Reading Excerption (I)

read of
We can read of things that happend 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learnt to write.

fortunately
Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds.

顶真
Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race.

虚拟语气
They would devour all our crops and kill all our flocks and heads, if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals.

moreover/still more
We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never do the least harm to us or our belongings.

nor
Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even related to them.

形容轻易就能看出来
One can almost tell the difference at a glance for a spider always has eight legs and an insect never more than six.

be engaged in/on one's behalf
How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf?

夸张
It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill.

shudder at/go out of one's way
It is true that during their explorations, they often faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilous nature, equipped in a manner which would make a modern climber shudder at the thought, but they did not go out of their way to court such excitement.

boast
Often a valley boasted no inn at all.

invariably: 解释一系列现象中相同的部分
Invariably the background was the same: dirt and poverty, and very uncomfortable.

concern
One case concerns an eleven-year-old school girl, Vera Petrova, who has normal vision but who can also perceive things with...

bring to the notice of sb.
Vera's curious talent was brought to the notice of a scientific research institute in the town of Ulyanovsk, near where she lives.

stranger still: 更加...
During these tests she was able to read a newspaper through an opaque screen and stranger still, by moving her elbow over a child's game of Lotto, she was able to describe the figures and colors printed on it.

one
One thinks one know him very well.

exert a fascination upon
He has always exerted a strong fascination upon scientists and romantics alike.

haunt sb's imagination/hardly more: 说明一个性质，用另一个做比较
The Abominable Snowman who haunts the imagination of climbers in the Himalayas is hardly more elusive.

take leave to do
If there is one---which I take leave to doubt---then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves.

承认基本事实
Let's get down to the fundamentals and agree that the yound are after all human beings---people justlike their elders.

for one thing: 解释前文
I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so interesting as a problem. For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity.

人的特点
air of freedom/dreary commitment/mean ambitions/love of comfort/social climber/devotion to material things

否定论点
I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sports creates goodwill between the nations...

不愿意做什么事情
they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield.

尽力做某事
You play to win and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win.

work oneself into sth/at any rate
... of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, seriously believe---at any rate for short periods---that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.

解释一个理论
To get a full appreciation of what this means, we must first turn to some recent human inventions.

于是 xxx 诞生了
So was born the echo-sounding apparatus, now in general use in ships.

steer clear of
by receiving the echoes, they could locate and steer clear of obstacles---or locate flying insects on which they feed.

隐喻
The tidy committee men regard them with horror, knowing that no pigeonholes can be found for them.

隐喻
Notice how the cold, colorless men, without ideas and with no other passion but a craving for success, get on in this industry, capturing one plum after another and taking the juice and taste out of them.

阐述一个观点
Needless to say, the disgraceful censorship code is an important factor in predetermining the content of these pictures.

另外阐明一点
In addition to the impressiveness of the settings, there is a use of the camera which at times seems magical.

总结的一段话
Wherever the fault may lie, the fact remains that it is the theatre at Oxford and not at Cambridge which is on the verge of extinction, and the only fruit of the combination of industry and the rarefied atmosphere of learning is the dust in the street and a pathetic sense of being lost which hangs over some of the colleges.

指明自己的，但是可能带有普遍性的事情
The best way to overcome it---so at least it seems to me---is to make your interests gradually more wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.

draw a cheque in favor of sb.
When anyone opens a current account at a bank, he is lending the bank money, repayment of which he may demand at any time, either in cash or by drawing a cheque in favor of another person.

继续解释某个理由，产生的后果
The bank must recognize its customer's signature. For this reason there is no risk to the customer in the modern practice, adopted by some other banks, of printing the customer's name on his cheques.

另一种表达尽管... 但是... 的方法
The fact that we are not sure what ``intelligence'' is, nor what is passed on, does not prevent us from finding it a very useful working concept, and placing a certain amount of reliance on tests which ``measure'' it.

阐明两个因素
Two factors weigh heavily against the effectiveness of scientific research in industry. One is the general atmosphere of secrecy in which it is carried out, the other the lack of freedom of individual research worker.

表明问题发生，引导解释问题
The problem set for society is not the virtues of the type so much as its adequacy for its function, and here grave difficulties arise.