时间:2018-12-05 作者:英语课 分类:自考英语综合二下册 课文+单词


英语课

  [00:00.00]Lesson Six

[00:03.50]Text  The Beauty of Britain   J .B .Priestley

[00:12.15]The beauty of our country—or at least all of its south of North Scotland

[00:21.08] —is as hard to define as it is easy to enjoy.

[00:28.73]Remembering other and larger countries,

[00:33.59]we see at once that one of its charmsis

[00:39.24]that it is immensely varied 1 within a small range.

[00:47.31]We have here no vast mountain ranges,

[00:54.15]no boundless 2 plains,no miles of forest,

[00:59.61]and are deprived of the grandeur 3 that may accompany these things.

[01:06.38]But we have superb variety.

[01:12.33]A great deal of everything is packed into little space.

[01:20.09]I suspect that we are always faintly conscious

[01:26.75]of the fact that this is a smallish island,

[01:33.10]with the sea always round the corner.

[01:38.09]We know that everything has to be neatly 4 packed into a small space.

[01:45.64]Nature, we feel, has carefully adjusted things

[01:52.20]—mountains,plains, rivers,lakes

[01:59.04]— to the scale of the island itself.

[02:03.79]A mountain 12,000 feet high would be a horrible monster here,

[02:13.04]as wrong as a plain 400 miles long,

[02:19.57]a river as broad as the Mississippi.

[02:24.93]In America the whole scale is too big, except for aviators 5.

[02:33.47]There is always too much of everything.

[02:38.22]There you find yourself in a region that is all mountains,

[02:45.49]then in another region that is merely part of one immense plain.

[02:54.03]You can spend a long,hard day in the Rockies

[02:59.10]simply travelling up or down one valley.

[03:05.26]You can wander across prairie country

[03:09.94]that has the desolating 7 immensity of the ocean

[03:15.50]Everything is too big; there is too much of it.

[03:22.55]Though the geographical 8 features of this island are comparatively small,

[03:29.50]and there is astonishing variety almost everywhere,

[03:34.86]that does not mean that our mountains are not mountains,our plains not plains.

[03:34.93]Consider that piece of luck of ours, the Lake District.

[03:41.49]You can climb with ease — as I have done many a time

[03:48.04]—several of its mountains in one day.

[03:52.90]Nevertheless, you feel that they are mountains and not mere 6 hills

[04:01.05]—as a correspondent pointed 9 out in the Times recently.

[04:07.09]This same correspondent told a story that proves my point.

[04:14.03]A party of climbers imported a Swiss guide into the Lake District,

[04:21.79]and on the first morning,surveying the misty 10 peaks before him.

[04:29.24]he pointed to a ledge 11 about two thirds of the way up one of them

[04:36.50]and suggested that the party should spend the night there.

[04:42.38]He did not know that that ledge was only an hour or two's climb away

[04:51.13]and that before the light went

[04:54.97]they would probably have conquered two or three of these peaks.

[05:01.81]He had not realised the scale of the country.

[05:07.17]He did not know that he was looking at mountains in miniature.

[05:13.65]What he did know was that he was certainly looking at mountains,

[05:20.31]and he was right,for these peaks,some of them less than 3,000 feet high,

[05:29.66]have all the air of great mountains.

[05:35.22]With variety goes surprise.

[05:39.98]Ours is the country of happy surprises.

[05:44.65]You have never to travel long without being pleasantly astonished.

[05:50.61]It would not be difficult to compile a list of such surprises

[05:56.36]that would fill the next fifty pages,

[06:00.93]but I will content myself with suggesting the first few that occur to me.

[06:08.09]If you go down into the West Country,

[06:12.63]among rounded hills and soft pastures,

[06:17.67]you suddenly arrive at the bleak 12 tablelands

[06:23.71]as if the North had left a piece of itself down there.

