Unit 1

Text A The Colour of Life

by Alice Meynell1

Red has been praised for its nobility as the colour of life.But the true colour of life is not red.Red is the colour of violence,or of life broken open,edited,and published.Or if red is indeed the colour of life,it is so only on condition that it is not seen.Once fully visible,red is the colour of life violated,and in the act of betrayal and of waste.Red is the secret of life,and not the manifestation thereof.It is one of the things the value of which is secrecy,one of the talents that are to be hidden in a napkin.The true colour of life is the colour of the body,the colour of the covered red,the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses.It is the modest colour of the unpublished blood.

So bright,so light,so soft,so mingled,the gentle colour of life is outdone by all the colours of the world.Its very beauty is that it is white,but less white than milk;brown,but less brown than earth;red,but less red than sunset or dawn.It is lucid,but less lucid than the colour of lilies.It has the hint of gold that is in all fine colour;but in our latitudes the hint is almost elusive.Under Sicilian skies,indeed,it is deeper than old ivory;but under the misty blue of the English zenith,and the warm grey of the London horizon,it is as delicately flushed as the paler wild roses,out to their utmost,flat as stars,in the hedges of the end of June.

For months together London does not see the colour of life in any mass.The human face does not give much of it,what with features,and beards,and the shadow of the top-hat and chapeau melon2 of man,and of the veils of woman.Besides,the colour of the face is subject to a thousand injuries and accidents.The popular face of the Londoner has soon lost its gold,its white,and the delicacy of its red and brown.We miss little beauty by the fact that it is never seen freely in great numbers out-of-doors.You get it in some quantity when all the heads of a great indoor meeting are turned at once upon a speaker;but it is only in the open air,needless to say,that the colour of life is in perfection,in the open air,“clothed with the sun”,whether the sunshine be golden and direct,or dazzlingly diffused in grey.

The little figure of the London boy it is that has restored to the landscape the human colour of life.He is allowed to come out of all his ignominies,and to take the late colour of the midsummer north-west evening,on the borders of the Serpentine3. At the stroke of eight he sheds the slough of nameless colours—all allied to the hues of dust,soot,and fog,which are the colours the world has chosen for its boys—and he makes,in his hundreds,a bright and delicate flush between the grey-blue water and the grey-blue sky.Clothed now with the sun,he is crowned by-and-by with twelve stars as he goes to bathe,and the reflection of an early moon is under his feet.

So little stands between a gamin and all the dignities of Nature.They are so quickly restored.There seems to be nothing to do,but only a little thing to undo.It is like the art of Eleonora Duse4. The last and most finished action of her intellect,passion,and knowledge is,as it were,the flicking away of some insignificant thing mistaken for art by other actors,some little obstacle to the way and liberty of Nature.

All the squalor is gone in a moment,kicked off with the second boot,and the child goes shouting to complete the landscape with the lacking colour of life.You are inclined to wonder that,even undressed,he still shouts with a Cockney accent.You half expect pure vowels and elastic syllables from his restoration,his spring,his slenderness,his brightness,and his glow.Old ivory and wild rose in the deepening midsummer sun,he gives his colours to his world again.

It is easy to replace man,and it will take no great time,where Nature has lapsed,to replace Nature.It is always to do,by the happily easy way of doing nothing.The grass is always ready to grow in the streets—and no streets could ask for a more charming finish than your green grass.The gasometer even must fall to pieces unless it is renewed;but the grass renews itself.There is nothing so remediable as the work of modern man—“a thought which is also,”as Mr Pecksniff5 said,“very soothing.”And by remediable I mean,of course,destructible.As the bathing child shuffles off his garments—they are few,and one brace suffices him—so the land might always,in reasonable time,shuffle off its yellow brick and purple slate,and all the things that collect about railway stations.A single night almost clears the air of London.

But if the colour of life looks so well in the rather sham scenery of Hyde Park,it looks brilliant and grave indeed on a real sea-coast.To have once seen it there should be enough to make a colourist.O,memorable little picture!The sun was gaining colour as it neared setting,and it set not over the sea,but over the land.The sea had the dark and rather stern,but not cold,blue of that aspect—the dark and not the opal tints.The sky was also deep.Everything was very definite,without mystery,and exceedingly simple.The most luminous thing was the shining white of an edge of foam,which did not cease to be white because it was a little golden and a little rosy in the sunshine.It was still the whitest thing imaginable.And the next most luminous thing was the little child,also invested with the sun and the colour of life.

