陈希 1148407 第四次作业

Red and black
THE LITTLE TOWN of Verrieres can pass for one of the prettiest in Franche-Comte. Its white houses, with their gable roofs of red tiling, spread over the slope of a hill, where clumps of chestnut trees mark every indentation. The Doube flows some hundred feet below the fortifications which the Spaniards built, now lying in ruins.
这是小说《红与黑》的开头，作者先是直接描述了小镇的入眼景象，却是在最后以“in ruins”,且不说和前句“one of the prettiest”形成鲜明对比，还是periodic sentence，简单而又有力的强调。这个开头首先就给了读者先入为主的印象——这个小镇真心不错，只是现在残了，各位且慢慢看，我来一一道来这个悲痛的兴衰史。

Advice to Little Girls Mark Twain
Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for every trifling offense. This retaliation should only be resorted to under peculiarly aggravated circumstances.
马克•吐温的小说读来是很有意思的，幽默调笑，到辛辣讽刺，或是说比鲁迅多了一份幽默。这篇儿童文学开头就很有意思，马克•吐温说：“小姑娘们，我呢，就是觉得你们行事着实有些让人着急，来教你们几招。首先，跟老师作对时，千万别在鸡毛蒜皮的小事上争口舌之快，反击就得一针见血，白刀子进，红刀子出。”这样的开头怎能让人不读下去？

Fighting the flab
Corporate headquarters have put on weight, and need to slim down again. “ONE of the most extraordinary corporate centres in America.” This is how Trian Partners, a disgruntled shareholder of PepsiCo, described the headquarters of the snacks-to-soft-drinks company in a recent letter to its board.
这是经济学人上一篇文章，作者将“公司臃肿”比喻为“长肉了”，“精简机构”称为“得减肥了”，倒是很形象的比喻，若是放在一般说明文或是记叙文上，自然是不足为奇，只是这文体较正式，这样比喻倒是贴近生活，让外行人也能一眼明白。老实说，一般般的开头，只是与前两个做对比，结果就是别期待西装革履的人能让你哈哈大笑，他们只能形成自嗨的干笑。