men fought for an hour.The public bet a great deal of money on Mendoza,but he wasdefeated.Mendoza met Humphries in the ring on a later occasion and he lost for a second time.It was not until histhird match in 1790 that he finally beat Humphries and became Champion of England.Meanwhile,he founded ahighly successful Academy and even Lord Byron became one of his pupils.He earned enormous sums of moneyand was paid as much as 100 pounds for a single appearance.Despite this,he was so extravagant that he wasalways in debt.After he was defeated by a boxer called Gentleman Jackson,he was quickly forgotten.He was sentto prison for failing to pay his debts and died in poverty in 1836.Lesson 24 A skeleton in the cupboard“我区”We often read in novels how a seemingly respectable person or family has some terrible secret which has beenconcealed from strangers for years.The English language possesses a vivid saving to describe this sort ofsituation.The terrible secret is called a skeleton in the cupboard.At some dramatic moment in the story,theterrible secret becomes known and a reputation is ruined.The readers hair stands on end when he reads in thefinal pages of the novel that the heroine,a dear old lady who had always been so kind to everybody,had,in heryouth,poisoned every one of her five husbands.It is all very well for such thinqs to occur in fiction.To varying degrees,we all have secrets which we do notwant even our closest friends to learn,but few of us have skeletons in the cupboard.The only person I know who hasa skeleton in the cupboard is George Carlton,and he is very proud of the fact.George studied medicine in his youth.Instead of becoming a doctor,however,he became a successful writer of detective stories.I once spent anuncomfortable weekend which I shall never forget at his house.George showed me to the guest-room which,hesaid,was rarely used.He told me to unpack my things and then come down to dinner.After I had stacked my shirtsand underclothes in two empty drawers,I decided to hang one of the two suits I had brought with me in the cupboard.I opened the cupboard door and then stood in front of it petrified.A skeleton was dangling before my eyes.Thesudden movement of the door made it sway slightly and it gave me the impression that it was about to leap out atme.Dropping my suit,I dashed downstairs to tell George.This was worse than a terrible secret*;this was a realskeleton!But George was unsympathetic.Oh,that,*he said with a smile as if he were talking about an old friend.Thats Sebastian.You forget that I was a medical student once upon a time.5Lesson 27 Nothing to sell and nothing to buy 没有东西可卖 也没有东西可买It has been said that everyone lives by selling something.In the light of this statement,teachers live byselling knowledge,philosophers by selling wisdom and priests by selling spiritual comfort.Though it may bepossible to measure the value of material good in terms of money,it is extremely difficult to estimate the true valueof the services which people perform for us.There sre times when we would willingly aive everythinq wepossess t。save ou门ives,yet we might grudge paying a surgeon a high fee for offering us precisely this service.The conditions of society are such that skills have to be paid for in the same way that goods are paid for at a shop.Everyone has something to sell.Tramps seem to be the only exception to this general rule.Beggars almost sell themselves as human beingsto arouse the pity of passers-by.But real tramps are not beggars.They have nothing to sell and require nothing fromothers.In seeking independence,they do not sacrifice their human dignity.A tramp may ask you for money,but hewill never ask you to feel sorry for him.He has deliberately chosen to lead the life he leads and is fully aware of theconsequences.He may never be sure where the next meal is coming from,but he is free from the thousands ofanxieties which afflict other people.His few material possessions make it possible for him to move from place toplace with ease.By having to sleep in the open,he gets far closer to the world of nature than most of us ever do.He may hunt,beg,or steal occasionally to keep himself alive;he may even,in times of real need,do a little work;but he will never sacrifice his freedom.We often sneak of tramps with contempt and put them in the same class asbeqqars,but how many of us can honestly say that we have not felt a little envious of their simple way of life andtheir freedom from care?Lesson 33 A day to remember 难总 的一天We have all experienced days when everything goes wrong.A day may begin well enough,but suddenlyeverything seems to get out of control.What invariably happens is that a nreat number of things choose to gowrona at precisely the same moment.It is as if a single unimportant event set up a chain of reactions.Let ussuppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on the baby at the same time.The telephone rings andthis marks the prelude to an unforeseen series of catastrophes.While you are on the phone,the baby pulls thetable-cloth off the table,smashing half your best crockery and cutting himself in the process.You hang uphurriedly and attend to baby,crockery,etc.Meanwhile,the meal gets burnt.As if this were not enough to reduceyou to tears,your husband arrives,unexpectedly bringing three guests to dinner.Things can go wrong on a big scale,as a number of people recently discovered in Parramatta,a suburb ofSydney.During the rush hour one evening two cars collided