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Encouragement
Some of the greatest success stories of history have followed a word of encouragement or an act of confidence by a loved one or a trusting friend. Had it not been for a confident wife, Sophia, we might not have listed among the great names of literature the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne. When Nathaniel, a heartbroken man, went home to tell his wife that he was a failure and had been fired from his job in a customhouse, she surprised him with an exclamation of joy.
“Now,” she said triumphantly, “you can write your book!”
“Yes,” replied the man, with sagging confidence, “and what shall we live on while I am writing it?”
To his amazement, she opened a drawer and pulled out a substantial amount of money.
“Where on earth did you get that?” he exclaimed.
“I have always known you are a man of genius,” she told him. “I knew that someday you would write a masterpiece. So every week, out of the money you gave me for housekeeping, I saved a little bit. So here is enough to last us for one whole year.”
From her trust and confidence came one of the greatest novels of American literature—The Scarlet Letter.
【助讀詞匯】
◇exclamation n. 呼喊，驚叫
◇sag vi.下垂，下陷，下降
◇triumphantly adv. 勝利地，成功地
◇substantial adj. 堅固的，實質的
【參考譯文】
鼓勵
歷史上一些最偉大的成功故事往往是因為一句話的鼓勵，或是愛人或知己充分信任的結果，如果不是因為妻子蘇菲亞的信任，那么也許我們就不會把納撒尼爾·霍桑的名字列在著名的文學家中。當納撒尼爾這個傷心的人回家告訴妻子說，他很失敗，因為他在海關的工作已經被炒魷魚了，讓他驚訝的是，妻子充滿了興奮的喜悅。
“現在，”她洋洋得意地說，“你可以寫你的書了。”
“是的，”日漸失去信心的他回答道，“那么在我寫作的時候我們靠什么生活呢？”
讓他吃驚的是，她打開抽屜并且拿出一筆可觀的金額。
“你從哪得來的？”他喊道。
“我一直知道你是一個天才，”她告訴他，“我知道有一天你可能會寫出一部杰作。因此每周你給我的生活費，我存了一點點，所以現在有足夠的錢夠我們生活一整年。”
因為她的信任和信心，于是誕生出了對美國文學貢獻最大的小說之一——《紅字》。
【人生啟迪】
處于失敗之中的我們總是會抱怨很多，時機不對、資金不夠……很多時候，我們失敗并不是因為我們沒有取得成功的實力，而是因為我們缺少了一份信心，不要妄自菲薄，你能做到的其實很多，充滿自信，也許你離成功只是一步之遙！
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