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听力原文：I've called this meeting because, as you're all probably aware, we have some security issues in this building. There have been a number of thefts and reports of unauthorized persons wandering around the premises. So, we have some new guidelines to deal with this. Some of these are just common sense; so, to begin with, can I ask you all to close any windows before you leave the building at night？ From next month, all the office space will be air-conditioned and the windows will be sealed, so this will cease to be a problem. Next, the new I. D. swipe-card system will be in place from Monday, so if you haven't collected your card from Jenny, please do so before you go.
What is the purpose of the meeting？
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Every code of etiquette has contained three elements, basic moral duties, practical rules which promote efficiency, and artificial, optional graces such as formal compliments to, say, women on their beauty or superiors on their generosity and importance.
In the first category are considerations for the weak and respect for age. Among the ancient Egyptians the young always stood in the presence of older people. Among the Mponguwe of Tanzania, the young men bow as they pass the huts of the elders. In England, until about a century ago, young children did not sit in their parents' presence without asking permission.
Practical rules are helpful in such ordinary occurrences of social life as making proper introductions at parties or other functions so that people can be brought to know each other. Before the invention of the fork, etiquette directed that the fingers should be kept as clean as possible; before the handkerchief came into common use, etiquette suggested that after spitting, a person should rub the spit inconspicuously underfoot.
Extremely refined behaviour, however, cultivated as an art of gracious living, has been characteristic only of societies with wealth and leisure, which admitted women as the social equals of men. After the fall of Rome, the first European society to regulate behaviour in private life in accordance with a complicated code of etiquette was twelfth century Provence, in France.
Provence had become wealthy. The lords had returned to their castle from the crusades, and there the ideals of chivalry grew up, which emphasized the virtue and gentleness of women and demanded that a knight should profess a pure and dedicated love to a lady who would be his inspiration, and to whom he would dedicate his valiant deeds, though he would never come physically close to her. This was the introduction of the concept of romantic love, which was to influence literature for many hundreds of years and which still lives on in a debased form. in simple popular songs and cheap novels today.
In Renaissance Italy too, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a wealthy and leisured society developed an extremely complex code of manners, but the rules of behaviour of fashionable society had little influence on the daily life of the lower classes. Indeed many of the rules, such as how to enter a banquet room, or how to use a sword or handkerchief for ceremonial purposes, were irrelevant to the way of life of the average working man, who spent most of his life outdoors or in his own poor hut and most probably did not have a handkerchief, certainly not a sword, to his name.
Yet the essential basis of all good manners does not vary. Consideration for the old and weak and the avoidance of harming or giving unnecessary offence to others is a feature of all societies everywhere and at all levels from the highest to the lowest.
One characteristic of the rich classes of a declining society is their tendency to
I thought of God as a strangely emotional being. He was powerful; He was forgiving yet obdurate, full of warmth and affection. Both His wrath and affection were fitful, they came and they went, and I couldn't count on either to continue, although they both always did. In short God was much such a being as my father himself.
What was the relation between them, I wondered -- these two puzzling deities？
My father's ideas of religion seemed straightforward and simple. He had noticed when he was a boy that there were buildings called churches; he had accepted them as a natural part of the surroundings in which he had been born. He would never have invented such things himself. Nevertheless they were here. As he grew up he regarded them as unquestioningly as he did banks. They were substantial old structures; they were respectable, decent, and venerable. They were frequented by the right sort of people. Well, that was enough.
On the other hand he never allowed churches -- or banks -- to dictate to him. He gave each the respect that was due to it from his point of view; but he also expected from each of them the respect he felt due to him.
As to creeds, he knew nothing about them, and cared nothing either; yet he seemed to know which sect he belonged with. It had to be a sect with the minimum of nonsense about it; no total immersion, no exhorters, no holy confession. He would have been a Unitarian, naturally, if he'd lived in Boston. Since he was a respectable New Yorker, he belonged in the Episcopal Church.
As to living a spiritual life, he never tackled that problem. Some men who accept spiritual beliefs try to live up to them daily; other men who reject such beliefs, try sometimes to smash them. My father would have disagreed with both kinds entirely. He took a more distant attitude. It disgusted him where atheists attacked religion, he thought they were vulgar. But he also objected to having religion make demands upon him -- he felt that religion was too vulgar when it tried to stir up men's feelings. It had its own proper field of activity, and it was all right there, of course; but there was one place religion should leave alone, and that was a man's soul. He especially loathed any talk of walking hand in hand with his Saviour. And if he had ever found the Holy Ghost trying to soften his heart, he would have regarded its behaviour as distinctly uncalled for; even ungentlemanly.
The writer says his father's idea of religion seemed straightforward and simple because his father
It is the land of the silk safety net, where almost half the national budget goes toward smoothing out life's inequalities, and there is plenty of money for schools, day care, retraining programmes, job seminars -- Danes love seminars: three days at a study centre hearing about waste management is almost as good as a ski trip. It is a culture bombarded by English, in advertising, pop music, the Internet, and despite all the English that Danish absorbs -- there is no Danish Academy to defend against it – old dialects persist in Jutland that can barely be understood by Copenhageners. It is the land where, as the saying goes, "Few have too much and fewer have too little," and a foreigner is struck by the sweet egalitarianism that prevails, where the lowliest clerk gives you a level gaze, where Sir and Madame have disappeared from common usage, even Mr and Mrs. It's a nation of recyclers -- about 55% of Danish garbage gets made into something new -- and no nuclear power plants. It's a nation of tireless planners. Trains run on time. Things operate well in general.
Such a nation of overachievers -- a brochure from the Ministry of Business and Industry says, "Denmark is one of the world's cleanest and most organized countries, with virtually no pollution, crime, or poverty. Denmark is the most corruption-free society in the Northern Hemisphere." So, of course, one's heart lifts at any sighting of Danish sleaze: skinhead graffiti on buildings ("Foreigners Out of Denmark!"), broken beer bottles in the gutters, drunken teenagers slumped in the park.
Nonetheless, it is an orderly land. You drive through a Danish town, it comes to an end at a stone wall, and on the other side is a field of barley, a nice clear line. town here, country there. It is not a nation of jaywalkers. People stand on the curb and wait for the red light to change, even if it's 2 a.m. and there's not a car in sight. However, Danes don’t think of themselves as a waiting-at-2-a, m.-for-the-green-light people -- that's how they see Swedes and Germans. Danes see themselves as jazzy people, improvisers, more free-spirited than Swedes, but the truth is (though one should not say it) that Danes are very much like Germans and Swedes. Orderliness is a main selling point. Denmark has few natural resources, limited manufacturing capability; its future in Europe will be as a broker, banker, and distributor of goods. You send your goods by container ship to Copenhagen, and these bright, young, English-speaking, utterly honest, highly disciplined people will get your goods around to Scandinavia, the Baltic States, and Russia. Airports, seaports, highways, and rail lines are ultramodern and well-maintained.
The orderliness of the society doesn't mean that Danish lives are less messy or lonely than yours or mine, and no Dane would tell you so. You can hear plenty about bitter family feuds and the sorrows of alcoholism and about perfectly sensible people who went off one day and killed themselves. An orderly society cannot exempt its members from the hazards of life.
But there is a sense of entitlement and security that Danes grow up with. Certain things are yours by virtue of citizenship, and you shouldn't feel bad for taking what you're entitled to, you're as good as anyone else. The rules of the welfare system are clear to everyone, the benefits you get if you lose your job, the steps you take to get a new one; and the orderliness of the system makes it possib
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