题目内容
Two roads led out ofthe town; one branched off towards the Ambroses' villa, the other struck into the country, eventually reaching a village on the plain, but many footpaths led off from it, across great dry fields, to scattered farm-houses. Hewet stepped off the road on to one of these, in order to avoid the hardness and heat of the main road, the dust of which was always being raised in small clouds by carts and ramshackle flies which carried parties of festive peasants, or turkeys swelling unevenly like a bundle of air balls beneath a net.
The exercise indeed served to clear away the superficial irritations of the morning, but he remained miserable. It seemed proved beyond a doubt that Rachel was indifferent to him, for she had scarcely looked at him, and she had talked to Mr. Flushing with just the same interest with which she talked to him. Finally, Hirst's odious words flicked his mind like a whip, and he remembered that he had left her talking to Hirst. She was at this moment talking to him, and it might be true, as he said, that she was in love with him. He went over all the evidence for this supposition—her sudden interest in Hirst's writing, her way of quoting his opinions respectfully; her very nickname for him, "the great Man," might have some serious meaning in it. Supposing that there were an understanding between them, what would it mean to him？
Ever since he had first seen her he had been interested and attracted, more and more interested and attracted, until he was scarcely able to think of anything except Rachel. But just as he was sliding into one of the long feasts of meditation about them both, he checked himself by asking whether he wanted to marry her？ That was the real problem, for these miseries and agonies could not be endured, and it was necessary that he should make up his mind. He instantly decided that he did not want to marry any one. Partly because he was irritated by Rachel. The idea of marriage irritated him.
It immediately suggested the picture of two people sitting alone over the fire; the man was reading, the woman sewing. There was a second picture. He saw a man jump up, say good-night, leave the company and hasten away with the quiet secret look of one who is stealing to certain happiness. Both these pictures were very unpleasant, and even more so was a third picture, of husband and wife and friend; and the married people glancing at each other as though they were content to let something pass unquestioned, being themselves possessed of the deeper truth. Other pictures—he was walking very fast in his irritation, and they came before him without any conscious effort, like pictures on a sheet—succeeded these. Here were the worn husband and wife sitting with their children round them, very patient, tolerant, and wise. But that too, was an unpleasant picture. When, on the other hand, he began to think of unmarried people, he saw them active in an unlimited world; above all, standing on the same ground as the rest, without shelter or advantage. All the most individual and humane of his friends were bachelors and spinsters; indeed he was surprised to find that the women he most admired and knew best were unmarried women. Marriage seemed to be worse for them than it was for men.
The word "romantic" in the first paragraph of the passage means ______.
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I suppose that the poet will sing and the artist will paint regardless whether the world praises or blames. He has his own world and is independent of his fellow-men. But the handicraftsman is dependent on your pleasure and opinion. He needs your encouragement and he must have beautiful surroundings. Your people love art but do not sufficiently honor the handicraftsman. I find one great trouble all over is that your workmen are not given to noble designs. You cannot be indifferent to this, because art is not something which you can take or leave. It is a necessity of human life.
And what is the meaning of this beautiful decoration which we call art？ In the first place, it means value to the workman and it means the pleasure which he must necessarily take in making a beautiful thing. The mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the head and the workman's heart. I cannot impress the point too frequently that beautiful and rational designs are necessary in all work. I did not imagine, until I went into some of your simpler cities, that there was so much bad work done. I found bad wall-papers horribly designed, and colored carpets, and that old offender the horse-hair sofa, whose stolid look of indifference is always so depressing. I found meaningless chandeliers and machine-made furniture. I came across the small iron stove which they always persist in decorating with machine-made ornaments, and which is as great a bore as a wet day or any other particularly dreadful institution.
It must always be remembered that what is well and carefully made by an honest workman, after a rational design, increases in beauty and value as the years go on. The old furniture brought over by the Pilgrims, two hundred years ago, which I saw in New England, is just as good and as beautiful today as it was when it first came here. Now, what you must do is to bring artists and handicraftsmen together. Handicraftsmen cannot live, certainly cannot thrive, without such companionship. Separate these two and you rob art of all spiritual motive.
Having done this, you must place your workman in the midst of beautiful surroundings. The artist is not dependent on the visible and the tangible. He has his visions and his dreams to feed on. But the workman must see lovely forms as he goes to his work in the morning and returns at eventide. And, in connection with this, I want to assure you that noble and beautiful designs are never the result of idle fancy or purposeless day-dreaming. They come only as the accumulation of habits of long and delightful observation. And yet such things may not be taught. Right ideas concerning them can certainly be obtained only by those who have been accustomed to rooms that are beautiful and colors that are satisfying.
This passage seems to be part of a ______.
听力原文： New research into global warming published in the journal Science says the northern hemisphere is uniformly warmer now than at any time in the past 1,200 years, It says the present warm period in northern regions is the longest and most widespread temperature anomaly since the 9th century. Researchers have said in the past that the 20th century warming was unprecedented over the past thousand years, at least in the northern hemisphere. But critics disputed the claim, citing periods of extreme warm in certain regions during the Middle Ages. The new study sets out to tackle that criticism head on. Looking at the regional patterns of temperature for the past millennium, it finds while there have been patchy periods of warmth in the past, only in the late g0th century are regions across the hemisphere heating up simultaneously. The analysis is also statistically simpler than previous studies, avoiding the charge that mathematical quirks have generated a false picture of the climate.
