晨读英语美文100篇 Passage 35. Owning Books
 音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.44]Passage 35. Owning Books[00:04.82]We enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed. [00:10.39]A borrowed book is like a guest in the house; [00:14.33]it must be treated with punctiliousness, with a certain considerate formality. [00:19.91]You must see that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer while under your roof. [00:26.59]But your own books belong to you; [00:29.97]you treat them with that affectionate intimacy that annihilates formality. [00:35.45]Books are for use, not for show; [00:39.05]you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up, [00:42.99]or afraid to place on the table, wide open and face down. [00:47.48]A good reason for marking favorite passages in books [00:52.08]is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, [00:58.42]to refer to them quickly, and then in later years, [01:02.47]it is like visiting a forest where you once blazed a trail. [01:06.85]Everyone should begin collecting a private library in youth; [01:10.79]the instinct of private property can here be cultivated with every advantage and no evils. [01:18.23]The best of mural decorations is books; [01:22.05]they are more varied in color and appearance than any wallpaper, [01:27.30]they are more attractive in design, [01:29.93]and they have the prime advantage of being separate personalities, [01:34.86]so that if you sit alone in the room in the firelight, [01:38.58]you are surrounded with intimate friends. [01:41.53]The knowledge that they are there in plain view is both stimulating and refreshing. [01:47.77]Books are of the people, by the people, for the people. [01:52.80]Literature is the immortal part of history; [01:56.85]it is the best and most enduring part of personality. [02:00.90]Book-friends have this advantage over living friends; [02:05.60]you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever you want it. [02:12.39]The great dead are beyond our physical reach, [02:16.10]and the great living are usually almost as inaccessible. [02:20.04]But in a private library, [02:22.23]you can at any moment converse with Socrates or Shakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens. [02:30.44]And there is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best. [02:36.45]They "laid themselves out," they did their ultimate best to entertain you, [02:42.47]to make a favorable impression. [02:44.77]You are necessary to them as an audience is to an actor; [02:49.36]only instead of seeing them masked, [02:52.31]you look into their innermost heart of heart. |
