高级英语1 lesson7 课文原文
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Learn General Secretary on "two to learn a" strengthening "four Consciousnesses" important speech caused a strong reaction in the country. Time, watching "red treasure", the origin of building the party back to power, how to strengthen services for the masses, improve party cohesion, fighting to become the grass-roots party members and masses hot topic. Grass-roots party organizations "two" is to strengthen the service of party members and cadres, the pioneer spirit. Distribution of grass-roots party organizations in all walks of people, clothing, shelter, which belongs to the nerve endings of the party organization and comments reputation has a direct perception of the masses. Strengthen the party ahead of the "pedal" spirit; strengthen the party members and cadres "success does not have to be me" and "the first to bear hardships, the last to" service spirit to set the party's positive image among the people is important. Grass-roots party organizations "two" is to cleanse all people not happy not to see "stereotypes", establish the honest faithful, diligent faith for the people. No need to avoid mentioning that, some members of our party can not stand the "money," corrosion of temptation, thin, Xu Zhou, such abuse and corrupt bribery, malfeasance borers, and rats. Two, is to clean up, thin, Xu, Zhou's solution to restore the party's fresh and natural, solid and honest work style. Cleansing "take, eat, card," undesirable and behaviour, "cross, hard and cold, push" attitude. Grass-roots party organizations "two" is to strengthen the sense of ordinary party members, participating in consciousness, unity consciousness. For reasons known, members of grass-roots party branches less mobile, less resources, and the construction of party organizations have some lag. Two studies, is to focus on the grass-roots party branches "loose, soft, loose" problem, advance the party members and cadres, "a gang working", "Hong Kong report." Strong cleanup actions, style and rambling, presumptuous "unqualified" party members, pays special attention to party members and cadres "joining party of thought" problem. "Party building" is obtained in the long-term development of our party's historical experience accumulated. Two is our party under the new historical conditions, strengthen the party's construction of a new "rectification movement." Grass-roots party organizations should always catch the hard work, results-oriented. Two educational outcomes are long-term oriented and become an important impetus for the work. "Two" should have three kinds of consciousness "two" study and education, basic learning lies in the doing. Only the Constitution address the series of party rules, and do solid work, be qualified party members had a solid ideological basis. Only the "learning" and "do" real unity, to form a "learn-learn-do-do" the virtuous cycle, and ultimately achieve the fundamental objective of education. This requires that the Organization《高级英语》第一册课文翻译及词汇章美芳第七课神奇的集成电路片时代 (1)第八课互相作用的生活 (1)第九课马克•吐温——美国的一面镜子 (6)第十课震撼世界的审判 (13)第十一课词典的用途究竟何在? (21)第十二课潜水鸟 (29)第十三课大不列颠望洋兴叹 (40)第十四课阿真舍湾 (46)第十五课海上无路标 (62)learning education, need three kinds of consciousness: one is to establish an integrated awareness. "Learning" and "do" what car isTwo-wheel, bird wings, need to go hand in hand, one end can be neglected. Communist theoretician and man. Only by closely combining theory and practice together in order to truly realize their value. "Learning" is the Foundation, the Foundation is not strong, shaking; " "Is the key to net to net thousands of accounts. "Two" education, "" lay the basis, going to "do" the key grip, so that the "learning" and "doing" back to standard, so that the majority of party members "learn" learning theory of nutrients, in the "doing" practice party's purposes. Second, to establish a sense of depth. "Learning" and "do" not Chu drawn, entirely different, but the organic unity of the whole. "Two" learning education, we need to explore integrating "learning" in "do", exhibit "do" in "Science". To avoid the "learning" into simple room instruction, "do" into a monotone for doing. Should exploration "learn" in the has "do", "do" in the has "learn" of education and practice of carrier, makes general grass-roots members can in "learn" in the has "do" of achievements sense, in "do" in the has "learn" of get sense, real makes party of theory brain into heart, put for people service concept outside of Yu shaped. Third, to adhere to long-term the awareness. Style construction on the road forever, "two" had to catch the long-term. "Two" study and education, by no means, assault-style wind-sport, but the recurrent education within the party. In recent years, the party's mass line education practice and "three-three" special education in grass-roots borne rich fruits, vast numbers of party members and cadres withstood the baptism of the spirit. "Two" greater need to focus on longer hold long-term, to establish and perfect the effective mechanism of the education, focusing on the creation of long-term education, strive to make the vast number of party members to maintain their vanguard Color, maintain the party's advanced nature and purity. Awareness-raising, antennas and atmosphere – a discussion on how leading cadres of party members "two" current, "two" activity is in full swing up and down the country, party cadres as a "key minority" is both a barometer and impetus. The "two" meaning enough deep, is to determine the party cadres can resolve to study hard first. In the "two" in the process, some cadres of himself, standing long, high awareness, that Constitution Party rules is simple, its not worth bothering some party cadres think speak series has nothing to do with the grass-roots work, water business learning series of speeches seen as window dressing. These "lazy, casual, and decadent" ideas learning lacks motivation, a serious impediment to "two" effect. John Stuart Mill once said, only a basic element of human thought patterns change dramatically, human destiny can make great improvement. The same, only party members and第七课神奇的集成电路片时代(节选)新生的微型技术将使社会发生巨变1这是一个极小的薄片,只有大约四分之一英寸见方。
高级英语第三版lesson7课文翻译布里尔小姐Lesson Seven Miss Brill尽管阳光明媚——蓝天涂上了金色,巨大的光点犹如泼洒在公共花园里的白葡萄酒——布里尔小姐很高兴自己还是决定戴上了狐皮围巾。
Although it was so brilliantly fine – the blue sky powdered with gold and the great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques – Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur.空气中一丝风也没有,但当你张开嘴时,却有那么一丝丝凉意。
那感觉犹如你要吸一小口冰水时从杯子里冒出的凉气那样。
不时有一片落叶从无人知晓的地方飘来,从天空飘来。
The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting – from nowhere, from the sky.布里尔小姐抬起手来摸着狐皮围巾。
Miss Brill put up her hand and touched her fur.可爱的小东西!再次触摸到它感觉真好。
Dear little thing! I t was nice to feel it again.下午她把它从盒子里拿了出来,抖掉防蛀粉,好好地刷了一遍,把没有光泽的小眼睛擦得又恢复了生气。
She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes.“我怎么了?”忧伤的小眼睛问道。
高英1第三版-第七课中英文对照I will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes that never come inside the house.我就在这院子里等着她,昨天下午我和玛吉把院子收拾得干干净净,地面还有清扫留下的波纹。
大多数人都不明白,这样的院子比他们想的要舒适。
它不只是个院子,而像是扩大的客厅。
当院子里的硬泥地给打扫得像屋内地板一样干净,周边的细沙上布满细小不匀的沟纹时,谁都可以进来坐坐,抬头观赏榆树,等待永远也吹不进屋的阵阵微风。
[2] Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a word the world never learned to say to her.[2] 在她姐姐离开之前,玛吉会一直紧张不安:相貌平平的她会迷惘地站在角落里,羡慕而敬畏地看着姐姐,为手臂和腿上烧伤留下的疤痕自惭形秽。
