共十篇

1. The First Snow

The first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs on the living, on the graves of the dead! All white save the river, that marked its course be a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless tress, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacies of their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion! Every sound was muffled, every noise changed to something soft and musical. No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh-bell, beating as swift and merrily as the hearts of children.

From Kavanagh

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

2. Reading Good Books

Devote some of your leisure, I repeat, to cultivating a love of reading good books. Fortunate indeed are those who contrive to make themselves genuine book-lovers. For book lovers have some noteworthy advantages over other people. They need never know lonely hours so long as they have books around them, and the better the books the more delightful the company. From good books, moreover, they draw much besides entertainment. They gain mental food such as few companions can supply. Even while resting from their labors they are, through the books they read, equipping themselves to perform those labors more efficiently. This albeit they may not be deliberately reading to improve their mind. All unconsciously the ideas they derive from the printed paged are stored up, to be worked over by the imagination for future profit.

From Self-Development

By Henry Addington Bruce

 

3. On Etiquette

Etiquette to society is what apparel is to the individual. Without apparel men would go in shameful nudity which would surely lead to the corruption of morals; and without etiquette society would be in a pitiable state and the necessary intercourse between its members would be interfered with by needless offences and troubles. If society were a train, the etiquette would be the rails along which only the train could rumble forth; if society were a state coach, the etiquette would be the wheels and axis on which only the coach could roll forward. The lack of proprieties would make the most intimate friends turns to be the most decided enemies and the friendly or allied countries declare war against each other. We can find many examples in the history of mankind. Therefore I advise you to stand on ceremony before anyone else and to take pains not to do anything against etiquette lest you give offences or make enemies.

by William Hazlitt

 

4. An Important Aspect of College Life

It is perfectly possible to organize the life of our colleges in such a way that students and teachers alike will take part in it; in such a way that a perfectly natural daily intercourse will be established between them; and it is only by such an organization that they can be given real vitality as places of serious training, be made communities in which youngsters will come fully to realize how interesting intellectual work is, how vital, how important, how closely associated with all modern achievement-only by such an organization that study can be made to seem part of life itself. Lectures often seem very formal and empty things; recitations generally proved very dull and unrewarding. It is in conversation and natural intercourse with scholars chiefly that you find how lively knowledge is, how it ties into everything that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of every thing that is interesting and important, how intimate a part it is of everything that is "practical" and connected with the world. Men are not always made thoughtful by books; but they are generally made thoughtful by association with men who think.

By Woodrow Wilson

 

5. What I have lived for

　　Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

　　I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy---ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours for this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness---that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what---at last---I have found.

　　With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

　　Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always it brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

 

6. The happy door

　　Happiness is like a pebble dropped into a pool to 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 infectious 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, ridiculous; if you don’t feel happy, pretend to be!

　　It works. Before long you will find that instead of repelling people, you attract them. You discover 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.

 

7. The choice of a wife

    It is difficult for a man to manage his home affairs well while he serves in society. Therefore, every man wishes to marry a woman who will help him in conducting his domestic affairs.

    Similarly, I want to choose a frugal, gentle, learned, faithful and industrious girl for my wife. If she has such qualities, she will not waste any money in gambling, smoking and other useless things. She will console me spiritually when I am thwarted and frustrated; she will help me correct my mistake earnestly if I have made any. Thus, our life will be happy.

    Marriage is not a sport. It is the most important thing in human life. If we choose our wives carefully, our future life will be happy and succussful. If we choose our wives carelessly, our future lives will be miserable.

 

8. Think positively

    If you want to get somewhere, you have to know where you want to go and how to get there. Then just never, never, never give up.

    The secret of life isn’t what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.

    Help other people to cope with their problems and your own will be easier to cope with.

    Never use the word “impossible” seriously again. Toss it into the verbal wastebasket.

    Self-confidence is the first secret of success. So believe yourself!

    Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.

    Joy increases as you give it and diminishes as you try to keep it for yourself. In giving it, you will accumulate more joy than you ever believed possible.

    How you thnk about a problem is more important than the problem itself, so always think positively.

    Plunge head first into life; give it all you have got. And life will give all it has to you.

 

9. A Little Girl (1)

Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl. With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head. The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black. So completely absorbed was she in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation and went towards her. Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy could was singing, as if in rivalry. As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely.

 

10. A Little Girl (2)

Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat and were quivering in the sunlight. All this I did not take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face. Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed tome a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty. Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me.

From Aylwin

by Theodore Watts-Dunton