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● wastes：荒地。It is the wilderness in the mind…是不完全句子。后面省了that cuts you…等字。lost是过去分词，形容主语one。a stranger和主语one同位。
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● a stranger to oneself：自己不认识自己。不认识自己，焉能认识别人？这就是所谓spiritual isolation。estranged from：（和别人）隔膜。
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● the wilderness stretching between us：在大都市里，我虽和朋友握手，但是我们精神上并无沟通，只是形式上的寒暄而已。我觉得我们之间有一块长长的荒地，把我们隔离。stretching：伸展。
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● Both of us：此三字略有微疵。因为前面说的是my friends；但是both of us应该是我和我的朋友（friend，单数）。代名词所指不明。arid：干燥不毛的。springs：泉水，甘泉（即精神上的生机）。nourished：滋养。found them dry的them代springs。
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● core：核心。connected to one’s core：和自己的灵魂有联系；有自己的精神生活，不单是追逐声色货利。此句的主句中的动词is置于主语one之前。在前面有Only when的状语从句时，主句的倒置句法是很常见的。
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● I am beginning to discover是插入语句。
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● 末句再说明the core，那就是内心的甘泉，它是在寂寞之中最容易（best）被你重新发现的。
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现代英文选评注 Invite邀舞
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John O’Hara (1905—1970)
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约翰·奥哈拉生于美国宾州的Pottsville。他是写实派小说家，描写美国各阶层人物，甚为生动。电影《孽海长恨》（Ten North Frederick，Gary Cooper主演），就是根据他的一部得奖的长篇小说改编的。另一部电影《酒绿灯红》（Pal Joey，Frank Sinatra主演），也是根据他的若干篇小说改编的。
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奥哈拉不走细腻婉约精致典雅的一路，他最能模仿美国人的说话，因此文章里面俚语、俗话很多，句子也常常不合文法。但是他的文章读起来有一种自然粗犷之劲。
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本文选自《奥哈拉短篇杰作集》（The Great Short Stories of John O’Hara），是美国中西部的一个大学生写给东部一个女友的一封信，请她来参加舞会。里面略有故事，这里均删去。奥哈拉模仿美国大学生写作的笔调，值得一读；读者可以知道一般美国学生所写的是什么样的英文。再则，也可从里面约略知道美国大学生的生活。
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Dear Betty:
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I debated within myself a long time whether to call you Betty, not that I didn’t call you Betty last summer and you me Harry, but as neither of us kept our promise to write I was not sure whether we should return to the formal basis.
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● 中国人写这封信的时候，往往会在开头加这几个字：“当我提起笔来的时候。”这里没有用这几个字，可是意思已经包含在内了。
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● debated within myself：自己跟自己辩论，决定不了。call you Betty：叫人家的名字，而不称其姓（Miss so-and-so），这是熟朋友间的称呼法。写信的人和其女友已久无往来，也许应该客气一点，不直呼其名。
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● last summer：上一次的夏天；假如是秋季冬季写的，那就是今年夏天；假如是在春季夏季写的，那就是去年的夏天。这里恐怕是去年的夏天。
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● 去年夏天，我们一起玩得很好，那时我叫你Betty，你叫我Harry。我现在提起笔来，决不定是不是应该用客气的称呼，并不是因为过去我们没有好过，而是因为我们疏远已久了。
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● You me Harry仿前面的I didn’t call you Betty。
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● kept our promise：我们分手之时，相约常常通信，但是我们都没有守约。
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● the formal basis：形式的（或客气的）基础（或原则）。因为我们疏远已久，我不知道我们应否回复到过去那种客气的来往的情形。
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Well, how are you liking it at Smith? I hope better than you did freshman year. Remember I told last summer how you would like it better when you were a sophomore? Personally I did not mind freshman year so much. I made a lot of new acquaintances and friends freshman year and although some of them have not lasted, still some of them have, and now that I am an upperclassman I am satisfied to have my own circle of friends, some of them in the fraternity but some not. I am not narrow about fraternity stuff. Just because a fellow I like happened to go Phi Psi and I went Delt does not mean I have to hate him. That stuff went out years ago. In fact my father was not a Delt. When he was here he was a Tau Phi Alpha. When I came here he told me I could go anything I please. “Any crowd that will have you.” he said humorously. I think that is the right attitude and if my son comes here he can go any fraternity he wants, preferably Delt because we have always had a good well-rounded house, not too many athletes and not too many honor students and not too many playboys. Three years ago we won the Heffelberger Cup, emblematic of having the highest scholastic average of any fraternity house on the campus, and last year we had captain of baseball, three Phi Betes, two guys that just missed Phi Bete, chairman of the Junior Prom, and also were runners-up in interfraternity tennis. So you see we have a well-rounded house with varied interests. We also have some wealthy alumni. At all our big football games you ought to see the Lincolns and Cadillacs parked in the driveway. One of the alumni from Lake Forest has a Rolls but he never brings it to the games.
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● Smith即Smith College，是美国东部的一所贵族化女子大学（在麻州）。男孩子是在美国中西部（芝加哥附近）一所大学里读书，看后文便知。like it中的it应该是代替life。
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