In the case of women,it is of the living and unpublished blood that the violent world has professed to be delicate and ashamed.See the curious history of the political rights of woman under the Revolution.On the scaffold she enjoyed an ungrudged share in the fortunes of party.Political life might be denied her,but that seems a trifle when you consider how generously she was permitted political death.She was to spin and cook for her citizen in the obscurity of her living hours;but to the hour of her death was granted a part in the largest interests,social,national,international.The blood wherewith she should,according to Robespierre6,have blushed to be seen or heard in the tribune,was exposed in the public sight unsheltered by her veins.

Against this there was no modesty.Of all privacies,the last and the innermost—the privacy of death—was never allowed to put obstacles in the way of public action for a public cause.Women might be,and were,duly suppressed when,by the mouth of Olympe de Gouges7,they claimed a“right to concur in the choice of representatives for the formation of the laws”;but in her person,too,they were liberally allowed to bear political responsibility to the Republic.Olympe de Gouges was guillotined.Robespierre thus made her public and complete amends.

Notes to the Text

1.About the author

Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell（22 September,1847-27 November,1922）was an English writer,editor,critic,and suffragette,now remembered mainly as a poet.Meynell was born in Barnes,London,to Thomas James and Christiana（nee Weller）Thompson.The family moved around England,Switzerland,and France,but she was brought up mostly in Italy,where a daughter of Thomas from his first marriage had settled.Her father was a friend of Charles Dickens.Her prose essays were remarkable for fineness of culture and peculiar restraint of style.Her major works include Preludes（1875）,The Rhythm of Life（1893）,The Colour of Life and Other Essays（1896）,The Children（1897）,The Spirit of Place（1898）,London Impressions（1898）,Ruskin（1900）,and The Second Person Singular（1921）.

2.chapeau melon

Chapeau melon is a rigid and curved felt hat.

3.the Serpentine

The Serpentine,also known as the Serpentine River,is a 40-acre（16.2 ha）recreational lake in Hyde Park,London,England,created in 1730 at the behest of Queen Caroline.

4.Eleonora Duse

Eleonora Duse（1858-1924）is an Italian actress,often known simply as Duse.

5.Pecksniff

Seth Pecksniff is one of the main characters of The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit（commonly known as Martin Chuzzlewit）,a novel by Charles Dickens.

6.Robespierre

Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre（1758-1794）was a French lawyer,politician,and one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution.

7.Olympe de Gouges

Olympe de Gouges（1748-1793）was a French playwright and political activist whose feminist and abolitionist writings reached a large audience.

Words and Expressions

concur[kən'kʒ:（r）]v. to be in accord;be in agreement;happen simultaneously 意见相同；同时发生

destructible[dI'strʌktəbl]adj. easily destroyed 可破坏的

elastic[I'læstIk]adj. capable of resuming original shape after stretching or compression;springy;able to adjust readily to different conditions 灵活的；有弹性的；可变的

elusive[i'lu:sIv]adj. difficult to describe;skillful at eluding capture;difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze 难懂的；难捉摸的；难找的；逃避的

gamin['ɡæmIŋ]n.（sometimes offensive）a homeless boy who has been abandoned and roams the streets 流浪儿

gasometer[ɡæ'sɒmItə（r）]n. a large gas-tight spherical or cylindrical tank for holding gas to be used as fuel;a meter for measuring the amount of gas flowing through a particular pipe 煤气容器；（过去的）大型燃气罐；气体计量器

guillotine['ɡIləti:n]n. instrument of execution that consists of a weighted blade between two vertical poles;used for beheading people 断头台；切纸机

ignominy['IɡnəmIni]n. a state of dishonor（尤指公开的）羞耻；屈辱

lapse[læps]v. to pass into a specified state or condition;end,at least for a long time;to drop to a lower level,as in one's morals or standards 流逝；失效；堕落；停止

lucid['lu:sId]adj. transparently clear;easily understandable;having a clear mind 清晰的；明白易懂的；神志清醒的

luminous['lu:mInəs]adj. softly bright or radiant 发光的；发亮的

manifestation[,mænIfe'steIʃn]n. clear appearance;manifest indication of the existence or presence or nature of some person or thing 表现；表明；显示；表现形式

obscurityn. the condition of being unknown 默默无闻

profess[prə'fes]v. to claim to be knowledgeable about;practice as a profession 声称；冒称；以……为业

remediable[rI'mi：diəbl]adj. capable of being remedied or redressed 可补救的；可治疗的

secrecy['si:krəsi]n. the trait of keeping things secret;the condition of being concealed or hidden 秘密；保密；隐蔽

sham[ʃæm]adj. adopted in order to deceive 假的；伪造的

shuffle['ʃʌfl]v. to move clumsily 曳脚而行

sloughn. a hollow filled with mud 泥坑；沼泽

squalor['skwɒlə（r）]n. sordid dirtiness 肮脏；不干净

suffice[sə'faIs]vt. to be sufficient;be adequate,either in quality or quantity 使……足够

tribune['trIbju:n]n. a projecting part of a building（as a church）that is usually semicircular in plan and vaulted 论坛；看台；讲坛

ungrudged[ʌn'ɡrʌdʒd]adj. without ill will 慷慨的，情愿的

zenith['zenIθ]n. the point above the observer that is directly opposite the nadir on the imaginary sphere against which celestial bodies appear to be projected 顶点；天顶；全盛

Exercises

Ⅰ.Read Text A carefully and answer the following questions.

