英語名文 抜粋集 「心愉しい詩歌」 へ戻る
I have a dream. Martin Luther King, Jr. I have a dream that one day on the hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the states of Mississippi , a desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression , will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my little four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. The Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creater with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safty and Happiness. The Presidential Inaugural Address John F. Kennedy My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. The Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. The Great Dictator Charles Spencer Chaplin Soldiers ! Don't fight for slaverly ! Fight for liberty ! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke, it is written the kingdom of God is within man - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men ! In you ! You, the people, have the power - the power to create machines - the power to create happiness ! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful - to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie ! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will ! Dictator free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise ! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason - a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers ! In the name of democracy, let us all unite ! page top Animal farm George Orwell Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours ? Let us face it, our lives are miserable, laborious and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work to the last atom of our strength ; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England if free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery : that is the plain truth. But is this simply part of the order of Naure ? Is it because this land of ours is so poor that it cannot afford a decent life to those who dwell upon it ? No comrades, a thousand times no ! The soil of England is fertile, its climate is good, it is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormously greater number of animals than now inhabit it. This single farm of ours would support a dozen horses, twenty cows, hundreds of sheep - and all of them living in a comfort and a dignity that are now almost beyong our imagining. Why then do we continue in this miserable condition ? Because nearly the whole the produce of our labour is stolen from us by human beings. There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a sigle word - Man. Man is the only enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever. Julius Ceasar William Shakespear Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears ; I come to bury Ceasar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them ; The good is oft intered with their bones ; So let it be with Ceasar. The noble Brutus hath told you Ceasar was ambitious ; If it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Ceasar answered it. Here, under leave of brutus and the rest - for Brutus is an honourable man ; so are they all, all honourable men - Come I to speak in Ceasar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me : But Brutus says he was ambitious ; And Brutus is an honourable man. The Red-Headed League Arthur Conan Doyle I had called upon my friend, Mr.Sherlock Holmes, one day in the autumn of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very stout, florid-face, elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair. With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw, when Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room, and closed the door behind me. "You should not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson," he said cordially. "I was afraid that you were engaged." "So I am. Very much so." "Then I can wait in the next room." "Not at all. This gentleman, Mr.Wilson, has been my partner and helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also." The great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald In my youger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. " Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone," he told me, " just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. " He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The Portrait of a Lady Henry James Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not - some people of course never do, - the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of afternoon had waned, but much of it was left, and what was left was of the finest and rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours ; but the flood of summer light had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, the shadow were long upon the smooth, dense turf. They lengthend slowly, however, and the scene expressed that sense of leisure still to come which is perfect the chief source of one's enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour. From five o'clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity ; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure. Lady Chatterley's Lover D. H. Lawrence Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work : there is now no smooth road into the future : but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen. This was more or less Constance Chatterley's position. The war had brought the roof down over the head. And she had realized that one must live and learn. She married Clifford Chatterley in 1917, when he was home for a month on leave. They had a month's honeymoon. Then he went back to Flanders : to be shipped over to Engalnd again six months later, more or less in bits. Constance, his wife, was then twenty-three years old, and he was twenty-nine. His hold on life was marvelous. He didn't die, and the bits seemed to grow together again. For two years he remained in the doctor's hands. Then he was pronouced a cure, and could return to life again, with the lower half of his body, from the hips down, paralysed for ever. page top David Copperfield Charles Dickens Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born ( as I have been informed and believe ) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously. Silent Spring Rachel Carson There was once a town in the heart of Amerika where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pine. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the autumn morning. The Old Testament Genesis In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Sprit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light : and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good : and God devided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. The New Testament The Gospel according to St. John In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him ; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness ; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twin Mornign, before daylight, I slipped into corn fields and borrowed a watermelon, or a muskmelon, or a pumpkin, or some new corn, or things of that kind. Pap always said it wasn't no harm to borrow things, if you was meaning to pay them back, sometimes ; but the widow said it warn't anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it. a decent income at a decent distance from here He got a decent grade on the exam. a very decent fellow a decent meal Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right ; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more - then he reckoned it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the muskmelons, or what. But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and concluded to drop crabbapples and persimmon. Daddy-Long-Legs Jean Webster Mr. D. Smith Sir : You never answer any questions ; you never show the slightest interest in anyting I do. You are probably the horridest one of all those horrid trustees, and the reason you are educating me is, not because you care a bit about me, but from a sense of duty. I don't know a sigle thing about you. I don't even know your name. It is very unspiring writing to a thing. I haven't doubt but that you throw my letters into the waste-basket without reading them. Hereafter I shall write only about work. My re-examination in Latin and geometry came last week. I passed them both and am now free from conditions. Your truly, Jerusha Abbott page top Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe September 30, 1659. - I, poor miserable Robbinson Crusoe, being shiprecked, during a dreadful storm, in the offing, came on shore on this dismal unfortunate island, which I called the Island of Despair, all the rest of the ship's company being drowned, and myself almost dead. eyes drowned in tears don't drown my wisky drown oneself All the rest of that day I spent in afflicting myself at the dismal circumstances I was brought to, viz., I had neither food, house, clothes, weapon, nor place to fly to ; and in despair of any relief, saw nothing but death before me ; either that I should be devoured by wild beasts, murdered by savages, or starved to death for a want of food. At the approach of night, I slept in a tree for fear of wild creatures, but slept soundly, though it rained all night. Gulliver's Travel Jonathan Swift When I awaked, it was just daylight. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir : for as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground ; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my armpits to my thighs, I could only look upwards, the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended mine eyes. I am sorry if you are offended. offend the ear (eye) 耳障り I heard a confused noise about me, but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin ; when bending mine eyes downwards as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. The Diary of a Young Girl Anne Frank Saturday, 20 June, 1942 I haven't written for a few days, because I wanted first of all to think about my diary. It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary ; not only because I have never done so before, but because it seems to me that neither I - nor for that matter anyone else - will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old school-girl. Still, what does that matter ? I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart. There is a saying that " paper is more patient than man " it came back to me on one of my slightly melancholy days, while I sat chin in hand, feeling too bored and limp even to make up my mind whether to go out or stay at home. Yes, there is no doubt that paper is patient and as I don't intend to show this cardboart-covered notebook, bearing the proud name of "diary," to anyone, unless I find a real friend, boy or girl, probably nobody cares. And now I come to the root of the matter, the reason for my starting a diary : it is that I have no such real friend. Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare O Romeo, Romeo ! - wherefore art thou Romeo ? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet. 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Mongague. What's Montague ? It is not hand nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name ! What's in a name ? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as aweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Romeo, doff thy name ; and for thy name, which is no part of thee, take all myself. Virginia to Leonard, March 18(?) 1941 Virginia Woolf Teusday Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I began to hear voices, and can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight it any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is that I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainly of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your llife any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. The Principal's Address to the Graduates Ume Tsuda It is not possible that school alone, here or anywhere else, can fit you in every way for what lies defore you. Each life voyage has its own difficulties and problems which must be faced alone. We have striven to help you in every way, but the future lies in your hands, and you must await the test and teachings of real experience. Yet for the successful happy voyage which we wish for you, there are beacon lights and danger signals which will surely guide you safely even among the dangerous reefs and the narrow passages of your way. Do not close your eyes to the course they point out, but faithfully accept their value. Our great beacon light is Truth. It will shine in every one of our souls, if only we do not refuse to see. It points out to us our own shallow attainments, our petty meannesses, our selfishness, vanity or jealousy, and reveals to us the good in others. Thus we may escape the rocks of pride and self-love. Follow also the guiding lights of Love and Devotion. In women, these are called instincts, but yet how narrow often is our love, how fickel and shallow, our devotion. Learn to love broadly, deeply and devotedly, and your lives can not fail. With nobler desires, greater earnestness and wider sympathy not limited to just a few, but taking in many even beyond the home, the weakest of us attain success. page top The Book of Tea Tenshin Okakura Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eight century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism - Teaism. Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempy to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life. The philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism in the ordinary acceptance of the term, in high terms 、 in plain terms、 in set terms under favorable terms、be in terms、 on bad terms for it expresss conjointly with ethics and religion our whole point of view about man and nature. It is hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness ; it is economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly ; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it defines our sense of propotion to the universe. It represents the true spirit of Eastern democracy by making all its votaries aristocrats in taste. Bushido Inazo Nitome Chivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its emblem, the Cherry blossom ; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living object of power and beauty among us ; and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it not the less scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell. Roots Alex Haley I guess we had moved a third of the way through the village when it suddenly registered in my brain what they were all crying out . . . . the wizened, robed elders