English Intensive Reading 吉林大学远程教育学院
Introduction Text Language Points Grammar
				Lesson 6    Text  ( Page 5)
			If you happen to be an engineer and also enjoy singing in a glee club,connect these two activities.They unite in you, they are not in conflict.(32) Both choral singing and engineering are examples of the architectonic ability of man , of his power to make a large plan and to convey it clearly to others.(33)Both are aesthetic and depend much on symmetry. Think about them not as though they were dissociated, but as though each were one aspect of a single unity.You will do them better, and be happier.         Much unhappiness has been suffered by those people who have never recognized that it is as necessary to make themselves into whole and harmonious personalities as to keep themselves clean, healthy and financially solvent. (34)Wholeness of the mind and spirit is not a quality conferred by nature,or by God. (35) It is like health, virtue and knowledge. Man has the capacity to attain it, but to achieve it depends on his own efforts. It needs a long, deliberate effort of the mind and the emotions,and even the body.         During our earthly life, the body gradually dies; (36) even the emotions become duller. But the mind in most of us continues to live, and even grows more lively and active,enjoys itself more,works and plays with more expansion and delight.         Many people have played themselves to death, or eaten and drunk themselves to death.Nobody has ever thought himself to death.The chief danger confronting (37) us is not age. It is laziness, sloth, routine, stupidity—forcing their way in like wind through the shutters, seeping into the cellar like swamp water.(38) Many who avoid learning, or abandon it, find that life is drained dry. They spend 30 years in a chair looking glumly out at the sand and the ocean, on a porch swing waiting for somebody to drive down the road. But that is not how to live.         No learner has ever run short of subjects to explore. The pleasures of learning are indeed pleasures. In fact, the word should be changed. The true name is happiness. You can live longest and best and most rewardingly by (39) attaining and preserving the happiness of learning.