The rain continued to beat against the house, and in one or two places it sent a stream through the patched panes and ran into pools on the floor. Every now and then the kitten mewed and struggled down, and the old woman stooped and caught it , holding it tight in her bony hands; and once or twice the man on the barrel half woke, changed his position and dozed again, his head falling forward on his hairy breast. As the minutes passes , and the rain still streamed against the windows, a loathing of the weak-minded old women, of the cowed children, and the ragged man sleeping off his liquor, made the setting of her own life seem a vision of peace and plenty. She thought of the kitchen at Mr.Royall’s, with its scrubbed floor and dresser full of china, and the peculiar smell of yeast and coffee and soft-soap that she had always hated, but that now seemed the very symbol of household order. She saw Mr.Royall’s room, with the highbacked horsehair chair, the faded rag carpet, the row of books on a shelf, the engraving of “The surrender of Burgoyne” over the stove, and the mat with a brown and white spaniel on a moss-green border.
I remember that at a later period of my “time”, I used to stand about the churchyard on Sunday evenings, when night was falling, comparing my own perspective with the windy marsh view ,and making out some likeness between them by thinking how flat and low both were ,and how on both there came an unknown way and dark mist and then the sea. I was quite as dejected on the first working-day of my apprenticeship as in that after-time ;but I am glad to know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe while my inderntures lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad to know of myself in that connexion.
For , though it includes what I procees to add, all the merit of what I proceed to add was Joe’s. It was not because I was faithful ,that I never ran away and went for a soldier or a sailor. It was not because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it has touched one’self in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restless aspiring discontented me.
參考答案:第一段出自:《夏》第六章 (Summer by Edith Wharton Chapter VI)
作者: 伊迪丝·华顿 (Edith Wharton, 1862-1937)
生於纽约，家庭在纽约社交界极著声誉。成年以前在家中和欧洲受贵族教育。其后出嫁，夫家与娘家门当户对。由於致力写作，对社交生活渐感厌烦。一九○七年和长年卧病的丈夫离婚，此后大部分时间住在欧洲，四处旅行，写了不少游记和长短篇小说。第一次世界大战期间，在法国全心全意从事救济工作。
第二段出自《远大前程》第十三章 (GREAT EXPECTATIONS Chapter 13)
作者: 查尔斯·约翰·赫芬姆·狄更斯（Charles John Huffam Dickens，1812年2月7日~1870年6月9日） 英国维多利亚时期的著名小说家，他的作品至今依然盛行，并对英国文学发展起到重要影响。