第六课讹诈阿瑟•黑利负责饭店保安工作的欧吉维探长打了那个神秘的电话,本来说好一个小时后光临克罗伊敦夫妇所住的套房的,可实际上却过了两个小时才到。
结果,当外间门上的电铃终于发出沉闷的嗡嗡声时,公爵夫妇的神经都紧张到了极点。
公爵夫人亲自去开门。
此前她早已借故把女仆支开,并且狠心地给那位脸儿圆圆的、见到狗就怕得要死的男秘书派了一个要命的差事,让他牵着贝德林顿狼犬出去散步。
想到这两个人随时都会回来,她自己的紧张情绪怎么也松弛不下来。
随着欧吉维进屋的是一团雪茄烟雾。
当他随着她走进起居室时,公爵夫人目光直射着这个大肥佬嘴里叼着的那烧了半截的雪茄。
“我丈夫和我都讨厌浓烈的烟味,您行行好把它灭了吧!”探长那双夹在面部隆起的肉堆中的猪眼睛轻蔑地将她上下打量了一番。
接着,他便移动目光,对这个宽敞豪华、设备齐全的房间扫视了一周,看到了那位正背朝窗户、神色茫然地望着他们的公爵夫人。
“你们这套房间布置得倒挺讲究的呢。
”欧吉维慢条斯理地从口中拿下雪茄,敲掉烟灰,然后将烟蒂扔向靠右边的一个装饰性壁炉,但他失了准头,烟蒂掉到地毯上,他也不去管它。
公爵夫人的嘴唇绷得紧紧的。
她没好气地说道,“我想你该不是为谈论房间布置到这儿来的吧。
”他乐得咯咯直笑,肥胖的身子也跟着抖动起来。
“不是的,夫人,怎么会呢!不过,我确实喜爱高雅的东西。
”他压低了他那极端刺耳的尖嗓音接着说,“比如像你们那辆小轿车,就是停在饭店的那辆,美洲虎牌,是的吧?”“噢!”这声音不像是从口中说出来的,倒像是从克罗伊敦公爵鼻子中呼出来的。
他的夫人马上瞪了他一眼,以示警告。
“我们的车子与你有什么相干呢?”公爵夫人的这句问话似乎是个信号,一听到这个信号,探长的态度马上就变了。
他猝然问道,“这儿还有别的人么?”公爵回答道,“没有。
我们早把他们都打发出去了。
”“还是检查一下的好。
”这个大胖子以敏捷得出奇的动作对整个套房前前后后地巡查了一遍,凡是有门的地方就打开往里看看。
显然,他对整套房间布局是极为熟悉的。
Mark Twain ———Mirror of AmericaBy Noel Grove 1. Most Americans remember Mark Twain as the father of Huck Finn’s idylliccruise through eternal boyhood and Tom Sawyer’s endless summer of freedom and adventure。
Indeed,this nation's best-loved author was every bit as adventurous, patriotic, romantic,and humorous as anyone has ever imagined. I found another Twain ———one who grew cynical,bitter,saddened by the profound personal tragedies life dealt him, a man who became obsessed with frailties of the human race,who saw clearly ahead a black wall of night.2. 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。
高级英语Lesson1-课文原文Face to Face with Hurricane CamilleJoseph P. Blank1 John Koshak, Jr., knew that Hurricane Camille would be bad. Radio and television warnings had sounded throughout that Sunday, last August 17, as Camille lashed northwestward across the Gulf of Mexico. It was certain to pummel Gulfport, Miss., where the Koshers lived. Along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, nearly 150,000 people fled inland to safer 8round. But, like thousands of others in the coastal communities, john was reluctant to abandon his home unless the family -- his wife, Janis, and their seven children, abed 3 to 11 -- was clearly endangered.2 Trying to reason out the best course of action, he talked with his father and mother, who had moved into the ten-room house with the Koshaks a month earlier from California. He also consulted Charles Hill, a long time friend, who had driven from Las Vegas for a visit.3 John, 37 -- whose business was right there in his home ( he designed and developed educational toys and supplies, and all of Magna Products' correspondence, engineering drawings and art work were there on the first floor) -- was familiar with the power of a hurricane. Four years earlier, Hurricane Betsy had demolished undefined his former home a few miles west of Gulfport (Koshak had moved his family to a motel for the night). But that house had stood only a few feet above sea level. "We' re elevated 2a feet," he told his father, "and we' re a good 250 yards from the sea. The place has been here since 1915, and no hurricane has ever bothered it. We' II probably be as safe here asanyplace else."4 The elder Koshak, a gruff, warmhearted expert machinist of 67, agreed. "We can batten down and ride it out," he said. "If we see signs of danger, we can get out before dark."5 The men methodically prepared for the hurricane. Since water mains might be damaged, they filled bathtubs and pails. A power failure was likely, so they checked out batteries for the portable radio and flashlights, and fuel for the lantern. John's father moved a small generator into the downstairs hallway, wired several light bulbs to it and prepared a connection to the refrigerator.6 Rain fell steadily that afternoon; gray clouds scudded in from the Gulf on the rising wind. The family had an early supper.A neighbor, whose husband was in Vietnam, asked if she and her two children could sit out the storm with the Koshaks. Another neighbor came by on his way in-land — would the Koshaks mind taking care of his dog?7 It grew dark before seven o' clock. Wind and rain now whipped the house. John sent his oldest son and daughter upstairs to bring down mattresses and pillows for the younger children. He wanted to keep the group together on one floor. "Stay away from the windows," he warned, concerned about glass flying from storm-shattered panes. As the wind mounted to a roar, the house began leaking- therain seemingly driven right through the walls. With mops, towels, pots and buckets the Koshaks began a struggle against the rapidly spreading water. At 8:30, power failed, and Pop Koshak turned on the generator.8 The roar of the hurricane now was overwhelming. The house shook, and the ceiling in the living room was falling pieceby piece. The French doors in an upstairs room blew in with an explosive sound, and the group heard gun- like reports as other upstairs windows disintegrated. Water rose above their ankles.9 Then the front door started to break away from its frame. John and Charlie put their shoulders against it, but a blast of water hit the house, flinging open the door and shoving them down the hall. The generator was doused, and the lights went out. Charlie licked his lips and shouted to John. "I think we' re in real trouble. That water tasted salty." The sea had reached the house, and the water was rising by the minute!10 "Everybody out the back door to the oars!" John yelled. "We' II pass the children along between us. Count them! Nine!"11 The children went from adult to adult like buckets in a fire brigade. But the cars wouldn't start; the electrical systems had been killed by water. The wind was too Strong and the water too deep to flee on foot. "Back to the house!" john yelled. "Count the children! Count nine!"12 As they scrambled back, john ordered, "Every-body on the stairs!" Frightened, breathless and wet, the group settled on the stairs, which were protected by two interior walls. The children put the oat, Spooky, and a box with her four kittens on the landing. She peered nervously at her litter. The neighbor's dog curled up and went to sleep.13 The wind sounded like the roar of a train passing a few yards away. The house shuddered and shifted on its foundations. Water inched its way up the steps as first- floor outside walls collapsed. No one spoke. Everyone knew there was no escape; they would live or die in the house.14 Charlie Hill had more or less taken responsibility for the neighbor and her two children. The mother was on the verge ofpanic. She clutched his arm and kept repeating, "I can't swim, I can't swim."15 "You won't have to," he told her, with outward calm. "It's bound to end soon."16 Grandmother Koshak reached an arm around her husband's shoulder and put her mouth close to his ear. "Pop," she said, "I love you." He turned his head and answered, "I love you" -- and his voice lacked its usual gruffness.17 John watched the water lap at the steps, and felt a crushing guilt. He had underestimated the ferocity of Camille. He had assumed that what had never happened could not happen. He held his head between his hands, and silently prayed: "Get us through this mess, will You?"18 A moment later, the hurricane, in one mighty swipe, lifted the entire roof off the house and skimmed it 40 feet through the air. The bottom steps of the staircase broke apart. One wall began crumbling on the marooned group.19 Dr. Robert H. Simpson, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla., graded Hurricane Camille