B
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours for this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean (毕达哥拉斯) power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery (嘲弄) of what human life should be. I long to alleviate (减少) the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
1. Which would be the best title of the essay?
A. The suffering of life. B. The truth about love.
C. The forces driving me. D. The power of knowledge.
2. What does the author compare his life’s passion to?
A. The shining stars. B. Great winds.
C. A bottomless abyss. D. A boundless ocean.
3. Which is NOT a reason why the author has sought love?
A. It relieves loneliness. B. It brings ecstasy.
C. It provides a glimpse of heaven. D. It leads to a marriage.
4. What would the author most probably agree with?
A. He regrets that he could not free himself of pity.
B. Human love is ultimately disappointing.
C. Heaven is merely a poetic invention.
D. A loving person naturally wants to relieve the suffering of others.
