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高級英語教材第32課
先讀課文﹕
The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe 魯賓孫漂流記
By Daniel Defoe
CHAPTER I -- START IN LIFE
I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though
not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled
first at Hull.  He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his
trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose
relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from
whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words
in England, we are now called -- nay, we call ourselves and write our name
-- Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.
I had two elder brothers, one of whom was lieutenant-colonel to an English
regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart,
and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards.  What
became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my father or mother
knew what became of me.
Being the third son of the family and not bred to any trade, my head began
to be filled very early with rambling thoughts.  My father, who was very
ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house-education
and a country free school generally go, and designed me for the law; but
I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to
this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father,
and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends,
that there seemed to be something fatal in that propensity of nature, tending
directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.
My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against
what he foresaw was my design.  He called me one morning into his chamber,
where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me
upon this subject.  He asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering
inclination, I had for leaving father's house and my native country, where
I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortune by application
and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure.  He told me it was men of
desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring superior fortunes on the
other, who went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make
themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that
these things were all either too far above me or too far below me; that
mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low
life, which he had found, by long experience, was the best state in the
world, the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and
hardships, the labour and sufferings of the mechanic part of mankind, and
not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper
part of mankind.  He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state
by this one thing -- viz. that this was the state of life which all other
people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable consequence
of being born to great things, and wished they had been placed in the middle
of the two extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave
his testimony to this, as the standard of felicity, when he prayed to have
neither poverty nor riches.
He bade me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life
were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind, but that the middle
station had the fewest disasters, and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes
as the higher or lower part of mankind; nay, they were not subjected to
so many distempers and uneasinesses, either of body or mind, as those were
who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagances on the one hand, or by
hard labour, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other
hand, bring distemper upon themselves by the natural consequences of their
way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind
of virtue and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids
of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society,
all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings
attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and
smoothly through the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with
the labours of the hands or of the head, not sold to a life of slavery for
daily bread, nor harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul
of peace and the body of rest, nor enraged with the passion of envy, or
the secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but, in easy circumstances,
sliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living,
without the bitter; feeling that they are happy, and learning by every
day's experience to know it more sensibly.
After this he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate manner,
not to play the young man, nor to precipitate myself into miseries which
nature, and the station of life I was born in, seemed to have provided against;
that I was under no necessity of seeking my bread; that he would do well
for me, and endeavour to enter me fairly into the station of life which he
had just been recommending to me; and that if I was not very easy and happy
in the world, it must be my mere fate or fault that must hinder it; and
that he should have nothing to answer for, having thus discharged his duty
in warning me against measures which he knew would be to my hurt; in a word,
that as he would do very kind things for me if I would stay and settle at
home as he directed, so he would not have so much hand in my misfortunes
as to give me any encouragement to go away; and to close all, he told me
I had my elder brother for an example, to whom he had used the same earnest
persuasions to keep him from going into the Low Country wars, but could
not prevail, his young desires prompting him to run into the army, where
he was killed; and though he said he would not cease to pray for me, yet
he would venture to say to me, that if I did take this foolish step, God
would not bless me, and I should have leisure hereafter to reflect upon
having neglected his counsel when there might be none to assist in my recovery.
I observed in this last part of his discourse, which was truly prophetic,
though I suppose my father did not know it to be so himself -- I say, I
observed the tears run down his face very plentifully, especially when he
spoke of my brother who was killed: and that when he spoke of my having
leisure to repent, and none to assist me, he was so moved that he broke off
the discourse, and told me his heart was so full he could say no more to
me.
I was sincerely affected with this discourse, and, indeed, who could be
otherwise? and I resolved not to think of going abroad any more, but to
settle at home according to my father's desire.  But alas! a few days wore
it all off; and, in short, to prevent any of my father's further importunities,
in a few weeks after I resolved to run quite away from him.  However, I
did not act quite so hastily as the first heat of my resolution prompted;
but I took my mother at a time when I thought her a little more pleasant
than ordinary, and told her that my thoughts were so entirely bent upon
seeing the world that I should never settle to anything with resolution enough
to go through with it, and my father had better give me his consent than
force me to go without it; that I was now eighteen years old, which was
too late to go apprentice to a trade or clerk to an attorney; that I was
sure if I did I should never serve out my time, but I should certainly run
away from my master before my time was out, and go to sea; and if she would
speak to my father to let me go one voyage abroad, if I came home again,
and did not like it, I would go no more; and I would promise, by a double
diligence, to recover the time that I had lost.
This put my mother into a great passion; she told me she knew it would be
to no purpose to speak to my father upon any such subject; that he knew
too well what was my interest to give his consent to anything so much for
my hurt; and that she wondered how I could think of any such thing after
the discourse I had had with my father, and such kind and tender expressions
as she knew my father had used to me; and that, in short, if I would ruin
myself, there was no help for me; but I might depend I should never have
their consent to it; that for her part she would not have so much hand in
my destruction; and I should never have it to say that my mother was willing
when my father was not.
Though my mother refused to move it to my father, yet I heard afterwards
that she reported all the discourse to him, and that my father, after showing
a great concern at it, said to her, with a sigh, "That boy might be happy
if he would stay at home; but if he goes abroad, he will be the most miserable
wretch that ever was born: I can give no consent to it."
It was not till almost a year after this that I broke loose, though, in
the meantime, I continued obstinately deaf to all proposals of settling
to business, and frequently expostulated with my father and mother about
their being so positively determined against what they knew my inclinations
prompted me to.  But being one day at Hull, where I went casually, and without
any purpose of making an elopement at that time; but, I say, being there,
and one of my companions being about to sail to London in his father's ship,
and prompting me to go with them with the common allurement of seafaring
men, that it should cost me nothing for my passage, I consulted neither
father nor mother any more, nor so much as sent them word of it; but leaving
them to hear of it as they might, without asking God's blessing or my father's,
without any consideration of circumstances or consequences, and in an ill
hour, God knows, on the 1st of September 1651, I went on board a ship bound
for London.  Never any young adventurer's misfortunes, I believe, began
sooner, or continued longer than mine.  The ship was no sooner out of the
Humber than the wind began to blow and the sea to rise in a most frightful
manner; and, as I had never been at sea before, I was most inexpressibly
sick in body and terrified in mind.  I began now seriously to reflect upon
what I had done, and how justly I was overtaken by the judgment of Heaven
for my wicked leaving my father's house, and abandoning my duty.  All the
good counsels of my parents, my father's tears and my mother's entreaties,
came now fresh into my mind; and my conscience, which was not yet come to
the pitch of hardness to which it has since, reproached me with the contempt
of advice, and the breach of my duty to God and my father.
All this while the storm increased, and the sea went very high, though nothing
like what I have seen many times since; no, nor what I saw a few days after;
but it was enough to affect me then, who was but a young sailor, and had
never known anything of the matter.  I expected every wave would have swallowed
us up, and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought it did, in the
trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more; in this agony of
mind, I made many vows and resolutions that if it would please God to spare
my life in this one voyage, if ever I got once my foot upon dry land again,
I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into a ship again
while I lived; that I would take his advice, and never run myself into such
miseries as these any more.  Now I saw plainly the goodness of his observations
about the middle station of life, how easy, how comfortably he had lived
all his days, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea or troubles
on shore; and I resolved that I would, like a true repenting prodigal, go
home to my father.
These wise and sober thoughts continued all the while the storm lasted,
and indeed some time after; but the next day the wind was abated, and the
sea calmer, and I began to be a little inured to it; however, I was very
grave for all that day, being also a little sea-sick still; but towards
night the weather cleared up, the wind was quite over, and a charming fine
evening followed; the sun went down perfectly clear, and rose so the next
morning; and having little or no wind, and a smooth sea, the sun shining
upon it, the sight was, as I thought, the most delightful that ever I saw.
I had slept well in the night, and was now no more sea-sick, but very cheerful,
looking with wonder upon the sea that was so rough and terrible the day
before, and could be so calm and so pleasant in so little a time after.
And now, lest my good resolutions should continue, my companion, who had
enticed me away, comes to me; "Well, Bob," says he, clapping me upon the
shoulder, "how do you do after it?  I warrant you were frighted, wer'n't
you, last night, when it blew but a capful of wind?"  "A capful d'you call
it?" said I; " 'twas a terrible storm."  "A storm, you fool you," replies
he; "do you call that a storm? why, it was nothing at all; give us but a
good ship and sea-room, and we think nothing of such a squall of wind as
that; but you're but a fresh-water sailor, Bob.  Come, let us make a bowl
of punch, and we'll forget all that; d'ye see what charming weather 'tis
now?"  To make short this sad part of my story, we went the way of all sailors;
the punch was made and I was made half drunk with it: and in that one night's
wickedness I drowned all my repentance, all my reflections upon my past
conduct, all my resolutions for the future.  In a word, as the sea was returned
to its smoothness of surface and settled calmness by the abatement of that
storm, so the hurry of my thoughts being over, my fears and apprehensions
of being swallowed up by the sea being forgotten, and the current of my
former desires returned, I entirely forgot the vows and promises that I made
in my distress.  I found, indeed, some intervals of reflection; and the
serious thoughts did, as it were, endeavour to return again sometimes; but
I shook them off, and roused myself from them as it were from a distemper,
and applying myself to drinking and company, soon mastered the return of
those fits -- for so I called them; and I had in five or six days got as
complete a victory over conscience as any young fellow that resolved not
to be troubled with it could desire.  But I was to have another trial for
it still; and Providence, as in such cases generally it does, resolved to
leave me entirely without excuse; for if I would not take this for a deliverance,
the next was to be such a one as the worst and most hardened wretch among
us would confess both the danger and the mercy of.
The sixth day of our being at sea we came into Yarmouth Roads; the wind
having been contrary and the weather calm, we had made but little way since
the storm.  Here we were obliged to come to an anchor, and here we lay,
the wind continuing contrary -- viz. at south-west -- for seven or eight
days, during which time a great many ships from Newcastle came into the
same Roads, as the common harbour where the ships might wait for a wind for
the river.
We had not, however, rid here so long but we should have tided it up the
river, but that the wind blew too fresh, and after we had lain four or five
days, blew very hard.  However, the Roads being reckoned as good as a harbour,
the anchorage good, and our ground-tackle very strong, our men were unconcerned,
and not in the least apprehensive of danger, but spent the time in rest
and mirth, after the manner of the sea; but the eighth day, in the morning,
the wind increased, and we had all hands at work to strike our topmasts,
and make everything snug and close, that the ship might ride as easy as
possible.  By noon the sea went very high indeed, and our ship rode forecastle
in, shipped several seas, and we thought once or twice our anchor had come
home; upon which our master ordered out the sheet-anchor, so that we rode
with two anchors ahead, and the cables veered out to the bitter end.
By this time it blew a terrible storm indeed; and now I began to see terror
and amazement in the faces even of the seamen themselves.  The master, though
vigilant in the business of preserving the ship, yet as he went in and out
of his cabin by me, I could hear him softly to himself say, several times,
"Lord be merciful to us! we shall be all lost! we shall be all undone!" and
the like.  During these first hurries I was stupid, lying still in my cabin,
which was in the steerage, and cannot describe my temper: I could ill resume
the first penitence which I had so apparently trampled upon and hardened
myself against: I thought the bitterness of death had been past, and that
this would be nothing like the first; but when the master himself came by
me, as I said just now, and said we should be all lost, I was dreadfully
frighted.  I got up out of my cabin and looked out; but such a dismal sight
I never saw: the sea ran mountains high, and broke upon us every three or
four minutes; when I could look about, I could see nothing but distress
round us; two ships that rode near us, we found, had cut their masts by the
board, being deep laden; and our men cried out that a ship which rode about
a mile ahead of us was foundered.  Two more ships, being driven from their
anchors, were run out of the Roads to sea, at all adventures, and that with
not a mast standing.  The light ships fared the best, as not so much labouring
in the sea; but two or three of them drove, and came close by us, running
away with only their spritsail out before the wind.
Towards evening the mate and boatswain begged the master of our ship to
let them cut away the fore-mast, which he was very unwilling to do; but
the boatswain protesting to him that if he did not the ship would founder,
he consented; and when they had cut away the fore-mast, the main-mast stood
so loose, and shook the ship so much, they were obliged to cut that away
also, and make a clear deck.