In order to avoid certain charge, the analysis involves
It is 1806, and Gilbert Norrell is the only true magician in England. He sets out to restore the practice of magic to a nation that has not seen it for more than 300 years. But there is an odd and fateful twist to Norrell's character: he is as scholarly and insufferably pedantic as he is gifted. In short, Norrell is the most boring and unmagical person imaginable. This is Clarke's masterstroke, the necessary touch of ordinary candleshine in the midst of all the uncanny fairy light she dispenses.
Enter Jonathan Strange, the intuitive magician—the natural—who can improvise in a flash what Norrell has gleaned from long study. Strange becomes Norrell's pupil, but soon the tension between their styles mounts to a breaking point. The two men realize that they have a fundamental disagreement about how to approach the mysterious and terrifying sources of English magic, in the face of which even Albus Dumbledore might find himself unnerved.
Just as Norrell and Strange apprentice themselves to a Golden Age of medieval magicians, Clarke tethers her craft to the great 19th-century English masters of the novel, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. The book offers not only an Austen-like inquiry into the fine human line between ridiculous flaw and serious consequence, but also a Dickensian flow of language in which a comical surplus of detail rings at last with certain and inevitable significance.
This elixir of literary influences gives the story its delightful texture. But there is so much more to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell—an energy buckling and straining at the edges of the book in sheer imaginative overflow, just as the realm of Faerie buckles and strains beyond the edges of England's green fields, beckoning us down the overgrown path and through the dark wood.
Thus it happens that a novel of 800 pages seems far too short. This is the strangest'and, as we gratefully come to understand, the "norrellest"—magic a book lover could wish for.
Susanna Clarke's readers hope that she would ______.
Nice people do racism too. Liberal commitment to a multi-ethnic Britain is wilting. Some very nice folk have apparently decided that the nation's real problem is too many immigrants of too many kinds. Faced with a daily onslaught against migrants it may be understandable to give in to populist bigotry; but it is not forgivable.
Take this, for example: "National citizenship is inherently exclusionary." So no foreigners need ever apply for naturalisation, then. And" ... public anxiety about migration ... is usually based on a rational understanding of the value of British citizenship and its incompatibility with over-porous borders". Straight from the lexicon of the far right. And best of all: "You can have a welfare state provided that you are a homogenous society with intensely shared values.”
These are extracts from an article in the Observer, penned by the liberal intellectual Goodhart, who is just one of several liberal thinkers now vigorously making what they consider a progressive argument against immigration. It goes like this: the more diverse a society, the less likely its citizens are to share common values; the fewer common values, the weaker the support for vital institutions of social solidarity, such as the welfare state and the National Health Service.
There are perfectly good reasons to worry about how we respond to immigration, not least the downward pressure on workers' wages; the growth of racial inequality; and the exploitation of illegals. But the answer to these problems is not genteel xenophobia, but trade union rights, backed by equality and employment law.
The xenophobes should come clean. Their argument is not about immigration at all. They are liberal Powellites; what really bothers them is race and culture. If today's immigrants were white people from the old Commonwealth, Goodhart and his friends would say that they pose no threat because they share Anglo-Saxon values.
Unfortunately for liberal Powellites, the real history of the NHS shatters their fundamental case against diversity. The NHS is a world-beating example of the way that ethnic diversity can create social solidarity. Launched by a Welshman, built by Irish labourers, founded on the skills of Caribbean nurses and Indian doctors, it is now being rescued by an emergency injection of Filipino nurses, refugee ancillaries and antipodean medics. And it remains 100% British.
Virtually all of our public services have depended heavily on immigrants. Powell was forced to admit as much when, as minister for health he advertised for staff in the Caribbean. His new admirers will discover that a rapidly depopulating Europe will have no choice but to embrace diversity.
For the moment, however, the liberal Powellites are gaining support in high places. Their ideas are inspired by the work of the American sociologist Putnam, a Downing Street favourite. He purports to show that dynamic, diverse communities are more fragmented than stable, monoethnic ones. But the policy wonks have forgotten that Putnam's research was conducted in a society so marked by segregation that even black millionaires still live in gated ghettoes.
The prime minister still seems uneasy on the issue. Last week, he wavered uncertainly between backing his pro-immigration home secretary, and a defensive response to Howard's goading that the government was in a mess on the topic.
Oddly enough, this is a place in the arena of world politics where the PM does not stand shoulder to shoulder with Bush. The Spanish-speaking former governor of Texas recently announced that he would "regularise" the status of millions of illegal Mexican immigrants who had slipped across the border to work. It's the kind of massive amnesty that would send the Daily Express into conniptions.
Even more peculiar, the prime minister appears to be ignoring not only Blunkett but also his new best friend, the Labour mayor of Londo
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