Brita阿菜
美文对我国文学创作的繁荣和现代文化建设做出了巨大的贡献。现代传媒的兴盛,促进了美文的传播;而美文也在文化普及方面起着无可替代的作用。我整理了适合初中生的英语美文，欢迎阅读!
Collectibles
收藏品
Collectibles have been a part of almost every culture since ancient times.
从古代开始，收藏品就是文化的一部分。
Whereas some objects have been collected for their usefulness, others have been selected for their aesthetic beauty alone.
一些物品因它们的有用性被收藏，而另一些则纯粹因为它们的美被收藏。
In theUnited States, the kinds of collectibles currently popular range from traditional objects
在美国，当今流行的收藏品种类从传统物件，
such as stamps, coins, rare books, and art to more recent items of interest like dolls, bottles, baseball cards, and comic books.
如邮票、硬币、珍本书籍、艺术品，到更近期一些的有趣的东西，如布娃娃、瓶子、垒球卡、连环漫画册。
Interest in collectibles has increased enormously during the past decade, in part because some collectibles have demonstrated their value as investments.
对收藏品的兴趣在过去十年中大大地增长，部分原因是一些收藏品显示出了它们的投资价值。
Especially during cycles of high inflation, investors try to purchase tangibles that will at least retain their current market values.
尤其在高通货膨胀时期，投资者尽量购买那些至少会保持他们现有市场价值的有形资产。
In general, the most traditional collectibles will be sought because they have preserved their value over the years, there is an organized auction market for them,
一般来说，最传统的收藏品受青睐，因为它们多年后仍保持其价值。它们拥有完善的拍卖市场，
and they are most easily sold in the event that cash is needed. Some examples of the most stable collectibles are old masters,
在需要现金的时候最容易被卖掉。一些最稳当的收藏品是古老的画作、
Chinese ceramics, stamps, coins, rare books, antique jewelry, silver, porcelain, art by well-known artists, autographs, and period furniture.
中国陶器、邮票、硬币、珍本书籍、古代珠宝、银器、瓷器、著名艺术家的作品、亲笔签名和有时代特征的家具。
Other items of more recent interest include old photograph records, old magazines, post cards, baseball cards, art glass, dolls, classic cars, old bottles, and comic books.
其它更近期的物品有旧唱片、旧杂志、明信片、垒球卡片、彩色玻璃、布娃娃、早期汽车、古瓶和连环画册。
These relatively new kinds of collectibles may actually appreciate faster as short-term investments, but may not hold their value as long-term investments.
作为短期投资这些相对说来较新颖的收藏品的确可能更快地增值，但作为长期投资则可能不能保值。
Once a collectible has had its initial play, it appreciates at a fairly steady rate, supported by an increasing number of enthusiastic collectors competing
一旦一件收藏品有了它第一次交易，它便以一个相当稳定的比率增值，这个增值率受到越来越多的热情的收藏者的支持，
for the limited supply of collectibles that become increasingly more difficult to locate.
他们为有限的而且越来越难找到的收藏品而竞争。
Sleep
Sleet is part of a person’s daily activity cycle. There are several different stages of sleep, and they too occur in cycles. If you are an average sleeper, your sleep cycle is as follows. When you fist drift off into slumber, your eyes will roll about a bit, you temperature will drop slightly, your muscles will relax, and your breathing well slow and become quite regular. Your brain waves slow and become quite regular. Your brain waves slow down a bit too, with the alpha rhythm of rather fast waves 1 sleep. For the next half hour or so, as you relax more and more, you will drift down through stage 2 and stage 3 sleep. The lower your stage of sleep. slower your brain waves will be. Then about 40to 69 minutes after you lose consciousness you will have reached the deepest sleep of all. Your brain will show the large slow waves that are known as the delta rhythm. This is stage 4 sleep.
