中学生英语课外阅读:How to Be Generous(2)

[5] Another student I knew, a man, knew that his roommate couldn't afford an important textbook in his subject; a book which was very scarce in second-hand shops and impossibly expensive when new. His friend was far too proud to accept a loan, and so spent a lot of time trekking to the library in the rain to look things up. So the better-off student went to Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford, bought a brand-new copy for 35 pounds, dirtied it up a bit and tore off the paper cover, writing a fictitious name in the front. He even remembered to age the ink by putting it over a radiator, and made a few dogears and faint pencil-marks against what he thought might be significant passages. Then he went home in triumph claiming to have spotted the book in the second-hand bookshop and \"beaten them down to two quid\". He even got a receipt for the money by buying himself another book at the same secondhand shop. Talk about doing good by stealth: and in case you wonder, I heard the story from the poorer roommate, who had got suspicious and, ten years later, forced the richer one to confess.

[6] Tact is the key to real generosity: tact, and real thought for the person you are giving the present to. You can buy anyone a picture by a fashionable and expensive artist, if you can afford it; but it might be kinder to spend a tenth of the amount--and a bit of trouble on getting the framed original of a cartoon you know has cheered them up at a bad time. Anyone can buy a man a gold watch; but it takes a generous wife to do what one lately did, and track down an antique gold strap which precisely fits the old one he inherited from his beloved father.

[7] Conversely, it is not generous to keep pressing expensive drinks on people who really want a half-pint of bitter. (\"Co on! Have another! Tell you what, have a double brandy! The best brandy!\" ) It is harassment. So is refusing to let someone pay their half of the taxi if it makes them feel small. Buying someone a bottle of the very best champagne when they don't particularly like champagne is pointless; so is giving them a negligee, or sweater, which you would like to see them in but which they are going to hate. Until courting couples learn this rule, girls will go on ending up with drawersful of unwearable slippery camisoles in lurid colours, and men with racks of acutely embarrassing ties. On the other hand, this kind of present does give the recipient an opportunity to show another kind of generosity by selflessly pretending to appreciate it. In the Agatha Christie novel The Hollow, Henrietta displays remarkable kindness towards a shy, unintellectual woman who isn't fitting in to a sparkling houseparty. Greta is wearing a dreadful cardigan she knitted herself; Henrietta not only praises it, but asks for the pattern. Having got the pattern, moreover, she heroically knits the dreadful thing and wears it herself next time she meets Greta. That is what I call follow-through. So is the wedding present a friend got from a broke but domestic sister-in-law: she promised to bake her a loaf of special, delicious wholemeal bread every week for the first year of her marriage, and did so.

[8] You can give people to other people, too. Matchmaking for single friends can be done in a disastrously tactless way which makes both parties cringe; but there are circumstances--not necessarily romantic ones--when a well-timed introduction can be the best thing you can do for anybody. The best present you can give to a woman expecting her first baby, for example, is to introduce her to another like-minded pregnant woman, who lives reasonably close by. They will keep one another sane for the first chaotic year. And if you do happen to be of the type who networks professionally, and gives power dinner-parties, it would be a generous thing to remember sometimes to invite younger people in the field, who are looking for jobs or contacts or merely for stimulation and inspiration. One of the kindest things anyone ever did for me was an elderly, very distinguished don who introduced me to the world's most encouraging literary agent when I was 21. He shouldn't have gone to all the trouble, I said blushingly; but I was glad he had. And that is the test of any real present: the thoughtfulness, not the wrapping.

[5]我知道的另一个学生是个男生。他得知他的室友买不起本学科的一本重要教科书--一本旧书店中难得一见而新书又贵得出奇的书。他的朋友自尊心太强，不肯接受别人借钱给他，并因此而花费了许多时间冒雨去图书馆查阅资料。于是这位较有钱的学生去了牛津的布拉克韦尔书店，花35英镑买了一本全新的，先是把书弄脏一点，然后撕去封面，在书面写了一个假名。他甚至没有忘记把书放在散热器上使墨水的色泽陈旧，将几张书页折上角，并且在他认为可能非常重要的段落做上淡淡的铅笔标记。然后，他得意地回到学校，宣称已在旧书店找到了这本书，并且“杀价到两英镑”。他甚至通过从同一家旧书店买了另一本书而搞到一张两英镑的收据。说到悄悄地做好事，倘若你想知道，这故事我是听那位较贫困的室友讲的，他当时对此已有怀疑，十年后他通那位富裕的学生招认了事情的经过。

文章来源：《中学生英语》 网址: http://www.zxsyyzz.cn/zonghexinwen/2020/1017/631.html