外国名著经典段落节选英文
《飘》是美国著名作家玛格丽特·米切尔的代表作品,该小说一经问世便备受关注,成为了美国文学史上最畅销的小说之一。下面是小编带来的外国名著经典段落节选英文,欢迎阅读!
外国名著经典段落节选英文精选
If the educational equipment which Gerald brought to America was scant, he did not even know it. Nor would he have cared if he had been told. His mother had taught him to read and to write a clear hand. He was adept at ciphering. And there his book knowledge stopped. The only Latin he knew was the responses of the Mass and the only history the manifold wrongs of Ireland. He knew no poetry save that of Moore and no music except the songs of Ireland that had come down through the years. While he entertained the liveliest respect for those who had more book learning than he, he never felt his own lack. And what need had he of these things in a new country where the most ignorant of bogtrotters had made great fortunes? in this country which asked only that a man be strong and unafraid of work?
到美国来之前,杰拉尔德没有受过多少教育,可是他对此并不怎么有自知之明。其实,即使别人给他指出,他也不会在意。他母亲教过他读书写字。他很善于作算术题。他的书本知识就只这些。他唯一懂得的拉丁文是作弥撒时应答牧师的用语,唯一的历史知识则是爱尔兰的种种冤屈。他在诗歌方面,只知道穆尔的作品,音乐则限于历代流传下来的爱尔兰歌曲。他尽管对那些比他较有学问的人怀有敬意,可是从来也不感觉到自己的缺陷。而且,在一个新的国家,在一个连那些最愚昧的爱尔兰人也在此发了大财的国家,在一个只要求你强壮不怕干活的国家,他需要这些东西干什么呢?
Nor did James and Andrew, who took him into their store in Savannah, regret his lack of education. His clear hand, his accurate figures and his shrewd ability in bargaining won their respect, where a knowledge of literature and a fine appreciation of music, had young Geraldpossessed them, would have moved them to snorts of contempt. America, in the early years of the century, had been kind to the Irish. James and Andrew, who had begun by haulinggoods in covered wagons from Savannah to Georgia’s inland towns, had prospered into a store of their own, and Gerald prospered with them.
詹姆斯和安德鲁并不认为自己很少受教育是一桩憾事。他们收留杰拉尔德进了他们的萨凡纳的商店。他的字迹清楚,算数算得准确,与顾客谈起生意来也很精明,因此赢得了两位哥哥的期重;至于文学知识和欣赏音乐的修养,年轻的杰拉尔德即使具有,也只会引其他们的嗤笑。在本世纪初,美国对爱尔兰人还很和气,詹姆斯和安德鲁开始时用帆布篷车从萨凡纳往佐治亚的内地城镇运送货物,后来赚了钱便自己开店,杰拉尔德也就跟着他们发迹了。
He liked the South, and he soon became, in his own opinion, a Southerner. There was much about the South—and Southerners—that he would never comprehend; but, with thewholeheartedness that was his nature, he adopted its ideas and customs, as he understood them, for his own—poker and horse racing, red-hot politics and the code duello, States’ Rights and damnation to all Yankees, slavery and King Cotton, contempt for white trash andexaggerated courtesy to women. He even learned to chew tobacco. There was no need for him to acquire a good head for whisky, he had been born with one.
他喜欢南方,并且自己以为很快就成了南方人。的确,关于南方和南方人,有许多东西是他永远也不会理解的,不过,南方人的有些思想习惯,如玩扑克,赛马,争论政治和举行决斗,争取州权和咒骂北方佬,维护奴隶制和棉花至上主义,轻视下流白人和过分讨好妇女,等等,他一旦理解便全心全意地接受,并成为他自己的了。他甚至学会了咀嚼烟叶。至于喝威士忌的本领,他生来就已经具备,那是不用学的。
外国名著经典段落节选英文阅读
But Gerald remained Gerald. His habits of living and his ideas changed, but his manners hewould not change, even had he been able to change them. He admired the drawling eleganceof the wealthy rice and cotton planters, who rode into Savannah from their moss-hungkingdoms, mounted on thoroughbred horses and followed by the carriages of their equallyelegant ladies and the wagons of their slaves. But Gerald could never attain elegance. Theirlazy, blurred voices fell pleasantly on his ears, but his own brisk brogue clung to his tongue.He liked the casual grace with which they conducted affairs of importance, risking a fortune, aplantation or a slave on the turn of a card and writing off their losses with careless goodhumor and no more ado than when they scattered pennies to pickaninnies.
