Before my graduation from Columbia,the family met with severe financial reverses and I felt it my duty to leave college and take a job.Thus was I launched upon a business career.
Now I do not for a moment mean to disparage business.My whole point is that it was not for me.I went into it for money,and aside from the satisfaction of being able to help the family,money is all I got out of it.It was not enough.I felt that life was passing me by.From being merely discontented I became acutely miserable.My one ambition was to save enough to quit and go to Europe to study music.I used to get up at dawn to practice before I left for“downtown”，distracting my poor mother by bolting a hasty breakfast at the last minute.Instead of lunching with my business associates,I would seek some cheap café，order a meager meal and scribble my harmony exercises.I countinued to make money,and finally,bit by bit,accumulated enough to enable me to go abroad.The family being once more solvent，and my help no longer necessary，I resigned from my position and，feeling like a man released from jail，sailed for Europe.I stayed four years,worked harder than I had ever dreamed of working before and enjoyed every minute of it.“Enjoyed”is too mild a word.I walked on air.I really lived.I was a free man and I was doing what I loved to do and what I was meant to do.
If I had stayed in business,I might be a comparatively wealthly man today,but I do not believe I would have made a success of living.I would have given up all those intangibles，those inner satisfactiction that money can never buy，and that are too often sacrificed when man's primary goal is financial success，Money is a wonderful thing，but it is possible to pay too high a price for it.本文作者亞曆山大?布洛克從小熱愛小提琴，可是為了幫助維持家人的生活，不得不棄學經商，後來家境好轉，又棄商跑到歐洲學習音樂，終於為聞名世界的音樂家，當上了佛羅裏達西海岸交響樂團指揮。無疑，他的人生選擇能給青年朋友有益的啟示。
3.The Song of the River William Somerset Maugham
You hear it all along the river.You hear it,loud and strong,from the rowers as they urge the junk with its high stern,the mast lashed alongside,down the swift running stream.You hear it from the trackers,a more breathless chant,as they pull desperately against the current,half a dozen of them perhaps if they are taking up wupan,a couple of hundred if they were hauling a splendid junk,its square sail set,over a rapid.On the junk,a man stands amidships beating a drum incessantly to guide their efforts,and they pull with all their strength,like men possessed,bent double；and sometimes in the extremity of their travail they crawl on the ground,on all fours,like the beasts of the field.They strain,strain fiercely,against the pitiless might of the stream.The leader goes up and down the line and when he sees one who is not putting all his will into the task he brings down his split bamboo on the naked back.Each one must do his utmost or the labour of all is vain.And still they sing a vehement,eager chant,the chant of the turbulent waters.I do not know how words can describe what there is in it of effort.It serves to express the straining heart,the breaking muscles，and at the same time the indomitable spirit of man which overcomes the pitiless force of nature.Though the rope may part and the great junk swing back，in the end the rapid will be passed；and at the close of the weary day there is the hearty meal.