Passage Nine(Holmes’ Knowledge)

His ignorance was as remarkable¹ as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest² way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax³, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar system.

  “You appear to be astonished, ” Holmes said, smiling at my expression. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it. You see, I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic⁴, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose: A fool takes in all the lumber⁵ of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best jumbled⁷ up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hand upon it. It is a mistake to think that the little room has elastic⁸ walls and can distend⁹ to any extent. Depend upon it, there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you know before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

  “But the Solar System! ” I protested.

  “What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently.

  One morning, I picked up a magazine from the table and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched¹⁰ silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it.

  Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life, ” and it attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic¹¹ examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity¹². The reasoning was close and intense, but the deduction¹³ appeared to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary¹⁴ expression, a twitch¹⁵ of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom¹⁶ a man’s inmost thought. Deceit, according to him, was impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes by which he had arrived at them they might well consider him as a necromancer¹⁷.

  “From a drop of water, ”said the writer, “a logician¹⁸ could infer the possibility of an Atlantic. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts, the science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain¹⁹ the highest possible perfection in it. ”

  This smartly written piece of theory I could not accept until a succession of evidences justified²⁰ it.

 

1.       What is the author’s attitude toward Holmes?
[A]Praising.
[B]Critical.
[C]Ironical.
[D]Distaste.

2.       What way did the author take to stick out Holmes’ uniqueness?
[A]By deduction.
[B]By explanation.
[C]By contrast.
[D]By analysis.

3.       What was the Holmes’ idea about knowledge-learning?
[A]Learning what every body learned.
[B]Learning what was useful to you.
[C]Learning whatever you came across.
[D]Learning what was different to you.

4.       What did the article mentioned in the passage talk about?
[A]One may master the way of reasoning through observation.
[B]One may become rather critical through observation and analysis.
[C]One may become rather sharp through observation and analysis.
[D]One may become practical through observation and analysis.

 

 

Vocabulary

1.       Thomas Carlyle                     托马斯·卡莱尔 1795-1881美国作家、历史家、哲学家

2.       jumble⁶ (up)                           搞乱，使混乱

3.       lay hand on (upon) sth.          抓住，找到

4.       at best                                  最好的情况下

5.       elbow out (off)                            用胳膊肘挤出，推出

6.       deuce = devil         
       what the deuce is it to me?     这里表示福尔摩斯的厌恶心理。义：这倒霉的词儿与我有什么关系？           

7.       while away the time               消磨/打发时间

8.       shrewdness                          机敏，敏锐，犀利

9.       far-fetched                           牵强附会，不自然

10.   fathom                                 看穿/透，推测，探索

11.   infallible                                一贯正确

12.   uninitiated                             对某事无知的

13.   Euclid                                  欧几里德（古希腊数学家）

14.   necromancer                         巫师

 

 

难句译注

 

1.       A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in laying his hand upon it.
【结构简析】主从句结构，主句A fool … 后跟lumber的定从that he comes across。从句so that 中有一knowledge的定从which; or链接前后两个分词crowded out 与jumbled up;但第一个so that 从句又是后面so that 的主句。
【参考译文】蠢人把他碰到的每种木材（制家具）都拿进来。这样，可能对他有用的知识都被挤出去；最好的情况下，也是和其他种种事情混在一起，所以他就很难抓住知识。

2.       Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life, ” and it attempted to show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way.
【结构简析】并列句，连词and后的句中有宾从how much…。
【参考译文】这片文章稍有炫耀的标题是“生命之书”。它想证明一个善于观察的人通过对他经历到的一切事情都进行真正地系统地考察可以学到多少东西。

3.       So startling would his results appear to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes by which he had arrived at them they might well consider him as a necromancer.
【结构简析】复合主从句，so that句型。So句是倒装。正常句型应为：His results would appear so startling to the uninitiated that…，that句中又是主从句，从句用until连接，中插by which定语从句修饰 the processes。
【参考译文】他的结论对无知的人来说是那么惊人，所以他们很可能认为他是个巫师，除非他们学会了他用以得出结论的过程。

4.       Like all other arts, the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it.
【结构简析】并列句，nor连接。前一句中有定语从句which修饰one，后一句nor为否定词。
【参考译文】像所有的其他艺术一样，演绎分析科学是一种通过长期默默的研究，可以习得的学问，而我们的生命并不长得足以使任何凡人都能在这一领域取得可能是臻美的成就。

 

 

写作方法与文章大意

这是一篇“传记”，作者采用以反衬正的对比手法写出了福尔摩斯之惊人才华。第一句话开明宗旨“他的无知和他的有知一样卓越惊人”，接着就是种种无知，达到突出其有知的成就。两方面表达，一是福尔摩斯对无知的解释：不能照单全收；二是作者的反对见解衬托福之才华超人，能一滴水见大海。

 

 

答案详解

1.       A 赞扬。作者以无知烘托人物之有知，以他本人的反对批评观点来证明人物的正确。否定及所谓机刺旨在铺垫。正反对比赞扬福之精明强悍，才智超人，洞察力强。

2.       C 作者采用对比手法。

3.       B 学习对你有用之物。第二段福之表白，他把头脑比作一个小小的空屋，不能随意选择家具（知识）塞满空间，应选择“有用之才”，免得填满了废物，把有用之才挤出去。

C 通过观察和分析人会变得很敏锐。最后二段都是讲福所写文章的内容。善于观察和分析的人可以一眼看透人之本质，一点水能知大西洋。这种一叶知秋的本领是通过长期观察、分析研究而得。也就是说，通过观察分析，人可以变得敏感聪慧，因为万物都有联系。

上一篇：英语阅读理解100篇（基础篇）-8 下一篇：英语阅读理解100篇（基础篇）-10