然而,杰拉尔德还是杰拉尔德。他的生活习惯和思想变了,但他不愿改变自己的态度,即使他能够改变。他羡慕那种稻米棉花的富裕地主,羡慕他们慢条斯理,温文尔雅地骑着纯种马,后面是载着他们文质彬彬的太太们马车和奴隶们的大车,从他们的古旧王国向萨凡纳迤逦而来。可是杰拉尔德永远也学不会文雅。他们那种懒洋洋的含糊不清的声音,他沉得特别悦耳,但他们自己那轻快的土腔却总是吊在舌头上摆脱不了。他们处理重大事务时,在一张牌上赌押一笔财产、一个农场或一个奴隶时,以及像向黑人孩子撒钱币仅的将他们的损失惬意地轻轻勾销时,那种满不在乎地神气是他十分喜爱的。
But Gerald had known poverty, and he could never learn to lose money with good humor orgood grace. They were a pleasant race, these coastal Georgians, with their soft-voiced, quickrages and their charming inconsistencies, and Gerald liked them. But there was a brisk andrestless vitality about the young Irishman, fresh from a country where winds blew wet andchill, where misty swamps held no fevers, that set him apart from these indolent gentle-folkof semi-tropical weather and malarial marshes.
然而杰拉尔德已经懂得什么叫贫穷,因此永远学不会惬意而体面地输钱。他们是个快乐的民族,这些海滨佐治亚人,声音柔和,容易生气,有时前后矛盾得十分可爱,所以杰拉尔德喜欢他们。不过,这位年轻的爱尔兰人身上充满了活泼好动的生机,他是刚刚从一个风冷雾温但多雾的沼泽不产生热病的因家出来的,这便把他同这些出生亚热带气候和瘴气温地中的懒惰绅士们截然分开了。
外国名著经典段落节选英文学习
From them he learned what he found useful, and the rest he dismissed. He found poker themost useful of all Southern customs, poker and a steady head for whisky; and it was hisnatural aptitude for cards and amber liquor that brought to Gerald two of his three mostprized possessions, his valet and his plantation. The other was his wife, and he could onlyattribute her to the mysterious kindness of God.
从他们那里他学到了他发现有用的东西,其余的便拒绝了。他发现玩扑克牌是所有的南方习俗中最有用的,只要会打扑克,加上一个喝威士忌的海量,就行了。玩牌和喝酒是杰拉尔德的天生癖性,给他带来了平生三样最受赞赏的财富中的两位,即他的管家和他的农常另一样便是他的妻子,他只能把她看作是上帝的神奇赐予了
The, valet. Pork by name, shining black, dignified and trained in all the arts of sartorialelegance, was the result of an all-night poker game with a planter from St. Simons Island,whose courage in a bluff equaled Gerald’s but whose head for New Orleans rum did not. ThoughPork’s former owner later offered to buy him back at twice his value, Gerald obstinatelyrefused, for the possession of his first slave, and that slave the “best damn valet on theCoast,” was the first step upward toward his heart’s desire, Gerald wanted to be a slave ownerand a landed gentleman.
他的管家叫波克,举止庄严,黑得又光又亮,且有全副出色的裁缝手艺,是他打了个通宵的扑克牌从一位圣·西蒙斯岛的地主手中赢来的。那个地主在敢于虚张声势方面与杰拉尔德不相上下,可是喝起新奥尔良朗姆酒来就不行了。尽管波克原先的主人后来要求以双倍的价钱把他买回去,杰拉尔德却断然地拒绝了,因为这是他占有的第一个奴隶,而且绝对是"海滨最好的管家",称得上是他实现平生渴望的好开端,怎么能放弃呀?杰拉尔德一心一意要当奴隶主和拥有地主的上等人呢。