1、大学英语精读 课文 第三册UNIT 1. A Brush with the Law A young man finds that strolling along the streets without an obvious purpose can lead to trouble with the law. One misunderstanding leads to another until eventually he must appear in court for trialA Brush with the LawI have only once been in trouble with
2、the law. The whole process of being arrested and taken to court was a rather unpleasant experience at the time, but it makes a good story now. What makes it rather disturbing was the arbitrary circumstances both of my arrest and my subsequent fate in court. In happened in February about twelve years
3、 ago. I had left school a couple of months before that and was not due to go to university until the following October. I was still living at home at the time.One morning I was in Richmond, a suburb of London near where I lived. I was looking for a temporary job so that I could save up some money to
4、 go travelling. As it was a fine day and I was in no hurry, I was taking my time, looking in shop windows, strolling in the park, and sometimes just stopping and looking around me. It must have been this obvious aimlessness that led to my downfall.It was about half past eleven when it happened. I wa
5、s just walking out of the local library, having unsuccessfully sought employment there, when I saw a man walking across the road with the obvious intention of talking to me. I thought he was going to ask me the time. Instead, he said he was a police officer and he was arresting me. At first I though
6、t it was some kind of joke. But then another policeman appeared, this time in uniform, and I was left in no doubt.But what for? I asked.“Wandering with intent to commit an arrestable offence, he said.What offence? I asked.Theft, he said.Theft of what? I asked.Milk bottles, he said, and with a perfec
7、tly straight face too!Oh, I said.It turned out there had been a lot of petty thefts in the area, particularly that of stealing milk bottles from doorsteps.Then I made my big mistake. At the time I was nineteen, had long untidy hair, and regarded myself as part of the sixties youth counterculture. As
8、 a result, I want to appear cool and unconcerned with the incident, so I said, How long have you been following me? in the most casual and conversation tone I could manage. I thus appeared to them to be quite familiar with this sort of situation, and it confirmed them in their belief that I was a th
9、oroughly disreputable character.A few minutes later a police car arrived.Get in the back,“ they said. Put your hands on the back of the front seat and dont move them.They got in on either side of me. I wasnt funny any more.At the police station they questioned me for several hours. I continued to tr
10、y to look worldly and au fait with the situation. When they asked me what I had been doing, I told them Id been looking for a job. Aha, I could see them thinking, unemployed.Eventually, I was officially charged and told to report to Richmond Magistrates Court the following Monday. Then they let me g
11、o.I wanted to conduct my own defence in court, but as soon as my father found out what had happened, he hired a very good solicitor. We went along that Monday armed with all kinds of witnesses, including my English teacher from school as a character witness. But he was never called on to give eviden
12、ce. My trial didnt get that far. The magistrate dismissed the case after fifteen minutes. I was free. The poor police had never stood a chance. The solicitor even succeeded in getting costs awarded against the police.And so I do not have a criminal record. But what was most shocking at the time was
13、the things my release from the charge so clearly depended on. I had the right accent, respectable middle-class parents in court, reliable witnesses, and I could obviously afford a very good solicitor. Given the obscure nature of the charge, I feel sure that if I had come from a different background,
14、 and had really been unemployed, there is every chance that I would have been found guilty. While asking for costs to be awarded, my solicitors case quite obviously revolved around the fact that I had a brilliant academic record.Meanwhile, just outside the courtroom, one of the policemen who had arr
15、ested me was gloomily complaining to my mother that another youngster had been turned against the police. You could have been a bit more helpful when we arrested you, he said to me reproachfully.What did the mean? Presumably that I should have looked outraged and said something like, Look here, do y
