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,Unit 2: Further Reading,Further Reading,Reading passage,Reading comprehension,You Must Go Home Again by Ardis Whitman,Unit 2: Further Reading,You Must Go Home Again by Ardis Whitman 1“It is absurd to think that life begins for us at birth,” wrote the Irish novelist Kathleen Coyle. “The pattern is set far back; we merely step into the process.” 2We have being driving in fog all morning, but the fog is lifting now and the little seaside villages are appearing, one by one. We go down a long hill, lined with dense trees, and then come out in a blaze of sunlight. To our left, a tranquil cove (小海湾) spreads, sparkling, embraced by a semicircle of village houses. “There is my grandmothers house,” I say, pointing across the cove to a big shabby old house.,Unit 2: Further Reading,3I am in Nova Scotia on a pilgrimage with Lise, my granddaughter, looking for a heritage (传统) for her, retracing treasured memory for me. The deep roots of home have not been easy for Lise to come by. She was one of the mobile children, moved from house to house in childhood. Her parents were divorced when she was a child, and her father, my son, died when she was in her early teens. She has been attending a university in Egypt and is planning to spend her life in the Middle East. But she longs for a sense of home, and so we have come to Nova Scotia where my husband and I were born and where our ancestors lived for 200 years.,Unit 2: Further Reading,4 Lise pulls off the road abruptly and sits studying the house in silence. “It looks like a place to be happy in,” she says at last, wistfully (渴望地). 5We sit a while longer and I tell her what it was like here, the memories rushing back, swift as the tide. It was not this village I saw as we talked. It was the village of childhood and a time long ago, when a little girl arrived in summer. We used to come, my mother and father and brother and I, in a chugging (发着嘎嚓声行使) train, windows open, cinders (煤渣) blowing in. Firman Whynacht, who delivered the mail, met us at the station, crowding us in among the mailbags in his old buckboard.,Unit 2: Further Reading,6Grandmothers house stood in the curve of a narrow road; the sea wrapped itself closely around. Across the cove, my cousins assembled (聚集) to watch us arrive. Then they would leap into a rowboat and rush across, waving and shouting. 7The house fronted on a wide, wonderful field full of flowers and apple trees and berry bushes and hiding-places; and there was a lofty veranda (阳台) and a flight of flower-laden steps they could easily hold 50 or 60 aunts, uncles and cousins for family pictures.,Unit 2: Further Reading,8We cannot go into the house, but I can still walk through the rooms in my memory and see the sun pouring into the big dining room with its tall windows, its ancient stove and loudly ticking clock. 9 My grandfather and grandmother came here to live when they were very young, their family just beginning. Here my mother sat in her bedroom window and wrote in her diary, “I am sixteen today. How old that is!” My father met her when he came here for preach (布道), and when they were retired, they bought a house next door to the old home. There I came with my own children to visit and there, on an autumn day, with wailing (哀号的) sea and blowing leaves, my mother died.,Unit 2: Further Reading,10But that was long after those childhood days which now come back so sharply. I can still see the ebullient (感情奔放的) family pouring into and out of the house. They my mothers family were short, sturdy (结实的), attractive people of mixed French and German origin. I could never have enough of being with them from my grandmother who used to say, “Get all the learning you can; it wont be a burden to carry,” to Aunt Mabel learning Spanish and the “new math” for fun when she was 80.,Unit 2: Further Reading,11Lise sits on the steps as I talk, running her hand lovingly over the railing (栏杆). “So this is where I began,” she says, “where I belong.” She is silent for a moment, looking out to sea and then she says, “Id like to bring all the flowers back and make it the way it used to be.” I am weeping a little and she turns to comfort, using her little-girl name for me. “Grand-mommy, I can hear all those cousins laughing and calling to each other and running up and down the stairs. They are still here, and I am part of them.”,Unit 2: Further Reading,12She had found her roots. To know where I come from is one of the great longings of the human heart. More than genealogical (家谱的) data, we seek in the lives of those who went before us the meaning of our lives. Roots, the dictionary says, are “an underlying support”. To be rooted is “to have an origin.” 13I am thinking so as we drive away, Lise and I , looking back until the fog begins again to take the house and the sea. Then we continue our pilgrimage through this ancestor-sheltered homeland. We have both taken away from the house of my grandmother more than we expected.,Unit 2: Further Reading,14In the days that followed, we visited the houses of Lises great-greatgrandparents. Awe-struck, she went with me to the cemeteries (墓地) and saw the seemingly endless lines of family graves and, kneeling, carefully cleaned the lichens (地衣) from the gravestones of my father and mother. She met relatives in legions (众多) and said with pride, “I must be related to everyone in Nova Scotia. No matter how far away I go, this will always be true home. ”,Unit 2: Further Reading,15Mine, too, I thought because my roots are here; but also because the memories of childhood are an unerasable part of identity. I saw that we go back to find our roots but also to live again the time of innocence and joy when we loved things for themselves. Looking back at his own childhood, novelist Arthur Machen wrote: “Everything to me was wonderful. Everything visible was the veil of an invisible secret. ”,Unit 2: Further Reading,16How aware we were of all that surrounded us. I remember the way clover smelled on a summer day; the view of the world from the tallest branches of a tree; the sounds of music which never seemed as lovely to me since. 