Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel. And he surely deserves additional praise: the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism.

    I say clever because anti-slavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the years before the Civil War. H. B. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is only the most famous example. These early stories dealt directly with slavery. With minor exceptions, Twain planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something else entirely. He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story.

    Again and again, in the postwar years, Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of race. Consider the most controversial, at least today, of Twain's novels, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn, Twain's most widely read tale. Once upon a time, people hated the book because it struck them as rude. Twain himself wrote that those who banned the book considered the novel “trash and suitable only for the slums (贫民窟).” More recently the book has been attacked because of the character Jim, the escaped slave, and many occurences of the word nigger. (The term Nigger Jim, for which the novel is often severely criticized, never appears in it.)

    But the attacks were and are silly—and miss the point. The novel is strongly anti-slavery. Jim's search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been forcibly parted is heroic. As J. Chadwick has pointed out, the character of Jim was a first in American fiction—a recognition that the slave had two personalities, “the voice of survival within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual: Jim, the father and the man.”

    There is much more. Twain's mystery novel Pudd'nhead Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day. Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior (低等的) to whites, especially in intelligence, Twain's tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth. A slave gave birth to her master's baby and, for fear that the child should be sold South, switched him for the master's baby by his wife. The slave's lightskinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave-holding class. The master's wife's baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave.

    The point was difficult to miss: nurture (养育), not nature, was the key to social status. The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice—manner of speech, for example— were, to Twain, indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims.

    Twain's racial tone was not perfect. One is left uneasy, for example, by the lengthy passage in his autobiography (自传) about how much he loved what were called “nigger shows” in his youth—mostly with white men performing in black-face—and his delight in getting his mother to laugh at them. Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing reality. His frequent attacks on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness thattheydid not.

    Was Twain a racist? Asking the question in the 21st century is as wise as asking the same of Lincoln. If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the “wisdom” of the considered moral judgments of the present, we will find nothing but error. Lincoln, who believed the black man the inferior of the white, fought and won a war to free him. And Twain, raised in a slave state, briefly a soldier, and inventor of Jim, may have done more to anger the nation over racial injustice and awaken its collective conscience than any other novelist in the past century.

    College graduation eventually means taking much of your attention in your first job search. This process can be challenging, especially for those students who had second thoughts about their chosen major and intended career path — or those who majored in a field not directly connected to a specific career. If you are in one of these groups, fear not! Although your major, coursework, and academic performance are relevant to landing a job, they are not the only deciding factors on where you can work. So, just how important is your major to your job search?

    Some majors are tied directly to specific career fields. For example, if you wish to become a teacher, you will likely have needed to complete an education program and eventually sit for a licensing exam. Successfully completing a specific major is very important to landing a job in the matching field.

    Other majors, however, are closely related to career paths but don't necessarily require a degree in the area. For example, students who majored in finance or math, may also have the necessary skills to be hired as an accountant.

    Lastly, there are many industries, such as professional sales, education (non-teaching positions), insurance, and customer service management, which hire new graduates from several more majors, looking for more generalized (笼统的) requirements. They may simply want to know the student has completed his or her bachelor's degree, which proves students' college-level math and writing, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.

    Hopefully, as a college student, you were able to do more than just attend classes. Your non-academic experiences can be very influential on your future career as well. If you worked or volunteered during college and if you enjoyed these activities, seek out related careers. You may qualify for a position regardless of your major.

    Although it often seems like your college major alone determines your career fate, this just isn't the case. It may influence it, but there are other factors that influence your career options as well. If you don't know what career choices you have, talk to your faculty or academic adviser. You may be surprised at what opportunities await!

    I've loved my mother's desk since I was just tall enough to see above the top of it as mother sat doing letters. Standing by her chair, looking at the ink bottle, pens and white paper, I decided that the act of writing must be the most wonderful thing in the world.

    Years later, during her final illness, mother kept different things for my sister and brother. "But the desk," she said again, "is for Elizabeth."

    I never saw her angry, never saw her cry. I knew she loved me; she showed it in action. But as a young girl, I wanted heart-to-heart talks between mother and daughter.

    They never happened. And a gulf opened between us. I was" too emotional". But she lived "on the surface".

    As years passed and I had my own family. I loved my mother and thanked her for our happy family. I wrote to her in careful words and asked her to let me know in any way she chose that she did forgive me.

    I posted the letter and waited for her answer, none came.