海外逸士

看到這裡大約是第一章的一半。如果有興趣要看下去﹐或要看全書的﹐可以在網上
找到。我們這裡要閱讀的或注意的是寫作的文筆﹐及表達法﹐不是故事的情節。如
果對航海用語不熟悉的﹐可以不必管它。能理解到主要情節的描述﹐就說明基本看
懂了。這是泛讀的要求。閱讀得多了﹐理解力就會提高﹐說明閱讀水平也就提高了。
這就是學習的積累過程。鍥而不捨﹐金石可鏤。

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Daniel Defoe (ca. 1659--1661 to 24 April 1731), born Daniel
Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained
fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the
earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in
Britain and along with others such as Richardson, is among the founders of
the English novel. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote more than 500
books, pamphlets and journals on various topics (including politics, crime,
religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural). He was also a pioneer
of economic journalism.
3) 本書簡介﹕Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published
in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional
autobiography of the title character--a castaway who spends 28 years on
a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives,
and mutineers before being rescued.
4) 魯賓孫漂流記也是本世界名著。我小時候就聽說過的。應該可作英文專業人士的
泛讀材料。

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高級英語教材第33課

先讀課文﹕
Evening -- an Ode to Stella
by Samuel Johnson

Evening now from purple wings
Sheds the grateful gifts she brings;
Brilliant drops bedeck the mead,
Cooling breezes shake the reed;
Shake the reed, and curl the stream
Silver'd o'er with Cynthia's beam;
Near the chequer'd, lonely grove,
Hears, and keeps thy secrets, love!
Stella, thither let us stray,
Lightly o'er the dewy way.
Phoebus drives his burning car, 太陽神駕著燃燒的戰車
Hence, my lovely Stella, far;
In his stead, the queen of night
Round us pours a lambent light:
Light that seems but just to show
Breasts that beat, and cheeks that glow;
Let us now, in whisper'd joy,
Evening's silent hours employ,
Silent best, and conscious shades,
Please the hearts that love invades,
Other pleasures give them pain,
Lovers all but love disdain.

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 -- 13 December 1784), often
referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions
to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer,
editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and committed Tory,
and has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters
in English history".
3) 薩繆‧約翰遜是英國的著名詩人﹑作家。中國讀者可能對他不熟悉。這裡介紹他
一首詩﹐不知國內是否已有中文譯本。有興趣的讀者可以自己譯一下﹐投稿到有關
雜誌去。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第34課

先讀課文﹕
The Lady of the Camellias《茶花女》
by Alexandre Dumas Jr.

