晨读英语美文100篇 Passage 15. Struggle for Freedom

[00:01.53]Passage 15. Struggle for Freedom

[00:06.46]It is not possible for me to express all that I feel of appreciation

[00:12.25]for what has been said and given to me.

[00:14.99]I accept, for myself, with the conviction of having received

[00:19.91]far beyond what I have been able to give in my books.

[00:24.18]I can only hope that the many books which I have yet to write

[00:28.44]will be in some measure a worthier acknowledgment than I can make tonight.

[00:34.13]And, indeed, I can accept only in the same spirit

[00:38.62]in which I think this gift was originally given

[00:41.79]—that it is a prize not so much for what has been done, as for the future.

[00:47.81]Whatever I write in the future must, I think,

[00:51.31]be always benefited and strengthened when I remember this day.

[00:55.69]I accept,too, for my country,the United States of America.

[01:00.51]We are a people still young and we know that we have not yet come to the fullest of our powers.

[01:07.18]This award, given to an American, strengthens not only one,

[01:12.64]but the whole body of American writers,

[01:15.49]who are encouraged and heartened by such generous recognition.

[01:19.87]And I should like to say, too, that in my country

[01:23.48]it is important that this award has been given to a woman.

[01:27.64]You who have already so recognized your own Selma Lagerlof,

[01:32.78]and have long recognized women in other fields,

[01:36.17]cannot perhaps wholly understand what it means in many countries

[01:40.66]that it is a woman who stands here at this moment.

[01:44.15]But I speak not only for writers and for women, but for all Americans,

[01:49.30]for we all share in this.

[01:51.27]I should not be truly myself if I did not, in my own wholly unofficial way,

[01:57.40]speak also of the people of China,whose life has for so many years been my life also,

[02:04.29]whose life,indeed, must always be a part of my life.

[02:09.11]The minds of my own country and China, my foster country, are alike in many ways,

[02:16.00]but above all, alike in our common love of freedom.

[02:20.38]And today more than ever, this is true,

[02:23.65]now when China's whole being is engaged in the greatest of all the struggles,

[02:29.45]the struggle for freedom.

[02:31.42]I have never admired China more than I do now,

[02:35.25]when I see her uniting as she has never before,

[02:38.86]against the enemy who threatens her freedom.

[02:42.36]With this determination for freedom,

[02:44.89]which is in so profound a sense the essential quality of her nature,

[02:49.80]I know that she is unconquerable.

[02:52.91]Freedom—it is today more than ever the most precious human possession.

[02:58.55]We—Sweden and the United States—we have it still.

[03:03.26]My country is young—but it greets you with a peculiar fellowship,

[03:08.18]you whose earth is ancient and free.