[06:29.87]But before you have reached them you have already been surprised

[06:36.22]by the queer bit of marshland,

[06:40.89]as if a former inhabitant had been sent to Cambridge

[06:47.14]and had brought his favourite marshland walk

[06:51.89]back from college with him into the West.


  [06:57.77]The Weald is another of them.

[07:01.90]East Anglia has a kind of rough heath country of its own

[07:08.53]that I for one never expect to find there and I'm always delighted to see.

[07:17.07]Then,after the easy rolling Midlands,the dramatic Peak District,

[07:25.62]with its genuine steep slopes,never fails to astonish me,

[07:31.36]for I feel that it has no business to be there.

[07:37.01]A car will take you all round the Peak District in a morning.

[07:42.36]It is nothing but a crumpled 13 green pocket handkerchief.

[07:48.42]Again,there has always been something surprising to me

[07:54.17]about those cone-shaped hills that suddenly pop up

[08:00.05]in Shropshire and along the Welsh border

[08:05.19]I have never explored this region properly,

[08:10.55]and so it remains 14 to me a country of mystery,

[08:17.91]with a delightful 15 fairy-tale quality about its cone-shaped hills.

[08:25.67]Nevertheless,we hear of search parties going out there to find lost travellers

[08:35.65]I could go on with this list of surprises

[08:41.40]but perhaps you had better make your own.

[08:47.17]Another characteristic of our landscape is its exquisite 16 moderation.

[08:55.53]It looks like the result of one of those happy compromises

[09:01.88]that make our social and political plans so irrational 17 and yet so successful.

[09:11.26]It has been born of a compromise

[09:15.70]between wildness and tameness,between Nature and Man.

[09:24.34]In many countries you pass straight from regions

[09:30.12]where men have left their mark in every inch of ground

[09:36.46]to other regions that are desolate 18 wilderness 19.

[09:42.73]Abroad, we have all noticed how abruptly 20 most of the cities seem to begin;

[09:51.67]here,no city; there, the city.

[09:58.12]With us the cities pretend they are not really there

[10:04.78]until we are well inside them.

[10:09.22]They almost insinuate 21 themselves into the countryside.

[10:15.39]This comes from another compromise of ours,the suburb.

[10:22.05]There is a great deal to be said for the suburb.

[10:27.01]To people of moderate means,

[10:31.09]compelled to live fairly near their work in a city,

[10:37.02]the suburb offers the most civilised way of life.

[10:42.87]Nearly all Englishmen are at heart country gentlemen.

[10:49.03]The suburban 22 villa 23 enables the salesman or the clerk,

[10:55.80] out of hours,to be a country gentleman.

[11:01.73](Let us admit that it offers his wife and children more solid advantages. )

[11:07.68]A man in a newish suburb

[11:11.84]feels that he has one foot in the city and one in the country.

[11:19.60]As this is the kind of compromise he likes,he is happy.

[11:27.14]We must return,however, to the landscape,

[11:31.82]which I suggest is the result of a compromise

[11:38.17]between wilderness and cultivation 24,Nature and Man.

[11:46.50]One reason for this

[11:50.26]is that it contains that exquisite balance between Nature and Man.

[11:57.92]We see a cornfield and a cottage,both solid evidences of man's presence.

[12:06.69]But notice how these things, in the middle of the scene,

[12:12.44]are surrounded by witnesses to that ancient England

[12:19.52]that was nearly all forest and heath.

[12:24.48]The fence and the gate are man-made,

[12:29.05]but are not severely 25 regular and trim

[12:34.31]—as they would be in some other countries.

[12:38.77]The trees and hedges,the grass and wild flowers in the foreground,

[12:46.03]all suggest that Nature has not been forced into obedience 26.

[12:53.77]Even the cottage,which has an irregularity and colouring

[13:01.50]that make it fit snugly 27 into the landscape

[13:06.67](as all good cottages should do) ,

[13:10.82]looks nearly as much a piece of natural history as the trees:

[13:17.36]you feel it might have grown there.

