My first impressions of the skyscrapers in New York were a definite anticlimax. Like the pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt they are over publicized and take fantastic proportion in the minds of people who have seen them. My first impressions of both are identical: .°Not bigger than that!.±But soon I was caught by the special fascination of New York, that strange city with its Mediterranean faces and its cold, efficient, Nordic soul. In no other city do the human types more remind one of Naples, Tel Aviv
Cairo. But these Mediterranean faces are without the warm, sensitive and paorssionate Mediterranean soul. The predominantly dark faces are, it were, a disguise,forthesoulbehindthemremindoneofLondonandBerlin.Thesasoul of New York is cold and indifferent, and brutally efficient, like the soul of Northern Europe. Cities like Rome or Paris or Vienna somehow seem to return one’s love but New York does not. And yet it seems to me, paradoxically, eminently lovable and sometimes painfully beautiful, like a dazzling but aloof woman. 高考试卷
There is other city in the world where feel more delightfully and absolutelyalnooneinNewYork,forinnoothercityaonerepecanople more indifferent toward each other. In other great cities in the world there people who are at least interestedinotherpeople’swallets,orcuriousabouteachareother for various reasons. Not so in New York, where the inhabitants not only ignore each other, but seem to look through each other, which is still a step father in the gradations of indifference. If somebody ignores you, he is still somehow ware of you, and you have at least a negative importance. But if he looks straight through you, as though you were invisible, you eventually begin to wonder if you really still cast a shadow.
（from Selected Readings in English by Gunnar D. Kumlien）
anticlimax  令人扫兴，兴趣骤降，虎头蛇尾
over publicize  过度宣传
proportion  比例，部分
identical  同一的，不变的，相似的
Mediterranean  地中海式的
Nordic  北欧日耳曼民族的
sensitive  敏感的

passionate  热情奔放的
predominantly  绝大多数地，普遍地
disguise  伪装，假装
indifferent  冷漠的，无动于衷的
brutally  残忍地，蛮横地
paradoxically  自相矛盾地，似是而非地
eminently  出众地，超凡的

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dazzling  漂亮迷人的，令人眩惑的
aloof  冷淡的，清高的
absolutely  绝对地
inhabitant  居住者
gradation  等级，程序
Sphinx  狮身人面像
Naples  那不勒斯
Tel Aviv  特拉维夫
Cairo  开罗

Which is still a step farther in the gradations of indifference. 就冷漠程度而论是更进了一步。

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