as "the greatest recorded storm ever to hit a populated area in the Western Hemisphere." in its concentrated breadth of some 70 miles it shot out winds of nearly 200 m.p.h. and raised tides as high as 30 feet. Along the Gulf Coast it devastated everything in its swath: 19,467 homes and 709 small businesses were demolished or severely damaged. it seized a 600, 000-gallon Gulfport oil tank and dumped it 3 ~ miles away. It tore three large cargo ships from their mooringsand beached them. Telephone poles and 20-inch-thick pines cracked like guns as the winds snapped them.20 To the west of Gulfport, the town of Pass Christian was virtually wiped out. Several vacationers at the luxurious RichelieuApartments there held a hurricane party to watch the storm from their spectacular vantage point. Richelieu Apartments were smashed apart as if by a gigantic fist, and 26 people perished.21 Seconds after the roof blew off the Koshak house, john yelled, "Up the stairs -- into our bedroom! Count the kids." The children huddled in the slashing rain within the circle of adults. Grandmother Koshak implored, "Children, let's sing!" The children were too frightened to respond. She carried on alone fora few bars; then her voice trailed away.22 Debris flew as the living-room fireplace and its chimney collapsed. With two walls in their bedroom sanctuary beginning to disintegrate, John ordered, "Into the television room!" This was the room farthest from the direction of the storm.23 For an instant, John put his arm around his wife. Janis understood. Shivering from the wind and rain and fear, clutching two children to her, she thought, Dear Lord, give me the strength to endure what I have to. She felt anger against the hurricane. We won't let it win.24 Pop Koshak raged silently, frustrated at not being able to do anything to fight Camille. Without reason, he dragged a cedar chest and a double mattress from a bed-room into the TV room. At that moment, the wind tore out one wall and extinguished the lantern. A second wall moved, wavered, Charlie Hill tried to support it, but it toppled on him, injuring his back. The house, shuddering and rocking, had moved 25 feet from its foundations. The world seemed to be breaking apart.25 "Let's get that mattress up!" John shouted to his father. "Make it a lean-toagainst the wind. Get the kids under it. We can prop it up with our heads and shoulders!"26 The larger children sprawledon the floor, with the smallerones in a layer on top of them, and the adults bent over all nine. The floor tilted. The box containing the litter of kittens slid off a shelf and vanished in the wind. Spooky flew off the top of a sliding bookcase and also disappeared. The dog cowered with eyes closed. A third wall gave way. Water lapped across the slanting floor. John grabbed a door which was still hinged to one closet wall. "If the floor goes," he yelled at his father, "let's get the kids on this."27 In that moment, the wind slightly diminished, and the water stopped rising. Then the water began receding. The main thrust of Camille had passed. The Koshaks and their friends had survived.28 With the dawn, Gulfport people started coming back to their homes. They saw human bodies -- more than 130 men, women and children died along the Mississippi coast- and parts of the beach and highway were strewn withdead dogs, cats, cattle. Strips of clothing festoonedthe standing trees, and blown down power lines coiledlike black spaghettiover the roads.29 None of the returnees moved quickly or spoke loudly; they stood shocked, trying to absorb the shattering scenes before their eyes. "What do we dot" they asked. "Where do we go?"30 By this time, organizations within the area and, in effect, the entire population of the United States had come to the aid of the devastated coast. Before dawn, the Mississippi National Guardand civil-defense units were moving in to handle traffic, guard property, set up communications centers, help clear the debris and take the homeless by truck and bus to refugee centers. By 10 a.m., the Salvation Army's canteen trucks and Red Crossvolunteers and staffers were going wherever possible to distribute hot drinks, food, clothing and bedding.31 From hundreds of towns and cities across the country came several million dollars in donations; household and medical supplies streamed in by plane, train, truck and car. The federal government shipped 4,400,000 pounds of food, moved in mobile homes, set up portable classrooms, opened offices to provide low-interest, long-term business loans.32 Camille, meanwhile, had raked its way northward across Mississippi, dropping more than 28 inches of rain into West Virginia and southern Virginia, causing rampagingfloods, huge mountain slides and 111 additional deaths before breaking up over the Atlantic Ocean.33 Like many other Gulfport families, the Koshaks quickly began reorganizing their lives, John divided his family in the homes of two friends. The neighbor with her two children went to a refugee center. Charlie Hill found a room for rent. By Tuesday, Charlie's back had improved, and he pitched in with Seabeesin the worst volunteer work of all--searching for bodies. Three days after the storm, he decided not to return to Las Vegas, but to "remain in Gulfport and help rebuild the community."34 Near the end of the first week, a friend offered the Koshaks his apartment, and the family was reunited. The children appeared to suffer no psychological damage from their experience; they were still awed by the incomprehensible power of the hurricane, but enjoyed describing what they had seen and heard on that frightful night, Janis had just one delayed reaction.A few nights after the hurricane, she awoke suddenly at 2 a.m. She quietly got up and went outside. Looking up at the sky and, without knowing she was going to do it, she began to cry softly.35 Meanwhile, John, Pop and Charlie were picking through the wreckageof the home. It could have been depressing, but it wasn't: each salvaged item represented a little victory over the wrathof the storm. The dog and cat suddenly appeared at the scene, alive and hungry.36 But the bluesdid occasionally afflict all the adults. Once, in a low mood, John said to his parents, "I wanted you here so that we would all be together, so you could enjoy the children, and look what happened."37 His father, who had made up his mind to start a welding shop when living was normal again, said, "Let's not cry about what's gone. We' II just start all over."38 "You're great," John said. "And this town has a lot of great people in it. It' s going to be better here than it ever was before."39 Later, Grandmother Koshak reflected : "We lost practically all our possessions, but the family came through it. When I think of that, I realize we lost nothing important."(from Rhetoric and Literature by P. Joseph Canavan)NOTES1. Joseph p. Blank: The writer published "Face to Face with Hurricane Camille" in the Reader's Digest, March 1970.2. Hurricane Camille: In the United States hurricanes are named alphabetically and given the names of people like Hurricane Camille, Hurricane Betsy, and so on; whereas in China Typhoons are given serial numbers like Typhoon No. 1, Typhoon No. 2 and so on.3. The Salvation Army: A Protestant religious body devoted to the conversion of, and social work among the poor, and characterized by use of military titles, uniforms, etc. It was founded in 1878 by "General" Booth in London; now worldwidein operation.4. Red Cross: an international organization ( in full International Red Cross), founded in 1864 with headquarters and branches in all countries signatory to the Geneva Convention, for the relief of suffering in time of war or disaster。