[13:23.00]In some countries,that cottage would have been an uncompromising cube

[13:31.64]of brick,which would have declared,

[13:36.92]"No nonsense now Man,the drainer,the tiller,the builder, has settled here.

[13:44.68]"In this English scene there is no such direct opposition 28.

[13:51.45]Men and trees and flowers,we feel,have all settled down comfortably together.


  [14:00.69]The motto is, "Live and let live. "

[14:06.26]This exquisite harmony between Nature and Man

[14:12.19]explains in part the enchantment 29 of the older Britain,

[14:17.75]in which whole towns fitted snugly into the landscape,

[14:24.10]as if they were no more than bits of woodland;

[14:29.98]and roads went winding 30 the easiest way as naturally as rivers;

[14:38.31]and it was impossible to say where cultivation ended and wild life began.

[14:46.04]It was a country rich in trees,birds,and wild flowers,

[14:54.01]as we can see to this day.



1 varied
adj.多样的,多变化的
  • The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
  • The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。
2 boundless
adj.无限的;无边无际的;巨大的
  • The boundless woods were sleeping in the deep repose of nature.无边无际的森林在大自然静寂的怀抱中酣睡着。
  • His gratitude and devotion to the Party was boundless.他对党无限感激、无限忠诚。
3 grandeur
n.伟大,崇高,宏伟,庄严,豪华
  • The grandeur of the Great Wall is unmatched.长城的壮观是独一无二的。
  • These ruins sufficiently attest the former grandeur of the place.这些遗迹充分证明此处昔日的宏伟。
4 neatly
adv.整洁地,干净地,灵巧地,熟练地
  • Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
  • The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。
5 aviators
飞机驾驶员,飞行员( aviator的名词复数 )
  • Analysis on Sickness Status of 1149 Aviators during Recuperation. 飞行员1149例疗养期间患病情况分析。
  • In America the whole scale is too big, except for aviators. 在美国整个景象的比例都太大了,不过对飞行员来说是个例外。
6 mere
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过
  • That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
  • It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。
7 desolating
毁坏( desolate的现在分词 ); 极大地破坏; 使沮丧; 使痛苦
  • Most desolating were those evenings the belle-mere had envisaged for them. 最最凄凉的要数婆婆给她们设计的夜晚。
8 geographical
adj.地理的;地区(性)的
  • The current survey will have a wider geographical spread.当前的调查将在更广泛的地域范围內进行。
  • These birds have a wide geographical distribution.这些鸟的地理分布很广。
9 pointed
adj.尖的,直截了当的
  • He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
  • She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。
10 misty
adj.雾蒙蒙的,有雾的
  • He crossed over to the window to see if it was still misty.他走到窗户那儿,看看是不是还有雾霭。
  • The misty scene had a dreamy quality about it.雾景给人以梦幻般的感觉。
11 ledge
n.壁架,架状突出物;岩架,岩礁
  • They paid out the line to lower him to the ledge.他们放出绳子使他降到那块岩石的突出部分。
  • Suddenly he struck his toe on a rocky ledge and fell.突然他的脚趾绊在一块突出的岩石上,摔倒了。
12 bleak
adj.(天气)阴冷的;凄凉的;暗淡的
  • They showed me into a bleak waiting room.他们引我来到一间阴冷的会客室。
  • The company's prospects look pretty bleak.这家公司的前景异常暗淡。
13 crumpled
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹
  • He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
  • The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。
14 delightful
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的
  • We had a delightful time by the seashore last Sunday.上星期天我们在海滨玩得真痛快。
  • Peter played a delightful melody on his flute.彼得用笛子吹奏了一支欢快的曲子。
15 exquisite
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的
  • I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
  • I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。
16 irrational
adj.无理性的,失去理性的
  • After taking the drug she became completely irrational.她在吸毒后变得完全失去了理性。
  • There are also signs of irrational exuberance among some investors.在某些投资者中是存在非理性繁荣的征象的。
17 desolate
adj.荒凉的,荒芜的;孤独的,凄凉的;v.使荒芜,使孤寂
  • The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