1.According to the author,what is the true colour of life？What about red？

2.How does the author depict the hint of gold related to the true colour of life？

3.Why doesn't London see the colour of life in any mass？

4.What has the London boy restored to the landscape of London？

5.Why does the author mention the art of Eleonora Duse？

6.How does a gamin give his colours to his world？

7.Is it easy to replace Nature？How？

8.How different does the colour of life look in the scenery of Hyde Park and on a real sea-coast？

9.What has the violent world claimed about women？

10.How did the author view women in the history of political rights？

Ⅱ.Paraphrase the following sentences from Text A and pay particular attention to the italicized words.

1.Or if red is indeed the colour of life,it is so only on condition that it is not seen.Once fully visible,red is the colour of life violated,and in the act of betrayal and of waste.Red is the secret of life,and not the manifestation thereof.

2.For months together London does not see the colour of life in any mass.

3.We miss little beauty by the fact that it is never seen freely in great numbers out-of-doors.

4.So little stands between a gamin and all the dignities of Nature.They are so quickly restored.There seems to be nothing to do,but only a little thing to undo.

5.The last and most finished action of her intellect,passion,and knowledge is,as it were,the flicking away of some insignificant thing mistaken for art by other actors,some little obstacle to the way and liberty of Nature.

6.There is nothing so remediable as the work of modern man—“a thought which is also,”as Mr Pecksniff said,“very soothing.”

7.In the case of women,it is of the living and unpublished blood that the violent world has professed to be delicate and ashamed.

8.Against this there was no modesty.Of all privacies,the last and the innermost—the privacy of death—was never allowed to put obstacles in the way of public action for a public cause.

Ⅲ.Translate the following sentences into Chinese.

1.The true colour of life is the colour of the body,the colour of the covered red,the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses.It is the modest colour of the unpublished blood.

2.Its very beauty is that it is white,but less white than milk;brown,but less brown than earth;red,but less red than sunset or dawn.It is lucid,but less lucid than the colour of lilies.It has the hint of gold that is in all fine colour;but in our latitudes the hint is almost elusive.

3.All the squalor is gone in a moment,kicked off with the second boot,and the child goes shouting to complete the landscape with the lacking colour of life.

4.But if the colour of life looks so well in the rather sham scenery of Hyde Park,it looks brilliant and grave indeed on a real sea-coast.To have once seen it there should be enough to make a colourist.

5.On the scaffold she enjoyed an ungrudged share in the fortunes of party.Political life might be denied her,but that seems a trifle when you consider how generously she was permitted political death.

Ⅳ.Fill in the blanks with the words you have learned in Text A.

For months together London does not see the colour of life in any 1._____.The human face does not give much of it,what with features,and beards,and the shadow of the top-hat and chapeau melon of man,and of the veils of woman.Besides,the colour of the face is 2._____to a thousand injuries and accidents.The popular face of the Londoner has soon lost its gold,its white,and the 3._____of its red and brown.We miss little beauty by the fact that it is never seen freely in great numbers out-of-doors.You get it in some 4._____when all the heads of a great indoor meeting are turned at once upon a speaker;but it is only in the open air,needless to say,that the colour of life is in 5._____,in the open air,“6._____with the sun”,whether the sunshine be golden and direct,or 7._____diffused in grey.

The little figure of the London boy it is that has restored to the landscape the human colour of life.He is allowed to come out of all his 8._____,and to take the late colour of the midsummer north-west evening,on the borders of the Serpentine.At the stroke of eight he 9._____the slough of nameless colours—all 10._____to the hues of dust,soot,and fog,which are the colours the world has chosen for its boys—and he makes,in his hundreds,a bright and delicate flush between the grey-blue water and the grey-blue sky.Clothed now with the sun,he is 11._____by-and-by with twelve stars as he goes to bathe,and the 12._____of an early moon is under his feet.

Ⅴ.Complete the following sentences with the correct form of the words or phrases given in the box.

1.He had more than a dozen business contacts as he traveled around the vast trade show,and he said he was able to_____four deals from his random contacts.