选修7 Unit 1 Living well-ReadingMARTY’S STORYHi, my name is Marry Fielding and I guess you could say that I am "one in a million". In other words, there are not many people like me. You see, I have a muscle disease which makes me very weak, so I can't run or climb stairs as quickly as other people. In addition, sometimes I am very clumsy and drop things or bump into furniture. Unfortunately, the doctors don't know how to make me better, but I am very outgoing and have learned to adapt to my disability. My motto is: live One day at a time. Until I was ten years old I was the same as everyone else. I used to climb trees, swim and play football. In fact, I used to dream about playing professional football and possibly representing my country in the World Cup. Then I started to get weaker and weaker, until I could only enjoy football from a bench at the stadium. In the end I went into hospital for medical tests. I stayed there for nearly three months. I think I had at least a billion tests, including one in which they cut out a piece of muscle from my leg and lookedat it under a microscope. Even after all that, no one could give my disease a name and it is difficult to know what the future holds.One problem is that I don't look any different from other people. So sometimes some children in my primary school would laugh, when I got out of breath after running a short way or had to stop and rest halfway up the stairs. Sometimes, too, I was too weak to go to school so my education suffered. Every time I returned after an absence, I felt stupid because I was behind the others.My life is a lot easier at high school because my fellow students have accepted me. The few who cannot see the real person inside my body do not make me annoyed, and I just ignore them. All in all I have a good life. I am happy to have found many things I can do, like writing and computer programming. My ambition is to work for a firm that develops computer software when I grow up. Last year invented a computer football game and a big company has decided to buy it from me.I have a very busy life with no time to sit around feeling sorry for myself. As well as going to the movies and football matches with my friends, I spend a lot of time with my pets. I have tworabbits, a parrot, a tank full of fish and a tortoise. To look after my pets properly takes a lot of time but I find it worthwhile. I also have to do a lot of work, especially if I have been away for a while.In many ways my disability has helped me grow stronger psychologically and become more independent. I have to work hard to live a normal life but it has been worth it. If I had a chance to say one thing to healthy children, it would be this: having a disability does not mean your life is not satisfying. So don't feel sorry for the disabled or make fun of them, and don't ignore them either. Just accept them for who they are, and give them encouragement to live as rich and full a life as you do.Thank you for reading my story.A LETTER TO AN ARCHITECTLook at the pictures. Discuss the problems that people with walking difficulties might have in a cinema.Ms L Sanders Alice MajorChief architect 64 Cambridge StreetCinema Designs Bankstown44 Hill StreetBankstown24 September, 200__Dear Ms Sanders,I read in the newspaper today that you are to be thearchitect for the new Bankstown hope you will not mind mewriting to ask if you have thought about the needs of disabled customers. In particular I wonder if you have considered thefollowing things:1 Adequate access for wheelchairs. It would be handyto have lifts to all parts of the cinema. The buttons in thelifts should be easy for a person in a wheelchair to reach, andthe doors be wide enough to enter. In some cinemas, the lifts are at the back of the cinema in cold, unattractive places. As disabled people have to use the lifts, this makes them feel they are not as important as other customers.2 Earphones for people who have trouble hearing. It would help to fit sets of earphones to all seats, not just to some of them. This would allow hearing-impaired customers to enjoy the company of their hearing friends rather than having to sit in a special area.3 Raised seating. People who are short cannot always see the screen. So I'd like to suggest that the seats at the back be placed higher than those at the front so that everyone can see the screen easily. Perhaps there could be a space at the end of each row for people in wheelchairs to sit next to their friends.4 Toilets. For disabled customers it would be more convenient to place the toilets near the entrance to the cinema. It can be difficult if the only disabled toilet is in thebasement a long way from where the film is showing. And if thedoors could be opened outwards, disabled customers would bevery happy.5 Car parking. Of course, there are usually spacesspecially reserved for disabled and elderly drivers. If theyare close to the cinema entrance and/or exit, it is easier fordisabled people to get to film in comfort.Thank you for reading my letter. I hope my suggestionswill meet with your approval. Disabled people should have thesame opportunities as able-bodied people to enjoy the cinemaand to do so with am sure many people will praise your cinemaif you design it with good access for disabled people. It willalso make the cinema owners happy if more people go as they willmake higher profits! Yours sincerely, Alice Major选修7 Unit 2 Robots - ReadingSATISFACTION GURANTEEDLarry Belmont worked for a company that made robots. Recently it had begun experimenting with a household robot. It was going to be tested out by Larry's wife, Claire.Claire didn't want the robot in her house, especially as her husband would be absent for three weeks, but Larry persuaded her that the robot wouldn't harm her or allow her to be harmed. It would be a bonus. However, when she first saw the robot, she felt alarmed. His name was Tony and he seemed more like a human than a machine. He was tall and handsome with smooth hair and a deep voice although his facial expression never changed.On the second morning Tony, wearing an apron, brought her breakfast and then asked her whether she needed help dressing. She felt embarrassed and quickly told him to go. It was disturbing and frightening that he looked so human.One day, Claire mentioned that she didn't think she was clever. Tony said that she must feel very unhappy to say that. Claire thought it was ridiculous to be offered sympathyby a robot. But she began to trust him. She told him how she was overweight and this made her feel unhappy. Also she felt her home wasn't elegant enough for someone like Larry who wanted to improve his social position. She wasn't like Gladys Claffern, one of the richest and most powerful women around.As a favour Tony promised to help Claire make herself smarter and her home more elegant. So Claire borrowed a pile of books from the library for him to read, or rather, scan. She looked at his fingers with wonder as they turned each page and suddenly reached for his hand. She was amazed by his fingernails and the softness and warmth of