2012年大学英语六级考试美文欣赏（7）

会计考友

2012年大学英语六级考试美文欣赏（7）
Of Studies
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness andretiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament,isaffectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants,that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.
: D" J  S; P. _" b/ A" K/ PCrafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk anddiscourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly,and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading makes a full man； conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore,if a man write little，he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have muchcunning, to seem to know that he does not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.