自考综合英语1-07.docVIP

Lesson Seven The Model Millionaire (I) Oscar Wilde 　　 　　1 Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. [1010:32] Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. [1201:38; 1107:35; 1101:34; 0610:45; 0504:44] The poor should be practical and ordinary. It is better to have a permanent income than to be attractive. These are the great truths of modern life which Hughie Erskine never realised. Poor Hughie! Intellectually, we must admit, he was not of much importance. [0410:43] He never said a clever or even an ill-natured thing in his life. But then he was wonderfully good-looking, with his brown hair, his clear-cut face, and his grey eyes. He was as popular with men as he was with women, and he had every quality except that of making money. His father, on his death, had left him his sword and a history of a particular war in fifteen volumes. Hughie hung the first over his looking-glass, put the second on a shelf, and he lived on two hundred pounds a year that an old aunt allowed him. He had tried everything. He had gone on the Stock Exchange for six months; but what was a butterfly to do among bulls and bears? He had been a tea merchant for a little longer, but he had soon tired of that. Then he had tried selling dry sherry. That did not answer; the sherry was a little too dry. [0604:44; 0607:48; 1007:35; 1201:35] At last he became nothing, a delightful, useless young man with a perfect face and no profession. 　　2 To make matters worse, he was in love. The girl he loved was Laura Merton, the daughter of a former army officer who had lost his temper and his health in India, and never found either of them again. Laura loved him and he was ready to kiss her shoestrings. They were the handsomest couple in London, and had not a penny between them. Her father was very fond of Hughie, but would not hear of any engagement. [0804:34] 　　3 Come to me, my boy, when you have got ten thousand pounds of your own, and we will see ab