第一课 P-V4
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. (Para. 8)
Power in the best form of function is the carrying out of the demands of justice with love and justice in the best form of function is the overcoming of everything standing in the way of love with power.
P-V5
At that time economic status was considered the measure of the individual's ability and talents. (Para. 10)
At that time, the way to evaluate how capable and resourceful a person was was to see how much money he had made (or how wealthy he was). P-V6
...the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber. (Para. 10)
A person was poor because he was lazy and not hard-working and lacked a sense of right and wrong.
第二课 P-4
It felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling out of my chest, but it also felt good, as if this awful side of me had surfaced, at last. (Para. 73)
When I said those words, I felt that some very nasty thoughts had got out of my chest, and so I felt scared. But at the same time I felt good, relieved, because those nasty things had been suppressed in my heart for some time and they had got out at last. P-5
And I could sense her anger rising to its breaking point. I wanted to see it spill over. (Para. 75)
I could feel that her anger had reached the point where her self-control would collapse, and I wanted to see what my mother would do when she lost complete control of herself. P-6
The lid to the piano was closed, shutting out the dust, my misery, and her dreams. (Para. 81)
When the lid to the piano was closed, it shut out the dust and also put an end to my misery and her dreams.
第三课
P4. Those people out there should continue to live in a museum while we will have showers that work. (Para.6)
The Chinese people should continue to live a backward life while we live comfortably with all modern conveniences.
P5. Westernization…is a phenomenon shot through with inconsistencies and populated by very strange bedfellows. (Para.7)
…westernization is a concept full of self-contradiction and held by people of very different backgrounds or views.
V-6. You don’t have to be cool to do it；you just have to have the eye. (Para.10)
In trying to find out what will be the future trend, you do not need to be fashionable yourself. All you need is awareness, that is to say, you need to be on the alert, to be observant.
第四课
P4. For though men sensibly allow themselves great freedom in these respects, I doubt that they realize or can control the extreme severity with which they condemn such freedom in women. (Para.5)
It was a sensible thing for men to give themselves great freedom to talk about the body and their passions. But if women want to have the same freedom, men condemn such freedom in women. And I do not believe that they realize how severely they condemn such freedom in women, nor do I believe that they can control their extremely severe condemnation of such freedom in women.
P5. Indeed it will be a long time still, I think, before a woman can sit down to write a book without finding a phantom to be slain, a rock to be dashed against. (Para.6)
It will take a long time for women to rid themselves of false values and attitudes and to overcome the obstacle to telling the truth about their body and passions.
P6. Even when the path is nominally open—when there is nothing to prevent a woman from being a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servant—there are many phantoms and obstacles, as I believe looming in her way. (Para.7)
Even when the path is open to women in name only, when outwardly there is nothing to prevent a woman from being a doctor, a lawyer, a civil servant, inwardly there are still false ideas and obstacles impeding a woman’s progress.
第七课
V1. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. (Para.1)
It took me a long time to get rid of illusions and realize the simple and apparent truth that I am nobody but myself. It was a painful process. I started with high expectations only to be deeply disappointed and thoroughly disillusioned.
V2. And yet I am no freak of nature, nor of history. I was in the cards, other things having been equal (or unequal) eighty-five years ago. (Para.2)
I am perfectly normal physically, and I am a natural product of history; my growth reflects history. When things seemed likely to happen to me, other things had been equal (or unequal) eighty-five years ago.
V3. About eighty-five years ago they were told that they were free, united with others of our country in everything pertaining to the common good, and, in everything social, separate
like the fingers of the hand. (Para.2)
About 85 years ago, they were told that they were freed from slavery and became united with the white people in all the essential things having to do with the common interests of our country, but in social life the blacks and whites still remain separated.
V4. In those pre-invisible days I visualized myself as a potential Booker T. Washington. (Para.5)
In those days before I realized I was an invisible man, I imagined that I would become a successful man like Booker T. Washington.
P5. I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through the floor… to love her and murder her. (Para.7)
On one hand, I felt so embarrassed that I wanted to run away from the ballroom. On the other hand, I took pity on the girl and so wanted to protect the naked girl from the eyes of the other men. I wanted to love her tenderly because she was an attractive girl, but at the same time I wanted to destroy her because after all she was the immediate cause of our embarrassment.
P6. Should I try to win against the voice out there? Would not this go against my speech, and was not this a moment for humility, for nonresistance? (Para.27)
If I should try my best and win the fight, then I would be winning against the bet of that white man, who shouted “I got my money on the big boy.” In that case I would not behave with humility, and yet my speech talked about humility as the essence of success. So maybe I should let that big boy win without putting up resistance, for this was time for me to show humility.
P7. “Cast down your bucket where you are”—cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded… (Para.54)
Make full use of what you have and do the best you can. Take this attitude in making friends in every honorable way, making friends with people of different races among whom we live. P8. “You weren’t being smart, were you, boy?” “We mean to do right by you, but you’ve got to know your place at all times.” (Para.75,79)
You were not trying to seem clever in a disrespectful way, were you, boy? We intend to do the right thing by setting you up as a role model, but you must never forget who you are.