You do not remain at this deep fourth stage all night long, but instead about 80 minutes after you fall into slumber, your brain activity level will increase again slightly. The delta rhythm will disappear, to be replaced by the activity pattern of brain waves. Your eyes will begin to dart around under your closed eyelids as if you were looking at something occurring in front of you. This period of rapid eye movement lasts for some 8 to 15 minutes and is called REM sleep. It is during REM sleep period, your body will soon relax again, your breathing will slip gently back from stage 1 to stage 4 sleep----only to rise once again to the surface of near consciousness some 80 minutes later.
睡眠
睡眠是人每天日常活动循环的一部分。人的睡眠分几个阶段，而这些阶段也是循环发生的。如果你是一个正常的睡眠者，你的睡眠循环会这样进行。
在你开始昏昏入睡时，你的眼睛会滚动几下，体温略有下降，肌肉放松，呼吸变得缓慢而有节奏。除了开始几分钟比较快的α节奏外，脑电波也稍有减缓。
这被称为第一阶段睡眠。在随后约半小时内，你进一步放松，进入第二和第三阶段睡眠。睡眠越深入，脑电波就越缓慢。大约在开始睡眠后的40到
60分钟，你将进入沉睡状态。这时的脑电波表现为巨大的缓波，被称为δ节奏。这就是第四阶段睡眠。但你并不是整夜都保持这种沉睡状态。入睡后约
80分钟左右，你的大脑运动水平会再度略有提高。δ节奏消失，并被脑电波的运动图形取代。你的眼睛会
在闭着的眼睑下迅速转动，就好象你在看着眼前发生的什么事情。这种迅速的眼球运动持续约8～15分钟，这一阶段睡眠被称之为快速眼动(REM)睡眠。
在REM睡眠阶段，你的肢体会很快再度放松，呼吸也再次放慢并变得有节奏，你会轻松地从第一阶段滑入第四阶段睡眠-直到大约80分钟后重新接近清醒状态。
Bacteria
Bacteria are extremely small living things. While we measure our own sizes in inches or centimeters, bacterial size is measured in microns. One micron is a thousandth of a millimeter: a pinhead is about a millimeter across. Rod-shaped bacteria are usually from two to four microns long, while rounded ones are generally one micron in diameter. Thus if you enlarged a rounded bacterium a thousand times, it would be just about the size of a pinhead. An adult human magnified by the same amount would be over a mile(1.6 kilometer) tall.
Even with an ordinary microscope, you must look closely to see bacteria. Using a magnification of 100 times, one finds that bacteria are barely visible as tiny rods or dots. One cannot make out anything of their structure. Using special stains, one can see that some bacteria have attached to them wavy-looking “hairs” called flagella. Others have only one flagellum. The flagella rotate, pushing the bacteria through the water. Many bacteria lack flagella and cannot move about by their own power, while others can glide along over surfaces by some little-understood mechanism.
From the bacteria point of view, the world is a very different place from what it is to humans. To a bacterium water is as thick as molasses is to us. Bacteria are so small that they are influenced by the movements of the chemical molecules around them. Bacteria under the microscope, even those with no flagella, often bounce about in the water. This is because they collide with the watery molecules and are pushed this way and that. Molecules move so rapidly that within a tenth of a second the molecules around a bacteria have all been replaced by new ones; even bacteria without flagella are thus constantly exposed to a changing environment.
