查尔斯·狄更斯，全名查尔斯·约翰·赫法姆·狄更斯（英文原名：Charles John Huffam Dickens，1812年2月7日—1870年6月9日），英国作家。主要作品有《大卫·科波菲尔》《匹克威克外传》《雾都孤儿》《老古玩店》《艰难时世》《我们共同的朋友》《双城记》等。

 

狄更斯1812年2月7日生于朴次茅斯市郊，出生于海军小职员家庭，少年时因家庭生活窘迫，只能断断续续入校求学。后被迫到工场做童工。15岁以后，当过律师事务所学徒、录事和法庭记录员。20岁开始当报馆采访员，报道下议院。1837年他完成了第一部长篇小说《匹克威克外传》，是第一部现实主义小说创作，后来创作才能日渐成熟，先后出版了《雾都孤儿》（1838）、《老古玩店》（1841）、《董贝父子》（1848）、《大卫·科波菲尔》（1850）、《艰难时代》（1854）、《双城记》（1859）《远大前程》（1861）等，1870年6月9日卒于罗切斯特附近的盖茨山庄。

 

狄更斯特别注意描写生活在英国社会底层的“小人物”的生活遭遇，深刻地反映了当时英国复杂的社会现实，为英国批判现实主义文学的开拓和发展做出了卓越的贡献。他的作品对英国文学发展起到了深远的影响。

 

约翰·福斯特，英国历史学家，狄更斯的密友和传记作者。

I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000

ways that won't work. (Thomas Edison)

 

我从没失败过，我只是发现了一万种并不奏效的方法。（托马斯·艾迪生）

When we strive to become better than we

are, everything around us becomes better, too. (Paulo Coelho)

 

当我们努力让我们变成更好的自己时，我们周围的一切也会变得更好。（保罗·科埃略）

To Autumn

John

Keats

 

Season

of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close

bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring

with him how to load and bless

With

fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend

with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill

all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell

the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a

sweet kernel ; to set budding more,

And

still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until

they think warm days will never cease,

For

summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

 

Who hath

not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes

whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee

sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair

soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a

half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd

with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares

the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And

sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady

thy laden head across a brook ;

Or by a

cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou

watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

 

Where

are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?

Think

not of them, thou hast thy music too, —

While

barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And

touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in

a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among

the river sallows , borne aloft

Or

sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And

full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets

sing; and now with treble soft

The

red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And

gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Sailing to Byzantium William B. Yeats  1 That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the tree —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh , or fowl , commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.  2 An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.  3 O sages standing in God's holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.  4 Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

谢逸，广西宾阳人。1932年毕业于南宁中学。曾任南宁中学教师，原桂系《广西日报》南宁版总编辑，香港东方中学教师。1940年开始发表作品。1985年加入中国作家协会。著有杂文随笔集《园边杂话》、《当代杂文选萃·谢逸之卷》，另外发表杂文随笔500余篇。

 

此文写于1980年8月间，用比喻的手法批评那些自我吹嘘、弄虚作假、骗取名位的人，颂扬那些默默奉献、不争功名的人。文章亦庄亦谐，饶有风趣，有很强的现实针对性。

Pied

Beauty

Gerald M.

Hopkins

 

Glory be

to God for dappled things—

For

skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For

rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal

chestnut-falls, finches' wings;

Landscape

plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll

trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

 

All

things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever

is fickle , freckled (who knows how?)

With

swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He

fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise

him.

Sometimes things become possible if we want

them bad enough. (T.S. Eliot)

 

有时候，当我们真的很想做一件事时，很多事情也就变得有可为了。（托马斯·斯特恩斯·艾略特）

Remember there's no such thing as a small

act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end. (Scott Adams)

 

记住，没有小善之举这回事，你的每一善行都会引起无穷尽的连锁反应。（司各特·亚当）

修昔底德（前460年至前455年间—约前400年），古希腊历史学家、思想家，以《伯罗奔尼撒战争史》传世，该书记述了公元前5世纪斯巴达和雅典之间的战争。

他的历史，相当于当代的“现代史”，他因身为雅典市民，且曾任海军指挥官，有作战的经验，再加上睿智与组织能力，便完成了这部史著。事实上，在我们想像中，这种立场实在很容易陷入战争的错误报导中，或如同掉在战争漩涡中的人一般，丧失了公正的判断力。然而修西德底斯并不如此，他所写的历史并非杂乱的断章取义，而是部完整的史实。而且他对于在战争中途，因战败而被追究责人或亡命之徒等，也都寄予极大的同情，认为他们是出于无奈。从头至尾他都站在公正的立场，观望事态的进行。总之他的工作，不是个天才的历史学家则不能胜任。

 

我们为大家选读的这篇演讲是他在为在雅典与斯巴达战争中牺牲的雅典政治家伯里克利的葬礼上所作的发言。