Chapter 1
　IT is my considered view that no one can invent fictional characters without
first having made a lengthy study of people, just as it is impossible for
anyone to speak a language that has not been properly mastered.
　　Since I am not yet of an age to invent, I must 'make do with' [這種用
法都是應該學的] telling a tale.
　　I therefore invite the reader to believe that this story is true. All
the characters who appear in it, with the exception of the heroine, are
still living. [這句是說那個女主角已經死了﹐不是說女主角沒有其人]
　　I would further add that there are reliable witnesses in Paris for most
of the particulars which I bring together here, and they could vouch for
their accuracy should my word not be enough. [should是倒裝句﹐等于 if --
should----] By a singular turn of events, I alone was able to write them
down since I alone was privy to the very last details without which it would
have been quite impossible to piece together a full and satisfying account.
　　It was in this way that these particulars came to my knowledge.
　　On the 12th day of March, 1847, in the rue Laffitte 路名, I happened
upon 碰巧看到 a large yellow notice announcing a sale of furniture and valuable
curios. An estate was to be disposed of, the owner having died. The notice
did not name the dead person, but the sale was to be held at 9 rue d'Antin
on the 16th, between noon and five o'clock.
　　The notice also stated that the apartments and contents could be viewed
on the 13th and 14th.
　　I have always been interested in curios. I promised myself I would not
miss this opportunity, if not of actually buying, then at least of looking.
　　The following day, I directed my steps towards 9 rue d'Antin.
　　It was early, and yet a good crowd of visitors had already gathered
in the apartment, men for the most part, but also a number of ladies who,
though dressed in velvet and wearing Indian shawls, and all with their own
elegant broughams standing at the door, were examining the riches set out
before them with astonished, even admiring eyes.
　　After a while, I quite saw the reason for their admiration and astonishment,
for having begun myself to look around I had no difficulty in recognizing
that I was in the apartment of a kept woman. Now if there is one thing that
ladies of fashion desire to see above all else, and there were society ladies
present, it is the rooms occupied by those women who have carriages which
spatter their own with mud every day of the week, who have their boxes 包
廂 at the Opera or the Theatre-Italien just as they do, and indeed next
to theirs, and who display for all Paris to see the insolent opulence of
their beauty, diamonds and shameless conduct.
　　The woman in whose apartments I now found myself was dead: the most
virtuous of ladies were thus able to go everywhere, even into the bedroom.
Death had purified the air of this glittering den of iniquity, and in any
case they could always say, if they needed the excuse, that they had done
no more than come to a sale without knowing whose rooms these were. I had
read the notices, they had wanted to view what the notices advertised and
mark out their selections in advance. It could not have been simpler, though
this did not prevent them from looking through these splendid things for
traces of the secret life of a courtesan of which they had doubtless been
given very strange accounts.
　　Unfortunately, the mysteries had died with the goddess, and in spite
of their best endeavours these good ladies found only what had been put
up for sale since the time of death, and could detect nothing of what had
been sold while the occupant had been alive.
　　But there was certainly rich booty to be had. The furniture was superb.
Rosewood and Buhl-work pieces, Severs vases and blue china porcelain, Dresden
figurines, satins, velvet and lace, everything in fact.
　　I wandered from room to room in the wake of these inquisitive aristocratic
ladies who had arrived before me. They went into a bedroom hung with Persian
fabrics and I was about to go in after them, when they came out again almost
immediately, smiling and as it were, put to shame by this latest revelation.
The effect was to make me even keener to see inside. It was the dressing-room,
complete down to the very last details, in which the dead woman's profligacy
had seemingly reached its height.
　　On a large table standing against one wall, it measured a good six feet
by three, shone the finest treasures of Aucoc and Odiot. It was a magnificent
collection, and among the countless objects each so essential to the appearance
of the kind of woman in whose home we had gathered, there was not one that
was not made of gold or silver. But it was a collection that could only
have been assembled piece by piece, and clearly more than one love had gone
into its making.
　　I, who was not the least put out by the sight of the dressing-room of
a kept woman, spent some time agreeably inspecting its contents, neglecting
none of them, and I noticed that all these magnificently wrought implements
bore different initials and all manner of coronets.
　　As I contemplated all these things, each to my mind standing for a separate
prostitution of the poor girl, I reflected that God had been merciful to
her since He had not suffered her to live long enough to undergo the usual
punishment but had allowed her to die at the height of her wealth and beauty,
long before the coming of old age, that first death of courtesans.
　　Indeed, what sadder sight is there than vice in old age, especially
in a woman? It has no dignity and is singularly unattractive. Those everlasting
regrets, not for wrong turnings taken but for wrong calculations made and
money foolishly spent, are among the most harrowing things that can be heard.
I once knew a former woman of easy virtue of whose past life there remained
only a daughter who was almost as beautiful as the mother had once been,
or so her contemporaries said. This poor child, to whom her mother never
said 'You are my daughter' except to order her to keep her now that she
was old just as she had been kept when she was young, this wretched creature
was called Louise and in obedience to her mother, she sold herself without
inclination or passion or pleasure, rather as she might have followed an
honest trade had it ever entered anyone's head to teach her one. [had倒裝
句﹐等于 if -- had --]
　　The continual spectacle of debauchery, at so tender an age, compounded
by her continuing ill-health, had extinguished in the girl the knowledge
of good and evil which God had perhaps given her, but which no one had ever
thought to nurture.
　　I shall always remember that young girl who walked along the boulevards
almost every day at the same hour. Her mother was always with her, escorting
her as assiduously as a true mother might have accompanied her daughter.
I was very young in those days and ready enough to fall in with the easy
morality of the times. Yet I recall that the sight of such scandalous chaperoning
filled me with contempt and disgust.
　　Add to all this that no virgin's face ever conveyed such a feeling of
innocence nor any comparable expression of sadness and suffering.
　　You would have said it was the image of Resignation itself.
　　And then one day, the young girl's face lit up. In the midst of the
debauches which her mother organized for her, it suddenly seemed to this
sinful creature that God had granted her one happiness. And after all why
should God, who had made her weak and helpless, abandon her without consolation
to struggle on beneath the oppressive burden of her life? One day, then,
she perceived that she was with child, and that part of her which remained
pure trembled with joy. The soul finds refuge in the strangest sanctuaries.
Louise ran to her mother to tell her the news that had filled her with such
happiness. It is a shameful thing to have to say, but we do not write gratuitously
of immorality here, we relate a true incident and one perhaps which we would
be better advised to leave untold if we did not believe that it is essential
from time to time to make public the martyrdom of these creatures who are
ordinarily condemned without a hearing and despised without trial, it is,
we say, a matter for shame, but the mother answered her daughter saying
that as things stood they scarcely had enough for two, and that they would
certainly not have enough for three; that such children serve no useful
purpose; and that a pregnancy is so much time wasted.
　　The very next day, a midwife (of whom we shall say no more than that
she was a friend of the mother) called to see Louise, who remained for a
few days in her bed from which she rose paler and weaker than before.
　　Three months later, some man took pity on her and undertook her moral
and physical salvation. But this latest blow had been too great and Louise
died of the after effects of the miscarriage she had suffered.
　　The mother still lives. How? God alone knows.
　　This story had come back to me as I stood examining the sets of silver
toilet accessories, and I must have been lost in thought for quite some
time. For by now the apartment was empty save for myself and a porter who,
from the doorway, was eyeing me carefully lest I should try to steal anything.

