汉译英 一个人的生命究竟有多大意义,这有什么标准可以衡量吗?提出一个绝对的标准当然很困难;但是,大体上看一个人对待生命的态度是否严肃认真,看他对待工作、生活的态度如何,也就不难对这个人的存在意义做出适当的估计了。 古来一切有成就的人,都很严肃地对待自己的生命,当他活着一天,总要尽量多工作、多学习,不肯虚度年华,不让时间白白地浪费掉。我国历代的劳动人民以及大政治家、大思想家等等都莫不如此。 (190 字,选自拓,《生命的三分之一》 ) It is simple enough to say that since books have classes—fiction, biography, poetry—we should separate them and take from each what it is right that each should give us. Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow-worker and accomplice. If you hang back, and reserve and criticize at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fitness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite. (147 words, Virginia Woolf, How Should One Read A Book).