5 . The Friends of Charles Dickens

Dickens was born in 1812. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown into debtors' prison. The miserable treatment of children and the institution of the debtors' jail became   topics of several of Dickens^, novels。.

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889)

Although twelve years younger than Dickens Wilkie Collins became one of Dickens best friends. Collins was a popular novelist who developed the mystery novel style. The Moonstone is one of his best. He and Dickens wrote The Frozen Deep . Wilkie was the son of the painter William Collins. He was born in London and lived in Italy and France as a child.

John Elliotson (1791-1868)

Elliotson was Dickens's family doctor for many years and thus they became good friends. Elliotson was an early advocate for the use of the stethoscope (听诊器). He also believed in the use of acupuncture (针灸).

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Poe was an American author best known for his poems and short fiction. The Fall of the House of Usher and The Murders in the Rue Morgue are two of his most popular works Dickens and Poe's friendship began in Philadelphia while Dickens was on his first tour of the United States. They talked about literature and seemed to enjoy one another's company However，two years later Poe broke off the relationship because he was angry about an article on American poetry. The article was written by Thackeray, but Poe believed that Dickens was behind the article.

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

William Makepeace Thackeray was a novelist His best known work is Vanity Fair. He was also a friend of Charles Dickens. While Dickens and Thackeray were friends, the relation ship wasn't always smooth. They had several serious quarrels. One quarrel involved Dickens siding with Edmund Yates after Yates insulted Thackeray.

6 . Last summer, we went to Hawaii for holiday. During my week-long trip with my husband, we spent most of our time _______during the day in the sea, and then enjoying walks along the beach in the evenings.

We didn’t take any _______because we had enough. We had visited the island many times _______. On our way to the _______we joked that other than our sun-burnt skin, we had no way to show that we had _______there!

As we stood in line at the check-in, we noticed the _______who had been on our plane the week before. _______, they all had tear-filled eyes this day. On the plane, we sat directly behind them: a mother and her four children without Dad’s attendance. We learned that the father had been _______in a jet-skiing accident that week, and his wife and children had to _______make their way home without him.

We watched the children become unworried while they were playing cards. But the mother stared at her knees, ________to believe her husband’s death. We could ________feel her pain as we realized that this could have happened to any of us. While we were laughing and playing in the water, this poor family had been ________the sufferings. The vacation they had dreamed about had ________the terrible dream they would never forget.

I suddenly ________that we had no pictures for this vacation together. I closed my eyes, hoping that my mind had recorded all the wonderful moments that I had ________with my husband that week. What a trip!