教师在教学中充分利用丰富多彩、题材多样、富有典型性的英语美文为载体优化阅读教学过程,对指引学生参与、体验、赏析、领悟等阅读活动,提高英语阅读技能,培养英语阅读能力具有重要意义。小编分享优秀英语美文，希望可以帮助大家!

优秀英语美文：Suffering is Self-Manufactured 痛苦源于自身

I believe the immediate purpose of life is to live - to survive. All known forms of life go through life cycles. The basic plan is: birth - maturing - mating - reproducing - death.

Thus the immediate purpose of human life is for each individual to fulfill his life cycle. This involves proper maturing into the fully developed adult of the specie.

The pine tree grows straight unless harmful influences warp it. So does the human being. It is a finding of the greatest significance that the mature man and woman have the nature and characteristics of the good spouse and parent: the ability to enjoy responsible working and loving.

If the world consisted primarily of mature persons - loving, responsible, productive, toward family, friends and the world - most of our human problems would be resolved(解决，决定) .

But most people have suffered in childhood from influences which have warped their development. Hence, as adults they have not realized their full and proper nature. They feel something is wrong without knowing what it is. They feel inferior, frustrated, insecure, and anxious. And they react to these inner feelings just as any animal reacts to any hurt or threat: by readiness(敏捷，迅速) to fight or to flee. Flight carries them into alcoholism and other mental disorders. Fight impels(推动，驱使) them to crime, cruelty, war.

This readiness to violence, this inhumanity of man to man, is the basic problem of human life - for, in the form of war, it now threatens to extinguish(熄灭，压制) us.

Without the fight-flight reaction, man would never have survived the cave and the jungle. But now, through social living, man has made himself relatively safe from the elements and wild beasts. He is even learning to protect himself against disease. He can produce adequate food, clothing and shelter for the present population of the earth. Barring a possible astronomical accident, he now faces no serious threat to his existence, except one - the fight-flight reaction within himself. This jungle readiness to hurt and to kill is now a vestigial(退化的，残余的) hangover like the appendix(附录，阑尾) , which interferes with the new and more powerful means of coping with nature through civilization. Trying to solve every problem by fighting or fleeing is the primitive(原始的) method, still central for the immature child. The later method, understanding and co-operation, requires the mature capacities of the adult.

In an infantile(婴儿的，幼稚的) world, fighting may be forced upon one. Then it is more effective if handled maturely for mature goals. Probably war will cease only when enough people are mature.

The basic problem is social adaptation and biologic survival. The basic solution is for people to understand the nature of their own biological emotional maturity, to work toward it, to help the children in their development toward it.

Human suffering is mostly made by man himself. It is primarily the result of the failure of adults, because of improper child-rearing, to mature emotionally. Hence instead of enjoying their capacities for responsible work and love, they are grasping(贪婪的) , egocentric(利己主义的) , insecure, frustrated, anxious and hostile. Maturity is the path from madness and murder to inner peace and satisfying living for each individual and for the human specie.

This I believe on the evidence of science and through personal observation and experience.

优秀英语美文：Spring Thaw 春天的融化

Every April I am beset by(困扰) the same concern-that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks forsaken(被抛弃的) , with hills, sky and forest forming a single gray meld, like the wash an artist paints on a canvas(帆布) before the masterwork. My spirits ebb, as they did during an April snowfall when I first came to Maine 15 years ago. "Just wait," a neithbor counseled. "You'll wake up one morning and spring will just be here."

Andlo, on May 3 that year I awoke to a green so startling as to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of flipping a switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and green. Leaves had unfurled(展开) , goldfinches had arrived at the feeder and daffodils(水仙花) were fighting their way heavenward.

Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on an undeveloped lot in my neighborhood. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. The tree's dark twisted branches sprawl in unpruned abandon. Each spring it blossoms so profusely that the air becomes saturated with the aroma of apple. When I drive by with my windows rolled down, it gives me the feeling of moving in another element, like a kid on a water slide.

Until last year, I thought I was the only one aware of this tree. And then one day, in a fit of spring madness, I set out with pruner and lopper to remove a few errant branches. No sooner had I arrived under its boughs than neighbors opened their windows and stepped onto their porches. These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it was as if I had come unbidden(未受邀请的) into their personal gardens.

My mobile-home neighbor was the first to speak."You're not cutting it down, are you?" Another neighbor winced as I lopped off(砍掉) a branch. "Don't kill it, now," he cautioned. Soon half the neighborhood had joined me under the apple arbor. It struck me that I had lived there for five years and only now was learning these people's names, what they did for a living and how they passed the winter. It was as if the old apple tree gathering us under its boughs for the dual purpose of acquaintanceship and shared wonder. I couldn't help recalling Robert Frost's* words:

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds

To darken nature and be summer woods

One thaw led to another. Just the other day I saw one of my neighbors at the local store. He remarked how this recent winter had been especially long and lamented(哀悼) not having seen or spoken at length to anyone in our neighborhood. And then, recouping his thoughts, he looked at me and said, "We need to prune(修剪) that apple tree again."

优秀英语美文：I like the subtle feeling

I like the subtle fresh green budding from the branches of the tree -- the herald(先驱) of spring, ushering in(领进) the dawn...

I like the subtle flow of cloud that makes the sky seem even more vast, azure(蔚蓝的) and immense...

I like the subtle wind. In spring, it steals a kiss on my cheek; in autumn, it caresses my face; in summer, it brings in cool sweet smell; in winter, it carries a crisp chilliness(寒冷，严寒) ...

I like the subtle taste of tea that last long after a sip. The subtle bitter is what it is meant to be...

I like the subtle friendship that does not hold people together. In stead, an occasional greeting spreads our longings far beyond...

I like the subtle longing for a friend, when I sink deeply in a couch, mind wandering in memories of the past...

Love should also be subtle, without enslaving(束缚) the ones fallen into her arms. Not a bit less nor a bit more...

Subtle friendship is true; subtle greetings are enough; subtle love is tender; subtle longing is deep; subtle wishes come from the bottom of your heart...