　　I went up to this good man in whom I inspired such grave anxieties.
　　"Excuse me," I said, "I wonder if you could tell me the name of the
person who lived here."
　　"Mademoiselle Marguerite Gautier."
　　I knew this young woman by name and by sight.
　　"What!" I said to the porter. "Marguerite Gautier is dead."
　　"Yes, sir."
　　"When did it happen?"
　　"Three weeks ago, I think."
　　"But why are people being allowed to view her apartment?"
　　"The creditors thought it would be good for trade. People can get the
effect of the hangings and the furniture in advance. Encourages people to
buy, you understand."
　　"So she had debts, then?"
　　"Oh yes, sir! Lots of'em."
　　"But I imagine the sale will cover them."
　　"Over and above."
　　"And who stands to get the balance?"
　　"The family."
　　"She had a family?"
　　"Seems she did."
　　"Thank you very much."
　　The porter, now reassured as to my intentions, touched his cap and I
left.
　　"Poor girl," I said to myself as I returned home, "she must have died
a sad death, for in her world, people only keep their friends as long as
they stay fit and well." And in spite of myself, I lamented the fate of
Marguerite Gautier.
　　All this will perhaps seem absurd to many people, but I have a boundless
forbearance towards courtesans which I shall not even trouble to enlarge
upon here.
　　One day, as I was on my way to collect a passport from the prefecture,
I saw down one of the adjacent streets, a young woman being taken away by
two policemen. Now I have no idea what she had done. All I can say is that
she was weeping bitterly and clasping to her a child only a few months old
from which she was about to be separated by her arrest. From that day until
this, I have been incapable of spurning any woman on sight.

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Alexandre Dumas, fils (= Jr. in English) (27 July 1824 -- 27
November 1895) was a French author and dramatist. He was the son of Alexandre
Dumas, pere (=Sr.) also a writer and playwright. Dumas was born in Paris,
France, the illegitimate child of Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay (1794-1868),
a dressmaker, and novelist Alexandre Dumas. During 1831 his father legally
recognized him and ensured that the young Dumas received the best education
possible at the Institution Goubaux and the College Bourbon.
During 1844 Dumas moved to Saint-Germain-en-Laye to live with his father.
There, he met Marie Duplessis, a young courtesan who would be the inspiration
for his romantic novel The Lady of the Camellias, wherein Duplessis was
named Marguerite Gauthier. Adapted into a play, it was titled Camile in
English and became the basis for Verdi's 1853 opera, La Traviata, Duplessis
undergoing yet another name change, this time to Violetta Valery.
3) 關於小說﹕The Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas Jr.
first published in 1848, and subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady
of the Camellias premiered at the Theatre du Vaudeville in Paris, France
on February 2, 1852. The play was an instant success, and Giuseppe Verdi
immediately set about putting the story to music. His work became the 1853
opera La Traviata, with the female protagonist, Marguerite Gautier, renamed
Violetta Valery.
4) 法國作家小仲馬的“茶花女”也是世界名著。原著當然是法文的﹐但英文譯本也
具有文學作品水平。所以也可以當作泛讀材料。由此故事改編成的歌劇當然也世界
著名的。其中詠嘆調“飲酒歌”常被單獨演唱。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第35課

先讀課文﹕
The Little Mermaid 小美人魚
by Hans Christian Andersen

        Once upon a time, far out to sea, where the water was as blue as
the petals of the loveliest cornflower, lived the Mer - king.  Since the
Mer - king's wife was dead, his old mother kept house for him and his six
daughters.  His youngest daughter was very quiet and thoughtful.  And nothing
pleased her more than hearing her grandmother tell stories about the far-off
world of humans, about ships and towns and people.
        "As soon as you are fifteen," her grandmother said, "you may rise
to the surface of the sea and sit on the rocks and watch the ships sail
by."
        One by one the sisters turned fifteen, until at last it was the
little mermaid's turn.  Her grandmother put a wreath of white lilies and
pearls on her head.  The mermaid said good-bye, and she floated up through
the water as lightly as a bubble.
        When she came to the surface of the sea, the little mermaid saw
the evening star shining in the pink sky.  A three - masted ship was anchored
in the water.  There was singing and dancing on board; and as the night
grew darker, hundreds of lanterns lit the deck.
        The little mermaid swam about the ship, peeking in all the portholes.
Every time she rose with the waves, she saw a crowd of people dancing.
They were elegant and well-dressed.  But the most striking of all was a
young prince.  He could not have been more than sixteen.  How handsome he
was-shaking hands with all the guests, laughing and smiling while beautiful
music filled the night.
        But as the little mermaid watched the prince, a sudden storm swept
over the sea.  The waves rose like mountains.  The ship creaked and cracked.
Water came rushing into the hold.  Just as the ship broke in two, the prince
fell into the deepest part of the sea.
        The little mermaid swam through the dangerous waves until she reached
the prince.  She held his head above the water to keep him from drowning.
At dawn, she carried him into a bay and laid him on the sand.  Then she
sang to him in her lovely voice.  When she heard people coming, she hid
behind some rocks.
        A young girl appeared.  She woke up the prince, and he smiled gratefully
at her.  He did not turn and smile at the little mermaid, though, for he
had no idea that she was the one who had saved him and sung to him.  Soon
others came to help the prince, and he was carried away from the shore.

        Thereafter, many evenings and many mornings, the little mermaid
returned to the shore where she had left the prince.  She saw the fruit
ripen on the trees; she saw the snow melt on the high mountains - but she
never saw the handsome prince.
        At last she told the story to her sisters, and one of them showed
her the palace where the prince lived.  Thereafter, night after night, the
little mermaid rose to the surface of the water and watched the gleaming
palace. She even pulled herself up the marble steps, so she could gaze at
the prince, standing on his balcony in the moonlight.
        The more she visited the palace, the closer the little mermaid felt
to humans, and she longed to be one of them.
        "Do humans live forever?" she asked her grandmother.
        "No," said the old lady.  "Their lives are much shorter than ours.
We live for three hundred years, but when our lives come to an end, we
turn to foam upon the water.  But a human has a soul which lives on after
the body dies.  It flies up through the sky to the stars."
        "Oh," breathed the little mermaid, "how can I get a human soul?"

        "Well, if a human being loved you dearly and married you, you could
get one," the grandmother said.  "But that will never happen.  The very
thing that is so beautiful in the sea - your mermaid tail - is ugly and
disgusting to humans."
        The little mermaid looked sadly at her tail.
        As time passed, the little mermaid could not forget her prince.
One day she was filled with such longing that she made a terrible decision.
"I will call on the sea witch, " she said.  She had always been afraid
of the terrible witch, but now it didn't seem to matter.
        The sea witch's house lay deep in the eerie sea forest.  Her trees
and bushes had long slimy arms that writhed like worms.  Her yard was filled
with fat water snakes slithering about.  The witch's house itself had been
built from the bones of shipwrecked humans.
        "I know what you want," the sea witch said to the mermaid before
she had a chance to speak.  "You want to get rid of your fish's tail and
have two walking stumps like humans have.  You hope the prince will fall
in love with you, and you'll be able to marry him and get a human soul."
She let out a hideous laugh that sent her snakes sprawling to the floor
of the sea.
        "Well, I shall make a special potion for you," the witch went on.
Before the sun rises, you must carry it to the shore and drink it.  Then
your tail will divide into two parts.  When those parts shrink into what
humans call 'legs,' the pain will be almost more than you can bear.  Though
you will glide along more gracefully than any dancer, every step you take
will be like treading on sharp knives.  Are you willing to suffer this to
be a human?"
        "Yes, said the little mermaid.  
        "Remember, once you've taken a human shape, you can never be a mermaid
again.  Never be with your sisters or your father.  If you fail to become
the prince's wife, you won't be a human either!  If he marries someone else,
you will turn into foam the morning after his wedding.  Are you willing
to drink the potion and risk your life?"
        "Yes, " whispered the mermaid.
        "And one more thing," said the witch. "You have the loveliest voice
in the sea.  I want it for my payment."
        "But if you take my voice, what will I have?" the mermaid asked.

