书城外语魅力英文ⅵ:幸福从心开始
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第19章 生命如花般绽放 (1)

The Life Blooms just Like Flowers

人生好似一个包裹,这个包裹里藏着快乐与悲伤、成功与失败,希望与绝望。人生也是一个学习的过程。那些经历给我们上了全新的课,让我们变得更好。随着每一天的过去,我们学会了处理各种各样的问题。

Dance With Me和我跳舞吧

When we’re young and we dream of love and fulfillment, we think perhaps of moon-drenched Parisian nights or walks along the beach at sunset.

No one tells us that the greatest moments of a lifetime are fleeting, unplanned and nearly always catch us off guard.

Not long ago, as I was reading a bedtime story to my seven-year-old daughter, Annie, I became aware of her focused gaze. She was starring at me with a faraway, trancelike expression. Apparently, completing The Tale of Samuel Whiskers was not as important as we first thought.

I asked what she was thinking about.

“Mommy,” she whispered, “I just can’t stop looking at your pretty face.”

I almost dissolved on the spot.

Little did she know how many trying moments the glow of her sincerely loving statement would carry me through over the following years.

Not long after, I took my four-year-old son to an elegant department store, where the melodic notes of a classic love song drew us toward a tuxedoed musician playing a grand piano. Sam and I sat down on a marble bench nearby, and he seemed as transfixed by the lilting theme as I was.

I didn’t realize that Sam had stood up next to me until he turned, took my face in his little hands and said, “Dance with me.”

If only those women strolling under the Paris moon knew the joy of such an invitation made by a round-cheeked boy with baby teeth. Although shoppers openly chuckled, grinned and pointed at us as we glided and whirled around the open atrium, I would not have traded a dance with such a charming young gentleman if I’d been offered the universe.

年轻时幻想爱与满足时,我们脑海中首先闪现的意象,不是月光浸润下巴黎街头的夜色,就是夕阳映照下海滩上的散步。

没有人告诉我们,一生中那些最动人的时刻,常常在我们未曾防备、猝不及防之时突然闪现。

不久前的一天晚上,临睡前我给7岁的女儿安妮读故事,发现她眼睛直愣愣地盯着我,一副恍惚、出神的样子。显然,此时塞缪尔·惠斯克斯的故事已退居其次了。

我问她在想什么。

“妈妈,”她悄声地说,“我忍不住想看你的脸,好漂亮。”

那一刻,我简直就要被熔化了。

她不会知道,她这纯稚的话语,在我后来的岁月里激励我度过多少艰难的时光。

前不久我带4岁的儿子塞姆去一家非常高级的百货商店,大厅内飘荡的悠扬的经典情歌的旋律,把我俩都吸引到那位身着燕尾服、正在弹钢琴的音乐家的身边,我俩在旁边的大理石长椅上坐下,和我一样,塞姆似乎也被这扣人心弦的旋律打动了。

塞姆是什么时候站到我跟前的,我都没察觉。他伸出双手捧着我的脸颊,“和我跳舞吧!”

那些在月光下慢步巴黎的女人,能享受到接受一个满口乳牙、圆圆脸蛋的小男孩的邀请而共舞的快乐吗?我们滑动,我们旋转,似乎有顾客在窃笑、在私语、在指指点点,可与这么迷人的年轻绅士共舞,纵然你用整个世界来与我交换,我亦不屑。

Colours of the Sky 天空的色彩

If we look at the sky on a perfectly fine summer’s day we shall find that the blue colour is the most pure and intense overhead and when looking high up in a direction opposite to the sun. Near the horizon it is always less bright, while in the region immediately around the sun it is more or less yellow. The reason of this is that near the horizon we look through a very great thickness of the lower atmosphere, which is full of the larger dust particles reflecting white light, and this diluter the pure blue of the higher atmosphere seen beyond, And in the vicinity of the sun a good deal of the blue light is reflected back into space by the finer dust, thus giving a yellowish tinge to that which reaches us reflected chiefly from the coarse dust of the lower atmosphere. At sunset and sunrise, however, this last effect is greatly intensified, owing to the great thickness of the strata of air through which the light reaches us. The enormous amount of this dust is well shown by the fact that then only we can look full at the sun, even when the whole sky is free from clouds and there is no apparent mist. But the sun’s rays then reach us after having passed, first, through an enormous thickness of the higher strata of the air, the minute dust of which reflects most of the higher strata of the air, the minute dust of which reflects most of the blue rays away from us, leaving the complementary yellow light to pass on, Then, the somewhat coarser dust reflects the green rays, leaving a more orange-coloured light to pass on; and finally some of the yellow is reflected, leaving almost pure red. But owing to the constant presence of air currents, arranging both the dust and vapour in strata of varying extent and density ,and of high or low clouds which both absorb and reflect the light in varying degrees, we see produced all those wondrous combinations of tints and those gorgeous ever-changing colours which are a constant source of admiration and delight to all who have the advantage of an uninterrupted view to the west and who are accustomed to watch for those not infrequent exhibitions of nature’s kaleidoscopic colour painting. With every change in the altitude of the sun the display changes its character; and most of all when it has sunk below the horizon, and owing to the more favourable angles a larger quantity of the coloured light is reflected toward us, especially when there is a certain amount of cloud is this case. These, so long as the sun was above the horizon, intercepted much of the light and colour, but when the great luminary has passed away from our direct vision, his light shines more directly on the under sides of all the clouds and air strata of different densities; a new and more brilliant light flushes the western sky, and a display of gorgeous ever-changing tints occurs which are at once the delight of the beholder and the despair of the artist. And all this unsurpassable glory we owe to—dust!