his skin. How absurd, she thought. He was just a machine.Tony gave Claire a new haircut and changed the makeup she wore. As he was not allowed to accompany her to the shops, he wrote out a list of items for her. Claire went into the city and bought curtains, cushions, a carpet and bedding. Then she went into a jewellery shop to buy a necklace. When the clerk at the counter was rude to her, she rang Tony up and told the clerk to speak to him. The clerk immediately changed his attitude. Claire thanked Tony, telling him that he was a "dear". As she turned around, there stood Gladys Claffern. How awfulto be discovered by her, Claire thought. By the amused and surprised look on her face, Claire knew that Gladys thought she was having an affair. After all, she knew Claire's husband's name was Larry, not Tony.When Claire got home, she wept with anger in her armchair. Gladys was everything Claire wanted to be. "You can be like her," Tony told her and suggested that she invite Gladys and her friends to the house the night before he was to leave and Larry was to return. By that time, Tony expected the house to be completely transformed.Tony worked steadily on the improvements. Claire tried to help once but was too fell off a ladder and even though Tony was in the next room, he managed to catch her in time. He held her firmly in his arms and she felt the warmth of his body. She screamed, pushed him away and ran to her room for the rest of the day.The night of the party arrived. The clock struck eight. The guests would be arriving soon and Claire told Tony to go into another that moment, Tony folded his arms around her, bending his face close to hers. She cried out "Tony" and then heard him declare that he didn't want to leave her the nextday and that he felt more than just the desire to please her. Then the front door bell rang. Tony freed her and disappeared from sight. It was then that Claire realized that Tony had opened the curtains of the front window. Her guests had seen everything !The women were impressed by Claire, the house and the delicious cuisine. Just before they left, Claire heard Gladys whispering to another woman that she had never seen anyone so handsome as Tony. What a sweet victory to be envied by those women! She might not be as beautiful as them, but none of them had such a handsome lover.Then she remembered -Tony was just a machine. She shouted "Leave me alone" and ran to her bed. She cried all night. The next morning a car drove up and took Tony away.The company was very pleased with Tony's report on his three weeks with Claire. Tony had protected a human being from harm. He had prevented Claire from harming herself through her own sense of failure. He had opened the curtains that night so that the other women would see him and Claire, knowing that there was no risk to Claire's marriage. But even though Tony had been so clever, he would have to be rebuilt -you cannot havewomen failing in love with machines.A BIOGRAPHY OF ISAAC ASIMOVIsaac Asimov was an American scientist and writer who wrote around 480 books that included mystery stories, science and history books, and even books about the Holy Bible and Shakespeare. But he is best known for his science fiction stories. Asimov had both an extraordinary imagination that gave him the ability to explore future worlds and an amazing mind with which he searched for explanations of everything, in the present and the past.Asimov's life began in Russia, where he was born on 2 January, 1920. It ended in New York on 6 April, 1992, when he died as a result of an HIV infection that he had got from a blood transfusion nine years earlier.When Asimov was three, he moved with his parents and his one-year-old sister to New York City. There his parents bought a candy store which they ran for the next 40 or so years. At the age of nine, when his mother was pregnant with her third child, Asimov started working part-time in the store. He helpedout through his school and university years until 1942, a year after he had gained a master's degree in chemistry. In 1942 he joined the staff of the Philadelphia Navy Yard as a junior chemist and worked there for three years. In 1948 he got his PhD in chemistry. The next year he became a biochemistry teacher at Boston University School of Medicine. In 1958 he gave up teaching to become a full-time writer.It was when Asimov was eleven years old that his talent for writing became obvious. He had told a friend two chapters of a story he had written. The friend thought he was retelling a story from a book. This really surprised Asimov and from that moment, he started to take himself seriously as a writer. Asimov began having stories published in science fiction magazines in 1939. In 1950 he published his first novel and in 1953 his first science book.Throughout his life, Asimov received many awards, both for his science fiction books and his science books. Among his most famous works of science fiction, one for which he won an award was the Foundation trilogy (1951-1953), three novels about the death and rebirth of a great empire in a galaxy of the future. It was loosely based on the fall of the Roman Empirebut was about the future. These books are famous because Asimov invented a theoretical framework which was designed to show how ideas and thinking may develop in the future. He is also well known for his collection of short stories, I, Robot (1950), in which he developed a set of three "laws" for robots. For example, the first law states that a robot must not injure human beings or allow them to be injured. Some of his ideas about robots later influenced other writers and even scientists researching into artificial intelligence.Asimov was married twice. He married his first wife in 1942 and had a son and a daughter. Their marriage lasted 31 years. Soon after his divorce in 1973, Asimov married again but he had no children with his second wife.选修7 Unit 3 Under the sea - ReadingOLD TOM THE KILLER WHALEI was 16 when I began work in June 1902 at the whaling station.I had heard of the killers that every year helped whalers catch huge whales. I thought, at the time, that this was just a story but then I witnessed it with my own eyes many times.On the afternoon I arrived at the station, as I was I sorting out my' accommodation, I heard a loud noise coming from the bay. We ran down to the shore in time to see an enormous animal opposite us throwing itself out of the water and then crashing down again. It was black and white and fish-shaped. But I knew it wasn't a fish."That's Old Tom, the killer," one of the whalers, George, called out to me. "He's telling us there's a whale out there for us."Another whaler yelled out, "Rush-oo ...rush-oo." This was the call that announced there was about to be a whale hunt."Come on, Clancy. To the boat," George said as he ran ahead of me. I had already heard that George didn't like being kept waiting, so even though I didn't have the right clothes on, I raced after him.Without pausing we jumped into the boat with the other whalers and headed out into the bay. I looked down into the water and could see Old Tom swimming by the boat, showing us the way.A few minutes later, there was no Tom, so George started beating the water with his oar and there was Tom, circling back to the boat, leading us to the hunt again.Using a telescope we could see that something was happening. As we drew closer, I