经典英语背诵美文3篇
对英语作为外语而学的中国学生来说，英语阅读的课堂教学在任何中学都被学习者认为是一门很重要的课程。下面是学习啦小编带来的经典英语背诵美文，欢迎阅读!
经典英语背诵美文篇一
为母亲祈祷
Dear God,
Now that I am no longer young, I have friends whose mothers have passed away. I have heard these sons and daughters say they never fully appreciated their mothers until it was too late to tell them.
I am blessed with the dear mother who is still alive. I appreciate her more each day. My mother does not change, but I do. As I grow older and wiser, I realize what an extraordinary person she is. How sad that I am unable to speak these words in her presence, but they flow easily from my pen.
How does a daughter begin to thank her mother for life itself? For the love, patience and just plain hard work that go into raising a child? For running after a toddler, for understanding a moody teenager, for tolerating a college student who knows everything? For waiting for the day when a daughter realizes her mother really is?
How does a grown woman thank for a mother for continuing to be a mother? For being ready with advice(when asked ) or remaining silent when it is most appreciated? For not saying:”I told you so”, when she could have uttered these words dozens of times? For being essentially herself—loving, thoughtful, patient, and forgiving?
I don’t know how, dear God, except to bless her as richly as she deserves and to help me live up to the example she has set. I pray that I will look as good in the eyes of my children as my mother looks in mine.
A daughter
经典英语背诵美文篇二
在英国的海外留学生的生活(英语)
The following are excerpts from international students on the fun elements of their UK experiences:
Saiful Bahri Idris: Singapore
'I loved staying in halls of residence! One of the earliest rumours I heard about my college was that it had a 70% female population - to a healthy, then 20-year-old young man, those words could not have been sweeter. But that would be missing the point entirely.
The best thing about London is its mix of people. You meet people from almost every corner of the globe. Goldsmiths for example has such a diverse mix of people that you seem to encounter more foreigners than you do the British!'
Eszter Tanacs: Hungary
'Coughing and blowing nose are inevitable part of life in Britain, though not necessarily for the British. I really admire them for their ability to exist half-naked in freezing cold without even having goose bumps.
This may be a fortunate side effect of eating potatoes that are part of almost any kind of English meal. English food helped me become more 'positive' as well.
After two weeks of eating chips I wrote to my Mum for help and got a few recipes strictly without potatoes. Fortunately my housemates have no idea of my reputation as a cook ('bad'), nor about the usual taste of Hungarian food, so I earned quite a lot of compliments with my Hungarian dishes.'
Amos Akintayo Fatokun: Nigeria
'I was impressed by the receptions held when I first arrived, one by the Graduate School, and a series of others later by members of my laboratory and my co-supervisor. Although there were new kinds of delicacies for me to taste, nowadays cheese and wine parties are common.
Also I am fighting my addiction to shopping. I’m a shopoholic and have enjoyed shopping at Tescos. Safeway, Argos, IKEA, LIDL, Primark, the Watts Brothers, the University Bookshop, the KRK (for African food), the Salvation Army and Boots Pharmacy.'
经典英语背诵美文篇三
Make Today Count(中英对照)
Despite the treatment, I felt well enough to drive home that afternoon. But the car was silent as grave. Wanda and I still could not talk to one another about our common problem -- my cancer. She was sitting in the front with me and looking fixedly out the window. Britty (Kelly's baby) was taking a nap, stretched out along the back seat.
“You're alive,” I suddenly thought to myself. “You are alive. For three months, you've known you have cancer, but you're still alive.”
As I steered the car along the rough highway, I began to think of what I had been doing to myself and my family. Without really knowing it, all of us had been celebrating a funeral -- mine -- and the funeral had not even taken place yet. I was still alive. I was not dead. I had some time. I was forty-three years old, I had a wife who loved me, I had two sons and two daughters.
“What have you got to lose by trying to live with this damned cancer?” a voice in my head asked me. Things couldn't get worse than they were now. The strain under which the family was living was already taking its toll. School had started, and Tammy had brought home failing slips in several of her classes. Mark was sullen much of the time, and Lori was quiet and subdued. No one in my family seemed happy any longer. We had had cancer as a part of our family way of life for more than three months, and no one in our household had mentioned the word once during all that time. What had life been for me since my cancer had first been diagnosed? Tumors... curses... tears... loneliness... nightmares... thoughts of suicide... whispers... silence. I had been blaming God for all my problems. But now I knew it was up to deal with them.