  • We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后,我们都觉得万分孤寂。
18 wilderness
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠
  • She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
  • Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。
19 abruptly
adv.突然地,出其不意地
  • He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
  • I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。
20 insinuate
vt.含沙射影地说,暗示
  • He tried to insinuate himself into the boss's favor.他设法巧妙地渐渐取得老板的欢心。
  • It seems to me you insinuate things about her.我觉得你讲起她来,总有些弦外之音。
21 suburban
adj.城郊的,在郊区的
  • Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
  • There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。
22 villa
n.别墅,城郊小屋
  • We rented a villa in France for the summer holidays.我们在法国租了一幢别墅消夏。
  • We are quartered in a beautiful villa.我们住在一栋漂亮的别墅里。
23 cultivation
n.耕作,培养,栽培(法),养成
  • The cultivation in good taste is our main objective.培养高雅情趣是我们的主要目标。
  • The land is not fertile enough to repay cultivation.这块土地不够肥沃,不值得耕种。
24 severely
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地
  • He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
  • He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。
25 obedience
n.服从,顺从
  • Society has a right to expect obedience of the law.社会有权要求人人遵守法律。
  • Soldiers act in obedience to the orders of their superior officers.士兵们遵照上级军官的命令行动。
26 snugly
adv.紧贴地;贴身地;暖和舒适地;安适地
  • Jamie was snugly wrapped in a white woolen scarf. 杰米围着一条白色羊毛围巾舒适而暖和。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The farmyard was snugly sheltered with buildings on three sides. 这个农家院三面都有楼房,遮得很严实。 来自《简明英汉词典》
27 opposition
n.反对,敌对
  • The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
  • The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。
28 enchantment
n.迷惑,妖术,魅力
  • The beauty of the scene filled us with enchantment.风景的秀丽令我们陶醉。
  • The countryside lay as under some dread enchantment.乡村好像躺在某种可怖的魔法之下。
29 winding
n.绕,缠,绕组,线圈
  • A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
  • The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。
学英语单词
Abel tests
amphigonic female
amyle
asphalt barreled melter
Auchter
auto-authentication
Ban Pang San
Bazéga, Prov.
be entangled
bit motion
blade with external fir-tree root
braunification
Calamus platyacanthus
chickcharnee
Chionocharis
column format
competitour
compound analysis
conical skirt monopole
conventional island
conventional service
coordinated boiler-turbine control
creepoid
crusader
D'Entrecasteaux Chan.
defamatories
depublishes
devilline
differential migration
down draft sintering machine
early dough stage
edudesmin
El Médano
electron-beam transmission efficiency
electronic distributor tester
Emery Basin
erythrina variegatas
escape
escape behavior
fast-growth
feminizers
fire-proof floor
first of exchange
fordele
fumigation of ship's holds
hamsandwich
hanukkah
headlands
high speed grease
high voltage current shunt
high-frequency electric field
high-frequency stage
high-stakes
ill at ease
inclusion water
Indian harp
interconnecting piping
internal nasal branches
jabat al-tahrir al-filistiniyyahs
java 2 specification edition
jupiters family
kelberlau
kissenger
labourers in the vineyard
Landtabs
littorale
Loanda
maneuver flight of spacecraft
market value adjustment
mh-radio beacon
multidriver
neutral detergent soluble
non-contact type conductometer
nonsine-wave
overflow toggle
paralyzations
perforator
petrolisthes miyakei
phytolipopolysaccharide
port pins
pulsed laser amplifier
pumper
quicksleep
Radu
realization response
remoteindicating
rubus idaeus strigosuss
S-pixel
S.D.A.
sequential determination
stepped annealing
stripe set
subdivision survey
surface current
take sth.out of pledge
thermal gauge
topic-controls
vacuum-tube-type high-frequency converter
visual modalities
Vogt
water-cleansing
yard number