        "Your beauty, your graceful movements, your speaking eyes.  Now
give me your voice, and I'll give you the potion."
        "Oh dear, no," said the little mermaid.  She was horrified at the
thought of giving up her lovely voice.
        "All right then," said the hideous sea witch, "you will never become
human."
        The little mermaid felt great despair.  She didn't think she could
bear to live if she didn't become human.  "I will give up my voice if I
must, " she said sadly.
        So the witch cut off the mermaid's tongue.  Then she gave her a
vial of magic potion.  The drink glowed like a glittering star.
        The little mermaid swam away from the horrible forest.  When she
saw her father's house, she felt as if her heart would break.  She threw
hundreds of kisses towards the palace.  Then she rose up through the dark
blue sea and swam to the prince's palace.
        In the moonlight she made her way up the marble steps and drank
the burning potion.  A sword seemed to thrust itself through her body; and
she fainted from the pain.
        At dawn the little mermaid woke up.  She felt the pain again.  When
she looked down at her fish's tail, she saw that it was gone.  In its place
were two beautiful white legs.  She had no clothes on, so she Wound her
long hair around her body.
        When the little mermaid looked up, she saw the prince standing before
her.  His coal-black eyes stared intensely at her.  
        "Who are you?  Where have you come from?" he said.
        The mermaid looked at him softly, yet sadly, for she could not speak.
The prince took her hand, and led her to the palace.
        The little mermaid was the fairest maid in all the kingdom and the
prince was enchanted by her.  They rode together on horseback and climbed
mountains together.  And when they went to parties, the little mermaid danced
as no one had ever danced, and everyone marvelled at her graceful, flowing
movements.
        Sometimes, at night, the little mermaid crept down to the sea, and
she heard the mournful song of her sisters as they swam over the water.
In the distance, she saw her grandmother and her father stretching out
their arms to her.
        Though the prince was very fond of the little mermaid, he often
seemed distracted, as if he were thinking of someone else.  One night, he
confided in her, "I'm in love with a girl I saw long ago.  Once I was shipwrecked,
and the waves carried me ashore.  There a young girl found me and saved
my life. She sang to me with her golden voice - a voice more beautiful than
I've ever heard. I've never seen her since that day."
        The mermaid felt great despair.  Since she could not speak, she
could not tell the prince what had really happened, that it was she who
had saved him and sung to him.
        Soon the mermaid heard a rumor that the prince was to be married
to the daughter of a neighboring king.
        "I am obliged to make a sea journey to meet this princess," the
prince told the little mermaid.  "My mother and father have insisted.  But
if I cannot find that girl who saved my life on the shore, I would like
to marry you, my silent orphan with the speaking eyes."  And he kissed her.

        The prince and the mermaid journeyed together to the neighboring
kingdom.  In the moonlit night, the little mermaid sat by the ship's rail,
gazing into the water.  She thought she saw her father's palace and her
grandmother's crown of pearls.
        Soon the ship sailed into the harbor of the neighboring king's city.
Church bells rang, and trumpets blared.  The princess was brought to the
ship.
    When the prince looked upon her, he cried out with great joy. "It is
you!" he said.  "You're the one who saved me when I lay almost dead on the
shore! My wish has come true!"  
        Indeed it was the girl who had discovered the prince on the shore.
But the little mermaid would never be able to tell the prince that she
herself was the one who had saved him from drowning at sea. She felt as
if her heart would break.
        The wedding ceremony was held immediately.  The mermaid was dressed
in silk and gold, and she held the bridal train.  But she did not hear the
festive music, nor pay attention to the ceremony.  This was her last day
in the world.  The prince's wedding would soon bring her death; tomorrow
she would turn to foam upon the sea.
        That evening the bride and bridegroom slept in a royal tent on deck.
The sails filled in the breeze; the vessel flew swiftly over the shining
sea.
        The little mermaid leaned her white arms on the rail and looked
out to sea.  Dawn would bring an end to her life.  Suddenly she saw her
sisters rising out of the water. They were as pale as ghosts, and their
hair was cut off.
        One sister held up a knife.  "We gave our hair to the witch in return
for help," she said.  "She gave us this knife.  When the sun rises, you
must plunge it into the prince's heart.  When his blood splashes on your
feet, you will have a tail again.  You can join us below in the sea.  Hurry!
Either he dies or you die."
        The little mermaid took the knife and crept into the royal tent.
She drew back the purple curtain and looked at the prince sleeping with
his bride. She looked at the knife, then back at the prince.
        The knife quivered in her hand.  Suddenly she rushed out of the
tent and hurled it into the sea.  The waves shone red as though they were
made of blood.
        The little mermaid threw herself into the water.  She saw lovely
transparent creatures floating above her.  
        "You are one of us now, " one of the lovely creatures said.  "We
are spirits of the air.  We have no souls, but with good deeds we can win
them.  We fly to hot countries and send cool breezes to suffering people.
We spread the fragrance of flowers.  Then after we serve people for three
hundred years, we are given a human soul."
        The little mermaid felt great joy as she raised her arms towards
the sun and floated through the water into the air.  She saw the prince
and his bride on the deck of the ship.  They seemed to be searching for
her.
        Invisible to all, the little mermaid floated to the ship.  She kissed
the bride and smiled at the prince.  Then she rose like a pink cloud high
into the morning sky.

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Hans Christian Andersen (April 2, 1805-- August 4, 1875) was
a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories.
These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little
Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."
3) 關於故事﹕A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female
human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. Mermaids are represented
in the folklore, literature and popular culture of many countries worldwide.
A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males
and females are known as "merfolk" or "merpeople". A "merboy" is a young
merman.
"The Little Mermaid" (Danish: Den lille havfrue, literally: the little seawoman)
is a popular fairy tale by the Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen
about a young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea and her identity
as a mermaid to gain a human soul and the love of a human prince.  Written
originally as a ballet, the tale was first published in 1837 and has been
adapted to various media including musical theatre and animated film.
4) 安徒生童話中的美人魚故事應該也是家喻戶曉的。不過﹐學英文的人未必都讀過
英文版本。這也是個很感人的故事﹐值得一讀。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第36課

先讀課文﹕
The Prince and the Pauper 王子與貧兒
by Mark Twain

Chapter I. The birth of the Prince and the Pauper.
In the ancient city of London, on a certain autumn day in the second quarter
of the sixteenth century, a boy was born to a poor family of the name of
Canty, who did not want him.  On the same day another English child was
born to a rich family of the name of Tudor 多鐸(王朝), who did want him.
All England wanted him too.  England had so longed for him, and hoped for
him, and prayed God for him, that, now that he was really come, the people
went nearly mad for
joy.  Mere acquaintances hugged and kissed each other and cried. Everybody
took a holiday, and high and low, rich and poor, feasted and danced and
sang, and got very mellow; and they kept this up for days and nights together.
  By day, London was a sight to see, with gay banners waving from every
balcony and housetop, and splendid pageants marching along.  By night, it
was again a sight to see, with its great bonfires at every corner, and its
troops of revellers making merry around them.  There was no talk in all
England but of the new baby, Edward Tudor, Prince of Wales威爾士親王[1],
who lay lapped in silks and satins, unconscious of all this fuss, and not
knowing that great lords and ladies were tending him and watching over him--and
not caring, either.  But there was no talk about the other baby, Tom Canty,
lapped in his poor rags, except
among the family of paupers whom he had just come to trouble with his presence.

