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文章分为六段,耐心阅读哦.有不懂的词语问小D
Holmes’ Knowledge
His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.
Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics
he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting
Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he
might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a
climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was
ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition
of the Solar system.
“You appear to be astonished, ” Holmes said, smiling
at my expression. “Now that I do know it I shall do my
best to forget it. You see, I consider that a man’s
brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you
have to stock it with such furniture as you choose:
A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he
comes across, so that the knowledge which might be
useful to him gets crowded out, or at best jumbled
up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty
in laying his hand upon it. It is a mistake to think
that the little room has elastic walls and can distend
to any extent. Depend upon it, there comes a time when
for every addition of knowledge you forget something
that you know before. It is of the highest importance,
therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the
useful ones.”
“But the Solar System! ” I protested.
“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently.
One morning, I picked up a magazine from the table and
attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion
munched silently at his toast. One of the articles had a
pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to run
my eye through it.
Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life, ”
and it attempted to show how much an observant man might
learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all
that came in his way. It struck me as being a remarkable
mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning
was close and intense, but the deduction appeared to me
to be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed
by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or a
glance of an eye, to fathom a man’s inmost thought.
Deceit, according to him, was impossibility in the
case of one trained to observation and analysis. His
conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions
of Euclid. So startling would his results appear to the
uninitiated that until they learned the processes by
which he had arrived at them they might well consider
him as a necromancer.
“From a drop of water, ”said the writer, “a logician
could infer the possibility of an Atlantic. So all life
is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever
we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts,
the science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can
be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long
enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible
perfection in it. ”
This smartly written piece of theory I could not accept
until a succession of evidences justified it.
祝贺你,顺利阅读,继续认真答题吧,有沪元在等待着你哦~~~
Q:
1.What is the author’s attitude toward Holmes?
[A]Praising.
[B]Critical.
[C]Ironical.
[D]Distaste.
2.What way did the author take to stick out Holmes’ uniqueness?
[A]By deduction.
[B]By explanation.
[C]By contrast.
[D]By analysis.
3.What was the Holmes’ idea about knowledge-learning?
[A]Learning what every body learned.
[B]Learning what was useful to you.
[C]Learning whatever you came across.
[D]Learning what was different to you.
4.What did the article mentioned in the passage talk about?
[A]One may master the way of reasoning through observation.
[B]One may become rather critical through observation and analysis.
[C]One may become rather sharp through observation and analysis.
[D]One may become practical through observation and analysis.
文章难译点:建议答完题后再看.
Vocabulary
1.Thomas Carlyle 托马斯•卡莱尔 1795-1881美国作家、历史家、哲学家
2.jumble (up) 搞乱，使混乱
3.lay hand on (upon) sth. 抓住，找到
4.at best 最好的情况下
5.elbow out (off) 用胳膊肘挤出，推出
6.deuce = devil what the deuce is it to me?
这里表示福尔摩斯的厌恶心理。
义：这倒霉的词儿与我有什么关系？
7.while away the time 消磨/打发时间
8.shrewdness 机敏，敏锐，犀利
9.far-fetched 牵强附会，不自然
10.fathom 看穿/透，推测，探索
11.infallible 一贯正确
12.uninitiated 对某事无知的
13.Euclid 欧几里德（古希腊数学家）
14.necromancer 巫师
难句译注
1.A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that
he comes across, so that the knowledge which might
be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best jumbled
up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty
in laying his hand upon it.
【结构简析】主从句结构，主句A fool … 后跟lumber的定从that
he comes across。从句so that 中有一knowledge的定从which;
or链接前后两个分词crowded out 与jumbled up;但第一个so that
从句又是后面so that 的主句。
【参考译文】蠢人把他碰到的每种木材（制家具）都拿进来。这样，
可能对他有用的知识都被挤出去；最好的情况下，也是和其他种种事
情混在一起，所以他就很难抓住知识。
2.Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life, ”
and it attempted to show how much an observant man might
learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all
that came in his way.
【结构简析】并列句，连词and后的句中有宾从how much…。
【参考译文】这片文章稍有炫耀的标题是“生命之书”。它想证明一个
善于观察的人通过对他经历到的一切事情都进行真正地系统地考察可以
学到多少东西。
3.So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated
that until they learned the processes by which he had
arrived at them they might well consider him as a necromancer.
【结构简析】复合主从句，so that句型。So句是倒装。正常句型应为：
His results would appear so startling to the uninitiated
that…，that句中又是主从句，从句用until连接，中插by which定语
从句修饰 the processes。
【参考译文】他的结论对无知的人来说是那么惊人，所以他们很可能认为
他是个巫师，除非他们学会了他用以得出结论的过程。
4.Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis
is one which can be acquired by long and patient study, nor
is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest
possible perfection in it.
【结构简析】并列句，nor连接。前一句中有定语从句which修饰one，后一句
nor为否定词。
【参考译文】像所有的其他艺术一样，演绎分析科学是一种通过长期默默的
研究，可以习得的学问，而我们的生命并不长得足以使任何凡人都能在这一领域
取得可能是臻美的成就。
posted @ 2008-06-12 11:27
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