There are two sorts of people in the world, who with equal degrees of health, and wealth, and the other comforts of life, become, the one happy, and tile other miserable. This arises very much from the different views in which they consider things, persons, and events.
In whatever situation men can be placed, they may find conveniences and inconveniencies; in whatever company, they may find persons and conversation more or less pleasing; at whatever table, they may meet with meats or drinks of better and worse taste, dishes better or worse dressed; in whatever climate they will find good and bad weather; under whatever government, they may find good and bad laws, and good and bad administration of those laws; in every poem or work of genius they may see faults and beauties; in almost every face and every person, they may discover fine features and effects, good and bad qualities.
Under these circumstances, the two kinds of people above mentioned fix their attention, those who are to be happy, on the conveniences of things, the pleasant parts of conversation, the well-dressed dishes, the goodness of the wines, the fine weather, and enjoy all with cheerfulness. Those who are to be unhappy, think and speak only of the contraries. Hence they are continually discontented themselves, and by their remarks sour the pleasures of society, offend personally many people, and make themselves everywhere disagreeable. If this turn of mind were founded in nature, such unhappy persons would be the more to be pitied. The tendency to criticize and to be disgusted is perhaps taken up originally by imitation, and is unawares grown into a habit, which at present strong may nevertheless be cured when those who have it are convinced of its bad effects on their felicity.
I hope this little admonition may be of service to them, and put them on changing a habit, which in the exercise is chiefly an act of imagination yet has serious consequences in life, as it brings on real grieves and misfortunes. For many are offended, nobody loves this sort of people, no one shows them more than the most common civility and respect, and scarcely that; and this frequently puts them out of humor, and draws them into disputes and contentions. If they aim at obtaining some advantage in rank or fortune, nobody wishes them success, or will stir a step, or speak a word, to favor their pretensions. If they incur public censure or disgrace, no one will defend or excuse, and many join to aggravate their misconduct, and render them completely odious. If these people will not change this bad habit, and condescend to be pleased with what is pleasing, without fretting themselves and others about the contraries, it is good for others to avoid an acquaintance with them, which is always disagreeable, and sometimes very inconvenient, especially when one finds one's self entangled in their quarrels.
An old philosophical friend of mine grown from experience, was very cautious in this particular, and carefully avoided any intimacy with such people. He had, like other philosophers, a thermometer to show him the heat of the weather, and a barometer to mark when it was likely to prove good or bad; but, there being no instrument invented to discover, at first sight, this unpleasing disposition in a person. He for that purpose made use of his legs, one of which was remarkably handsome, the other, by some accident, crooked and deformed. If a stranger, at the first interview, regarded his ugly leg more than his handsome one, he doubted him. If he spoke of it, took no notice of the handsome leg, that was sufficient to determine my philosopher to have no further acquaintance with him. Every body has not this two-legged instrument, but every one with a little attention, may observe signs of that carping, faultfinding disposition, and take the same resolution of avoiding the acquaintance of those infected with it. I therefore advise those critical, querulous, dis
A.their comforts of life
B.their minds
C.their feelings
D.their health and wealth
There must be few questions on which responsible opinion is so utterly divided as on that of how much sleep we ought to have. There are some who think we can leave the body to regulate these matters for itself. "The answer is easy," says Dr. A. Burton. "With the tight amount of sleep you should wake up fresh and alert five minutes before the alarm tings." If he is right many people must be under sleeping, including myself. But we must remember that some people have a greater inertia than others. This is not meant rudely. They switch on Slowly, and they are reluctant to switch off. They are alert at bedtime and sleepy when it is time to get up, and this may have nothing to do with how fatigued their bodies are, or how much sleep they must take to lose their fatigue.
Other people feel sure that the present trend is towards too little sleep. To quote one medical opinion, "Thousands of people drift through life suffering from the effects of too little sleep; the reason is not that they can't sleep. Like advancing colonists, we do seem to be grasping ever more of the land of sleep for our waking needs, pushing the boundary back and reaching, apparently, for a point in our evolution where we will sleep no more. This in itself, of course, need not be a bad thing. What could be disastrous, however, is that we should press too quickly towards this goal, sacrificing sleep only to gain more time in which to jeopardize our civilization by actions and decisions made weak by fatigue.
Then, to complete the picture, there are those who believe that most people are persuaded to sleep too much. Dr. H. Roberts, writing in Every Man in Health, asserts it may safely be stated also. It would be a pity to retard our development by holding back those people who are gifted enough to work and play well with less than the average amount of sleep, if indeed it does them no harm. If one of the trends of evolution is that more of the life span is to be spent in gainful waking activity, then surely these people are in the van of this advance.
The author seems to indicate that ______.
A.there are many controversial issues like the right amount of sleep
B.among many issues the right amount of sleep is the least controversial
C.people are now moving towards solving many controversial issues
D.the right amount of sleep is a topic of much controversy among doctors
America is a mobile society. Friendships between Americans can be close and real, yet disappear soon if situations change. Neither side feels hurt by this. Both may exchange Christmas greetings for a year or two, perhaps a few letters for a while — then no more. If the same two people meet again by chance, even years later, they pick up the friendship. This can be quite difficult for us Chinese to understand, because friendships between us flower more slowly but then may become lifelong feelings, extending (延伸) sometimes deeply into both families.
Americans are ready to receive us foreigners at their homes, share their holidays, and their home life. They will enjoy welcoming us and be pleased if we accept their hospitality (好客) easily.
Another difficult point for us Chinese to understand Americans is that although they include us warmly in their personal everyday lives, they don’t show their politeness to us if it requires a great deal of time. This is usually the opposite of the practice in our country where we may begenerous with our time. Sometimes, we, as hosts, will appear at airports even in the middle of the night to meet a friend. We may take days off to act as guides to our foreign friends. The Americans, however, express their welcome usually at homes, but truly can not manage the time to do a great deal with a visitor outside their daily routine. They will probably expect us to get ourselves from the airport to our own hotel by bus. And they expect that we will phone them from there. Once we arrive at their homes, the welcome will be full, warm and real. We will find ourselves treated hospitably.
For the Americans, it is often considered more friendly to invite a friend to their homes than to go to restaurants, except for purely business matters. So accept their hospitality at home!
1.The writer of this passage must be a Chinese.()
2. Americans will continue their friendships again even after a long break.()
3.From the last two paragraphs we can learn that when we arrive in America to visit an American friend, we will probably be warmly welcomed at the airport.()
4.The underlined words “generous with our time” in Paragraph 3 probably mean willing to spend time.
5.A suitable title for this passage would probably be “Americans’ and Chinese’s views of friendships”.()