2.In some rural areas,handmade quilts can be found for even lower prices,but they would not be available_____.

3.However,the winning design—a 20-foot-tall bronze obelisk_____with an abstract version of an African mask inspired by Young's Mende ancestry—retained the“New Endings”sculpture.

4.Countless musicians and music educators have spoken about the creation of community_____making music.

5.Albany natives interested in a second career could also apply for financial aid from the hospital and return to school—again,_____they would agree to come back to work in Albany.

6.The museum will be a major_____of France's contributions to global civilization,reinvigorating France's flagging postcolonial stature in the Arab world.

7.There's this wonderful quote of his:“The most beautiful garments that may_____a woman are the arms of the man she loves but for those who have not had the chance to find this happiness,I am here.”

8.Over the years,it's been great fun watching filmmakers competing to_____one another in the wake of improving technology,creativity（and budgets）;a big part of the fun for me was the anticipation of what they'd pull out next.

9.Will all this_____to create an economic union in a single economic space？The demand for draft projects of such a union gives rise to hopes.

10.Once part of the almost fabled kingdom of Burgundy,Lille was_____the rich Flemish tradition,holding to its past as part of the southern Netherlands.

Ⅵ.Cloze.

He who has survived his childhood intelligently must become conscious of something more than a change in his sense of the present and in his apprehension of the future.He must be 1._____of no less a thing than the destruction of the past.Its events and empires stand 2._____they did,and the mere relation of time is 3._____it was.But that which has fallen together,has fallen in,has fallen close,and lies in a little heap,is the past itself—time—the fact of antiquity.

He has 4._____a smaller world as he has grown older.There are no more 5._____.Recorded time has no more terrors.The 6._____of measure which he holds in his hand has become in his eyes a thing of paltry length.The discovery draws in the annals of mankind.He had thought them to be wide.

For a man has nothing whereby to order and place the floods,the states,the conquests,and the temples of the past,except only the measure which he holds.Call that 7._____a space of ten years.His first ten years had given him the 8._____of a most august scale and measure.It was then that he conceived Antiquity.But now!Is it to a decade of ten such little years as these now in his hand—ten of his mature years—that men give the 9._____of a century？They call it an age;but what if life shows now so small 10._____the word age has lost its gravity？

In fact,when a child begins to know that there is a past,he has a most noble rod to measure it by—he has his own ten years.He 11._____an overwhelming majesty to all recorded time.He confers distance.He,and he alone,12._____mystery.Remoteness is his.He creates more than mortal centuries.He 13._____armies fighting into the extremities of the past.He assigns the Parthenon to a hill of ages,and the temples of Upper Egypt to sidereal time.

If there were no child,there would be nothing old.He,having 14._____old time,communicates a remembrance at least of the mystery to the mind of the man.The man perceives at last all the illusion,but he cannot forget what was his 15._____when he was a child.He had once a persuasion of Antiquity.And this is not for nothing.The enormous undeception that comes upon him still leaves spaces in his mind.

1.A.wary B.aware C.alert D.known

2.A.where B.which C.that D.how

3.A.than B.to C.that D.as

4.A.developed B.followed C.despised D.grown into

5.A.extremities B.sufferings C.sorrows D.crimes

6.A.rule B.unit C.way D.method

7.A.scale B.measure C.view D.method

8.A.imagination B.thinking C.illustration D.illusion

9.A.dignity B.beauty C.name D.content

10.A.like B.that C.which D.as

11.A.thinks B.attributes C.regards D.considers

12.A.declines B.cherishes C.respects D.bestows

13.A.withdraws B.retreats C.sends D.enjoys

14.A.conceived B.questioned C.doubted D.ignored

15.A.disbelief B.uncertainty C.doubt D.conviction

Ⅶ.Translate the following sentences into English,using the words given in the parentheses.

1.我们不能再接受更多的工作了。我们目前已经全力以赴地增进国家的利益了。（to the utmost）

2.在严密控制条件的情况下，这个交流平台可以在图书馆合理使用，但是不能在充满奇想、方言、口语和误解的现实世界中运行。（subject to）

3.我们是在共同效忠国家的大前提下，让各社群有更大的空间保留自己的语言和文化。（profess）

4.如果“猫王”和其他同太阳唱片公司签约的音乐天才没有遇到菲利普斯的话，他们可能会终生默默无闻。（in obscurity）

5.只要他的主意打定，他便随着心中所想的那条路儿走；假若走不通的话，他能一两天不出一声，咬着牙，好似咬着自己的心！（lapse）

Ⅷ.Writing.

1.Write a 300-word précis of“The Colour of Life”.

2.Write an essay of 400 words in which you discuss your interpretation of the colour of life.