could see a whale being attacked by a pack of about six other killers."What're they doing" I asked George."Well, it's teamwork - the killers over there are throwing themselves on top of the whale's blow-hole to stop it breathing. And those others are stopping it diving or fleeing out to sea," George told me, pointing towards the hunt. And just at that moment, the most extraordinary thing happened. The killers started racing between our boat and the whale just like a pack of excited dogs.Then the harpoon was ready and the man in the bow of the boat aimed it at the whale. He let it go and the harpoon hit the spot. Being badly wounded, the whale soon died. Within a moment or two, its body was dragged swiftly by the killers down into the depths of the sea. The men started turning the boat around to go home."What's happened" I asked. "Have we lost the whale""Oh no," Jack replied. "We'll return tomorrow to bringin the body. It won't float up to the surface for around 24 hours." "In the meantime, Old Tom, and the others are havinga good feed on its lips and tongue," added Red, laughing. Although Old Tom and the other killers were fiercehunters, they, never harmed or attacked people. In fact, theyprotected them. There was one day when we were out in the bayduring a hunt and James was washed off the boat."Man overboard! Turn the boat around!" urged George,shouting loudly.The sea was rough that day and it was difficult tohandle the boat. The waves were carrying James further andfurther away from us. From James's face, I could see he wasterrified of being abandoned by us. Then suddenly I saw a shark."Look, there's a shark out there," I screamed."Don't worry, Old Tom won't let it near," Redreplied.It took over half an hour to get the boat back to James, and when we approached him, I saw James being firmly held up in the water by Old Tom. I couldn't believe my eyes.There were shouts of "Well done, Old Tom" and 'Thank God" as we pulled James back into the boat. And then Old Tom was off and back to the hunt where the other killers were still attacking the whale.A NEW DIMENSION OF LIFE19th JanuaryI'm sitting in the warm night air with a cold drink in my hand and reflecting on the day –a day of pure magic! I went snorkelling on the reef offshore this morning and it was the most fantastic thing I have ever done. Seeing such extraordinary beauty, I think every cell in my body woke up. It was like discovering a whole new dimension of life.The first thing I became aware of was all the vivid colours surrounding me - purples, reds, oranges, yellows, blues and greens. The corals were fantastic - they were shaped likefans, plates, brains, lace, mushrooms, the branches of trees and the horns of deer. And all kinds of small, neat and elegant fish were swimming in and around the corals.The fish didn't seem to mind me swimming among them.I especially loved the little orange and white fish that hid in the waving long thin seaweed. And I also loved the small fish that clean the bodies of larger fish - I even saw them get inside their mouths and clean their teeth! It seemed there was a surprise waiting for me around every corner as I explored small caves, shelves and narrow passages with my underwater flashlight: the yellow and green parrotfish was hanging upside down, and sucking tiny plants off the coral with its hard bird-like mouth; a yellow-spotted red sea-slug was sliding by a blue sea-star; a large wise-looking turtle was passing so close to me that I could have touched it.There were other creatures that I didn't want to get too close to - an eel with its strong sharp teeth, with only its head showing from a hole, watching for a tasty fish (or my tasty toe!); and the giant clam halt buried in some coralwaiting for something to swim in between its thick green lips. Then there were two grey reef sharks, each about one and a half metres long, which suddenly appeared from behind some coral.I told myself they weren't dangerous but that didn't stop me from feeling scared to death for a moment!The water was quite shallow but where the reef ended, there was a steep drop to the sandy ocean floor. It marked a boundary and I thought I was very brave when I swam over the edge of the reef and hung there looking down into the depths of the ocean. My heart was beating wildly - I felt very exposed in such deep clear water.What a wonderful, limitless world it was down there! And what a tiny spot I was in this enormous world!选修7 Unit 4 Sharing- ReadingA LETTER HOMEDear Rosemary,Thanks for your letter, which took a fortnight to arrive. It was wonderful to hear from you. I know you're dying to hear all about my life here, so I've included some photos which will help you picture the places I talk about.You asked about my high school. Well, it's a bush school – the classrooms are made of bamboo and the roofs of grass. It takes me only a few minutes to walk to school down a muddy track. When I reach the school grounds there are lots of "good mornings" for me from the boys. Many of them have walked a long way, sometimes up to two hours, to get to school.There's no electricity or water and even no textbooks either! l'm still trying to adapt to these conditions. However, one thing is for sure, I've become more imaginative in my teaching. Science is my most challenging subject as my students have no concept ofdoing experiments. In fact there is no equipment, and if I need water I have to carry it from my house in a bucket! The other day I was showing the boys the weekly chemistry experiment when, before I knew it, the mixture was bubbling over everywhere! The boys who had never come across anything like this before startedjumping out of the windows. Sometimes I wonder how relevant chemistry is to these students, most of whom will be going back to their villages after Year 8 anyway. To be honest, I doubt whether I'm making any difference to these boys' lives at all.You asked whether I'm getting to know any local people. Well, that's actually quite difficult as I don't speak much of the local English dialect yet. But last weekend another teacher, Jenny, and 1 did visit a village which is the home of one of the boys, Tombe. It was my first visit to a remote village. We walked for two and a half hours to get there - first up a mountain to a ridge from where we had fantastic views and then down a steep path to the valley below. When we arrived at the village, Tombe's mother, Kiak, who had been pulling weeds in her garden, started crying "ieee ieee". We shook hands with all the villagers. Everyone seemed to be a relative of Tombe's.Tombe's father, Mukap, led us to his house, a low bamboo hut with grass sticking out of the roof - this shows it is a man's house. The huts were round, not rectangular like the school buildings.There were no windows and the doorway was just big enough to get through. The hut was dark inside so it took time for our eyes to adjust. Fresh grass had been laid on the floor and there was a newly made platform for Jenny and me to sleep on. Usually Kiak would sleep in her own hut, but that night she was going to share the platform with us. Mukap and Tombe were to sleep on small beds in another part of the hut. There was a fireplace in the centre of the hut near the doorway. The only possessions I could see were one broom, a few tin plates and cups and a couple of jars.Outside Mukap was building a fire. Once the fire was going, he