1.It is very likely that I will move together with our army to another place in a few days.This is a letter written by a young soldier who is ready to go to the battlefield and fight for his government.In this letter we can see the true love of the young soldier and his beloved wife and family .
2.I cannot help writing to you now because I am afraid that there might be no further chance for me to write to you again due to the present war .
3.This old form of expression often used on religious occasions suggests that it was a sacred war .
4.The author further stressed the significance of their success in the war and it was his duty to help his government to win the war .
5.In the third and fourth paragraphs, the author revealed his mixed feelings on the occasion when he could not possibly take good care of his family and fight for his own government both at once.He had to give up his family for the success in the war, which was a painful choice .
6.As we can see from the fifth and sixth paragraphs, the author put the love of his country before that of his family, which shows his noble spirit that is worthy of our praise .
7.The author asked God to bless him from death , which also indicates his intense love of his wife and his family .
8.Edgar and Willie: The Ballous had two sons.Edgar, the elder, was born ten months after his parents wedding.William was their New Year s baby,born on January 4th , 1859.Both boys were educated and grew to “honorable manhood”as Sullivan hoped.He would have been proud of them.They married two sisters and eventually moved out of New England .
9.A metaphor is used here: the author compared his wife to a ship and his children the freight on her .
10.Nothing is more impressive than the love expressed in this paragraph!
11.This sentence refers to their meeting in the next world, thus further indicating their eternal love .
Ⅳ.Text-Related Practice
A.Questions for discussion:
1.What did the author mean when he said“how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution”?
2.What rhetoric devices did the author use to express his true love of his wife ?
3.Love of country is not unique to Americans; our revolutionary forebears were also willing to lay down their lives for what they believed to be right .
But in peacetime, what can you do for your country ?
B.Word matching:
Match the words in Column A with those in Colum n B .
C.Translate the following into Chinese:
Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure -and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me.Not my will, but thine O God, be done.If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready.I have no misgivings about , or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter.I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government , and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution.And I am willing - perfectly willing - to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government , and to pay that debt .
Text B
Dear Helen, - I must steal half a moment from my work to say how glad I am to have your book, and how highly I value it, both for its own sake and as a remembrance of an affectionate friendship which has subsisted between us for nine years without a break, and without a single act of violence that I can call to mind .
I suppose there is nothing like it in heaven; and not likely to be, until we get there and show off.I often think of it with longing, and how they ll say “There they come - sit down in front ! ”I am practicing with a tin halo .
You do the same.I was at Henry Rogers last night, and of course we talked of you .
He is not at all well; - you will not like to hear that ; but like you and me, he is just as lovely as ever .
I am charmed with your book - enchanted.You are a wonderful creature,the most wonderful in the world - you and your other half together - Miss Sullivan, I mean, for it took the pair of you to make a complete and perfect whole.How she stands out in her letters ! her brilliancy, penetration ,originality, wisdom,character, and the fine literary competencies of her pen -they are all there .
Oh , dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that“plagiarism”farce ! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written , except plagiarism ! The kernel, the soul - let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances - is plagiarism.For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them ; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral caliber and his temperament , and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men - but we call it his speech , and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his.But not enough to signify.It is merely a Waterloo .It is Wellington s battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed .
It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph , or a telephone or any other important thing - and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others.He added his little mite - that is all he did.These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest.But nothing can do that .
Then why don t we unwittingly reproduce the phrasing of a story, as well as the story itself ?