2. 职称英语
  3. It seems that happiness is something to do with simplicity, and that it is t

It seems that happiness is something to do with simplicity, and that it is t

游客2024-09-16  29
问题     It seems that happiness is something to do with simplicity, and that it is the ability to extract pleasure from the simplest things—such as a peach stone, for instance.
    It is obvious that it is nothing to do with success. For Sir Henry Stewart was certainly successful. It is twenty years ago since he came down to our village from London, and bought a couple of old cottages, which he had knocked into one. He used his house as a weekend refuge. He was a barrister. And the village followed his brilliant career with something almost amounting to paternal pride.
    I remember some ten years ago when he was made a King’s Counsel, Amos and I, seeing him get off the London train, went to congratulate him. We grinned with pleasure; he merely looked as miserable as though he’d received a penal sentence. It was the same when he was knighted; he never smiled a bit, he didn’t even bother to celebrate with a round of drinks at the "Blue Fox". He took his success as a child does his medicine. And not one of his achievements brought even a ghost of a smile to his tired eyes.
    I asked him one day, soon after he’d retired to potter about his garden, what it was like to achieve all one’s ambitions. He looked down at his roses and went on watering them. Then he said, "The only value in achieving one’s ambitions is that you then realize that they are not worth achieving." Quickly he moved the conversation on to a more practical level, and within a moment we were back to a safe discussion on the weather. That was two years ago.
    I recall this incident, for yesterday, I was passing his house, and had drawn up my cart just outside his garden wall. I had pulled in from the road for no other reason than to let a bus pass me. As I set there filling my pipe, I suddenly heard a shout of sheer joy come from the other side of the wall.
    I peered over. There stood Sir Henry doing nothing less than a tribal war dance, of sheer unashamed ecstasy. Even when he observed my bewildered face staring over the wall he did not seem put out or embarrassed, but shouted for me to climb over.
    "Come and see, Jan. Look! I have done it at last! I have done it at last! "
    There he was, holding a small box of earth in his hand. I observed three tiny shoots out of it.
    "And there were only three! " he said, his eyes laughing to heaven.
    "Three what?" I asked.
    "Peach stones", he replied. "I’ve always wanted to make peach stones grow, even since I was a child, when I used to take them home after a party, or as a man after a banquet. And I used to plant them, and then forgot where I planted them. But now at last I have done it, and, what’s more, I had only three stones, and there you are, one, two, three shoots," he counted.
    And Sir Henry ran off, calling for his wife to come and see his achievement—his achievement of simplicity. [br] Sir Henry Stewart came to our village most probably because
选项 A、he wanted to be praised by the villagers.
B、he thought of simplicity as success.
C、he was successful as a barrister.
D、he needed a place for relaxation.
答案 D
解析 根据题干中的came to our village和because定位到第2段。本题的解题关键在于理解原文中a weekend refuge的含义。作者在此把斯图亚特爵士在他们村子里建的大房子描述为周末休闲的地点，D中的a place for relaxation是其同义替换，故选D。文章虽然提到村里的人对斯图亚特爵士的成功感到骄傲，但这不是斯图亚特来村子的原因，故A不对；作者从亨利·斯图亚特爵士的故事中体会到幸福与简单有关，不是亨利·斯图亚特爵士自己认为简单就是成功，并且这跟题干并未构成因果关系，B不对；C是文中的细节，跟题干并未构成因果关系，故排除。
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