英语智慧背囊 10-莫让目标太遥远
 音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.00]Keep Your Goals in Sight 莫让目标太遥远[00:05.96]When she looked ahead, [00:08.68]Florence Chadwick saw nothing but a solid wall of fog. [00:13.18]Her body was numb. [00:15.03]She had been swimming for nearly sixteen hours. [00:18.75]Already she was the first woman to swim [00:22.26]the English Channel in both directions. [00:24.65]Now, at age 34, [00:27.07]her goal was to become the first woman to swim [00:30.45]from Catalina Island to the California coast. [00:34.30]On that Fourth of July morning in 1952, [00:37.90]the sea was like an ice bath and the fog [00:41.08]was so dense she could hardly see her support boats. [00:44.91]Sharks cruised toward her lone figure, [00:48.06]only to be driven away by rifle shots. [00:51.25]Against the frigid grip of the sea, [00:54.42]she struggled on—hour after hour— [00:57.06]while millions watched on national television. [01:00.44]Alongside Florence in one of the boats, [01:03.93]her mother and her trainer offered encouragement. [01:06.79]They told her it wasn’t much farther. [01:09.29]But all she could see was fog. [01:12.04]They urged her not to quit. [01:14.43]She never had . . . [01:15.86]until then. [01:17.07]With only a half mile to go, [01:20.12]she asked to be pulled out. [01:22.43]Still thawing her chilled body several hours later, [01:26.69]she told a reporter, [01:28.45]"Look, I’m not excusing myself, [01:31.29]but if I could have seen land I might have made it." [01:35.21]It was not fatigue or even the cold water that defeated her. [01:39.91]It was the fog. [01:42.00]She was unable to see her goal. [01:44.42]Two months later, she tried again. [01:48.02]This time, despite the same dense fog, [01:51.84]she swam with her faith intact [01:54.26]and her goal clearly pictured in her mind. [01:57.20]She knew that somewhere behind that fog was land [02:01.03]and this time she made it! [02:03.01]Florence Chadwick became the first woman [02:06.71]to swim the Catalina Channel, [02:08.80]eclipsing the men’s record by two hours! |