I began to notice how beautiful the autumn day was. The sun was out. The leaves had just begun to turn; they shone orange, and yellow, and red. Red?winged blackbirds were perched on fence posts. Farmers were out in their fields, preparing for another season. This was life. I was part of it. And I had been depriving myself of it. I stopped the car.
“Wanda,” I blurted out. “We've got to talk about it. I have cancer. Cancer! I'll probably die of it. But I'm not dead yet. We have to talk about it.”
Wanda turned, stared at me intently,and moved closer to me on the seat. “Are you sure you want to?” she asked.
“Yes, I'm sure. We have to face it together. I know you haven't told me the way you really feel. I don't know how we can help each other if we don't talk about it. I've just been moping around the house and making everyone miserable.”
She nodded. “None of us wanted to worry you.”
“Let's go home and have a barbecue tonight,” I said to her. “We haven't had one in a long time. And we'll have to tell the children. We're just wasting time, and I don't want to go on living like this any longer.”
There, I had said it. It was out in the open. Wanda's face seemed to light up, I hadn't seen her like that for more than three months. We kissed as if we really meant it for the first time since I had been told I had cancer. I started the car again, and we drove home.
That evening, I lighted the charcoal in the barbecue grill that had been standing idle for months on our back porch. Wanda bought spareribs at the supermarket, and the whole family had a meal that really tasted like a meal. I even had three beers. (I paid for that indulgence the next morning. My neck felt as if someone had put a clamp on it. I was nauseated, my legs hurt, and I felt very weak. Which was enough to persuade me never again to drink beer immediately after a treatment.)
Around nine o'clock, Wanda took Britty upstairs to bed, and I took Tammy, Mark, and Lori out to the back porch. Our porch is small, with room only for a few chairs and a couch. But the view is open all the way down to the Mississippi River. The stars were out that night, and the full moon threw its sparkles on the surface of the water. I sat down on the couch, the three children around me.
“I think it's time you knew what's wrong with me,” I started. “This may take a while for me to explain, but you all should know.” I hesitated for a moment -- it was not going to be easy to tell them this. Then I looked at the moon, took a deep breath, and continued. “The doctors have told me that I have cancer. Cancer is a disease that destroys tissues inside your body. That's why I've been sick so much. The doctors say that in all probability unless something else happens first, I will die of cancer.”
Tammy and lori began to cry. Mark sat motionless.
“But I'm not dead yet. Your mother and I went to lowa City today so I could start treatments. We'll have to make the best of it. I'll tell you when things are good and when they're bad, but I want you three to help me live with this cancer. There will be bad days for us, but we can have good days, too. We don't have to like death, but we don't have to be terrified by it, either.”
Finally, it was out in the open. Now, everyone knew except Britty; Wanda and I both felt he was too young to understand. I hugged each child. Tammy and Lori still had tears in their eyes. Mark was still silent. But now he accepted the fact that I had cancer. I had told him. He believed me. He no longer felt his mother had lied to him that day in June at the hspital.
When I went upstairs to our bedroom, I had one more thing to do before going to bed. I took a piece of paper from the desk in my studio, and wrote the word ‘death’ on it. This was my death that I was spelling out. I had to face it, just as my family did. I looked at that piece of paper for about five minutes ?? looked and looked and looked. Then I slowly put it back in the desk drawer and got ready for bed. Wanda had been sleeping in the den ever since she had begun to have nightmares. But that night, for the first time in a long time, we slept in the same bed together.
Soon after the first chemotherapy treatment, I asked Wanda to help me clean up the studio. The desk,the bookcases, and the typewriter were deep in dust, but we finally managed to make the room spotless. I hadn't written anything for a long while.
Now I began to write again. One of my first pieces was about a Christmas I remembered. I was seven years old, it was during the Great Depression, and we were living on a rundown farm. In times as hard as those, I didn't think I would get any presents. A blizzard had developed on Christmas Eve, and I had snuggled into a featherbed to keep warm, praying that I would get just a little something for Christmas. When I woke the next morning and went downstairs, I found a decorated Christmas tree in the front room, and underneath it, a pair of lace?up boots, a red fire engine, and a sack of candy.
“I have seen many other snowfalls,” I wrote, “but for some reason I always remember that night when the blizzard came on Christmas Eve. Whenever I see the snow coming down and hear the wind begin to howl, I remember a dream that came true.”