细菌细菌是极其微小的生物体。我们用英寸或厘米来测量自己的大小，而测量细菌却要用微米。一微米等于千分之一毫米。针头直径大约一毫米。
棒状细菌通常有2～4微米长，而圆形细菌的直径一般只有1微米。因此，即使你把一个圆形细菌放大1000倍，它也不过一个针头那么大。
可是如果把一个成年人放大1000倍，就会变成1英里(或1.6公里)多高。用一般的显微镜观察细菌时，你必须仔细观察才能看见它们。使用
100倍的显微镜时，你会发现细菌不过是隐约可见的小细棒或小点点，而它们的结构你却根本看不出来。使
用特殊的着色剂后，你会发现有的细菌上长着不少波状的"毛发"即鞭毛，而有的细菌只有一根鞭毛。鞭毛的旋转可以推动细菌在水中行进。
不少细菌没有鞭毛，因而不能自己行进。还有些细菌却能通过某些鲜为人知的机制沿物体表面滑动。我们所熟知的世界在细菌眼中完全是另一个样子。
对于细菌来说，水就同糖浆之于人类一样稠密。细菌是如此的微小，周围化学分子的一举一动都会对它们产生影响。在显微镜下，细菌，甚至包括那些没有鞭
毛的细菌，经常在水中跳来跳去。这是因为它们与水分子相撞后，被弹向各个方向。分子移动很迅速，仅0.1
秒之隔，一个细菌周围的分子就会完全更新。因此，即使是没有鞭毛的细菌也暴露在一个不断变化的环境中。
最爱贺曼熊
通过经典美文导读可以使中学生们陶冶情操,提高素养。下面我整理了初中简短英语美文，希望大家喜欢!
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
I f you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give away to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and toss
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will, which says to them: “hold on!”
If you can talk with crows and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And which is more you’ll be a Man, my son!
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
I f you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give away to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and toss
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will, which says to them: “hold on!”
If you can talk with crows and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And which is more you’ll be a Man, my son!
如果所有人都失去理智，咒骂你，
你仍能保持头脑清醒;
如果所有人都怀疑你，
你仍能坚信自己，让所有的怀疑动摇;
如果你要等待，不要因此厌烦，
为人所骗，不要因此骗人，
为人所恨，不要因此抱恨，
不要太乐观，不要自以为是;
如果你是个追梦人，不要被梦主宰;
如果你是个爱思考的人，不要以思想者自居;
如果你遇到骄傲和挫折
把两者当骗子看待;
如果你能忍受你曾讲过的事实
被恶棍扭曲，用于蒙骗傻子，
或者，看着你用毕生去看护的东西被破坏，
俯下身去，用破旧的工具把它修补;
如果你在赢得无数桂冠之后，
然后孤注一掷再博一次，
失败过后，东山再起，
不要抱怨你的失败;
如果你能迫使自己，
在别人走后，长久的坚守阵地，
在你心中已空荡荡无一物，
只有意志告诉你“坚持!”;
如果你与人交谈，能保持风度，
办王同行，能保持距离;
如果仇敌和好友都不害你;
如果所有人都指望你。却无人全心全意;
如果你花六十秒进行段程跑，
填满那不可饶恕的一分钟
你就可以拥有一个世界，
这个世界的一切都是你的，
更重要的是，孩子，你是个顶天立地的人。
个性的表露
A most curious and useful thing to realize is that one never knows the impression one is creating on otherpeople. One may often guess pretty accurately whether it is good, bad, or indifferent — some people render it unnecessary for one to guess, they practically inform one — but that is not what I mean. I mean muchmore than that. I mean that one has one's self no mental picture corresponding to the mental picture whichone's personality leaves in the minds of one's friends. Has it ever struck you that there is a mysterious individual going around, walking the streets, calling at houses for tea, chatting, laughing, grumbling, arguing, and that all your friends know him and have long since added him up and come to a definite conclusion about him — without saying more than a chance, cautious word to you; and that that person is you? Supposing that you came into a drawing room where you were having tea, do you think you would recognize yourself as an individuality? I think not. You would be apt to say to yourself as guests do when disturbed in drawing rooms by other guests: “Who's this chap? See ms rather queer. I hope he won't be a bore.” And yourfirst telling would be slightly hostile. Why, even when you meet yourself in an unsuspected mirror in the very clothes that you have put on that very day and that you know by heart, you are almost always shocked by the realization that you are you. And now and then, when you have gone to the glass to arrange your hair in the full sobriety of early morning, have you not looked on an absolute stranger, and has not that stranger piqued your curiosity? And if it is thus with precise external details of form, colour, and movement, what may it not be with the vague complex effect of the mental and moral individuality?
