英語晨讀美文閱讀
晨讀可以增長知識，訓練朗讀技巧，增強英語語感，是我們提高英語閱讀能力的最好方式之一。下面本站小編爲大家帶來英語晨讀美文閱讀，歡迎大家閱讀欣賞!
I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshine and what red color is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity can do strange things to people.
4歲那年在大西洋城，我從貨場一輛火車上摔下來，頭先着地，於是雙目失明。現在我已經32歲了。我還模糊地記得陽光是多麼燦爛，紅色是多麼鮮豔。能恢復視覺固然好，但災難也能對人產生奇妙的作用。
It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn’t been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don’t mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.
有一天我突然想到，倘若我不是盲人，我或許不會變得像現在這樣熱愛生活。現在我相信生活，但我不能肯定如果自己是明眼人，會不會像現在這樣深深地相信生活。這並不意味着我寧願成爲盲人，而只是意味着失去視力使我更加珍惜自己其他的能力。
Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was bewildered and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me —a potential to live, you might call it ——which I didn’t see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.
我認爲，生活要求人不斷地自我調整以適應現實。人愈能及時地進行調整，他的個人世界便愈有意義。調整決非易事。我曾感到茫然害怕，但我很幸運，父母和老師在我身上發現了某種東西——可以稱之爲活下去的潛力吧——而我自己卻沒有發現。他們激勵我誓與失明拼搏到底。
The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn’t been able to do that, I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self-confidence that helps me down a unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person that somewhere in the sweeping, intricate pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
我必須學會的最艱難的一課就是相信自己，這是基本條件。如做不到這一點，我的精神就會崩潰，只能坐在前門廊的搖椅中度過餘生。相信自己並不僅僅指支持我獨自走下陌生的樓梯的那種自信，那是一部分。我指的是大事：是堅信自己雖然有缺陷，卻是一個真正的有進取心的人;堅信在芸芸衆生錯綜複雜的格局當中，自有我可以安身立命的一席之地。
It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball, I thought he was mocking me and I was hurt. “I can’t use this,” I said. “Take it with you,” he urged me,” and roll it around. “The words stuck in my head.” Roll it around!” By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphia’s Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.
我花了很長時間才樹立並不斷加強這一信念。這要從最簡單的事做起。有一次一個人給我一個室內玩的棒球，我以爲他在嘲笑我，心裏很難受。“我不能使這個。”我說。“你拿去，”他竭力勸我，“在地上滾。”他的話在我腦子裏生了根。“在地上滾!” 滾球使我聽見它朝哪兒滾動。我馬上想到一個我曾認爲不可能達到的目標：打棒球。在費城的奧弗布魯克盲人學校，我發明了一種很受人歡迎的棒球遊戲，我們稱它爲地面球。
All my life I have set ahead of is a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.
我這一輩子給自己樹立了一系列目標，然後努力去達到，一次一個。我必須瞭解自己能力有限，若開始就知道某個目標根本達不到卻硬要去實現，那不會有任何好處，因爲那隻會帶來失敗的苦果。我有時也失敗過，但一般來說總有進步。
英語晨讀美文閱讀2：In a small village, there lived a potter. He had a donkey. Everyday his donkey would carry soil from the field to his house. Since the field was quite far off, the potter would rest under a tree midway, tying his donkey nearby.
在一個小村莊裏住着一位陶工，他養了一頭驢。每天他都會用驢從田地往家裏運土。因爲田地比較遠，陶工都會在半道的一棵樹下休息，把驢拴在一旁。
One day, the potter forgot to take the rope with which he tied the donkey everyday. When he reached the tree, he thought, “How do I tie this donkey today? He might run away if I sleep.” The potter decided to lie down holding the donkey’s ears so that the donkey would not run away.
一天，陶工忘了帶他每天拴驢用的繩子。當走到那棵樹旁的時候，他想：“我今天該怎麼拴驢呢?要是我睡着了，它可能會跑掉。”於是陶工決定躺下休息時揪着驢的兩隻耳朵——這樣驢就跑不了了。
But this way neither the donkey nor the potter was able to take a rest. A saint, who happened to be passing by, saw the potter holding on to the donkey’s ears. Then the saint wanted to know what the problem of the potter was. When the potter told the saint what the problem was, the wise saint said, “Take the donkey to the place where you tie him everyday. Pretend to tie him using an imaginary rope. I assure you he won’t run away.” The potter did what the saint had said.
但是這樣一來驢和陶工都無法休息。一位聖人剛好路過，他看見陶工用手揪着驢的耳朵，就想知道陶工碰到了什麼麻煩。當陶工告訴他以後，睿智的聖人說：“把驢帶到你每天拴它的地方，用一根想象的繩子假裝把它拴好。我保證它不會逃跑。”陶工按照聖人說的做了。
He left the donkey and went to take a nap. When he woke up, to his surprise and relief, he found the donkey standing in the same place.
陶工離開驢，去睡了一小會兒。他醒來後發現驢還站在原地，感到很吃驚，同時也鬆了一口氣。
Soon the potter prepared to leave for home. But the donkey did not move. “What is wrong with this donkey!” exclaimed the potter in frustration.
很快，陶工準備出發回家了，但是驢卻不肯邁步。“這隻驢怎麼了!”陶工沮喪地叫道。
Luckily, the potter saw the wise saint again. He ran up to the saint and told him about the donkey’s strange behavior. The saint said, “You tied up the donkey, but did you untie him? Go and pretend to untie the rope with which you had tied the donkey.”
幸運的是，陶工又看到了那位睿智的聖人。他跑向聖人，告訴他驢的奇怪行爲。聖人說：“你把驢拴好了，可你給它解繩子了嗎?過去假裝把拴着它的那根繩子解開。”
The potter followed the saint’s advice. Now the donkey was ready to leave for home. The potter understood that donkey was a bonded donkey. The potter thanked the wise saint and went home happily with his donkey.
陶工聽從了聖人的建議，驢果然願意回家了。陶工明白了，這頭驢是一頭被束縛的驢。陶工謝過聖人，高高興興地牽着驢回家了。
英語晨讀美文閱讀
