Too early and too late 太早和太晚
    Punctuality is a necessary habit in all public affairs in civilized society. Without it, nothing could ever be brought to a conclusion; everything would be in state of chaos. Only in a sparsely-populated rural community is it possible to disregard it. In ordinary living, there can be some tolerance of unpunctuality. The intellectual, who is working on some abstruse problem, has everything coordinated and organized for the matter in hand. He is therefore forgiven if late for a dinner party. But people are often reproached for unpunctuality when their only fault is cutting things fine. It is hard for energetic, quick-minded people to waste time, so they are often tempted to finish a job before setting out to keep an appointment. If no accidents occur on the way, like punctured tires, diversions of traffic, sudden descent of fog, they will be on time. They are often more industrious, useful citizens than those who are never late. The over-punctual can be as much a trial to others as the unpunctual. The guest who arrives half an hour too soon is the greatest nuisance. Some friends of my family had this irritating habit. The only thing to do was ask them to come half an hour later than the other guests. Then they arrived just when we wanted them. If you are citing a train, it is always better to be comfortably early than even a fraction of a minted too late. Although being early may mean wasting a little time, this will be less than if you miss the train and have to wait an hour or more for the next one; and you avoid the frustration of arriving at the very moment when the train is drawing out of the station and being unable to get on it. An even harder situation is to be on the platform in good time for a train and still to see it go off without you. Such an experience befell a certain young girl the first time she was traveling alone. She entered the station twenty minutes before the train was due, since her parents had impressed upon her that it would be unforgivable to miss it and cause the friends with whom she was going to stay to make two journeys to meet her. She gave her luggage to a porter and showed him her ticket. To her horror he said that she was two hours too soon. She felt in her handbag for the piece of paper on which her father had written down all the details of the journey and gave it to the porter. He agreed that a train did come into the station at the time on the paper and that it did stop, but only to take on mail, not passengers. The girl asked to see a timetable, feeling sure that her father could not have made such a mistake. The porter went to fetch one and arrive back with the station master, who produced it with a flourish and pointed out a microscopic 'o' beside the time of the arrival of the train at his station; this little 'o' indicated that the train only stopped for mail. Just as that moment the train came into the station. The girl, tears streaming down her face, begged to be allowed to slip into the guard's van. But the station master was adamant: rules could not be broken and she had to watch that train disappear towards her destination while she was left behind.
    16.If you are citing a train, it is always better to be comfortably early than even a fraction of a minted too late.
    如果趕火車，早到總比晚到好，哪怕早到一會兒也好。
    語言點(diǎn) better early than late的意思是“早比晚好”。
    17.Although being early may mean wasting a little time, this will be less than if you miss the train and have to wait an hour or more for the next one; and you avoid the frustration of arriving at the very moment when the train is drawing out of the station and being unable to get on it.
    雖然早到可能意味著浪費(fèi)一點(diǎn)時間，但這比誤了火車等上一個多小時坐下班車?yán)速M(fèi)的時間要少，而且可以避免那種正好在火車駛出站時趕到車站，因上不去車而感到的沮喪。
    語言點(diǎn) 句子結(jié)構(gòu)分析:although弓|導(dǎo)讓步狀語從句，不與but同時出現(xiàn)在一個句子中。
    18.An even harder situation is to be on the platform in good time for a train and still to see it go off without you.
    更難堪的情況是雖然及時趕到站臺上，卻眼睜睜地看著那趟火車啟動，把你拋下。
    語言點(diǎn) in good time不可譯為“在好時間，在好時機(jī)”，而應(yīng)理解為“及時地”。