填空题 E-C Translation.(上海交通大学2005研,考试科目:英语水平考试)Defining the meaning of "happiness" is a perplexing proposition: the best one can do is to try to set some extremes to the idea and then work towards the middle. To think of happiness as achieving superiority over others, living in a mansion made of marble, having a wardrobe with hundreds of outfits, will do to set the greedy extreme. To think of happiness as the joy of a holy man of India will do to set the spiritual extreme. He sits completely still, contemplating the nature of reality, free even of his own body. If admirers bring him food, he eats it: if not, he starves. Why be concerned? What is physical is trivial to him. To contemplate is his joy and he achieves complete mental focus through an incredibly demanding discipline, the accomplishment of which is itself a joy to him.Is he a happy man? Perhaps his happiness is only another sort of illusion. But who can take it from him? And who will dare say it is more false than happiness paid for through an installment plan?Although the holy man"s concept of happiness may enjoy considerable prestige in the Orient, I doubt the existence of such motionless happiness. What is certain is that his way of happiness would be torture to almost anyone of Western temperament. Yet these extremes will still serve to define the area within which all of us must find some sort of balance. Thoreau had his own firm sense of that balance: save on the petty in order to spend on the essential.
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【正确答案】 1、正确答案: 给“幸福”下定义是一个比较复杂的命题,最好的做法就是先给这一观念设定一些极限,而后取其中间。如果认为幸福就是高人一等,身居大理石豪宅,藏百服于橱间,可谓是贪婪之极;如果把幸福理解为印度圣人的愉悦,可谓脱俗之极。他一动不动地坐在那里,思索着现实的本质,甚至达到了忘我的境界。若有仰慕者奉上食物,他便纳用;若无供奉,他便忍饥挨饿。何必为此操心?肉体之于他不过是琐粹小事。冥思是他的快乐所在,他通过令人难以置信的苛刻戒律达到快乐,戒律的施行本身便是他内在的快乐。 他算是个幸福的人吗?可能他的幸福不过又是一种虚幻。可谁又能把这幸福从他那里抢走呢?谁敢说这种幸福不如通过分期付款买来的幸福来得真实呢? 尽管圣人的幸福观在东方人中享有很高的声誉,但我却怀疑是否真的有这样静态的幸福。可以肯定的是,他那种获得幸福的途径对于西方性情的人来说几乎无一例外是种折磨。可是这些极端的情形对于定义幸福还是很有帮助的,我们必须在两者之间找到某种平衡。关于这种平衡,梭罗有其独到的见解:舍小节,保大节。    
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