英语精美散文22篇

My father was a self-taught mandolin player. He was one of the best string instrument players in our town. He could not read music, but if he heard a tune a few times, he could play it. When he was younger, he was a member of a small country music band. They would play at local dances and on a few occasions would play for the local radio station. He often told us how he had 2)auditioned and earned a position in a band that featured Patsy Cline as their lead singer. He told the family that after he was hired he never went back. Dad was a very religious man. He stated that there was a lot of drinking and cursing the day of his audition and he did not want to be around that type of environment.

Occasionally, Dad would get out his mandolin and play for the family. We three children: Trisha, Monte and I, George Jr., would often sing along. Songs such as the Tennessee Waltz, Harbor Lights and around Christmas time, the well-known 3)rendition of Silver Bells. "Silver Bells, Silver Bells, its Christmas time in the city" would ring throughout the house. One of Dad's favorite 4)hymns was "The Old Rugged Cross". We learned the words to the hymn when we were very young, and would sing it with Dad when he would play and sing. Another song that was often shared in our house was a song that accompanied the Walt Disney series: Davey Crockett. Dad only had to hear the song twice before he learned it well enough to play it. "Davey, Davey Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier" was a favorite song for the family. He knew we enjoyed the song and the program and would often get out the mandolin after the program was over. I could never get over how he could play the songs so well after only hearing them a few times. I loved to sing, but I never learned how to play the mandolin. This is something I regret to this day.

Dad loved to play the mandolin for his family he knew we enjoyed singing, and hearing him play. He was like that. If he could give pleasure to others, he would, especially his family. He was always there, sacrificing his time and efforts to see that his family had enough in their life. I had to mature into a man and have children of my own before I realized how much he had sacrificed.

I joined the United States Air Force in January of 1962. Whenever I would come home on leave, I would ask Dad to play the mandolin. Nobody played the mandolin like my father. He could touch your soul with the tones that came out of that old mandolin. He seemed to shine when he was playing. You could see his pride in his ability to play so well for his family.

When Dad was younger, he worked for his father on the farm. His father was a farmer and 5)sharecropped a farm for the man who owned the property. In 1950, our family moved from the farm. Dad had gained employment at the local 6)limestone 7)quarry. When the quarry closed in August of 1957, he had to seek other employment. He worked for Owens Yacht Company in Dundalk, Maryland and for Todd Steel in Point of Rocks, Maryland. While working at Todd Steel, he was involved in an accident. His job was to roll angle iron onto a 8)conveyor so that the 9)welders farther up the production line would have it to complete their job. On this particular day Dad got the third index finger of his left hand mashed between two pieces of steel. The doctor who operated on the finger could not save it, and Dad ended up having the tip of the finger 10)amputated. He didn't lose enough of the finger where it would stop him picking up anything, but it did impact his ability to play the mandolin.

After the accident, Dad was reluctant to play the mandolin. He felt that he could not play as well as he had before the accident. When I came home on leave and asked him to play he would make excuses for why he couldn't play. Eventually, we would 11)wear him down and he would say "Okay, but remember, I can't hold down on the strings the way I used to" or "Since the accident to this finger I can't play as good". For the family it didn't make any difference that Dad couldn't play as well. We were just glad that he would play. When he played the old mandolin it would carry us back to a cheerful, happier time in our lives. "Davey, Davey Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier", would again be heard in the little town of Bakerton, West Virginia.

In August of 1993 my father was 12)diagnosed with 13)inoperable lung cancer. He chose not to receive 14)chemotherapy treatments so that he could live out the rest of his life in dignity. About a week before his death, we asked Dad if he would play the mandolin for us. He made excuses but said "okay". He knew it would probably be the last time he would play for us. He 15)tuned up the old mandolin and played a few notes. When I looked around, there was not a dry eye in the family. We saw before us a quiet humble man with an inner strength that comes from knowing God, and living with him in one's life. Dad would never play the mandolin for us again. We felt at the time that he wouldn't have enough strength to play, and that makes the memory of that day even stronger. Dad was doing something he had done all his life, giving. As sick as he was, he was still pleasing others. Dad sure could play that Mandolin!

[ 本帖最后由 marlowe 于 2007-4-29 09:46 AM 编辑 ]

Three Days to See
Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with a gentleness, a vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There are those, of course, who would adopt the Epicurean motto of \"Eat, drink, and be merry,\" but most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.

