英语美文摘抄

　　英语美文摘抄（一）

　　Antique shops exert a peculiar fascination on a great many people. The more expensive kind of antique shop where rare objects are beautifully displayed in glass cases to keep them free from dust is usually a forbidding place. But no one has to muster up courage to enter a less pretentious antique shop. There is always hope that in its labyrinth of musty, dark, disordered rooms a real rarity will be found amongst the piles of assorted junk that litter the floors.

　　No one discovers a rarity by chance. A truly dedicated searcher for art treasures must have patience, and above all, the ability to recognize the worth of something when he sees it. To do this, he must be at least as knowledgeable as the dealer. Like a scientist bent on making a discovery, he must cherish the hope that one day he will be amply rewarded.

　　My old friend, Frank Halliday, is just such a person. He has often described to me how he picked up a masterpiece for a mere 5. One Saturday morning, Frank visited an antique shop in my neighbourhood. As he had never been there before, he found a great deal to interest him. The morning passed rapidly and Frank was about to leave when he noticed a large packing-case lying on the floor. The dealer told him that it had just come in, but that he could not be bothered to open it. Frank begged him to do so and the dealer reluctantly prised it open. The contents were disappointing. Apart from an interesting-looking carved dagger, the box was full of crockery, much of it broken. Frank gently lifted the crockery out of the box and suddenly noticed a miniature Painting at the bottom of the packing-case. As its composition and line reminded him of an Italian painting he knew well, he decided to buy it. Glancing at it briefly, the dealer told him that it was worth 5. Frank could hardly conceal his excitement, for he knew that he had made a real discovery. The tiny painting proved to be an unknown masterpiece by Correggio and was worth thousands of pounds.

　　古玩店对许多人来说有一种特殊的魅力。高档一点的古玩店为了防尘，把文物漂亮地陈列在玻璃柜子里，那里往往令人望而却步。而对不太装腔作势的古玩店，无论是谁都不用壮着胆子才敢往里进。人们还常常有希望在发霉、阴暗、杂乱无章、迷宫般的店堂里，从杂乱地摆放在地面上的、一堆堆各式各样的破烂货里找到一件稀世珍品。

　　无论是谁都不会一下子就发现一件珍品。一个到处找便宜的人必须具有耐心，而且最重要的是看到珍品时要有鉴别珍品的能力。要做到这一点，他至少要像古董商一样懂行。他必须像一个专心致志进行探索的科学家那样抱有这样的希望，即终有一天，他的努力会取得丰硕的成果。

　　我的老朋友弗兰克。哈利戴正是这样一个人。他多次向我详细讲他如何只花50英镑便买到一位名家的杰作。一个星期六的上午，弗兰克去了我家附近的一家古玩店。由于他从未去过那儿，结果他发现许多有趣的东西。上午很快过去了，弗兰克正准备离去，突然看见地板上放着一只体积很大的货箱。古董商告诉他那只货箱刚到不久，但他嫌麻烦不想把它打开。经弗兰克恳求，古董商才勉强把货箱撬开了。箱内东西令人失望。除了一柄式样别致、雕有花纹的匕首外，货箱内装满陶器，而且大部分都已破碎裂。弗兰克轻轻地把陶器拿出箱子，突然发现在箱底有一幅微型画，画面构图与纸条使他想起一幅他所熟悉的意大利画，于是他决定将画买了下来。古董商漫不经心看了一眼那幅画，告诉弗兰克那画值50英镑。弗兰克几乎无法掩饰自己兴奋的心情，因为他明白自己发现了一件珍品。那幅不大的画原来是柯勒乔的一幅未被发现的杰作，价值几十万英镑。

英语美文摘抄（二）

　　Not until you realize that life itself is a beautiful thing will you really start to live. Although living combines tragedy with splendor, life is beautiful and even tragedies reflect something engaging. If you were simply to live, do more than that; live beautifully.

　　Through the sea of darkness, hope is the light that brings us comfort, faith, and reassurance. It guides our way if we are lost and gives us a foothold on our fears. The moment we lose hope is the moment we surrender our will to live. We live in a world that is disintegrating into a vicious hatred, where hope is needed more than ever but cannot be discerned. Finding that is rare while the world lives in fear, but the belief in something better, something bigger than this, is what keeps life worth living.

