In a faraway kingdom, there was a river. It was the home to many golden swans (天鹅). The swans spent most of their time in the river. Every six months, the swans would leave a golden feather (羽毛) as a paying for using the river. The soldiers of the kingdom would collect the feathers and gave them to the king.

    One day, a homeless bird saw the river. "The water in this river seems so cool and nice. I will make my home here," thought the bird.

    The minute the bird landed near the river, the golden swans noticed her. They came shouting, "This river belongs to us! We pay a golden feather to the king to use this river. You can not live here."

    "I am homeless, brothers. I will also pay. Please give me a place to live in," the bird pleaded (乞求). "How can you pay for it? You do not have golden feathers," said the swans, laughing. They added, "Stop dreaming and leave at once." The poor bird pleaded many times. But the arrogant (傲慢的) swans still drove the bird away.

"I will teach them a lesson!" decided the bird, feeling angry.

    She went to the king and said, "Oh, my king! The swans in your river are rude and unkind. I pleaded for a home but they said that they had paid to live in the river with golden feathers."

    The king was angry with the arrogant swans for having driven the homeless bird away. He ordered his soldiers to bring the swans to his palace. In no time, all the golden swans were brought to the king's palace.

"Do you think our kingdom depends on your golden feathers? You can not decide who lives by the river. Leave the river at once or I will kill you!" shouted the king.

    On hearing the king's words, the swans flew away sadly. The bird built her home near the river and lived there happily. She gave homes to all other birds who came to the river.

The famous scientist and thinker, Charles Darwin, was born on February 12, 1809 in England. As a boy，Charles liked to go for walks in the fields and forests. He enjoyed watching nature，and comparing what he saw with everything he had read in science books. He also liked collecting very much. He collected many things: birds，eggs，stones and leaves.

At sixteen Darwin was sent to Edinburgh University to become a doctor. But he was interested in the history of nature.

Then he was sent to study in Cambridge University. There he studied until 1831.

Some time later he heard that the ship Beagle was going on a trip to South America and wanted a scientist. His teacher advised him to go. So when the Beagle left England in December, 1831, Darwin was on it.

The trip lasted almost five years. Darwin saw many new plants and animals. He collected all kinds of plants.

In 1842 Darwin went to live in Kent，and there he continued his studies of change in nature. Darwin understood that plants and animals are not always the same，and that they really change.

By 1859 Darwin had finished his famous book The Origin of Species.

In 1871 Darwin wrote ano ther important book The Theory of Evolution.

Darwin continued his studies in science until he died in 1882.

    I live in Mentone, a quiet, simple, restful place, where the rich never come. I met Theophile Magnan, a retired, rich, old man from Lyons yesterday. In the Hotel des Anglais. Theophile looked sad and dreamy, and didn't talk with anybody else. Which brought me back to the past.

A long time ago, Francois Millet. Claude, Carl and I were young artists — very young artists — in fact.

    Yes, Francois Millet. The great French artist, was my friend.

Millet wasn't any greater than we were at that time. He didn't have any fame, even in his own village.

    We were all poor though we had stacks and stacks of as good pictures as anybody in Europe painted. Once a person ever offered four francs for Millet's "Angelus", which he intended to sell for eight.

    It was a fact in human history that a great artist would never be acknowledged* until after he was starved and dead. His pictures climbed to high prices after his death.

    Then we made a decision that one of us must die, to save the others and himself.

    Millet was elected to die.

    During the next three months Millet painted with all his might, enlarged his stock all he could, not pictures, not sketches, studies, parts of studies, fragments of studies, of course, with his cipher *  on them.

    They were the things to be sold.

    Carl went to Paris to start the work of building up Millet's name. Claude and I went to sell Millet's small pictures and to build up his name as well.

    We made Millet a master. I always said to my customer, "I am a fool to sell a picture of Francois Millet's at all, for he is not going to live three months, and when he dies his pictures can't be had for love or money."

    Claude and I took care to spread that little fact as far as we could.

Carl made friends with the correspondents, and got Millet's condition reported to England and all over the continent, and America, and everywhere.

    The sad end came at last, Millet died, not really.  He became Theophile Magnan.

    The pictures went up. There's a man in Paris today who owns seventy Millet pictures. He paid us two million francs for them. Do you still remember the "Angelus"? Carl sold it for twenty—two hundred francs. And as for the bushels of sketches and studies which Millet produced in the last six weeks, well, it would astonish you to know the figure we sell them at nowadays.

    We are no longer artists and Millet dead.

    Mr Scott talked about colours all the time. "What a honey—yellow morning it is!" he said to his wife. His wife planted fruit and vegetables in their garden, but Mr Scott was more interested in the leafy plants, the bushes, and even the grass that grew in the garden. "So many kinds of green," he said to her after watering all the plants. "I counted at least twenty shades of green!"

    "Well done, dear," Mrs Scott said. " Now would you please count twenty dollars and go to the supermarket for some ingredients(配料)? I want to make lunch! "

    With a smile on his face, Mr Scott left at once. He enjoyed trips to the supermarket because of all the colourful cans and boxes in it. Fruit and vegetables, too, shone in their bright skins. There was never just one colour: carrots were orange, but also had bits of yellow and brown in them. Bananas were yellow and black; apples hid oranges and purples inside their reds. Mr Scott would walk through the supermarket and enjoy all the colours around him.

    "I wish there was a store full of colours that I could spend all my time in," he sighed.

    He bought everything on his wife's list and came home. When he walked into the house, Mrs Scott noticed the sad look on his face. "What's wrong?" she asked him. "It looks life you had fun at the store. I can see that you picked out the best things."

    "I did have fun in the store. So much that I wish I could have spent more time there. It's so full of colours!" Mr Scott said.

"I see," Mrs Scott said. "Well, cheer up, because I'm going to cook a nice lunch for us!"

    The next day Mr Scott was on his usual morning walk through the neighbourhood, saying hello to everyone, enjoying the colours of the trees and flowers. It was another day of colours!

    "Good morning, Mr Brown," he called out to one of his neighbours. He liked Mr Brown very much, because, well, you guessed it: his name was a colour!

    "Mr Scott! Just the person I wanted to see!" Mr Brown replied. "My wife and I are moving out of this town, and I need someone to take over my shop. You are the perfect person for the job because it's a paint shop! I need someone who knows its colours. Would you be interested?"

    Mr Scott was mad with excitement. "I will take it over right away!"

    Mr Brown was relieved when he left town, because he knew his paint shop was in good hands. Sure enough, Mr Scott kept the paint shop open for twenty more years and got to talk about colours all day, every day.