laid stones on it. When hot, he placed them in an empty oil drum with kau kau (sweet potato), corn and greens. He then covered the vegetables with banana leaves and left them to steam.I sniffed the food; it smelled delicious. We ate inside the hut sitting round the fire. I loved listening to the family softly talking to each other in their language, even though I could not participate the conversation. Luckily, Tombe could be our interpreter.Later, I noticed a tin can standing upside down on the grill over the fire. After a short time Tombe threw it out of the was puzzled. Tombe told me that the can was heated to dry out the leftover food. They believe that any leftovers attract evil spirits in the night, so the food is dried up in the can and the can is then thrown out of the hut. Otherwise they don't waste anything.We left the village the next morning after many goodbyes and firm handshakes. My muscles were aching and my knees shaking as we climbed down the mountain towards home. That evening I fell happily into bed. It was such a privilege to have spent a day with Tombe's family.It's getting late and I have to prepare tomorrow's lessons and do some paperwork. Please write soon.Love JoTHE WORLD'S MOST USEFUL GIFT CATALOGUEWould you like to donate an unusual gift Then this is the catalogue for you. The gift you give is not something your loved one keeps but a voluntary contribution towards the lives of people who really need it. Choose from this catalogue a really useful gift for some of the world's poorest and bring hope for a better future to a community in need.When you purchase an item, we will send you an attractive card for you to send to your special person. You can use the cards for any special occasion-weddings ,births, birthdays,Christmas or anniversaries, etc.To………………………………………………To let you know that I am thinking of you, I have purchased a gift from the World’s Most Useful Gift Catalogue for you to give to some of the world’s poorest.This gift will train a whole village of around 40 families in India, Kenya, or Bangladesh in new agricultural methods, and provide seeds and simple agricultural equipment. Just 20% more produce will mean the difference between sickness and health, between families going hungry and families providing for themselves.From…………………………………………….选修7 Unit 5 Travelling abroad- ReadingKEEP IT UP,XIE LEICHINESE STUDENGT FITTING WELLSix months ago Xie Lei said goodbye to her family and friends in China and boarded a plane for London. It was the first time she had ever left her motherland. "After getting my visa I was very excited because I had dreamed of this day for so long. But I was also very nervous as I didn't know what to expect," Xie Lei told me when I saw her waiting in a queue at the studentcafeteria between lectures.Xie Lei, who is 21 years old, has come to our university to study for a business qualification. She is halfway through the preparation year, which most foreign students complete before applying for a degree course. Xie Lei highly recommends it. "The preparation course is most beneficial," she said. "Studying here is quite different from studying in China, so you need some preparation first.""It's not just study that's difficult. You have to get used to a whole new way of life, which can take up all your concentration in the beginning," explained Xie Lei, who had lived all her life in the same city in China. She told me that she had had to learn almost everything again. "Sometimes I felt like a child," she said. "I had to learn how to use the phone, how to pay bus fare, and how to ask a shopkeeper for things I didn't know the English for. When I got lost and had to ask a passer-by for directions, I didn't always understand. They don't talk like they do on our listening tapes," she said, laughing.Xie Lei lives with a host family who give her lots of good advice. Although some foreign students live in studentaccommodation or apartments, some choose to board with English families. Living with host families, in which there may be other college students, gives her the chance to learn more about the new culture. "When I hear an idiom that I don't understand, I can ask my host family for help," explains Xie Lei. "Also, when I miss my family, it's a great comfort to have a substitute family to be with."Xie Lei's preparation course is helping her to get used to the academic requirements of a Western university. "I remember the first essay I did for my tutor," she told me. "I found an article on the Internet that seemed to have exactly the information I needed. So I made a summary of the article, revised my draft and handed the essay in. I thought I would get a really good mark but I got an E. I was numb with shock! So I went to my tutor to ask the reason for his revision. First of all, he told me, I couldn't write what other people had said without acknowledging them. Besides, as far as he was concerned, what other people thought was not the most important thing. He wanted to know what I thought, which confused me because I thought that the author of the article knew far more than I did. My tutor explained that I should read lots of different texts that contain different opinions and analyse what I read. Then,。
Lesson 7 Everyday Use for Your Grandmama一、词汇短语1. wavy adj. a). abounding or rising in waves多浪或起浪的:a wavy sea波涛汹涌的大海;b). marked by or moving in a wavelike form or motion;sinuous起伏不平的2. groove n. a long, narrow furrow or channel沟,槽3. elm n. a type of large tree with broad leaves, or the wood from this tree[植]榆树4. totter vi. to walk unsteadily or feebly; stagger蹒跚,踉跄:totter toone’s feet踉踉跄跄地站起来5. limousine n. a very large, expensive, and comfortablecar, driven by someone who is paid to drive豪华轿车6. sporty adj. exhibiting sportsmanship; sporting像运动员的7. orchid n. a plant that has flowers which are brightly colored andunusually shaped兰花8. tacky adj. lacking style or good taste; tawdry破旧的,粗俗的:tackyclothes不入流的衣服9. flannel n. soft cloth, usually made of cotton or wool, used formaking clothes法兰绒10. sledge n. a kind of hammer大锤11. barley n. a plant that produces a grain used for making food oralcohol大麦12. glisten v. to shine and look wet or oily反光,闪光:The leaves glistenwith dew.叶子上的露水闪闪发光13. lame adj. unable to walk properly because one’s leg or foot isinjured or weak跛的,瘸的:Lame from the accident, he walked with a cane.在一次事故中变跛了后,他只能拄着拐杖走路。
