高级英语-the-future-of-the-english中英笔记 .pdfVIP

第二册lesson11TheFutureofTheEnglish

英国人的未来

JB普里斯特利

J.B.Priestley

1【TowriteabouttheEnglishinstandardandcosmopolitan

politicalterms,theusualLeft-Centre-Rightstuff,isalmostalways

wastingtimeandtrouble.TheEnglisharedifferent.TheEnglishare

evenmoredifferentthantheythinktheyare,thoughnotmore

differentthantheyfeeltheyare.Andwhattheyfeel—Englishness

again-ismoreimportantthanwhattheythink.Itisinstinctive

feelingandnotrationalthoughtthatshapesandcoloursactual

eventsinEngland.背诵】

若想用世界上流行的标准政治术语，即左、中、右三派这种毫无意义的陈腔老调来描述

英国人的话，那多半是白费时间，徒耗精力。英国人可是与众不同。他们甚至比自己想象中

的英国人还要不同，倒是同他们自己感觉中的英国人差不多。而他们所感觉到的…这一点再

次反映出英国人的特性——比他们想象到的更为重要。在英国，决定一切事物形式和色彩的

不是人的理性思维，而是人的本能感觉。

cosmopolitan(adj.):commontoorrepresentativeofallormanypartsoftheworld；not

nationalorlocal世界性的；不限于国家或地区范围的

2Forexample,althoughtheEnglishseemtobesosharply

divided,alwaysindulginginplentyofloudpoliticalabuse,thereare

nothinglikesomanyCommunistsorneo-orpotentialFascistsin

Englandasthereareinmostothercountries.Again,althoughthe

Englishseemtohavemorethantheirshareofrallies,protest

marches,confrontationswithauthority,whatcouldbegintolook

likeamurderousencounterinFranceorAmerica,ormightbea

bloodystreetbattleinJapan,wouldinEnglandendattheworstin

afewscufflesandarrests.Thisisbecausetherearefewerfanatical

believersamongtheEnglish,andatthesametime,belowthenoisy

arguments,theabuseandthequarrels,thereisareservoirof

instinctivefellow-feeling,notyetexhaustedthoughitmaynotbe

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fillingup.Noteverybodycandrawonthatreservoir.Nodoubt

thereareinEnglandsomesnarlingshopstewardswhodemand

freedomfortheworkerswhenwhattheyreallywantistobringthe

whol