常青藤名家散文背诵选

Unit 1 A Great FriendAs I am now a senior high school student, I have a great many friends, but there is one whom I prize over all the rest. I first made his acquaintance when I began to go to school. He has been my constant companion ever since.Though he is serious in appearance, he never fails to be interesting. Often he is clever, sometimes even merry and gay. He is the most knowledgeable friend a person could have. He knows virtually every language of the world, all the events of history, and the words of all the great poets and philosophers. A kindly benefactor, he is admired and enjoyed by everyone who makes his acquaintance.To me, he has been a great teacher as well as a friend. He first taught me the secrets of my own language and then those of others. With these keys he showed us how to unlock all the arts and sciences of man.My friend is endlessly patient. Dull though I may be, I can return to him again and again, and he is always ready to teach me. When I am bored, he entertains me. When I am dispirited, he lifts me up. When I am lonely, he keeps me company. He is a friend not only to me but to millions around the world. Shall I tell you his name? His name is “reading”.Unit 2 The Joy of LabourWise men of ancient times and successful men of today have told us that labor is sweet. Its reward is not material gain but what one becomes by it. Work does much more for us than just giving us a living; it gives us our life and the reason for living. The real joys of life come from doing something and doing it well.All of us hope for success, but it is illusive and hard to keep. It nearly always slips away from one like sand through the fingers, like water through a leaky pail, unless it is held tight by hard work, day by day, night by night, year in year out. Everyone who fears failure should work harder and harder with a faithful heart as long as he lasts.Unit 3 We’re Just BeginningCharles F. Kettering“We are reading the first verse of the first chapter of a book whose pages are infinite…”I do not know who wrote these words, but I have always liked them as a reminder that the future can be anything we want to make it. We can take the mysterious, hazy future and carve out of it anything that we can imagine, just as a sculptor carves a statue from a shapeless stone.We are all in the position of the farmer. If we plant a good seed, we reap a good harvest. If our seed is poor and full of weeds, we reap a useless crop. If we plant nothing at all, we harvest nothing at all.I want the future to be better than the past. I don’t want it contaminated by the mistakes anderrors with which history is filled. We should all be concerned about the future because that is where we will spend the remainder of our lives.The past is gone and static. Nothing we can do will change it. The future is before us and dynamic. Everything we do will affect it. Each day brings with it new frontiers, in our homes and in our businesses, if we will only recognize them. We are just at the beginning of the progress in every field of human endeavor.Unit 4 Advice to a Young ManRobert Jones BurdetteRemember, my son, you have to work. Whether you handle a pick or a pen, a wheel-barrow or a set of books, you must work. If you look around, you will see the men who are the most able to li ve the rest of their days without work are the men who work the hardest. Don’t be afraid of killing yourself with overwork. It is beyond your power to do that on the sunny side of thirty. They die sometimes, but it is because they quit work at six in the evening, and do not go home until two in the morning. It is the interval that kills, my son. The work gives you an appetite for your meals; it lends solidity to your slumbers; it gives you a perfect and grateful appreciation of a holiday.There are young men who do not work, but the world is not proud of them. It does not know their names, even. Nobody likes them; the great, busy world does not know that they are there. So find out what you want to be and do, and take off your coat and make a dust in the world. The busier you are, the less harm you will be apt to get into, the sweeter will be your sleep, the brighter and happier your holidays, and the better satisfied will the world be with you.Unit 5 The Happy DoorMildred CramHappiness is like a pebble dropped into a pool or set in motion an ever-widening circle of ripples. As Stevenson has said, being happy is a duty.There is no exact definition of the word happiness. Happy people are happy for all sorts of reasons. The key is not wealth or physical well-being, since we find beggars, invalids and so-called failures who are extremely happy.Being happy is a sort of unexpected dividend. But staying happy is an accomplishment, a triumph of soul and character. It is not selfish to strive for it. It is, indeed, a duty to ourselves and others.Being unhappy is like an infections disease; it causes people to shrink away from the sufferer. He soon finds himself alone, miserable and embittered. There is, however, a cure so simple as to seem, at first glance, rid iculous: if you don’t feel happy, pretend to be!It works. Before long you will find that instead of repelling people, you attract them. youdiscover how deeply rewarding it is to be the center of wider and wider circles of good will. Then the make-believe becomes a reality. You possess the secret of peace of mind, and can forget yourself in being of service to others.Being happy, once it is realized as a duty and established as a habit, opens doors into unimaginable gardens thronged with grateful friends.6 Companionship of BooksA man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as the company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men.A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness, amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in age.Men often discover their affinity to each other by the love they each have for a book. The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize with each other through their favorite author. They live in him together, and he, in them.A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life could think out, for the world of a man’s life is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our constant companions and comforters.Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first passed through their authors’ minds ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page.Books introduce into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see them as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.7 FriendshipNo young man starting life could have better capital than plenty of friends. They will strengthen his credit, support him in every great effort, and make him what, unaided, he could never be. Friends of the right sort will help him more—to be happy and successful—than much money or great learning.Friendship is no one-sided affair. There can be no friendship without reciprocity. One cannot receive all and give nothing, or give all and receive nothing, and expect to experience the joy。