Mark Twain --- Mirror of AmericaBy Noel Grove 1. Most Americans remember Mark Twain as the father of Huck Finn’s idylliccruise through eternal boyhood and Tom Sawyer’s endless summer of freedom and adventure. Indeed, this nation’s best-loved author was every bit as adventurous, patriotic, romantic, and humorous as anyone has ever imagined. I found another Twain --- one who grew cynical, bitter, saddened by the profound personal tragedies life dealt him, a man who became obsessed with frailties of the human race, who saw clearly ahead a black wall of night.2. Tramp printer, river pilot, Confederate guerrilla, prospector, starry-eyedoptimist, 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 cry heard in his steamboat days, signaling two fathoms (12 feet) of water --- 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.3. The geographic core, in Twain’s early years, was the great valley of theMississippi River, main artery of transportation in the young nation’s heart.Keelboats, flatboats, and large rafts carried the first major commerce.Lumber, corn, tobacco, wheat, and furs moved downstream to the delta country; sugar, molasses, cotton, and whiskey traveled north. In the 1850s’, before the climax of Westward Expansion, the vast basin drained three quarters of the settled United States.4. Young Mark Twain entered the world in 1857 as a cub pilot on a steamboat.The cast of characters set before him in his new profession was rich and varied --- a cosmos. He participated abundantly in his life, listening to pilothouse talk of feuds, piracies, lynchings, medicine show, and savage waterside slums. All would resurface in his books, together with the colorful language that he soaked up with a memory that seemed phonographic. 5. Steamboat decks teemed not only with the main current of pioneeringhumanity, 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 different between what people claim to be and what they really are. His four and a half years in the steamboat trade marked the real beginning of his education, and the most lasting part of it. In later life Twain acknowledgedthat the river had acquainted him with every possible type of human nature.Those acquaintanceships strengthened all his writing, but he never wrote better than when he wrote of the people along the great stream.6. When railroads began drying up the demand for steamboat pilots and theCivil 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. Twain quit after deciding, “ (I)knew more about retreating than the man that invented retreating.”7. He went west by stagecoach and succumbed to the epidemic of gold andsilver 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 Enterprise, to literature’s enduring gratitude.8. From the discouragement of his mining failures, Mark Twain began digginghis 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 Enterprise, he boarded the stagecoach for San Francisco, then and now a hotbed of hopeful young writers.9. Mark Twain honed and experimented with his new writing muscles, but hehad to leave the city for a while because of some scathing columns he wrote. Attacks on the city government, concerning such issues as mistreatment of Chinese, so angered officials that he fled to the goldfields in the Sacramento Valley. His descriptions of the rough-country settlers there ring familiarly in modern world accustomed to trend setting on the West Coast. “It was a splendid population --- for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home… It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day --- and when she projects a new surprise, the grave world smiles as usual, and says “Well, that is California all over.””10. In the dreary winter of 1864-65 in Angels Camp, he kept a notebook.Scattered among notations about the weather and the tedious mining-camp meals lies an entry noting a story he had heard that day --- an entry that would determine his course forever: “Coleman with his jumping frog --- bet stranger $50 --- stranger had no frog, and Coleman got him one --- in the meantime stranger filled C.’s frog full of shot and he couldn’t jump. Thestranger’s frog won.”11. Retold with his descriptive genius, the story was printed in newspapersacross the United States and became known as “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Mark Twain’s national reputation was now well established as “the wild humorist of the Pacific slope.”12. Two years later the opportunity came for him to take a distinctly Americanlook at the Old World. In New York City the steamship Quaker City prepared to sail on a pleasure cruise to Europe and the Holy Land. For the first time, a sizable group of United States citizens planned to journey as tourists --- a milestone, of sorts, in a country’s development. Twain was assigned to accompany them, as correspondent for a California newspaper.If readers expected the usual glowing travelogue, they were sorely surprised.13. Unimpressed by the Sultan of Turkey, for example, he reported, “…onecould set a trap anywhere and catch a dozen abler men in a night.”Casually he debunked revered artists and art treasures, and took unholy verbal shot s at the Holy Land. Back home, more newspapers began printing his articles. America laughed with him. Upon his return to the States the book version of his travels, The Innocent Abroad, became an instant best-seller.14. At the age of 36 Twain settled in Hartford, Connecticut. His best bookswere published while he lived there.15. As early as 1870 Twain had experimented with a story about the boyhoodadventures of a lad he named Billy Rogers. Two years later, he changed the name to Tom, and began shaping his adventures into a stage play. Not until 1874 did the story begin developing in earnest. After publication in 1876, Tom Sawyer quickly became a classic tale of American boyhood.Tom’s mischievous daring, ingenuity, and the sweet innocence of his affection for Becky Thatcher are almost as sure to be studied in American schools today as is the Declaration of Independence.16. Mark Twain’s own declaration of independence came from anothercharacter. Six chapters into Tom Sawyer, he drags in “the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard.”Fleeing a respectable life with Puritanical Widow Douglas, Huck protests to his friend, Tom Sawyer: ”I’ve tried it, and it don’t work; it don’t work, Tom. It ain’t for me… The wider eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell --- everything’s so awful reg’lar a body can’t stand it.”17. Nine years after Tome Sawyer swept the nation, Huck was given a life ofhis own, in a book often considered the best ever written about Americans.His raft flight down the Mississippi with a runaway slave presents a moving panorama for the exploration of American society.18. On the river, and w specially with Huck Finn, Twain found the ultimateexpression of escape from the pace he lived by and often deplored, from life’s regularities and the energy-sapping clamor for success.19. Mark Twain suggested that an ingredient was missing in the Americanambition when he said: “What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges.”20. Personal tragedy haunted his entire life, in the deaths of loved ones: hisfather, dying of pneumonia when Sam was 12; his brother Henry, killed by a steamboat explosion; the death of his son, Langdon, at 19 months. His eldest daughter, Susy, died of spinal meningitis, Mrs. Clemens succumbed to a heart attack in Florence, and his youngest daughter, Jean, an epileptic, drowned in an upstairs bathtub.21. Bitterness fed on the man who had made the world laugh. The moralizingof his earlier writing had been well padded with humor. Mow the gloves came off with biting satire. He pretended to praise the U.S. military for the massacre of 600 Philippine Moros in the bowl of a volcanic crater. In The Mysterious Stranger, he insisted that man drop his religious illusions and depend upon himself, not Providence, to make a better world.22. The last of his own illusions seemed to have crumbled near the end.Dictating his autobiography late in life, he commented with a crushing sense of despair on men’s final release from earthly struggle: “…they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence; where they achieved nothing; where they were a mistake and a failure and a foolishness; where they have left no sign that they had existed --- a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.”。