【导语】英语四级考试中，作文是考生复习的重点和难点，日常关注一些作文素材有助于作文得高分，下面是四六级频道为大家整理的《2018年英语四级美文：The Shadowland of Dreams》一文，希望给大家带来帮助，预祝大家高分通过考试。

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　　The Shadowland of Dreams

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　　Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer.

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　　I always encourage such people,

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　　but I also explain that there’ a big difference

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　　between “being a writer” and writing.

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　　In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame,

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　　not the long hours alone at the typewriter.

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　　“You’ve got to want to write,”

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　　I say to them, “not want to be a writer.”

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　　The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor-paying affair.

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　　For every writer kissed by fortune,

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　　there are thousands more whose longing is never requited.

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　　Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty.

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　　I did.

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　　When I left a 20-year career in the Coast Guard to become a freelance writer,

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　　I had no prospects at all.

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　　What I did have was a friend with whom I’d grown up in Henning, Tennessee.

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　　George found me my home —

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　　a cleaned-out storage room in the Greenwich Village apartment building

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　　where he worked as superintendent.

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　　It didn’t even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom.

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　　Immediately I bought a used manual typewriter and felt like a genuine writer.

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　　After a year or so, however,

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　　I still hadn’t received a break and began to doubt myself.

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　　It was so hard to sell a story that I barely made enough to eat.

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　　But I knew I wanted to write.

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　　I had dreamed about it for years.

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　　I wasn’t going to be one of those people who die wondering,

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　　“What if?” I would keep putting my dream to the test —

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　　even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure.

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　　This is the Shadowland of hope,

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　　and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.

[英语四级美文听力原文]2018年英语四级美文：The Shadowland of Dreams

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