晨讀英語美文100篇六級Owning Books

[ti:] [ar:] [al:] [by:] [00:02.44]Passage 35. Owning Books [00:06.82]We enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed. [00:12.39]A borrowed book is like a guest in the house; [00:16.33]it must be treated with punctiliousness, with a certain considerate formality. [00:21.91]You must see that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer while under your roof. [00:28.59]But your own books belong to you; [00:31.97]you treat them with that affectionate intimacy that annihilates formality. [00:37.45]Books are for use, not for show; [00:41.05]you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up, [00:44.99]or afraid to place on the table, wide open and face down. [00:49.48]A good reason for marking favorite passages in books [00:54.08]is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, [01:00.42]to refer to them quickly, and then in later years, [01:04.47]it is like visiting a forest where you once blazed a trail. [01:08.85]Everyone should begin collecting a private library in youth; [01:12.79]the instinct of private property can here be cultivated with every advantage and no evils. [01:20.23]The best of mural decorations is books; [01:24.05]they are more varied in color and appearance than any wallpaper, [01:29.30]they are more attractive in design, [01:31.93]and they have the prime advantage of being separate personalities, [01:36.86]so that if you sit alone in the room in the firelight, [01:40.58]you are surrounded with intimate friends. [01:43.53]The knowledge that they are there in plain view is both stimulating and refreshing. [01:49.77]Books are of the people, by the people, for the people. [01:54.80]Literature is the immortal part of history; [01:58.85]it is the best and most enduring part of personality. [02:02.90]Book-friends have this advantage over living friends; [02:07.60]you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever you want it. [02:14.39]The great dead are beyond our physical reach, [02:18.10]and the great living are usually almost as inaccessible. [02:22.04]But in a private library, [02:24.23]you can at any moment converse with Socrates or Shakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens. [02:32.44]And there is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best. [02:38.45]They "laid themselves out," they did their ultimate best to entertain you, [02:44.47]to make a favorable impression. [02:46.77]You are necessary to them as an audience is to an actor; [02:51.36]only instead of seeing them masked, [02:54.31]you look into their innermost heart of heart.

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