第一章就是那麼短。總之﹐有興趣閱讀下去的學習者可上網查閱。

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕見湯幕‧沙亞歷險記。
3) 本書內容簡介﹕The Prince and the Pauper is an English language novel
by American author Mark Twain. It was first published in 1881 in Canada
before its 1882 publication in the United States. The book represents Twain's
first attempt at historical fiction. Set in 1547, the novel tells the story
of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who
lives with his abusive father in Offal Court off Pudding Lane in London;
and Prince Edward, son of King Henry VIII.
The novel begins with Tom Canty, an impoverished boy living with his abusive
family in London. One day, Tom Canty and Prince Edward, the son of King
Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, meet, and as a jest, switch clothes. While
dressed in the pauper's rags, the Prince leaves the palace to punish the
guard who knocked Tom down. However, the boys look remarkably alike and
because they switch clothes, the palace guards throw the prince out into
the street. The Prince fares poorly in London because he insists on proclaiming
his identity as the true Prince of Wales. Meanwhile despite Tom's repeated
denial of his birthright, the court and the King insist that he is the true
prince gone mad. Edward eventually runs into Tom's family and a gang of
thieves and Twain illustrates England's unfair and barbaric justice system.
After the death of Henry VIII, Edward interrupts Tom's coronation and the
boys explain, switch places, and Edward is crowned King of England.
4) 註解﹕[1] 威爾士親王﹐英倫島上有英國和愛爾蘭共和國。英國又有三個部份組
成﹕英格蘭﹑威爾士﹑北愛爾蘭。在那個時候﹐威爾士要求有自己的統治者。當英
王駕臨威爾士的時候﹐威爾士人提出他們要一個不會講英文的﹐出生在威爾士的人
做他們的王。於是英王就把他自己剛出生的王子抱到陽台上去給大家看﹐說他不會
講英文(嬰兒當然還不會講話了)﹐他出生在威爾士﹐他將是威爾士親王。威爾士人
沒話可說。從那時起﹐英國的王長子就兼任威爾士親王。
5) 王子與貧兒也是本有名的書。被拍成電影。雖然第一章較短﹐要知道故事發展的
讀者﹐可以上網閱讀。等你認真地﹐認真地把這些小說讀了幾百本以後﹐好像讀了
武功秘籍﹐就會功力非凡了。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第37課

先讀課文﹕
A STORY OF ROBIN HOOD 俠盜魯賓遜的故事
英國古老的傳說

IN the rude days of King Richard and King John there were many great woods
in England. The most famous of these was Sherwood forest, where the king
often went to hunt deer. In this forest there lived a band of daring men
called outlaws.
They had done something that was against the laws of the land, and had been
forced to hide themselves in the woods to save their lives. There they spent
their time in roaming about among the trees, in hunting the king's deer,
and in robbing rich travelers that came that way.
There were nearly a hundred of these outlaws, and their leader was a bold
fellow called Robin Hood. They were dressed in suits of green, and armed
with bows and arrows; and sometimes they carried long wooden lances and
broad-swords, which they knew how to handle well. Whenever they had taken
anything, it was brought and laid at the feet of Robin Hood, whom they called
their king. He then divided it fairly among them, giving to each man his
just share.
Robin never allowed his men to harm anybody but the rich men who lived in
great houses and did no work. He was always kind to the poor, and he often
sent help to them; and for that reason the common people looked upon him
as their friend.
Long after he was dead, men liked to talk about his deeds. Some praised
him, and some blamed him. He was, indeed, a rude, lawless fellow; but at
that time, people did not think of right and wrong as they do now.
A great many songs were made up about Robin Hood, and these songs were sung
in the cottages and huts all over the land for hundreds of years afterward.

Here is a little story that is told in one of those songs:
Robin Hood was standing one day under a green tree by the roadside. While
he was listening to the birds among the leaves, he saw a young man passing
by. This young man was dressed in a fine suit of bright red cloth; and,
as he tripped gayly along the road, he seemed to be as happy as the day.

"I will not trouble him," said Robin Hood, "for I think he is on his way
to his wedding."
The next day Robin stood in the same place. He had not been there long when
he saw the same young man coming down the road. But he did not seem to be
so happy this time. He had left his scarlet coat at home, and at every step
he sighed and groaned.
"Ah the sad day! the sad day!" he kept saying to himself.
Then Robin Hood stepped out from under the tree, and said,
"I say, young man! Have you any money to spare for my merry men and me?"

"I have nothing at all," said the young man, "but five shillings and a ring."

"A gold ring?" asked Robin.
"Yes," said the young man, "it is a gold ring. Here it is."
"Ah, I see!" said Robin; "it is a wedding ring."
"I have kept it these seven years," said the young man; "I have kept it
to give to my bride on our wedding day. We were going to be married yesterday.
But her father has promised her to a rich old man whom she never saw. And
now my heart is broken."
"What is your name?" asked Robin.
"My name is Allin-a-Dale," said the young man.
"What will you give me, in gold or fee," said Robin, "if I will help you
win your bride again in spite of the rich old man to whom she has been promised?"

"How many miles is it to the place where the maiden lives?" asked Robin.

"It is not far," said Allin. "But she is to be married this very day, and
the church is five miles away."
Then Robin made haste to dress himself as a harper; and in the afternoon
he stood in the door of the church.
"Who are you?" said the bishop, "and what are you doing here?"
"I am a bold harper," said Robin, "the best in the north country."
"I am glad you have come," said the bishop kindly. "There is no music that
I like so well as that of the harp. Come in, and play for us."
"I will go in," said Robin Hood; "but I will not give you any music until
I see the bride and bride-groom."
Just then an old man came in. He was dressed in rich clothing, but was bent
with age, and was feeble and gray. By his side walked a fair young girl.
Her cheeks were very pale, and her eyes were full of tears.
"This is no match," said Robin. "Let the bride choose for herself."
Then he put his horn to his lips, and blew three times. The very next minute,
four and twenty men, all dressed in green, and carrying long bows in their
hands, came running across the fields.  And as they marched into the church,
all in a row, the foremost among them was Allin-a-Dale.
"Now whom do you choose?" said Robin to the maiden.
"I choose Allin-a-Dale," she said blushing.
"And Allin-a-Dale you shall have," said Robin; "and he that takes you from
Allin-a-Dale shall find that he has Robin Hood to deal with."
And so the fair maiden and Allin-a-Dale were married then and there, and
the rich old man went home in a great rage.
"And thus having ended this merry wedding,
The bride looked like a queen:
And so they returned to the merry green wood,
Amongst the leaves so green."