　　In stories the doomed hero is usually saved at the last minute by some stroke of fortune, but almost always his sense of values is changed. he becomes more appreciative of the meaning of life and its permanent spiritual values. It hasoften been noted that those who live, or have lived, in the shadow of death bring a mellow sweetness to everything they do.

　　Most of us, however, take life for granted. We know that one day we must die, but usually we picture that day as far in the future. When we are in buoyant health, death is all but unimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch out in an endless vista. So we go about our petty tasks, hardly aware of our listless attitude toward life.

　　The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the use of all our faculties and senses. Only the deaf appreciate hearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings that lie in sight. Particularly does this observation apply to those who have lost sight and hearing in adult life. But those who have never suffered impairment of sight or hearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessed faculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and sounds hazily, without concentration and with little appreciation. It is the same old story of not being grateful for what we have until we lose it, of not being conscious of health until we are ill.



　　I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would tech him the joys of sound.

　　Now and them I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I was visited by a very good friends who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, and I asked her what she had observed…\"Nothing in particular, \"she replied. I might have been incredulous had I not been accustomed to such reposes, for long ago I became convinced that the seeing see little.

[ 本帖最后由 marlowe 于 2007-5-2 08:16 PM 编辑 ]

How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I who cannot see find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In the spring I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud the first sign of awakening Nature after her winter\'s sleep. I feel the delightful, velvety texture of a flower, and discover its remarkable convolutions; and something of the miracle of Nature is revealed to me. Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song. I am delighted to have the cool waters of a brook rush thought my open finger. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. To me the page ant of seasons is a thrilling and unending drama, the action of which streams through my finger tips.

　　At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight. Yet, those who have eyes apparently see little. the panorama of color and action which fills the world is taken for granted. It is human, perhaps, to appreciate little that which we have and to long for that which we have not, but it is a great pity that in the world of light the gift of sight is used only as a mere conveniences rather than as a means of adding fullness to life.

　　If I were the president of a university I should establish a compulsory course in \"How to Use Your Eyes\". The professor would try to show his pupils how they could add joy to their lives by really seeing what passes unnoticed before them. He would try to awake their dormant and sluggish faculties.



　　Perhaps I can best illustrate by imagining what I should most like to see if I were given the use of my eyes, say, for just three days. And while I am imagining, suppose you, too, set your mind to work on the problem of how you would use your own eyes if you had only three more days to see. If with the on-coming darkness of the third night you knew that the sun would never rise for you again, how would you spend those three precious intervening days? What would you most want to let your gaze rest upon?

　　I, naturally, should want most to see the things which have become dear to me through my years of darkness. You, too, would want to let your eyes rest on the things that have become dear to you so that you could take the memory of them with you into the night that loomed before you.

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A painter hangs his or her finished pictures on a wall, and everyone can see it. A composer writes a work, but no one can hear it until it is performed. Professional singers and players have great responsibilities, for the composer is utterly dependent on them. A student of music needs as long and as arduous a training to become a performer as a medical student needs to become a doctor. Most training is concerned with technique, for musicians have to have the muscular proficiency of an athlete or a ballet dancer. Singers practice breathing every day, as their vocal chords would be inadequate without controlled muscular support. String players practice moving the fingers of the left hand up and down, while drawing the bow to and fro with the right arm-two entirely different movements.  
Singers and instruments have to be able to get every note perfectly in tune. Pianists are spared this particular anxiety, for the notes are already there, waiting for them, and it is the piano tuner\'s responsibility to tune the instrument for them. But they have their own difficulties; the hammers that hit the string have to be coaxed not to sound like percussion, and each overlapping tone has to sound clear.
This problem of getting clear texture is one that confronts student conductors: they have to learn to know every note of the music and how it should sound, and they have to aim at controlling these sound with fanatical but selfless authority.
Technique is of no use unless it is combined with musical knowledge and understanding. Great artists are those who are so thoroughly at home in the language of music that they can enjoy performing works written in any century.

  A Business CreedTo respect my work, my associates and myself. To be honest and fair with them as I expect them to be honest and fair with me. To be a man whose word carries weight. To be a 1) booster, not a 2) knocker; a pusher, not a kicker; a motor, not a 3) clog.
To base my expectations of reward on a solid foundation of service rendered; to be willing to pay the price of success in honest effort. To look upon my work as opportunity, to be seized with joy and made the most of, and not as painful 4) drudgery to be reluctantly endured.

