现代大学英语精读第四册课文原文.docx

1、现代大学英语精读第四册课文原文Lesson 1Thinking as a HobbyWilliam GoldingWhile I was still a boy, I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking;and that I myself could not think at all.It was the headmaster of my grammar school who first brought the subject of thinkingbefore me. He had somestatu

2、ettes in his study. They stood on a high cupboard behind his desk. One was a lady wearing nothing but a bath towel. She seemed frozen in an eternal panic lest the bath towel slip down any farther, and since she had no arms, she was in an unfortunate position to pull the towel up again. Next to her,

3、crouched the statuette of a leopard, ready to spring down at the top drawer of a filing cabinet. Beyond the leopard was a naked, muscular gentleman, who sat, looking down, with his chin on his fist and his elbow on his knee. He seemed utterly miserable.Some time later, I learned about these statuett

4、es. The headmaster had placed them where they would face delinquent children, because they symbolized to him to whole of life. The naked lady was the Venus. She was Love. She was not worried about the towel. She was just busy being beautiful. The leopard was Nature, and he was being natural. The nak

5、ed, muscular gentleman was not miserable. He was Rodins Thinker, an image of pure thought.I had better explain that I was a frequent visitor to the headmasters study, because of the latest thing I had done or left undone. As we now say, I was not integrated. I was, if anything, disintegrated. Whenev

6、er Ifound myself in a penal position before the headmasters desk, I would sink my head, and writhe one shoe over the other.The headmaster would look at me and say,What are wegoing to do with you?Well, what were they going to do with me? I would writhe my shoe some more and staredown at the worn rug.

7、Look up, boy! Cant you look up?Then I would look at the cupboard, where the naked lady was frozen in her panic and themuscular gentleman contemplated the hindquarters of the leopard in endless gloom. I had nothing to say to the headmaster. His spectacles caught the light so that you could see nothin

8、g human behind them. There was no possibility of communication. Dont you ever think at all?No, I didnt think, wasnt thinking, couldnt think - I was simply waiting in anguish for the interview to stop. Then youd better learn - hadnt you?On one occasion the headmaster leaped to his feet, reached up an

9、d put Rodins masterpiece on the desk before me. Thats what a man looks like when hes really thinking.Clearly there was something missing in me. Nature had endowed the rest of the human race with a sixth sense and left me out. But like someone born deaf, but bitterly determined to find out about soun

10、d, I watched my teachers to find outabout thought. There was Mr. Houghton. He was always telling me to think. With a modest satisfaction, he would tell that he had thought a bit himself. Then why did he spend so much time drinking? Or was there more sense in drinking than there appeared to be? But i

11、f not, and if drinking were in fact ruinous to health - and Mr. Houghton was ruined, there was no doubt about that - why was he always talking about the clean life and the virtues of fresh air?Sometimes, exalted by his own oratory, he would leap from his desk and hustle usoutside into a hideous wind

12、. Now, boys! Deep breaths! Feel it right down inside you - huge draughts of Gods good air!He would stand before us, put his hands on his waist and take a tremendous breath. You could hear the wind trapped in his chest and struggling with all the unnatural impediments. His body would reel with shock

13、and his face go white at the unaccustomed visitation. He would stagger back to his desk and collapse there, useless for the rest of the morning.Mr. Houghton was given to high-minded monologues about the good life, sexless and full of duty. Yet in the middle of one of these monologues, if a girl pass

14、ed the window, his neck would turn of itself and he would watch her out of sight. In this instance, he seemed to me ruled not by thought but by an invisible and irresistible spring in his nack.His neck was an object of great interest to me. Normally it bulged a bit over his collar.But Mr. Houghton h

15、ad fought in the First World War alongside both Americans and French, and had come to a settled detestation of both countries. If either country happened to be prominent in current affairs, no argument could make Mr. Houghton think well of it. He would bang the desk, his neck would bulge still furth

16、er and go red. You can say what you like, he would cry, but Ive thought about this - and I know what I think! Mr. Houghton thought with his neck. This was my introduction to the nature of what is commonly called thought. Through them I discovered that thought is often full of unconscious prejudice, ignorance, and hypocrisy. It will lecture on disinterested purity while its neck is being remorselessly twisted towar