16、ou know who youre talking to? I am a highly successful student with a brilliant academic record. How dare you arrest me! Then they, presumably, would have apologized, perhaps even taken off their caps, and let me on my way.UNIT 2. The Woman Who Would Not Tell Aunt Bettie is faced with a difficult de
17、cision. A wounded Union soldier is found hiding in a farmhouse near her home. She has to decide whether to help him or let him be captured. What will she choose to do?The Woman Who Would Not TellJanice Keyser Lester“I never did hate the Yankees. All that hated was the war.“Thats how my great-aunt Be
18、ttie began her story. I heard it many times as a child, whenever my family visited Aunt Bettie in the old house in Berryville, Virginia. Aunt Bettie was almost 80 years old then. But I could picture her as she was in the story she told me barely 20, pretty, with bright blue eyes.Bettie Van Metre had
19、 good reason to hate the Civil War. One of her brother was killed at Gettysburg, another taken prisoner. Then her young husband, James, a Confederate officer, was captured and sent to an unknown prison camp somewhere. One hot day in late September Dick Runner, a former slave, came to Bettie with a s
20、trange report. He had been checking a farmhouse half a mile away from the Van Metre home, a farmhouse he thought was empty. But inside, he heard low groans. Following them to the attic, he found a wounded Union soldier, with a rifle at his side.When Aunt Bettie told me about her first sight of the b
21、earded man in the stained blue uniform, she always used the same words. “It was like walking into a nightmare: those awful bandages, that dreadful smell. Thats what war is really like, child: no bugles and banners. Just pain and filth, futility and death.“To Bettie Van Metre this man was not an enem
22、y but rather a suffering human being. She gave him water and tried to clean his terrible wounds. Then she went out into the cool air and leaned against the house, trying not to be sick as she thought of what she had seen that smashed right hand, that missing left leg.The mans papers Bettie found in
23、the attic established his identity: Lt. Henry Bedell, Company D, 11th Vermont Volunteers, 30 year old. She knew that she should report the presence of this Union officer to the Confederate army. But she also knew that she would not do it. This is how she explained it to me: “I kept wondering if he h
24、ad a wife somewhere, waiting, and hoping, and not knowing just as I was. It seemed to me that the only thing that mattered was to get her husband back to her.“Slowly, patiently, skillfully, James Van Metres wife fanned the spark of life that flickered in Henry Bedell. Of drugs or medicines she had a
25、lmost none. And she was not willing to take any from the few supplies at the Confederate hospital. But she did the best she could with what she had.As his strength returned, Bedell told Bettie about his wife and children in Westfield, Vermont. And BedelL listened as she told him about her brothers a
26、nd about James. “I knew his wife must be praying for him,“ Aunt Bettie would say to me, “just as I was praying for James. It was strange how close I felt to her.“The October nights in the valley grew cold. The infection in Bedells wounds flared up. With Dick and his wife, Jennie, helping, she moved
27、the Union officer at night, to a bed in a hidden loft above the warm kitchen of her own home.But the next day, Bedell had a high fever. Knowing that she must get help or he would die, she went to her long-time friend and family doctor. Graham Osborne.Dr. Osborne examined Bedell, then shook his head.
28、 There was little hope, he said, unless proper medicine could be found.“All right, then,“ Bettie said. “Ill get it from the Yankees at Harpers Ferry.“The doctor told her she was mad. The Union headquarters were almost 20 miles away. Even if she reached them, the Yankees would never believe her story
29、.“Ill take proof,“ Bettie said. She went to the loft and came back with a blood-stained paper bearing the official War Department seal. “This is a record of his last promotion,“ she said. “When I show it, theyll have to believe me.“She made the doctor writer out list of the medical items he needed.