To remember that success lies within myself; in my own brain, my own ambition, my own courage and determination. To expect difficulties and force my way through them, to turn hard experiences into capital for future struggles.

To interest my heart and soul in my work, and aspire to the highest efficiency in the achievement of results. To be patiently receptive of just criticism and profit from its teaching. To treat equals and superiors with respect, and 5) subordinates with kindly encouragement.

To make a study of my business duties; to know my work from the ground up. To mix brains with my efforts and use system and method in all I undertake. To find time to do everything needful by never letting time find me or my subordinates doing nothing. To 6) hoard days as a 7) miser does dollars, to make every hour bring me 8) dividends in specific results accomplished. To 9) steer clear of 10) dissipation and guard my health of body and peace of mind as my most precious 11) stock in trade.

Finally, to take a good 12) grip on the joy of life; to play the game like a gentleman; to fight against nothing so hard as my own weakness, and endeavor to grow in business capacity, and as a man, with the passage of every day of time.

[ 本帖最后由 marlowe 于 2007-5-8 02:25 PM 编辑 ]

Run Patti Run
At a young and tender age, Patti Wilson was told by her doctor that she was an epileptic. Her father, Jim Wilson, is a morning jogger. One day she smiled through her braces and said, \"Daddy what I\'d really love to do is run with you every day, but I\'m afraid I\'ll have a seizure.\"
Her father told her, \"If you do, I know how to handle it, so let\'s start running!\"

That\'s just what they did every day. It was a wonderful experience for them to share and there were no seizures at all while she was running. After a few weeks, she told her father, \"Daddy, what I\'d really love to do is break the world\'s long-distance running record for women.\"

Her father checked the Guiness Book of World Records and found that the farthest any woman had run was 80 miles. As a freshman in high school, Patti announced, \"I\'m going to run from Orange County up to San Francisco.\" (A distance of 400 miles.) \"As a sophomore,\" she went on, \"I\'m going to run to Portland, Oregon.\" (Over 1500 miles.) \"As a junior I\'ll run to St. Louis.\" (About 2000 miles) \"As a senior I\'ll run to the White House.\" (More than 3000 miles away.)

In view of her handicap, Patti was as ambitious as she was enthusiastic, but she said she looked at the handicap of being an epileptic as simply \"an inconvenience.\" She focused not on what she had lost, but on what she had left.

That year, she completed her run to San Francisco wearing a T-shirt that read, \"I Love Epileptics.\" Her dad ran every mile at her side, and her mom, a nurse, followed in a motor home behind them in case anything went wrong.

In her sophomore year, Patti\'s classmates got behind her. They built a giant poster that read, \"Run, Patti, Run!\" (This has since become her motto and the title of a book she has written.) On her second marathon, en route to Portland, she fractured a bone in her foot. A doctor told her she had to stop her run. He said, \"I\'ve got to put a cast on your ankle so that you don\'t sustain permanent damage.\"

\"Doc, you don\'t understand,\" she said. \"This isn\'t just a whim of mine, it\'s a magnificent obsession! I\'m not just doing it for me, I\'m doing it to break the chains on the brains that limit so many others. Isn\'t there a way I can keep running?\" He gave her one option. He could wrap it in adhesive instead of putting it in a cast. He warned her that it would be incredibly painful, and he told her, \"It will blister.\" She told the doctor to wrap it up.

She finished the run to Portland, completing her last mile with the governor of Oregon. You may have seen the headlines: \"Super Runner, Patti Wilson Ends Marathon For Epilepsy On Her 17th Birthday.\"

After four months of almost continuous running from West Coast to the East Coast, Patti arrived in Washington and shook the hand of the President of United States. She told him, \"I wanted people to know that epileptics are normal human beings with normal lives.\"

I told this story at one of my seminars not long ago, and afterward a big teary-eyed man came up to me, stuck out his big meaty hand and said, \"Mark, my name is Jim Wilson. You were talking about my daughter, Patti.\" Because of her noble efforts, he told me, enough money had been raised to open up 19 multi-million-dollar epileptic centers around the country.

If Patti Wilson can do so much with so little, what can you do to outperform yourself in a state of total wellness?

[ 本帖最后由 marlowe 于 2007-5-10 10:18 PM 编辑 ]

谢谢你