晨读英语美文60篇六级02

The one American industry unaffeted by the general depression of trade is the beauty industry. American women continue to spend on their faces and bodies as much as they spent before the coming of the slump--about three million pounds a week. These facts and figures are 'official', and can be accepted as being substantially true.

The modern cult¹ of beauty is not exclusively a function of wealth. If it were, then the personal appearance industries would have been as hit by the trade depression as any other business. But, as we have seen, they have not suffered．Women are retrenching² on other things than their faces.

Women, it is obvious, are freer than in the past. Freer not only to perform the generally unenviable social functions hithero reserved to the male, but also freer to exercise the more pleasing, feminine privilege of being attractive. The fortunes are made justly by face-cream manufacturers and beauty-specialists, by the sellers of rubber reducing-belts and massage³ machines, by the patentees of hair-lotions and the authors of books on the culture of the abdomen⁴.

It is a success in so far as more women retain their youthful appearance to a greater age than in the past. The Portrait of the Artist's Mother will come to be almost indisinguishable, at future picture shows, from the Portrai of the Artist's Daughter. The success is part due to skin foods and injections of paraffin-wax, facial surgery, mud baths, and paint, and in part due to impoved health. So for some people, the campaign for more beauty is also a compaign for more health. Beauty that is merely the artificial shadow of these symptoms of heslth is intrinsically of poorer quality than the genuine article. Still, it is a sufficiently⁵ good imitation to be sometimes mistakable for the real thing. Every middle-in-come preson can afford the cosmetic⁶ apparatus⁷ and more knowledge of the way in which real herlth can be achieved is being universally aced⁸ upon. When that happy moment comes, will every woman be beautiful-as beautiful, at any rate, as the natural shape of her features? The answer is apparent: No,for real beauty is as much an affair of the inner as of the outer self.

1 cult   

n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜

参考例句：

• Her books aren't bestsellers,but they have a certain cult following.她的书算不上畅销书，但有一定的崇拜者。
• The cult of sun worship is probably the most primitive one.太阳崇拜仪式或许是最为原始的一种。

2 retrenching   

v.紧缩开支( retrench的现在分词 )；削减（费用）；节省

参考例句：

3 massage   

n.按摩，揉；vt.按摩，揉，美化，奉承，篡改数据

参考例句：

• He is really quite skilled in doing massage.他的按摩技术确实不错。
• Massage helps relieve the tension in one's muscles.按摩可使僵硬的肌肉松弛。

4 abdomen   

n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分)

参考例句：

• How to know to there is ascarid inside abdomen?怎样知道肚子里面有蛔虫？
• He was anxious about an off-and-on pain the abdomen.他因时隐时现的腹痛而焦虑。

5 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

6 cosmetic   

n.化妆品；adj.化妆用的；装门面的；装饰性的

参考例句：

• These changes are purely cosmetic.这些改变纯粹是装饰门面。
• Laughter is the best cosmetic,so grin and wear it!微笑是最好的化妆品，所以请尽情微笑吧！

7 apparatus   

n.装置，器械；器具，设备

参考例句：

• The school's audio apparatus includes films and records.学校的视听设备包括放映机和录音机。
• They had a very refined apparatus.他们有一套非常精良的设备。

8 aced   

vt.发球得分（ace的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• I don't know how I aced in, I was lucky enough. 我不知道这好事怎么让我给碰上了，我够幸运的。 来自互联网
• He aced every physical fitness test they gave him. 他顺利通过了他们对他所作的每项体格检查。 来自互联网