短文阅读与分析.doc

1. The First Snow The first snow came. How beautiful it was, falling so silently all day long, all night long, on the mountains, on the meadows, on the roofs of the living, on the graves of the dad! All white save（除…以外） the river, that marked its course by a winding black line across the landscape; and the leafless trees, that against the leaden sky now revealed more fully the wonderful beauty and intricacies of their branches. What silence, too, came with the snow, and what seclusion! Every sound was muffled; every noise changed to something soft and musical. No more tramping hoofs, no more rattling wheels! Only the chiming of sleigh (雪橇)-bells， beating as swiftly and merrily as the hearts of children. 2. The Humming-bird Of all animated beings this is the most elegant in form and the most brilliant in colors. The stones and metals polished by our arts are not comparable to this jewel of Nature. She has placed it least in size of the order of birds, “maxime Miranda in minimis.”(拉丁语： 意思分别为：最大 最值得称羡的东西 最小) Her masterpiece is this little humming-bird, and upon it she has heaped all the gifts which the other birds may only share. Lightness, rapidity, nimbleness, grace, and rich apparel all belong to this little favorite. The emerald, the ruby, and the topaz gleam upon its dress. It never soils them with the dust of earth, and in its aerial life scarcely touches the turf an instant. Always in the air, flying from flower to flower, it has their freshness as well as their brightness. It lives upon their nectar(花蜜), and dwells only in the climates where they perennially bloom. 3. Pines The pine, placed nearly always among scenes disordered and desolate, brings into them all possible elements of order and precision. Lowland trees may lean to this side and that, though it is but a meadow breeze that bends them, or a bank of cowslips（野樱草）from which their trunks lean aslope. But let storm and avalanche do their worst, and let the pine find only a ledge of verti