大学英语听说教程4听力原文Unit6.docVIP

Unit6 PartB The Embarrassment of Riches The meaning of wealth today is usually defined as the amount of money and material goods that one has accumulated and the ability to purchase more goods at an ever-increasing rate. A wealthy person possesses so much money that it would be difficult for him to spend it all in his lifetime without being wasteful and extravagant. Speaking from a strictly practical point of view, the trouble with wealth is not that it arouses envy in the hearts of others but that it weighs very heavily upon the resources of its owner. Those who have never tasted luxury imagine that a new Porsche, a Picasso in the drawing room, an apartment in the Trump Tower, will bring them ease and happiness. If that were true, owners of the Porsches, Picassos, and Trumps of the world would all be happy souls. One glance at history tells you they are not. The problem is not simply that owning goods feeds upon itself, generating desires to possess more and to outdo other owners in a competitive madness. Its that goods themselves are an endless responsibility. They must be not only paid for but also stored, insured, and publicly admired. All of those cost not just money but personal freedom. As James Boswell, the famous British biographer, once wrote in his diary, If a man with a fortune cannot make himself easier and freer than those who are not, he gains nothing. Nothing except glittering baggage that must be attended to. In some Oriental countries poverty has never been such a disgrace as it is in the get-rich-quick zone. Wise men from these lands often remark on the tyranny of goods. According to an old Persian proverb, The larger a mans roof, the more snow it collects. And in his discussion of Houses, a Lebanese poet and philosopher compares the lust for comfort to a stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master. The same sentiment is also expressed here in America by the great philosopher Ralph Emerson, who scorns