In his classic novel, The Pioneers, James Fenimore Cooper has his hero, a land developer, take his cousin on a tour of the city

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问题     In his classic novel, The Pioneers, James Fenimore Cooper has his hero, a land developer, take his cousin on a tour of the city he is building. He describes the broad streets, rows of houses, a teeming metropolis. But his cousin looks around bewilderedly. All she sees is a forest. "Where are the beauties and improvements which you were to show me?" She asks. He’s astonished she can’t see them. "Where! Why everywhere," he replies. For though they are not yet built on earth, he has built them in his mind, and they are as concrete to him as if they were already constructed and finished.
    Cooper was illustrating a distinctly American trait, future-mindedness: the ability to see the present from the vantage point of the future: the freedom to feel unencumbered by the past and more emotionally attached to things to come. As Albert Einstein once said, "Life for the American is always becoming, never being. "

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答案 在其经典小说《开拓者》中,詹姆士-菲尼摩尔-库珀让其主人公——一个土地开发商——带他的表妹参观一座正在由他承建的城市。他描述了宽阔的街道、林立的房屋、热闹的都市。他的表妹环顾四周,大惑不解。她所看见的只是一个森林。“你想让我看的那些美景和改造了的地方在哪儿啊?”她问道。他见表妹看不到那些东西,感到很惊讶。“哪儿?到处都是啊!”他答道。虽然那些东西还未建成在大地上,但它们已在他心中建好了。对他来说,它们都是实实在在的,宛如已建成一样。 库珀这里阐明的是一种典型的美国人特性:着眼于未来,即能够从未来的角度看待现在;可以自由地不为过去所羁绊,而在情感上更多地依赖于未来的事物。正如阿尔伯特-爱因斯坦曾经说过的那样:“对美国人来说,生活总是在发展变化中的,从来不会静止不变。

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