人生之求10-莫让目标太遥远

[00:00.00]Keep Your Goals in Sight 莫让目标太遥远
[00:05.96]When she looked ahead,
[00:08.68]Florence Chadwick saw nothing but a solid wall of fog.
[00:13.18]Her body was numb¹.
[00:15.03]She had been swimming for nearly sixteen hours.
[00:18.75]Already she was the first woman to swim
[00:22.26]the English Channel in both directions.
[00:24.65]Now, at age 34,
[00:27.07]her goal was to become the first woman to swim
[00:30.45]from Catalina Island to the California coast.
[00:34.30]On that Fourth of July morning in 1952,
[00:37.90]the sea was like an ice bath and the fog
[00:41.08]was so dense² she could hardly see her support boats.
[00:44.91]Sharks cruised toward her lone³ figure,
[00:48.06]only to be driven away by rifle shots.
[00:51.25]Against the frigid⁴ grip of the sea,
[00:54.42]she struggled on—hour after hour—
[00:57.06]while millions watched on national television.
[01:00.44]Alongside Florence in one of the boats,
[01:03.93]her mother and her trainer offered encouragement.
[01:06.79]They told her it wasn’t much farther.
[01:09.29]But all she could see was fog.
[01:12.04]They urged her not to quit.
[01:14.43]She never had . . .
[01:15.86]until then.
[01:17.07]With only a half mile to go,
[01:20.12]she asked to be pulled out.
[01:22.43]Still thawing⁵ her chilled body several hours later,
[01:26.69]she told a reporter,
[01:28.45]"Look, I’m not excusing myself,
[01:31.29]but if I could have seen land I might have made it."
[01:35.21]It was not fatigue⁶ or even the cold water that defeated her.
[01:39.91]It was the fog.
[01:42.00]She was unable to see her goal.
[01:44.42]Two months later, she tried again.
[01:48.02]This time, despite the same dense fog,
[01:51.84]she swam with her faith intact
[01:54.26]and her goal clearly pictured in her mind.
[01:57.20]She knew that somewhere behind that fog was land
[02:01.03]and this time she made it!
[02:03.01]Florence Chadwick became the first woman
[02:06.71]to swim the Catalina Channel,
[02:08.80]eclipsing the men’s record by two hours!

1 numb   

adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木

参考例句：

• His fingers were numb with cold.他的手冻得发麻。
• Numb with cold,we urged the weary horses forward.我们冻得发僵，催着疲惫的马继续往前走。

2 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

3 lone   

adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的

参考例句：

• A lone sea gull flew across the sky.一只孤独的海鸥在空中飞过。
• She could see a lone figure on the deserted beach.她在空旷的海滩上能看到一个孤独的身影。

4 frigid   

adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的

参考例句：

• The water was too frigid to allow him to remain submerged for long.水冰冷彻骨，他在下面呆不了太长时间。
• She returned his smile with a frigid glance.对他的微笑她报以冷冷的一瞥。

5 thawing   

n.熔化，融化v.（气候）解冻( thaw的现在分词 )；（态度、感情等）缓和；（冰、雪及冷冻食物）溶化；软化

参考例句：

• The ice is thawing. 冰在融化。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• It had been snowing and thawing and the streets were sloppy. 天一直在下雪，雪又一直在融化，街上泥泞不堪。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

6 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。