1) 生詞自查。
2) 故事概述﹕Robin Hood is England's most famous outlaw, who robbed from
the rich to give to the poor. In Robin Hood's long history, his story has
appeared in many forms, from verse to film. His path to outlawry, friends
and enemies have been just as diverse.
Robin Hood was a Saxon noble, living near the castle of Nottingham. By various
means he was forced into a life of banditry, using his cunning and skill-at-arms
to relieve bishops, nobles, and servants of the king of gold and jewels
levied from the oppressed peasants. Robin collected a band of supporters,
his "Merry Men" around him, dressed in green. The members that never cease
to appear are Robin himself, Maid Marian, Little John, and Friar Tuck. Along
with being a middle-ages Communist, Robin spends his time fighting the cruel
Sheriff of Nottingham, and, ultimately, King John, who had usurped the throne
from the rightful King, Richard I.
3) 俠盜魯賓遜是英國古老的傳說故事﹐有許多不同的版本﹐被拍成電影。這些故事
我小時候就知道。學英文的人應該也可以知道一下﹐可以作為知識性的泛讀材料。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第38課

先讀課文﹕
Ivanhoe 撒克遜劫後英雄傳
by Sir Walter Scott

Chapter 1
In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river
Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater
part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and
the pleasant town of Doncaster. The remains of this extensive wood are still
to be seen at the noble seats of Wentworth, of Warncliffe Park, and around
Rotherham. Here haunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley; here were
fought many of the most desperate battles during the Civil Wars of the Roses;
[1] and here also flourished in ancient
times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so
popular in English song. Such being our chief scene, the date of our story
refers to a period towards the end of the reign of Richard I., when his
return from his long captivity had become an event rather wished than hoped
for by his despairing subjects, who were in the meantime subjected to every
species of subordinate oppression. The nobles, whose power had become exorbitant
during the reign of Stephen, and whom the prudence of Henry the Second had
scarce
reduced to some degree of subjection to the crown, had now resumed their
ancient license in its utmost extent; despising the feeble interference
of the English Council of State, fortifying
their castles, increasing the number of their dependants, reducing all around
them to a state of vassalage, and striving by every means in their power,
to place themselves each at the head of such forces as might enable him
to make a figure in the national convulsions which appeared to be impending.
        The situation of the inferior gentry, or Franklins, as they were called,
who, by the law and spirit of the English constitution, were entitled to
hold themselves independent of feudal tyranny, became now unusually precarious.
If, as was most generally the case, they placed themselves under the protection
of any of the petty kings in their vicinity, accepted of feudal offices
in his household, or bound themselves by mutual treaties of alliance and
protection, to support him in his enterprises, they might indeed purchase
temporary repose; but it must be with the sacrifice of that independence
which was so dear to every English bosom, and at the certain hazard of being
involved as a party in whatever rash expedition the ambition of their protector
might lead him to undertake. On the other hand, such and so multiplied were
the means of vexation and oppression possessed by the great Barons, that
they never wanted the pretext, and seldom the will, to harass and pursue,
even to the very edge of destruction, any
of their less powerful neighbours, who attempted to separate themselves
from their authority, and to trust for their protection, during the dangers
of the times, to their own inoffensive conduct, and to the laws of the land.
        A circumstance which greatly tended to enhance the tyranny of the nobility,
and the sufferings of the inferior classes, arose from the consequences
of the Conquest by Duke William of Normandy. [2] Four generations had not
sufficed to blend the hostile blood of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons, or
to unite, by common language and mutual interests, two hostile races, one
of which still felt the elation of triumph, while the other groaned under
all the
consequences of defeat. The power had been completely placed in the hands
of the Norman nobility, by the event of the battle of Hastings, and it had
been used, as our histories assure us, with no moderate hand. The whole
race of Saxon princes and nobles had been extirpated or disinherited, with
few or no exceptions; nor were the numbers great who possessed land in the
country of their fathers, even as proprietors of the second, or of yet inferior
classes. The royal policy had long been to weaken, by every means, legal
or illegal, the strength of a part of the population which was justly considered
as nourishing the most inveterate antipathy to their victor. All the monarchs
of the Norman race had shown the most marked predilection for their Norman
subjects; the laws of the chase, and many others equally unknown to the milder
and more free spirit of the Saxon constitution, had been fixed upon the
necks of the subjugated inhabitants, to add weight, as it were, to the feudal
chains with which they were loaded. At court, and in the castles of the
great nobles, where the pomp and state of a court was emulated, Norman-French
was the only language employed; in courts of law, the pleadings and
judgments were delivered in the same tongue. In short, French was the language
of honour, of chivalry, and even of justice, while the far more manly and
expressive Anglo-Saxon was abandoned to the use of rustics and hinds, who
knew no other. Still, however, the necessary intercourse between the lords
of the soil, and those oppressed inferior beings by whom that soil was cultivated,
occasioned the gradual formation of a dialect, compounded betwixt the French
and the Anglo-Saxon, in which they could render themselves mutually intelligible
to each other; and from this necessity arose by degrees the structure of
our present English language, in which the speech of the victors and the
vanquished have been so happily blended together; and which has since been
so richly improved by importations from the classical
languages, and from those spoken by the southern nations of Europe.
        This state of things I have thought it necessary to premise for the information
of the general reader, who might be apt to forget, that, although no great
historical events, such as war or insurrection, mark the existence of the
Anglo-Saxons as a separate people subsequent to the reign of William the
Second; yet the great national distinctions betwixt them and their
conquerors, the recollection of what they had formerly been, and to what
they were now reduced, continued down to the reign of Edward the Third,
to keep open the wounds which the Conquest had inflicted, and to maintain
a line of separation betwixt the descendants of the victor Normans and the
vanquished Saxons.
        The sun was setting upon one of the rich grassy glades of that forest,
which we have mentioned in the beginning of the chapter. Hundreds of broad-headed,
short-stemmed, wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed perhaps the stately
march of the Roman soldiery, flung their gnarled arms over a thick carpet
of the most delicious green sward; in some places they were intermingled
with beeches, hollies, and copsewood of various descriptions, so closely
as totally to intercept the level beams of the sinking sun; in others they
receded from each other, forming those long sweeping vistas, in the intricacy
of which the eye delights to
lose itself, while imagination considers them as the paths to yet wilder
scenes of silvan solitude. Here the red rays of the sun shot a broken and
discoloured light, that partially hung upon the shattered boughs and mossy
trunks of the trees, and there they illuminated in brilliant patches the
portions of turf to which they made their way. A considerable open space,
in the midst of this glade, seemed formerly to have been dedicated to the
rites of Druidical superstition; for, on the summit of a hillock, so regular
as to seem artificial, there still remained part of a circle of rough unhewn
stones, of large dimensions. Seven stood upright; the rest had been dislodged
from their places, probably by the zeal of some convert to Christianity,
and lay, some prostrate near their former site, and others on the side of
the hill. One large stone only had found its way to the bottom, and in stopping
the course of a small brook, which glided smoothly round the foot of the
eminence, gave, by its opposition, a feeble voice of murmur to the placid
and elsewhere silent streamlet.
        The human figures which completed this landscape, were in number two, partaking,
in their dress and appearance, of that wild and rustic character, which
belonged to the woodlands of the West-Riding of Yorkshire at that early
period. The eldest of these men had a stern, savage, and wild aspect. His
garment was of the simplest form imaginable, being a close jacket with sleeves,
composed of the tanned skin of some animal, on which the hair had been originally
left, but which had been worn of in so many places, that it would have been
difficult to distinguish from the patches that remained, to what creature
the fur had belonged. This primeval vestment reached from the throat to
the knees, and served at once all the usual purposes of body-clothing; there
was no wider opening at the collar, than was necessary to admit the passage
of the head, from which it may be inferred, that it was put on by slipping
it over the head and shoulders, in the manner of a modern shirt, or ancient
hauberk. Sandals, bound with thongs made of boars' hide, protected the feet,
and a roll of thin leather was twined artificially round the legs, and,
ascending above the calf, left the knees bare, like those of a Scottish
Highlander. To make the jacket sit yet more close to the body, it was gathered
at the middle by a broad leathern belt, secured by a brass buckle; to one
side of which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the other a ram's horn,
accoutred with a mouthpiece, for the purpose of blowing. In the same belt
was stuck one of those long, broad, sharp-pointed, and two-edged knives,
with a buck's-horn handle, which were fabricated in the neighbourhood, and
bore even at this early period the name of a Sheffield whittle. The man
had no covering upon his head, which was only defended by his own thick
hair, matted and twisted together, and scorched by the influence of the
sun into a rusty dark-red colour, forming a contrast with the overgrown beard
upon his cheeks, which was rather of a yellow or amber hue. One part of his
dress only remains, but it is too remarkable to be suppressed; it was a
brass ring, resembling a dog's collar, but without any opening, and soldered
fast round his neck, so loose as to form no impediment to his breathing,
yet so tight as to be incapable of being removed, excepting by the use of
the file. On this singular gorget was engraved, in Saxon characters, an inscription
of the following purport:---"Gurth, the son of Beowulph, is the born thrall
of Cedric of Rotherwood."
        Beside the swine-herd, for such was Gurth's occupation, was seated, upon
one of the fallen Druidical monuments, a person about ten years younger
in appearance, and whose dress, though resembling his companion's in form,
was of better materials, and of a more fantastic appearance. His jacket
had been stained of a bright purple hue, upon which there had been some
attempt to paint grotesque ornaments in different colours. To the jacket
he added a short cloak, which scarcely reached half way down his thigh;
it was of crimson cloth, though a good deal soiled, lined with bright yellow;
and as he could transfer it from one shoulder to the other, or at his pleasure
draw it all around him, its width, contrasted with its want of longitude,
formed a fantastic piece of drapery. He had thin silver bracelets upon his
arms, and on his neck a collar of the same metal bearing the inscription,
"Wamba, the son of Witless, is the thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood." 太長。
第一章只取一半。

