英语短篇美文

英语短篇美文

Stars on a Snowy Night

The thermometer had dropped to 18 degrees below zero, but still chose to sleep in the porch as usual. In the evening, the most familiar sight to me would be stars in the sky. Though they were a mere sprinkle of twinkling dots, yet I had become so accustomed to them that their occasional absence would bring me loneliness and ennui.

It had been snowing all night, not a single star in sight. My roommate and I, each wrapped in a quilt, were seated far apart in a different corner of the porch, facing each other and chatting away.

She exclaimed pointing to something afar, “Look, Venus in rising!” I looked up and saw nothing but a lamp round the bend in a mountain path. I beamed and said pointing to a tiny lamplight on the opposite mountain, “It’s Jupiter over there!”

More and more lights came into sight as we kept pointing here and there. Lights from hurricane lamps flickering about in the pine forest created the scene of a star-studded sky. With the distinction between sky and forest obscured by snowflakes, the numerous lamp-lights now easily passed for as many stars.

Completely lost in a make-believe world, I seemed to see all the lamplights drifting from the ground. With the illusory stars hanging still overhead, I was spared the effort of tracing their positions when I woke up from my dreams in the dead of night.

Thus I found consolation even on a lonely snowy night !

Frankness

You must study to be frank with the world:frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do, on every occasion. If a friend asks a favor, you should grant it, if it is reasonable; if not, tell him plainly why you cannot. You would wrong him and wrong yourself by equivocation of any kind.

Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one. The man who requires you to do so is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly but firmly with all your classmates. You will find it the policy which wears best. Above all, do not appear to others what you are not.

If you have any fault to find with any one, tell him, not others, of what you complain. There is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to do one thing before a man's face and another behind his back. We should say and do nothing to the injury of any one. It is not only a matter of principle, but also

the path of peace and hornor.

By Robert E. Lee

The Joys of Writing

The fortunate people in the world―the only reallyfortunate people in the world, in my mind, are those whose work is also their pleasure. The class is not a large one, not nearly so large as it is often represented to be; and authors are perhaps one of the most important elements in its composition.They enjoy in this respect at least a real harmony of life.

To my mind, to be able to make your work your pleasure is the one class distinction in the world worth striving for; and I do not wonder that others are inclined to envy those happy human beings who find their livelihood in the gay effusions of their fancy, to whom every hour of labour is an hour of enjoyment, to whom repose―however necessary―is a tiresome interlude. And even a holiday is almost deprivation.

Whether a man writes well or ill, has much to say or little, if he cares aboutwriting at all, he will appreciate the pleasures of composition. To sit at one's table on a sunny morning, with four clear hours of uninterruptible security, plenty of nice white paper, and a Squeezer pen―that is true happiness.

The complete absorption of the mind upon an agreeable occupation―what more is there than that to desire? What does it matter what happens outside？The House of Commons may do what it likes, and so may the House of Lords. The heathen may rage furiously in every part of the globe.

The bottom may be knocked clean out of the American market. Consols may fall and suffragettes may rise. Nevermind, for four hours, at any rate, we will withdraw ourselves from a common, ill-governed, and disorderly world, and with the key of fancy unlock that cupboard where all the good things of the infinite are put away.

by Winston Churchill