30、Early the next morning she set off.For five hours she drove, stopping only to rest her horse. The sun was almost down when she finally stood before the commanding officer at Harpers Ferry.Gen. John D. Stevenson listened, but did not believe her. “Madam,“ he said, “Bedells death was reported to us.“H
31、es alive,“ Bettie insisted. “But he wont be much longer unless he has the medicines on that list.“Well,“ the general said finally, “Im not going to risk the lives of a patrol just to find out.“ He turned to a junior officer. “See that Mrs. Van Metre gets the supplies.“ He brushed aside Betties thank
32、s. “Youre a brave woman,“ he said, “whether youre telling the truth or not.“With the medicines that Bettie carried to Berryville, Dr. Osborne brought Bedell through the crisis. Ten days later Bedell was hobbling on a pair of crutches that Dick had made for him. “I cant go on putting you in danger,“
33、Bedell told Bettie. “Im strong enough to travel now. Id lie to go back as soon as possible.“So it was arranged that Mr. Sam, one of Betties neighbors and friends, should go and help Bettie deliver Bedeel to Union headquarters at Harpers Ferry in his wagon.They hitched Betties mare alongside Mr. Sams
34、 mule. Bedell lay down in an old box filled with hay, his rifle and crutches beside him.It was a long, slow journey that almost ended in disaster. Only an hour from the Union lines, two horsemen suddenly appeared. One pointed a pistol, demanding money while the other pulled Mr. Sam from the wagon. S
35、hocked, Bettie sat still. Then a rifle shot cracked out, and the man with the pistol fell to the ground dead. A second shot, and the man went sprawling. It was Bedell shooting! Bettie watched him lower the rifle and brush the hay out of his hair. “Come on, Mr. Sam,“ he said. “Lets keep moving.“At Ha
36、rpers Ferry, the soldiers stared in surprise at the old farmer and the girl. They were even more amazed when the Union officer with the missing leg rose from his hay-filled box.Bedell was sent to Washington. There he told his story to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Stanton wrote a letter of than
37、ks to Bettie and-signed an order to free James Van Metre from prison. But first James had to be found. It was arranged for Bedell to go with Bettie as she searched for her husband.Records showed that a James Van Metre had been sent to a prison camp in Ohio. But when the ragged prisoners were paraded
38、 before Bettie, James was not there. A second prison was checked, with the same result. Bettie Van Metre fought back a chilling fear that her husband was dead.Then at Fort Delaware, near the end of the line of prisoners a tall man stepped out and stumbled into Betties arms. Bettie held him, tears st
39、reaming down her face. And Henry Bedell, standing by on his crutches, wept, too.UNIT 3. Why I Teach Every teacher probably asks himself time and again: What are the reasons for choosing teaching as a career? Do the rewards teaching outweigh the trying comments? Answering these questions is not a sim
40、ple task. Lets see what the author says.Why I TeachPeter G. BeidlerWhy do you teach? My friend asked the question when I told him that I didnt want to be considered for an administrative position. He was puzzled that I did not want what was obviously a “step up“ toward what all Americans are taught
41、to want when they grow up: money and power.Certainly I dont teach because teaching is easy for me. Teaching is the most difficult of the various ways I have attempted to earn my living: mechanic, carpenter, writer. For me, teaching is a red-eye, sweaty-palm, sinking-stomach profession. Red-eye, beca
42、use I never feel ready to teach no matter how late I stay up preparing. Sweaty-palm, because Im always nervous before I enter the classroom, sure that I will be found out for the fool that I am. Sinking-stomach, because I leave the classroom an hour later convinced that I was even more boring than u
43、sual.Nor do I teach because I think I know answers, or because I have knowledge I feel compelled to share. Sometimes I am amazed that my students actually take notes on what I say in class!Why, then, do I teach?I teach because I like the pace of the academic calendar. June, July, and August offer an
44、 opportunity for reflection, research and writing. I teach because teaching is a profession built on change. When the material is the same, I change and, more important, my students change.I teach because I like the freedom to make my own mistakes, to learn my own lessons, to stimulate myself and my
45、 students. As a teacher, Im my own boss. If I want my freshmen to learn to write by creating their own textbook, who is to say I cant? Such courses may be huge failures, but we can all learn from failures.I teach because I like to ask questions that students must struggle to answer. The world is ful
46、l of right answers to bad questions. While teaching, I sometimes find good questions.I teach because I enjoy finding ways of getting myself and my students out of the ivory tower and into the real world. I once taught a course called “Self-Reliance in a Technological Society.“ My 15 students read Em
47、erson, Thoreau, and Huxley. They kept diaries. They wrote term papers.But we also set up a corporation, borrowed money, purchased a run-down house and practiced self-reliance by renovating it. At the end of the semester, we would the house, repaid our loan, paid or taxes, and distributed the profits
48、 among the group.So teaching gives me pace, and variety, and challenge, and the opportunity to keep on learning.I have left out, however, the most important reasons why I teach. One is Vicky. My first doctoral student, Vicky was an energetic student who labored at her dissertation on a little-known
49、14th century poet. She wrote articles and sent them off to learned journals. She did it all herself, with an occasional nudge from me. But I was there when she finished her dissertation, learned that her articles were accepted, got a job and won a fellowship to Harvard working on a book developing ideas shed first had as my student.Another reason is George, who started as an engineering student, then switched to English because he decided he liked people better than things.There is Jeanne, who left college