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 -- 21 September
1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular
throughout much of the world during his time. Scott was the first English-language
author to have a truly international career in his lifetime, with many contemporary
readers in Europe, Australia, and North America. His novels and poetry are
still read, and many of his works remain classics of both English-language
literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob
Roy, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride
of Lammermoor.
3) 本書介紹﹕Ivanhoe is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott published
in 1820, and set in 12th-century England. Ivanhoe is sometimes credited
for increasing interest in Romanticism and Medievalism。
Ivanhoe is the story of one of the remaining Saxon noble families at a time
when the English nobility was overwhelmingly Norman. It follows the Saxon
protagonist, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who is out of favour with his father for
his allegiance to the Norman king, Richard I of England. The story is set
in 1194, after the failure of the Third Crusade, when many of the Crusaders
were still returning to Europe. King Richard, who had been captured by the
Duke of Austria on his way back, was believed to still be in the arms of
his captors. The legendary Robin Hood, initially under the name of Locksley,
is also a character in the story, as are his "merry men." The character
that Scott gave to Robin Hood in Ivanhoe helped shape the modern notion of
this figure as a cheery noble outlaw.
Other major characters include Ivanhoe's intractable father, Cedric, one
of the few remaining Saxon lords; various Knights Templar and churchmen;
the loyal serfs Gurth the swineherd and the jester Wamba, whose observations
punctuate much of the action; and the Jewish moneylender, Isaac of York,
who is equally passionate about money and his daughter, Rebecca. The book
was written and published during a period of increasing struggle for emancipation
of the Jews in England, and there are frequent references to injustice against
them.
4) 註解﹕[1] Civil Wars of the Roses玫瑰戰爭﹕a series of dynastic civil
wars fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House
of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York (whose heraldic symbols
were the "red" and the "white" rose, respectively) for the throne of England.
They were fought in several sporadic episodes between 1455 and 1485, although
there was related fighting both before and after this period. The final victory
went to a relatively remote Lancastrian claimant, Henry Tudor, who defeated
the last Yorkist king Richard III and married Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth
of York to unite the two houses. The House of Tudor subsequently ruled England
and Wales for 117 years.  [2] Duke William of Normandy﹕William I (circa
1028 -- 9 September 1087), also known as William the Conqueror or William
the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until
his death in 1087. Descended from Viking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy
since 1035 under the name of William II. In the 1050s and early 1060s William
became a contender for the throne of England with the powerful English earl
Harold Godwinson. After building a large fleet, William invaded England
in September 1066 and decisively defeated and killed Harold at the Battle
of Hastings on 14 October 1066. Normandy 在法國﹐二戰中美軍登陸歐洲之處。

5) Scott的Ivanhoe是本描寫英國古代歷史的小說名著。“撒克遜劫後英雄傳”是以
前翻譯的書名﹐不知現在有否重譯過。學英文者對這本書也應該讀一下。實際是該
書寫的是騎士美女愛情故事。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第39課

先讀課文﹕
The Moonstone 月亮鑽石
by Wilkie Collins

Prologue﹕THE STORMING OF SERINGAPATAM (1799)
----Extracted from a Family Paper

I address these lines--written in India--to my relatives in England. My
object is to explain the motive which has induced me to refuse the right
hand of friendship to my cousin, John Herncastle. The reserve which I have
hitherto maintained in this matter has been misinterpreted
by members of my family whose good opinion I cannot consent to forfeit.
I request them to suspend their decision until they have read my narrative.
And I declare, on my word of honour, that what I am now about to write is,
strictly and literally, the truth. The private difference between my cousin
and me took its rise in a great public event in which we were both concerned-
-the storming of Seringapatam, under General Baird, on the 4th of May, 1799.
In order that the circumstances may be clearly understood, I must revert
for a moment to the period before the assault, and to the stories current
in our camp of the treasure in jewels and gold stored up in the Palace of
Seringapatam.
One of the wildest of these stories related to a Yellow Diamond--a famous
gem in the native annals of India. The earliest known traditions describe
the stone as having been set in the forehead of the four-handed Indian god
who typifies the Moon. Partly from its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition
which represented it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adorned,
and growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon,
it
first gained the name by which it continues to be known in India to this
day--the name of THE MOONSTONE. A similar superstition was once prevalent,
as I have heard, in ancient Greece and Rome; not applying, however (as in
India), to a diamond devoted to the service of a god, but to a semi-transparent
stone of the inferior order of gems, supposed to be affected by the lunar
influences--the moon, in this latter case also, giving the name by which
the stone is still known to collectors in our own time. The adventures of
the Yellow Diamond begin with the eleventh century of the Christian era.

1) 生詞自查。
作者介紹﹕William Wilkie Collins (8 January 1824 -- 23 September 1889) was
an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was very
popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short
stories, 14 plays, and over 100 non-fiction pieces. His best-known works
are The Woman in White, The Moonstone, Armadale and No Name.
Collins was a lifelong friend of Charles Dickens. A number of Collins's
works were first published in Dickens's journals All the Year Round and
Household Words. The two collaborated on several dramatic and fictional
works, and some of Collins's plays were performed by Dickens's acting company.

3) 本書介紹﹕The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British
epistolary novel, generally considered the first detective novel in the
English language. The story was originally serialized in Charles Dickens'
magazine All the Year Round. The Moonstone and The Woman in White are considered
Wilkie Collins' best novels.
4) 內容簡介﹕Rachel Verinder, a young Englishwoman, inherits a large Indian
diamond on her eighteenth birthday. It is a legacy from her uncle, a corrupt
British army officer who served in India. The diamond is of great religious
significance as well as being extremely valuable, and three Hindu priests
have dedicated their lives to recovering it. Rachel's eighteenth birthday
is celebrated with a large party, whose guests include her cousin Franklin
Blake. She wears the Moonstone on her dress that evening for all to see,
including some Indian jugglers who have called at the house. Later that
night, the diamond is stolen from Rachel's bedroom, and a period of turmoil,
unhappiness, misunderstandings and ill-luck ensues. The complex plot traces
the subsequent efforts to explain the theft, identify the thief, trace the
stone and recover it.
5) “月亮鑽石”也是一本世界名著﹐被認為是英文寫作中第一本偵探小說。中國讀
者對這本書的名稱一定不陌生。寫作可以讀一下原文了。