I submitted the story to the local Burlington newspaper -- the Hawk - Eye -- for a winter writing contest and received a first prize for it. That was my first Christmas present of the year. And others came, too. Wanda and I had only a little money, although we had been able to make ends meet with the Social Security disability payments and Veterans Administration checks we had been receiving. But Christmas 1973 turned out to be one of the warmest our family ever had, thanks to the generosity of a few friends, particularly those at the factory where Wanda had worked. We received cash, hams, turkeys, and countless boxes of candy. Wanda bought a few presents for the children. Most important, the entire family was together.
The day after Christmas, I decided it was time for me to write about the struggles of a cancer patient. Before I knew that I had cancer, I had thought of it as similar to leprosy -- a disease that rotted people slowly -- and visibly -- away. Life with cancer didn't have to be that way, and I wanted people to know this. Of course, I didn't have all the answers, but I wanted to show that cancer be approached with openness, and that dying people did have sothing to live for. Although I had read about all the money being spent o cancer research, I had heard very little about the emotional rehabilitation of cancer patients and their families. The void was obvious. No matter how the problem of cancer is handled in a family, all the members of the family are bound to be affected in some way.
I spent two days writing and editing the piece. “Once,” I wrote in it, “I asked how there could be a God who would let so many terrible things happen. Now I ask myself how I can doubt the existence of God... When I hear a child's laughter on a summer evening,or see around me the miracle of life itself. When I hold my hand to my chest and feel the beat of my heart and realize this is life and I am part of it, I know there has to be a God. When I think to myself how luckly I was to have such an understanding person as my wife, Wanda, I know good things happen. When someone does a kind thing for me, I know this is all part of this mircalce of living.”
“On Christmas a Burlington woman called to tell me her husband had been told recently he had lung cancer. She wanted to know if I would come to their house and talk to him. He felt he would like to just sit down and talk to someone with the same problems he had.”
“The thought came to me that there should be some kind of organization of people with incurable diseases. These people could help each other, and I am going to work on this...”
I sent the story to the Hawk?Eye, and the editors decided to use it in the Sunday, January 6, edition. The story was carried on page 2, along with a picture of me looking out from our back porch and another of me taking my pills. The day the story appeared, I received several telephone calls from other cancer patients, telling me how strongly they supported my idea of forming an organization. So I arranged for a gathering at the local Elks Club on January 25. With the help of a little publicity from the local newspaper, eighteen cancer patients and members of their families, including Wanda and me, met that night in the upstairs meeting room.
One of the first things I told the group was that I didn't think we were there to cry on one another's shoulders. We weren't there to find out who was the most seriously ill. We were there to share our mutual problems and to try to work them out so that we could live as close to normal lives as possible. We went around the table introducing ourselves and telling our stories as a way to break the ice. After some discussion, we decided we should try to get together once a month to talk with one another and to listen to speakers who could help us face our illnesses.
Several days before the meeting, it occurred to me that if we were going to start a group, we ought to have a name. I had three suggestions: Live Each Day Fully; Live for Today; or Make Today Count.
When I put the suggestions to a vote, the other seventeen hands were raised in support of my choice.
The vote was for Make Today Count.
那天下午，尽管刚刚接受了治疗，我还是感觉能亲自驾车回家。车里死一般的寂静，我和婉达不谈我们共同的问题——我患了癌症。她坐在我旁边，凝视着窗外。布瑞蒂正躺在车后座打盹儿。
“你还活着，”我突然想起，“你还活着。三个月了，你知道自己身患癌症，可是还活着!”