and both drivers began to argue.The womanimmediately behind the two cars happened to be a learner.She suddenly got into a panic and stopped her car.This made the driver following her brake hard.His wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake.As she wasthrown forward,the cake went right through the windscreen and landed on the road.Seeing a cake flying throughthe air,a lorry-driver who was drawing up alongside the car,pulled up all of a sudden.The lorry was loaded withempty beer bottles and hundreds of them slid off the back of the vehicle and on to the road.This led to yet anotherangry argument.Meanwhile,the traffic piled up behind.It took the police nearly an hour to get the traffic on the moveagain.In the meantime,the lorry driver had to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles.Only two stray dogs benefitedfrom all this confusion,for they greedily devoured what was left of the cake.It was just one of those days!Lesson 34 A happy discovery 幸运的发现Antique shops exert a peculiar fascination on a great many people.The more expensive kind of antique shopwhere rare objects are beautifully displayed in glass cases to keep them free from dust is usually a forbidding place.But no one has to muster up courage to enter a less pretentious antique shop.There is always hope that iu 止slabyrinth of musty,dark,disordered rooms a real rarity will be found amongst the piles of assorted junk that htterthe floors.No one discovers a rarity by chance.A truly dedicated bargain hunter must have patience,and above all,theability to recognize the worth of something when he sees it.To do this,he must be at least as knowledgeable asthe dealer.Like a scientist bent on making a discovery,he must cherish the hope that one day he will be amplyrewarded.My old friend,Frank Halliday,is just such a person.He has often described to me how he picked up amasterpiece for a mere50.One Saturday morning,Frank visited an antique shop in my neighbourhood.As he hadnever been there before,he found a treat deal to interest him.The morning passed rapidly and Frank was about toleave when he noticed a large packing-case lying on the floor.The dealer told him that it had just come in,but thathe could not be bothered to open it.Frank begged him to do so and the dealer reluctantly prised it open.Thecontents were disappointing.Apart from an interesting-looking carved dagger,the box was full of crockery,much ofit broken.Frank gently lifted the crockery out of the box and suddenly noticed a miniature painting at the bottom ofthe packing-case.As its Composition and line reminded him of an Italian painting he knew well,he decided to buy it.Glancing at it briefly,the dealer told him that it was worth 50.Frank could hardly conceal his excitement,for heknew that he had made a real discovery.The tiny painting proved to be an unknown masterpiece by Correggioand was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.Lesson 38 The first calender 景早的日历Future historians will be in a unique position when they come to record the history of our own times.They willhardly know which facts to select from the areat mass of evidence that steadily accumulates.What is more,theywill not have to rely solely on the written word.Films,videos,CDs and CD-ROMS are just some of the bewilderingamount of information they will have.They will be able,as it were,to see and hear us in action.But the historianattempting to reconstruct the distant past is always faced with a difficult task.He has to deduce what he can fromthe few scanty clues available.Even seemingly insignificant remains can shed interesting light on the history ofearly man.Up to now,historians have assumed that calendars came into being with the advent of agriculture,for thenman was faced with a real need to understand something about the seasons.Recent scientific evidence seems toindicate that this assumption is incorrect.Historians have lovq been puzzled bvdots.lines and symbols which have been engraved on walls,bones,andthe ivory tusks of mammoths.The nomads who made these markings lived by hunting and fishing during the lastIce Age which began about 35,000 B.C.and ended about 10,000 B.C.By correlating markings made in variousparts of the world,historians have been able to read this difficult code.They have found that it is connected with thepassage of days and the phases of the moon.It is,in fact,a primitive type of calendar.It has Iona been knownthat the hunting scenes depicted on walls were not simply a form of artistic expression.They had a definitemeaning,for they were as near as early man could get to writing.It is possible that there is a definite relationbetween these paintings and the markings that sometimes accompany them.It seems that man was making a realeffort to understand the seasons 20,000 years earlier than has been supposed.Lesson 40 Whos who 真假难辨It has never been explained why university students seem to nnjov practical jokes more than anyone else.Students specialize in a particular type of practical joke:the hoax.Inviting the fire-briqade t。put out a non-existentfire is a crude form of deception which no self-respecting student would ever indulae in.Students often createamusing situations which are funny to everyone except the victims.When a student recently saw two workmen using a pneumatic drill outside his university,he immediatelytelephoned the police and informed them that two students dressed up as workmen were tearing up the road witha pneumatic drill.As
