Years ago, when I started looking for my first job, wise advisers advised, "Barbara, be enthusiastic
(热情的)! Enthusiasm will take you further than any amount of experience. " How right they were!
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. "wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson．It is the paste
that helps you hang on there when the going gets tough. It is the inner voice that whispers, "I can do it!"
when others shout, "No, you can’t!” It took years and years for the early work of Barbara McClintock,
a geneticist who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in medicine, to be generally accepted. Yet she didn’t stop
working on her experiments．Work was such a deep pleasure for her that she never thought of stopping.
We are all born with wide-eye, enthusiastic wonder and it is this childlike wonder that gives
enthusiastic people such youthful air, whatever their age. At 90, cellist Pablo Casals would start his day
by playing Bach. As the music flowed through his fingers, his stooped (弯曲的)shoulders would
straighten and joy would reappear in his eyes. As author and poet Samuel Ulman once wrote, "Years
wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”
Enthusiastic people also love what they do, regardless of money or title or power. Patricia Mcllrath,
retired director of the Missouri Repertory Theater in Kansas City, was once asked where she got her
enthusiasm. She replied, "My father, a lawyer, long ago told me, ‘I never made a dime until I stopped
working for money.’"
If we cannot do what we love as a full-time career, we can as a hobby. Elizabeth Layton of
Wellsville, Kan was 68 before she began to draw. This activity ended periods of depression that had
trouble her for at least 30 years, and the quality of her work led one critic to say, "I am tempted to call
Layton a genius."
We can’t afford to waste tears on "might-have-beens". We need to turn the tears into sweat as we go
after "what-can-be". We need to live each moment whole-heartedly, with all our senses-finding pleasure
in the sweet smell of a back-yard garden, the simple picture of a six-year-old, the beauty of a rainbow.
1. The author holds the view that ______．
A. enthusiastic people will never get old
B. enthusiasm can make you succeed and enjoy life
C. enthusiasm is more important than experience
D. enthusiasm can give people more success and fame
2. The author mentions cellist Pablo Casals in the third paragraph to show that ______．
A. music can arouse people’s enthusiasm
B. enthusiasm can give people inspiration needed to succeed
C. enthusiasm can make people feel young
D. enthusiasm can keep people healthy
3. Which of the following can best explain the underlined sentence in the fourth paragraph?
A. Enthusiasm can give you courage and strength in difficult times．
B. If you don’t have enthusiasm, you can achieve nothing．
C. Enthusiastic people seldom consider money and fame．
D. Enthusiastic people can gain great fame and honor．