汽车在崎岖的公路上奔驰，我开始想，这段时间我对自己，对我的家庭做了什么：大家并未真正意识到，实际上却是在举行一次丧礼——我的“丧礼”——当然丧礼并没有举行，因为我还活着，我没有死。我还有时间，我才43岁，有一个爱我的妻子，还有两个儿子，两个女儿。
“为了承受这该死的癌症你遭到了多大的损失?”一个声音在我的脑海中轻声问着。情况不能比现在更糟了。在我的癌症重压之下全家人都开始出现问题。开学以后泰米带回了几科不及格的坏消息，马克成天郁郁寡欢，洛瑞也一声不响，闷闷不乐，全家谁也不再开心。3个月来，癌症成了家庭生活的一部分，但却没有一个人提到过“癌症”这个词。自从我被确诊为癌症后，我的生活成了什么样子?老想到瘤子……而后咒骂……眼泪……孤寂……噩梦……考虑自杀……自语……沉默……。为了癌症骂上帝不公平，但是现在，我知道应该由我自己来应对一切了。
我开始注意到车窗外的秋日是多么美国。太阳出来了，树叶开始变色，闪着或澄色、或金色、或红色的光辉。红翼黑鸟静静地停落在围栏上，农民们正在地里为下一个收获的季节耕耘着……。这就是生活，我也是其中一部分，但我却把自己隔绝了!我把车停了下来。
“婉达，”我说“我们应该谈谈，我患了癌症，是癌症呀!我极有可能因此而死，但现在还没有死，我们必须好好谈谈。”
婉达转过头来，一动不动地看着我，接着她的身子向我靠得更近了。“你真想谈吗?”她问道。
“是的，我真想。我们俩要一起面对它。我知道你并没有告诉你真正的感觉。如果不谈，我不知道我们怎样才能互相帮助。我成长在家里无精打采地闲荡，只会让家里人都很痛苦。”
她点了点头，“我们不想让你扰心。”
“我们回去今晚开个野餐会，”我说“我们有好一阵子没有开过了。我们得和孩子们谈，我们现在是在浪费生命，我再也不想这样生活了。”
我就这样讲了出来了，完全敞开了。婉达的脸上似乎露出笑容，3个月来始终未曾看到过的笑容。我们互吻了，自从我被告之患有癌症以来，这似乎是我们第一次真正意义上的吻。我重新启动了汽车，直奔家中。
那天晚上，我点烯了烧烤炉里的煤球，那个烧烤炉已经在我们的后阳台上闲置了好几个月了。婉达在超市里买了点排骨，全家人围坐在一起吃了一顿真正意义上的晚餐。连我都喝了3瓶啤酒(第二天早晨我就为此付出了代价。 我的脖子痛得仿佛有人在上面夹了一把铁钳子。我恶心想吐，腿痛，感到虚弱极了。从此以后我再也不敢在治疗后立即喝啤酒了。)
大约9点钟，婉达带着布瑞蒂上楼睡觉了。我领着泰米，马克和洛瑞来到后阳台。我们的后阳台很小，只容得下几张椅子和一个沙发，但从阳台可以眺望密西西比河。那天晚上，星光灿烂，满月的清辉洒在河面上。我坐沙发，3个孩子围在我周围。
“我想是该你们知道我出了什么问题，”我说，“这可能要花点时间来说清楚，但是你们都应该知道。”我停了一会儿，告诉他们这一切并不那么轻而易举。我抬头看了看天上的月亮，深深地吸了一口气，继续说道：“医生说我得了癌症。癌症是一种破坏体内组织的疾病。这也正是为什么近来我这么虚弱的原因。医生说除非有什么别的情况发生，否则我肯定会死于癌症。”
泰米和洛瑞开始抽泣，马克一动不动地坐着。
“但是我还没有死，今天你妈妈和我去了爱瓦城，以便开始我的化疗。我们只能尽力而为，不管情况变好还是变坏我都将告诉你们。我希望你们3个能帮我慢慢适应癌症。等待我们的将是艰苦的日子，但是也会有好日子。尽管我们不喜欢死亡，但也不要被死亡吓倒。”
一切终于公开了。现在，除了布瑞蒂以外所有的人知道了，婉达和我都觉得她太小了，还不能理解。我拥抱了每个孩子。泰米和洛瑞眼里仍含着泪。马克仍旧沉默着，但是现在他接受了这个事实：他爸爸身患癌症。我告诉了他一点，你也相信了这一点，他也不再觉得6个月份在医院里的那一天，他妈妈对他说了假话。
这天晚上，我上楼回卧室。在上床睡觉之前我又做了一件事，我从书房的桌子里取了一张纸，在上面写了一个“死”字。这就是我的死亡，我正写出来的死亡，我必须面对它，我的家庭也一样要面对它。我看着那张纸约有5分钟——看呀、看呀、看呀……。然后，我慢慢地把它放回到抽屉里准备上床睡觉。婉达自从做噩梦以来一直睡在那小屋里。这天晚上，我们俩长时间来第一次睡在一张床上。