A man honestly tries to make a good impression. What is the result? The result merely is that his friends,in the privacy of their minds, set him down as a man who tries to make a good impression. If much depends on the result of a sing le interview, or a couple of interviews, a man may conceivably force another to accept an impression of himself which he would like to convey. But if the receiver of the impression is to have time at his disposal, then the giver of the impression may just as well sit down and put his hands in his pockets, for nothing that he can do will modify or influence in any way the impression that he will ultimately give. The real impress is, in the end, given unconsciously, not consciously; and further, it is received unconsciously, not consciously. It depends partly on both persons. And it is immutably fixed beforehand. There can be no final deception…
一件认识起来很奇异也很受益的事是，一个人常常不清楚别人对他的印象是什么。是好呢，是坏呢，还是不好不坏，这些倒是能够十分准确地猜测出来——有些人甚至没有必要让你去猜测，他们差不多就讲给你听了——但是我想要说的不是这个。我想要说的远不止这个。我想要说的是，一个人头脑中对自己的印象和他本人在他朋友们头脑中的印象，往往很不一致。你曾经想到这样的事吗?——世上有那么一个诡异的人，到处跑来跑去，上街访友，又说又笑，口出怨言，大发议论，他的朋友都对他很熟悉，对他早已知根知底，对他的看法早有定论——但除了偶尔且谨慎的只言片语外，平时却很少对你透露。而那个人就是你自己。比如，你走进一家客厅去喝茶，你敢说你便能认得这个人就是你自己吗?我看不一定。很可能，你也会像客厅里的客人那样，当你难以忍受其他客人的骚扰时心里就盘算说：“这是哪个家伙，真是怪异。但愿他少讨人嫌。”你的第一个反应就是略带敌意。甚至就连你突然在一面镜子前面遇到了你自己，穿的衣服也正是你心里记得很清楚的那天的服装，怎么样，你还是会因为认出了你是你这件事而感到吃惊。还有当你有时到镜子前去整理头发时，尽管是在最清醒的大清早时刻，你不是也好像瞥见一个完全陌生的人吗?而且这陌生人还让你颇为好奇呢。如果说连形式颜色动作这类外观准确的细节都是这样，那么对于像心智和道德这种不易把握的复杂效果又将怎样呢?
有人真心实意地去努力留下一个好印象。但结果怎样呢，不过是被他的朋友们在内心深处认为他是一个刻意给人留下好印象的人。如果一切只凭着单独会一次面或见几次面，——这个人倒很能迫使另一个人接受他本人希望造成的某种印象。但是如果接受印象的人有足够的时间来自由支配，那么印象的给予者就干脆束手静坐了，因为他的所有招数都丝毫改变不了或影响不了他最终所造成的印象。真正的印象是在结尾，是无意而不是刻意造成的。同时，它也是无意而不是刻意接受的。它的形成要靠双方，而且是事先就已经确定的，最终的欺骗是不可能的……
She Walks in Beautyby Lord Byron
《她在美中徜徉》，拜伦
She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
她在美中徜徉，仿佛夜晚皎洁无云，繁星漫天;
And all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes, thus mellowed to that tender light which heaven to gaudy day denies.
正如绝佳的暗与亮融汇于外貌与眼眸;醇化为如此柔和的光 -俗丽的白昼得不到的恩泽。
One shade the more, one ray the less, had half impaired the nameless grace which waves in every raven tress, or softly lightens o'er her face; where thoughts serenely sweet express how pure, how dear their dwelling place.
多一道阴影，少一缕光芒，都有损这难以言表的优雅。美飘扬在她丝丝乌发中，或微微闪亮于她的面庞。愉悦的思想在那里颂扬其来处何等纯净可人。
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, so soft, so calm, yet eloquent;
那脸颊和眉宇那么温柔，那么平静，而且意味深长。
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent;
折服人心的微笑，红润的色彩，诉说着度过的美好时光。
A mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent!
心态平和，与世无争，爱心永远纯真。
优质英语培训问答知识库
