英語文章精選閱讀
隨著社會的發展,經濟全球化、資訊化的程序,英語作為國際語言的地位愈加突出。下面就是小編給大家整理的，希望大家喜歡。
：Crocus 番紅花
It was an autumn morning shortly after my husband and I moved into our first house. Our children were upstairs unpacking, and I was looking out the window at my father moving around mysteriously on the front lawn. My parents lived nearby, and Dad had visited us several times already.
"What are you doing out there?” I called to him.
He looked up, smiling. "I'm making you a surprise." Knowing my father, I thought it could be just about anything. A self-employed jobber***批發商*** , he was always building things out of odds and ends***零碎東西*** . When we were kids, he once rigged up a jungle gym out of wheels and pulleys. For one of my Halloween parties, he created an electrical pumpkin and mounted, it on a broomstick. As guests came to our door, he would light the pumpkin and have it pop out in front of them from a hiding place in the bushes.
Today, however, Dad would say no more, and, caught ups in the busyness of our new life, I eventually forgot about his surprise.
Until one raw day the following March when I glanced out the window. Dismal***淒涼的*** . Overcast***陰暗的*** . Little piles of dirty snow still stubbornly littering the lawn, Would winter ever end?
And yet...was it a mirage***幻想*** ? I strained to see what I thought was something pink, miraculously peeking out of a drift. And was that a dot of blue across the yard, a small note of optimism in this gloomy expanse? I grabbed my coat and headed outside for a closer look.
They were crocuses, scattered whimsically***古怪地*** throughout the front lawn. Lavender, blue, yellow and my favorite pink-little faces bobbing in the bitter wind.
Dad. I smiled, remembering the bulbs he had secretly planted last autumn. He knew how the darkness and dreariness of winter always got me down. What could have been more perfectly timed, more attuned to my needs? How blessed I was, not only for the flowers but for him.
My father' s crocuses bloomed each spring for the next four or five seasons, bringing that same assurance every time they arrived: Hard times almost over. Hold on, keep going, light is coming soon.
Then a spring came with only half the usual blooms. The next spring there were none. I missed the crocuses, but my life was busier than ever, and I had never been much of a gardener. I would ask Dad to come over and plant new bulbs. But I never did.
He died suddenly one October day. My family grieved deeply, leaning on our faith. I missed him terribly, though I knew he would always be a part of us.
Four years passed, and on a dismal spring afternoon I was running errands***跑腿，供差遣*** and found myself feeling depressed. You've got the winter blahs again, I told myself. You get them every year.
It was Dad ' s birthday, and I found myself thinking about him. This was not unusual--my family often talked about him, remembering how he lived his faith. Once I saw him give his coat to a homeless man. Often he ' d chat with strangers, and if he learned they were poor and hungry, he would invite them home for a meal. But now, in the car, I could not help wondering: How is he now? Where is he? Is there really a heaven?
I felt guilty for having doubts, but sometimes, I thought as I turned into our driveway, faith is so hard.
Suddenly I slowed, stopped and stared at the lawn. Muddy grass and small gray mounds of melting snow. And there, bravely waving in the wind, was one pink crocus.
How could a flower bloom from a bulb more than 18 years old, one that had not blossomed in over a decade? But there was the crocus. Tears filled my eyes as I realized its significance.
Hold on, keep going, light is coming soon. The pink crocus bloomed for only a day. But it built my faith for a lifetime.
：Peeling Away Artifice For the Pure Original
Sarah came running in. "Look what I found." Over the top of the paper I was reading came a crispy***易碎的*** , crumbling long object that caused me to jump. It was a snake skin that had been shed by one of our many garden snakes.
"Isn't it beautiful?" said my wide-eyed seven-year-old.
I stared at the organic wrapper and thought to myself that it really wasn' t that beautiful, but I have learned never to appear nonchalant***冷淡的*** or jaded with children. Everything they see for the first time is elementary to their sense of beauty and creativity; they see only merit and excellence in the world until educated otherwise.
"Why does it do this?" Sarah asked.
Robert, ever the innocent comedian, said:"We have a naked snake in our garden!"
I also try to customize every opportunity to teach my children that there is almost always something beyond the obvious; that there is something else going on besides what they see in front of them. "Snakes shed their skin because they need to renew themselves," I explained. As is so often the case in my family, the original subject leads to another and another, until we are discussing something quite different.
"Why do they need to renew themselves?" Sarah asked.
Robert quipped:" 'Cos they don't like who they are and they want to be someone else."
Sarah and I politely ignored her brother. I suddenly remembered an article on this page many years ago where the writer was expressing her concept of renewal. She used layers of paper over a wall to describe how we hide our original selves, and said that by peeling away those layers one by one, we see the underlying original beneath.
"We often need to shed our skins, those coatings and facades that we cover ourselves with," I said to my now absorbed daughter. "We outgrow some things and find other stuff unwanted or unnecessary. This snake no longer needs this skin. It is probably too stiff and crinkly***起皺的*** for him, and he probably doesn' t think he looks as smart in it as he once did. Like buying a new suit."
Of course, I' m sure this explanation won' t sit well with bonafide***誠意*** naturalists. But Sarah was getting the point. As we talked, I knew that she began to comprehend, albeit slightly, that renewal is part of progress; that we need to take a good look at ourselves, and our rooms and schoolwork and creativity and spirituality, and see what we need to keep and what we need to cast off. I was careful to point out that this is a natural process, not one to be forced.
"Snakes don' t peel off their skin when they feel like it." I explained. " It happens as a natural consequence of their growth."
"I see, Dad," said Sarah and jumped off my lap, grabbed the snakeskin, and ran off.
I hoped she would remember this. That often, in order to find our real selves underneath the layers of community and culture with which we cloak ourselves year after year, we need to start examining these layers. We need to gently peel***剝*** some away, as we recognize them to be worthless, unnecessary, or flawed; or at best, store the discarded ones as mementoes***紀念品*** of our promotion to a better vitality or spirit.
：Being humble
If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff***小艇*** , even though he be a bad-tempered man he will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat, he will shout at him to steer***控制，駕駛*** clear.
If the shout is not heard, he will shout again, and yet again, and begin cursing.
And all because there is somebody in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty, he would not be shouting, and not angry.
If you can empty your own boat crossing the river of the world,
no one will oppose you, no one will seek to harm you....
Who can free himself from achievement, and from fame, descend and be lost amid the masses of men?
He will flow like Tao, unseen, he will go about like Life itself with no name and no home.
Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances he is a fool.
His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He achieves nothing, has no reputation.
Since he judges no one, no one judges him.
Such is the perfect man:
His boat is empty.
…
The man who has some respect for his person keeps his carcass***屍體，殘骸*** out of sight, hides himself as perfectly as he can.