　　Then you hear a baby speaking her first word, you see seniors holding hands, you feel the first spring rain, or smell the pine tree at Christmas, and remember that no matter how awful it is, there is always hope. No matter how weak we are, we will always survive.

　　只有在你了解了人生的真谛后，才能真正地生活。虽然人生苦忧参半，但依旧美妙，而且即使在悲剧中也藏着迷人之处。如果你只是活着，那就再努力点吧，试着活得精彩。

　　在潮水般的黑暗之中，希望是光。它带来舒适、信仰和信心。它在我们迷失时给予指引，在我们恐惧时给予支持。而在我们放弃希望的那一刻，也就放弃了生命。我们生活的世界正瓦解成一个充满恶意和仇恨的地方，在这里我们就更需要希望，却又难以寻得。在这充满恐惧的世界里，找到希望谈何容易，但是，对更好、更有意义的人生的信仰才会让生命有意义。

　　然后，你听到婴儿说出第一个字、看到老年夫妇挽起对方的手、感受到第一场春雨或是闻到圣诞节松树的味道，你要明白，无论现在多么糟糕，希望永在；无论我们多么脆弱，我们终将是人生的幸存者。

英语美文摘抄（三）

　　The word justice is usually associated with courts of law. We might say that justice has been done when a man’s innocence or guilt has been proved beyond doubt. Justice is part of the complex machinery of the law. Those who seek it, undertake an arduous journey and can never be sure that they will find it. Judges, however wise or eminent, are human and can make mistakes.

　　There are rare instances when justice almost ceases to be an abstract conception. Reward or punishment are out quite independent of human interference. At such times, justice acts like a living force. When we use a phrase like it serves him right, we are, in part, admitting that a certain set of circumstances has enabled justice to act of its own accord.

　　When a thief was caught on the premises of a large fur store one morning, the shop assistants must have found it impossible to resist the temptation to say ‘it serves him right’. The shop was an old-fashioned one with many large, disused fireplaces and tall, narrow chimneys. Towards midday, a girl heard a muffled cry coming from behind one of the walls. As the cry was repeated several times, she ran to tell the manager who promptly rang up the fire-brigade. The cry had certainly come from one of the chimneys, but as there were so many of them, the firemen could not be certain which one it was. They located the right chimney by tapping at the walls and listening for the man’s cries. After chipping through a wall which was eighteen inches thick, they found that a man had been trapped in the chimney. As it was extremely narrow, the man was unable to move, but the firemen were eventually able to free him by cutting a huge hole in the wall. The sorry-looking, blackened figure that emerged, at once admitted that he had tried to break into the shop during the night but had got stuck in the chimney. He had been there for nearly ten hours. Justice had been done even before the man was handed over to the police.

　　正义这个词常常是同法庭连在一起的。当某人被证据确凿地证明无罪的时候，我们也许会说正义得到了伸张。正义是复杂的法律机器组成部分。那些寻求正义的人走的是一条崎岖的道路，从来没有把握他们最终将到正义。法官无论如何聪明与有名，毕竟也是人，也会出差错的。

　　在个别情况下，正义不再是一种抽象概念。奖惩的实施是不受人意志支配的。在这种时候，正义像一种有生命的力量行使其职能。当我们说他罪有应得这句话的时候，我们部分承认了某种特定的环境使得正义自动地起了作用。

　　一天上午，当一个小偷在一家大型珠宝店里被人抓住的时候，店员一定会忍不住说：他罪有应得。那是一座老式的、经过改造的房子，店里有许多废置不用的大壁炉和又高又窄的烟囱。快到中午的时候，一个女售货员听见从一堵墙里传出一种闷声闷气的叫声。由于这种喊叫声重复了几次，她跑去报告经理，经理当即给消防队挂了电话。喊叫声肯定是从烟囱里传出来的，然而，因为烟囱太多，消防队员无法确定到底是哪一个。他们通过叫击烟囱倾叫声而确定传出声音的那个烟囱。他们凿透了18英寸厚的墙壁，发现有个人卡在烟囱里。由于烟囱太窄，那人无法动弹。消防队员在墙上挖了个大洞，才终于把他解救出来。那个看来满脸沮丧、浑身漆黑的家伙从烟囱里一出来，就承认头天夜里他企图到店里行窍，但让烟囱卡住了。他已经在烟囱里被困了将近10个小时。甚至在那人还没被送交给警察之前，正义就已得到了伸张。