    My hope turned to disappointment, then little interest and, finally peace. It seemed that nothing happened. I couldn't be sure that the letter had even got to Mother. I only knew that I had written it, and I could stop trying to make her into someone she was not.

    Now the presence of her desk told me, as she'd never been able to, that she was pleased that writing was my chosen work. I cleaned the desk carefully and found some papers inside—a photo of my father and a one-page letter, folded and refolded many times.

    Give me an answer, my letter asks, in any way you choose. Mother, you always choose the act that speaks louder than words.

Flying High

    Barrington Irving landed his record-breaking light at age 23 and founded an educational nonprofit organization. His message for kids: "The only thing that separates you from scientists is determination, hard work and a strong liking for what you want to achieve." The secret, he believes, is having a dream in the first place.

    The moment of inspiration for Irving came at the age of 15 in his parents' bookstore. One customer, a professional pilot, asked Irving if he'd thought about becoming a pilot. "I told him I didn't think I was smart enough; but the next day he took me to the cockpit (驾驶舱) of the commercial airplane he flew and just like that I was hooked."

    To follow his dream, Irving Turned down a football scholarship to the University of Florida. He washed airplanes to earn money for a flight school and increased his flying skills by practicing at home on a $40 flight simulator (模拟) video game. Then another dream took hold: flying alone around the world. He faced more than 50 rejections for sponsorship before convincing some companies to donate aircraft components. He took off with no weather radar, no de-icing system, and just $30 in his pocket.

    After 97 days, 26 stops and dozens of thunderstorms, he touched down to a cheering crowd in Miami. "It was seeing so many young people watching and listening that pushed me into giving back with my knowledge an experience." Irving has been doing it ever since. He set up his non-profit organization, Experience Aviation (航空), aiming to increase the numbers of youth in aviation career. By bring challenging project-based learning, hands-on and other educational opportunities to school districts and local communities nationwide, the organization has excited the hearts and minds of youth. "We want to create chances for students to accomplish something amazing," he notes. Perhaps Irving's most powerful educational tool is the example his own life provides.

If a president, a philosopher, and one of the best-selling writers credited the same secret for their success, would you try to follow it too? What if the secret was something you already knew how to do? In fact, you probably do it every day. Here's what Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "It is only ideas gained from walking that have any worth. " Thomas Jefferson: "Walking is the best possible exercise. " Charles Dickens: "If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and die. "

Researchers have found quite a lot of connections between walking and producing ideas. A Stanford University study found that participants were 81 percent more creative when walking as opposed to sitting. According to the study, walking outside-compared with on a treadmill (跑步机)-produces the most novel and highest-quality ideas.

The movement aspect of walking is obviously key. Our creative thinking is triggered (触发)by physical movement, which is exactly why walking-with your dog, a friend, or alone-feeds creative thinking.

The scenery is almost as important as the sweat. Breaking your routine with a walk can be a catalyst for fresh understanding of problems or projects. Just by going outside, you are stepping out of your familiar surroundings and your comfort zone, which is necessary if you want to open your mind to new possibilities. You can walk through a tree-filled neighborhood. You can walk through a park and observe people joking or birds singing. Being inside, you're more likely to be lifeless, which means you don't have enough energy to wonder or create.

So instead of setting a fitness goal, why not set a creativity goal that starts with walking? Involve yourself more closely in your surroundings. Tum off your phone and give yourself the chance to be present in the world, to hear conversations and natural sounds, and to notice the way people move and the way the sun reflects in puddle (小水坑).

The success of The Pickwick Papers made Dickens very popular. He suddenly found himself at twenty-four the most famous novelist of his day. Busy as his social life was, he worked on two novels at the same time—Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers. He was particularly proud of The Pickwick Papers, which was a huge success and was regarded as a comedy (喜剧) masterpiece (杰作). "If I were to live a hundred years and write novels in each, I should never be so proud of any of them as I am proud of The Pickwick Papers," he said.

It has been said of Dickens that he grasped (抓住) the imagination of his readers because his imagination grasped himself. The people in his works were so real that they could make him laugh or cry. When writing Oliver Twist he said that he could not rest until Fagin, the wrongdoer (做坏事的人), had been hanged.

Dickens' marriage to Catherine Hagarth, with whom he had ten children, ended unhappily in 1858. He started to travel about giving readings of his works. His interest in theater gave his novels the qualities that made them suitable for reading aloud on the stage. A tiring travel to the United States affected his health. On June 9, 1870, when he was working on a new novel, he died, as he had wished. He said he wanted to die working.