17These memories have pulled me through some bad memories in adult life. Out of that long ago childhood, a surging tide of life comes. Perhaps space and time enhance these memories. But it is certain that when I walk down the road to any of these old homes, I am returning not only to the physical home but to the untarnished (未失去光泽的) dream.,Unit 2: Further Reading,18We go back to remember the sensitivities of youth, but also to experience again shelter and safety. Whether it was good or bad, the home of childhood was the place where we first knew protection and love, where we were important, cherished, forgiven. 19We go back to find the security of home, but also to find in the past the answer to the present. It would be to misread our early days if we thought of them only as a place of sweetness and light. The past is not completely happy for any of us, that is as it should be, for it is the birthplace of the self. Here our lives take shape. Here the real self begins its struggle to be known and here, for the first time, we encounter the mystery and otherness of people.,Unit 2: Further Reading,20Contrary to Thomas Wolfes famous lament, “You cant go home again”, we must all go home again in reality or memory. When we dont, out lives lose their structure. Nostalgia is not simply a wistful exercise in sentiment. Rather, it is an illumination of the present; and invitation to re-examine oneself; to know the nature of the seed that started the tree; yes, and to remember what it was to be a child.,Unit 2: Further Reading,21We must cherish our yesterdays but never carry them as a burden into the future. Each generation must take nourishment from other and give knowledge to the one that comes after. 22Even if the past was not kind to you, turn it to account, to understanding. Take time to remember. Make an enduring home for your childrens memories; then leave them to build, on that foundation, their own house of the future.,Unit 2: Further Reading,1.Why did the author say she and her granddaughter were on a pilgrimage in Nova Scotia? A.The author and her granddaughter were both pilgrims because they lived in Nova Scotia. B.Their trip was not for fun, but for a serious purpose. They wanted to express their respect for the place of their roots and feel the peace of belonging. C.They went to see the house where their ancestors had lived and visited their family graves in a beautiful calm day. D.Both the author and her granddaughter felt they had taken away from Nova Scotia more spiritual things than material ones.,Reading comprehension, p. 41 Choose the best answer to each of the following questions.,Unit 2: Further Reading,1.Why did the author say she and her granddaughter were on a pilgrimage in Nova Scotia? A.The author and her granddaughter were both pilgrims because they lived in Nova Scotia. B.Their trip was not for fun, but for a serious purpose. They wanted to express their respect for the place of their roots and feel the peace of belonging. C.They went to see the house where their ancestors had lived and visited their family graves in a beautiful calm day. D.Both the author and her granddaughter felt they had taken away from Nova Scotia more spiritual things than material ones.,2.What does the word “buckboard” in the last line of paragraph 5 most probably refer to? A.A machine. B.A package. C.A mailbox. D.A carriage.,Unit 2: Further Reading,2.What does the word “buckboard” in the last line of paragraph 5 most probably refer to? A.A machine. B.A package. C.A mailbox. D.A carriage.,3.What does this sentence “I could never have enough of being with them ” mean? (Para.10). A. I could never get what I wanted when I was with them. B. They never could save much time to spend with me. C. I had always enjoyed being with them. D. I wish I had had enough time to be with them.,Unit 2: Further Reading,3.What does this sentence “I could never have enough of being with them ” mean? (Para.10). A. I could never get what I wanted when I was with them. B. They never could save much time to spend with me. C. I had always enjoyed being with them. D. I wish I had had enough time to be with them.,4. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage? A. The authors parents had lived in Nova Scotia for their lifetime. B.The authors granddaughter, Lise, had a very mobile childhood. C.The authors mothers family had a very cheerful personality. D.The author had a very sweet memory of her childhood.,Unit 2: Further Reading,4. Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage? A. The authors parents had lived in Nova Scotia for their lifetime. B.The authors granddaughter, Lise, had a very mobile childhood. C.The authors mothers family had a very cheerful personality. D.The author had a very sweet memory of her childhood.,5. What is the theme of this passage? A.Having a home, even if it is in the far countryside, can bring people a sense of belonging. B. Home is a place where our lives are rooted and take shape. We should all cherish it. C.Some people do not cherish their memory of the past because they had suffered a lot in it. D.The sweet memory of childhood can help people to build a happy life for their future.,Unit 2: Further Reading,5. What is the theme of this passage? A.Having a home, even if it is in the far countryside, can bring people a sense of belonging. B. Home is a place where our lives are rooted and take shape. We should all cherish it. C.Some people do not cherish their memory of the past because they had suffered a lot in it. D.The sweet memory of childhood can help people to build a happy life for their future.,
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