考博英语模拟23.docVIP

考博英语模拟23 阅读理解 Passage 1 Signs of deafness had given him great anxiety as early as 1798. For a long time he successfully concealed it from all but his most intimate friends, while he consulted physicians and quacks with eagerness. But neither quackery nor the best skill of his time availed him, and it has been pointed out that the root of the evil lay deeper than could have been supposed during his lifetime. Although his constitution was magnificently strong and his health was preserved by his passion for outdoor life, a post-mortem examination revealed a very complicated state of disorder, evidently dating from childhood (if not inherited) and aggravated by lack of care and good food. The touching document addressed to his brothers in 1802, and known as his will should be read in its entirety. No verbal quotation short of the whole will do justice to the overpowering outburst which runs in almost one long unpunctuated sentence through the whole tragedy of Beethovens life, as he knew it then and foresaw it. He reproaches men for their injustice in thinking and calling him pugnacious, stubborn, and misanthropical when they do not know that for six years he has suffered from an incurable condition aggravted by incompetent doctors. He dwells upon his delight in human society from which he has had so early to isolate himself, but the thought of which now fills him with dread as it makes him realize his loss, not only in music but in all finer interchange of ideas, and terrifies him lest the cause of his distresses should appear. He declares that, when those near him had heard a flute or a singing shepherd while he heard nothing, he was only prevented from taking his life by the thougth of his art, but it seemed impossible for him to leave the world until he had brought out all that he felt to be in his power. He requests that after his death his present doctor , if surviving, shall be asked to describe his illness and to append it to this document in order that at least