2. 外语
  3. Reading or the enjoyment of books has always been regarded among the charms of a cultured life and is respected and envied by th

Reading or the enjoyment of books has always been regarded among the charms of a cultured life and is respected and envied by th

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问题 Reading or the enjoyment of books has always been regarded among the charms of a cultured life and is respected and envied by those who rarely give themselves that privilege. This is easy to understand when we compare the difference between the life of a man who does no reading and that of a man who does. The man who does not have the habit of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine: he is limited to contact and conversation with a few friends and acquaintances, and he sees only what happens in his immediate neighborhood. From this prison there is no escape. But the moment he takes up a book, he immediately enters a different world, and if it is a good book, he is immediately put in touch with one of the best talkers of the world. This talker leads him on and carries him into a different country or a different age, or unburdens to him some of his personal regrets, or discusses with him some special line or aspect of life that the reader knows nothing about. An ancient author puts him in communion with a dead spirit of long age, and as he reads along, he begins to imagine what that ancient and what type of person he was. Both Mencius and Ssuma Ch’ien, China’s greatest historian, have the same idea. Now to be able to live two hours out of twelve in a different world and take one’s thoughts off the claims of the immediate present is, of course, a privilege to be envied by people shut up in their bodily prison. Such a change of environment is really similar to travel in its psychological effect.

But there is more to it than this. The reader is always carried away into a world of thought and reflection. Even if it is a book about physical events, there is a difference between seeing such events in person or living through them, and reading about them in books, for then the events always assume the quality of the spectacle and the reader becomes a detached spectator. The best reading is therefore that which leads us into this contemplative mood, and not that which is merely occupied with the report of events. The tremendous amount of time spent on newspapers I regard as not reading at all, for the average readers of papers are mainly concerned with getting reports about events and happenings without contemplative value.
The best formula for the object of reading, in my opinion, was stated by Huang Shanku, a Sung poet and friend of Su Tungp’o. He said, " A scholar who hasn’t read anything for three days feels that his talk has no flavor, and his own face becomes hateful to look at in the mirror. " What he means, of course, is that reading gives a man a certain charm and flavor, which is the entire object of reading, and only reading with this object can be called an art. One doesn’t read to "improve one’s mind," because when one begins to think of improving his mind, all the pleasure of reading is gone. He is the type of person who says to himself. " I must read Shakespeare, and I must read Sophocles, and I must read the entire Five-foot Shelf of Dr. Eliot, so I can become an educated man. " I’m sure that man will never become educated. He will force himself one evening to read Shakespeare’s Hamlet and come away, as if from a bad dream, with no greater benefit than that he is able to say that he had "read" Hamlet. Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the art of reading.
Questions 66 to 70
Answer the following questions with the information given in the passage.
Who is the famous historian the author mentioned?
选项
答案Ssuma Ch’ien．
解析 (根据文章第一段的倒数第三句话可知，作者提到了孟子和伟大的历史学家司马迁，来作为例证，即前面他所说的古代作者在阅读时，能够将自己的思维和前人的联系到一起，把自己想象为对方。)
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本试题收录于： B类竞赛（英语专业本科专科）题库大学生英语竞赛（NECCS）分类
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B类竞赛（英语专业本科专科）

大学生英语竞赛（NECCS）

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