第八课
P1. … and I was conscious of his superiority in a way which was embarrassing and led to trouble. (Para.2)
I knew that he was a man of great talent but his way of showing his talent at my seminars caused uneasiness and resentment among people, especially among his fellow students
P2. … this did not seem to be the sort of anecdote that would go over especially well at a conference devoted to poetry. (Para.3)
Since those attending the conference were people devoted to poetry, such an anecdote, though interesting, might not be appreciated by the audience.
P3. Pitted against these excellent reasons for my not going to the conference were two others that finally carried the day. (Para.4)
There were two reasons for my going to the conference set against the reasons for my not going and they became decisive in my final decision.
P4. He is, for me, one of those people whose writing about their writing is more interesting than their writing itself. (Para.4)
According to my view, Spender belongs to the group whose writings about their lives, experiences, that is whose autobiographies, are more interesting than their literary works. P5. Auden's Dirac-like lucidity, the sheer wonder of the language, and the sense of fun about serious things. . .were to me irresistible. (Para.4)
Like Dirac, Auden was outstanding in clarity. He was also outstanding in the powerful use of the language and the sense of fun about serious issues. All these greatly fascinated me.
P6. Spender's journal entry on his visit is fascinating both for what it says and for what it does not say. (Para.5)
Spender's record of his visit is interesting not only because of the things he mentions but also because of the things he does not say.
P7. ...Oppenheimer appears in Spender's journal as a disembodied figure with no contextual relevance to Spender's own life. (Para.6)
In his book, Spender fails to give a connected, complete picture of Oppenheimer and does not mention that Oppenheimer's background and situation has quite a lot to do with Spender.
P8. The real thing was much better. (Para.9)
The real person looked much better than the pictures.
P9. One probably should not read too much into appearances... (Para.12) Maybe one should not attach too much importance to appearance.
P10. He had outlived them all, but was still under their shadow, especially that of Auden… (Para.12)
He had lived longer than any of his more famous friends but traces or influences of these friends, especially those of Auden, could still be found on him.
第九课
P1 Your imagination comes to life, and this, you think, is where Creation was begun. (Para.1)
The landscape makes your imagination vivid and lifelike, and you believe that the creation of the whole universe was begun right here.
P2 But warfare for the Kiowas was preeminently a matter of disposition rather than of survival, and they never understood the grim, unrelenting advance of the U.S. Cavalry. (Para.3)
The Kiowas often fought just because they were good warriors, because they fought out of habit, character, nature, not because they needed extra lands or material gains for the sake of surviving and thriving. And they could not understand why the U.S. Cavalry never gave up pushing forward even when they had won a battle.
P3 My grandmother was spared the humiliation of those high gray walls by eight or ten years… (Para.3)
Luckily, my grandmother did not suffer the humiliation of being put into a closure for holding animals, for she was born eight or ten years after the event.
P4 It was a long journey toward the dawn, and it led to a golden age. (Para.4)
They moved toward the east, where the sun rises, and also toward the beginning of a new
culture, which led to the greatest moment of their history.
P5 They acquired horses, and their ancient nomadic spirit was suddenly free of the ground. (Para.4)
Now they got horses. Riding on horseback, instead of walking on foot, gave them this new freedom of movement, thus completely liberating their ancient nomadic spirit.
P6 From one point of view, their migration was the fruit of an old prophecy, for indeed they emerged from a sunless world. (Para.4)
In a sense, their migration confirmed the ancient myth that they entered the world from a hollow log, for they did emerge from the sunless world of the mountains.
P7 The Kiowas reckoned their stature by the distance they could see, and they were bent and blind in the wilderness. (Para.6)
Their stature was measured by the distance they could see. Yet, because of the dense forests, they could not see very far, and they could hardly stand straight.
P8 Clusters of trees and animals grazing far in the distance cause the vision to reach away and wonder to build upon the mind. (Para.7)
The earth unfolds and the limit of the land is far in the distance, where there are clusters of trees and animals eating grass. This landscape makes one see far and broadens one’s horizon.
P9 Not yet would they veer southward to the caldron of the land that lay below; they must wean their blood from the northern winter and hold the mountains a while longer in their view. (Para.7)
They would not yet change the direction southward to the land lying below which was like a large kettle. First, they must give their bodies some time to get used to the plains. Secondly, they didn’t want to lose sight of the mountains so soon.
P10 I was never sure that I had the right to hear, so exclusive were they of all mere custom and company. (Para.10)
I was not sure that I had any right to overhear her praying, which did not follow any customary way of praying, and which I guess she did not want anyone else to hear.
P11 Transported so in the dancing light among the shadows of her room she seemed beyond the reach of time. (Para.10)
In this way she was entranced in the dancing light among the shadows of her room, and she seemed to be timeless (what she represented would last for ever).
P12 The women might indulge themselves; gossip was at once the mark and compensation of their servitude. (Para.12)
On these special occasions, women might make loud and elaborate jokes and talk among themselves. Their gossip revealed their position as servants of men and also a reward for their servitude.
第十课
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