第一次化疗后不久，我就让婉达帮着我收拾书房。写字台上，书架上，还有打字机上都布满了一层厚厚的灰尘，最后我们把书房收拾得一尘不染。我很久没有写点什么了。现在，我又要开始写作了。我的第一篇作品是关于我记忆中的一个圣诞节。那年我7岁，正赶上30年代的经济大危机。我们住在一个破败的农场里。在那种艰苦的年代里，我根本不敢奢望能得到什么圣诞礼物。圣诞节前夜里刮了一场暴风雪，我蜷缩在羽毛褥床取暖，心理暗暗盼着自己能得到哪怕一点点的圣诞节礼物。第二天一早，我醒来后一下楼就发现前屋里放有一棵装饰好的圣诞树，树下面有一双系带靴、一辆红色的玩具消防车，还有满满一袋子糖。
“下雪天见过很多”我写道“但是，不知为什么，我总是记得那个刮着暴风雪的平安夜。每当我看到雪花纷飞听到风声呜呜时，我总会记起那个梦想成真的平安夜。”
我把这个故事寄给了伯灵顿当地的报纸——《鹰眼》，作为参加冬季写作竞赛的作品，结果竟得了一等奖。这是我这一年的第一份圣诞礼物。随后其他的礼物也纷至沓来。婉达和我没有多少钱，尽管我们靠着失业救济金和退伍军人抚恤金勉强能维持生计，但是1973年的圣诞节却成了我们全家最幸福的一个圣诞节。感谢几位朋友的慷慨解囊，特别是几位婉达原来的同事。我们收到了现金、火腿、火鸡，还有数不清的盒糖。婉达给孩子们买了一些礼物。最为重要的一点是，全家人团聚在一起。
圣诞节次日，我觉得自己应该写一写自己作为一个癌症患者的奋斗历程。在我得知自己患癌症之前，我想象癌症和麻风病一样，都是慢慢而明星地破坏人体直至其死去。身患癌症并不定就是那样。我想让人们知道这一点。诚然，我并没有问题的全部答案，但是我想证明癌症可以宽阔的胸杯来对待。并且，即使离近死亡的人也应有生活目的。我读到为癌症研究花了多少钱的材料，但却极少听到有关癌症患者及其家人情感恢复正常的消息。很显然，这问题被忽视了，成了一片苍白，无论这种家庭如何处理这问题的，全家都必然在某种程度上受到癌症的影响。
我花了两天时间来写作、编辑这篇文章。我写道，“我觉提出这样的问题，有这样一个上帝吗?让如此多的悲剧发生，现在我问自己，当你在一个夏日的夜晚听到孩子们的笑声时，当你看到自己周围的生活奇迹时……，你怎么能怀疑上帝的存在?意识到这就是生命，而我就是生命一部分时，我明白肯定有一个上帝。当我想到有那样一位善解人意的妻子自己是多么幸运。我知道这都是生活奇迹的一部分。”
“圣诞节时，伯灵顿地区一位女士给我打电话说，她丈夫已被告知患有肺癌。她想知道我是否可以上她家里和她丈夫谈谈。她觉得他很愿意坐下来和同病相怜的人谈谈。”
我突然灵机一动：身患绝症的人们应该有一个组织，好让大家互相支持，互相帮助。我决定立即行动。
我把这个想法寄给了《鹰眼》编辑部决定在1月6日星期日版上采用它，刊登在第二页上，还附有两张照片：一张是我正从我们的后阳台上眺望密西西比河，另一张是我正在服药。文章发表的当天，我就接到好向个癌症患者打来的电话，对我这个想法表示强烈支持。1月25日我安排在当地慈善互助会见面。当地媒体稍加宣传，癌症患者和他们的家庭成员共十八人——包括我和婉达——当天晚上在慈善互助会楼上的会议室里见面了。
一开始，我告诉这个特殊的群体，我们来这里并不准备相拥而泣、抱头痛哭的，我们也不是要发现谁的癌症是最严重的。我们来这里是为了讨论我们所面对的各种各样的问题并尽力解决它们，是为了尽力过上正常生活。
为了打破沉默，我们围着桌子转，各人自述自己的情况。经过讨论，我们决定今后每月至少聚会一次，这次听听能帮助我们面对癌症的讲话。
这次聚会的前几天，我想到我们如要成立一个组织，就应该有一个名字。我提供了三个可考虑的名字：“充实地过好每一天”、“为今天而生活”、“把握今天”。
当我交付表决的时候，另外十七只手齐刷刷地举起来赞成我的选择。
我们十八个人的一致选择是：“把握今天。”
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