and younger men, the mothers and naked tar-black childred, they were all waving up at me ; their expressions buoyant, beaming, all were crying out together, " Meester Kinte ! Meester Kinte ! " Let me tell you something : I am a man. A sob hit me somewhere around my ankles ; it came surging upward, and flinging my hands over my face, I was just bawling, as I hadn't since I was a baby. " Meester Kinte ! " I just felt like I was weeping for all of history's incredible atrocities against fellowmen, which seems to be mankind's greatest flaw. . . . Flying homeward from Dakar, I decided to write a book. My own ancestors' would automatically also be a symbolic saga of all African-descent people- who are without exception the grew up in some black African village, someone who was captured and chained down in one of those slave ships that sailed them across the same ocean, into some succession of plantations, and since then a struggle for freedom. The Story of My Life Helen Keller We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teather placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a mistery consciousness as of something forgotten - a thrill of returning thoughts ; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that " w-a-t-e-r " meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free ! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away. I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. Little Women Louisa May Alcott Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt ; for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty ; but it was usually bundled in a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulder had Jo, big hands and feet, a fly-away look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman, and didin't like it. Anne of Green Gables L. M. Montgomery Oh, there are a lot more cherry-trees all in bloom ! This Island is the bloomiest place. I just love it already, and I'm so glad I'm going to live here. I've always heard that Price Edward Island was the prettiest place in the world, and I used to imagine I was living here, but never really expected I would. It's delightful when your imaginations come true, isn't it ? But those red roads are so funny. When we got into the train at Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past I asked Mrs.Spencer what made them red and she said she didn't know, and for pity's sake not to ask her any more questions. She said I must have asked her a thousand already. I suppose I had, too, but how are you going to find out about things if you don't ask questions ? And what does make the roads red ? page top The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. The old man felt faint and sick and he could not see well. But he cleared the harpoon line and let it run slowly through his raw hands and, when he could see, he saw the fish was on his back with his silver belly up. The shaft of the harpoon was projecting at an angle from the fish's shoulder and the sea was discoloring with the red of the blood from his heart. First it was dark as a shoal in the blue water that was more than a mile deep. Then it spread like a cloud. The fish was silvery and still and floated with the waves. The old man looked carefully in the glimpse of vision that he had. Then he took two turns of the harpoon line around the bitt in the bow and laid his head on his hands. " Keep my head clear, " he said against the wood of the bow. " I am a tired old man. But I have killed this fish which is my brother and now I must do the slave work. The Spirit of St.Louis Charles A. Lindberg I spiral lower, looking down on the little village. There are boats in the harbor, wagons on the stone-fenced roads. People are running out into the streets, looking up and waving. This is earth again, the earth where I've lived and now will live once more. Here are human beings. Here's a human welcome. Not a single detail is wrong. I've never seen such beauty before - fields so green, people so human, a village so attractive, moutains and rocks so mountainous and rocklike. Ireland, England, France, Paris ! The night at Paris ! This night at Paris - less than six hours from now - France and Paris ! It's like a fairy tale. Yesterday I walked on Roosevelt Field ; today I'll walk on Le Bourget. The Last Leaf O. Henry " I have something to tell you, white mouse, " she said. " Mr. Berman died of pnemonia today in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him on the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didin't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew ? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's master piece - he painted it there the night that last leaf fell. Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stow " One thing more, " said George, as he stopped the congratulations of the throng ; " you all remember our good old Uncle Tom ? " George here gave a short narration of the scene of his death, and of his loving farewell to all on the place, and added, " It was on his grave, my friends, that I resolved, before God, that it was possible to free him ; that nobody, through me, should ever run the risk of being patted from home and friends, and dying on a plantation, as he died. So, when you rejoice in your freedom, think that you owe it to that good old soul, and pay it back in kindness to his wife and children. Think of your freedom, every time you see Uncle Tom's Cabin ; and let it be a memorial to put all in mind to follow in his steps, and be honest and faithful and Christian as he was. " If I Can Stop Emily Dicknson If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain ; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain. Hamlet William Shakespeare To be, or not to be - that is the question ; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. Macbeth William Shakespeare Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time ; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way of dusty death. Out, out, brief candle ! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more, It is tale told by a idoit, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Reading John Locke Those who have read of everything are thought to understand everything too ; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge : it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections ; unless we chew them over again, they will not give us strength and nourishment. There are indeed, in some writers, visible instances of deep thought, close and acute reasoning, and ideas well pursued. The light these would give would be of great use if their readers would observe and imitate them ; all the rest, at best, are but particulars fit to be turned into knowledge ; but that can be done only by our own meditation, and examining the reach, force, and coherence of what is said ; and then, as far as we apprehend and see the connextion of ideas, so far is it ours ; without that it is so much loose matter floating in our brain. To the President of the United States Chief Seatlte What is man without beasts ? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected. You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know : the earth does not belong to man ; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life : he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. page top 「心愉しい詩歌」 へ戻る |