The edge of a great fox-cover; a flat wilderness3 of low leafless oaks fortified4 by a long, dreary5, thorn capped clay ditch, with sour red water oozing6 out at every yard; a broken gate leading into a straight wood ride, ragged7 with dead grasses and black with fallen leaves, the centre mashed8 into a quagmire9 by innumerable horsehoofs; some forty red coats and some four black; a sprinkling of young-farmers, resplendent in gold buttons and green; a pair of sleek10 drab stable-keepers, showing off horses for sale; the surgeon of the union, in Mackintosh and antigropelos; two holiday schoolboys with trousers strapped11 down to bursting point, like a penny steamer’s safety-valve; a midshipman, the only merry one in the field, bumping about on a fretting12, sweating hack13, with its nose a foot above its ears; and Lancelot Smith, who then kept two good horses, and ‘rode forward’ as a fine young fellow of three-and-twenty who can afford it, and ‘has nothing else to do,’ has a very good right to ride.
But what is a description, without a sketch14 of the weather? — In these Pantheist days especially, when a hero or heroine’s moral state must entirely15 depend on the barometer16, and authors talk as if Christians17 were cabbages, and a man’s soul as well as his lungs might be saved by sea-breezes and sunshine; or his character developed by wearing guano in his shoes, and training himself against a south wall — we must have a weather description, though, as I shall presently show, one in flat contradiction of the popular theory. Luckily for our information, Lancelot was very much given to watch both the weather and himself, and had indeed, while in his teens, combined the two in a sort of a soul-almanack on the principles just mentioned — somewhat in this style:—
‘Monday, 21st. — Wind S.W., bright sun, mercury at 30.5 inches. Felt my heart expanded towards the universe. Organs of veneration18 and benevolence19 pleasingly excited; and gave a shilling to a tramp. An inexpressible joy bounded through every vein20, and the soft air breathed purity and self-sacrifice through my soul. As I watched the beetles21, those children of the sun, who, as divine Shelley says, “laden22 with light and odour, pass over the gleam of the living grass,” I gained an Eden-glimpse of the pleasures of virtue23.
‘N.B. Found the tramp drunk in a ditch. I could not have degraded myself on such a day — ah! how could he?
‘Tuesday, 22d. — Barometer rapidly falling. Heavy clouds in the south-east. My heart sank into gloomy forebodings. Read Manfred, and doubted whether I should live long. The laden weight of destiny seemed to crush down my aching forehead, till the thunderstorm burst, and peace was restored to my troubled soul.’
This was very bad; but to do justice to Lancelot, he had grown out of it at the time when my story begins. He was now in the fifth act of his ‘Werterean’ stage; that sentimental24 measles25, which all clever men must catch once in their lives, and which, generally, like the physical measles, if taken early, settles their constitution for good or evil; if taken late, goes far towards killing26 them. Lancelot had found Byron and Shelley pall27 on his taste and commenced devouring28 Bulwer and worshipping Ernest Maltravers. He had left Bulwer for old ballads29 and romances, and Mr. Carlyle’s reviews; was next alternately chivalry-mad; and Germany-mad; was now reading hard at physical science; and on the whole, trying to become a great man, without any very clear notion of what a great man ought to be. Real education he never had had. Bred up at home under his father, a rich merchant, he had gone to college with a large stock of general information, and a particular mania30 for dried plants, fossils, butterflies, and sketching31, and some such creed32 as this:—
That he was very clever.
That he ought to make his fortune.
That a great many things were very pleasant — beautiful things among the rest.
That it was a fine thing to be ‘superior,’ gentleman-like, generous, and courageous34.
That a man ought to be religious.
And left college with a good smattering of classics and mathematics, picked up in the intervals35 of boat-racing and hunting, and much the same creed as he brought with him, except in regard to the last article. The scenery-and-natural-history mania was now somewhat at a discount. He had discovered a new natural object, including in itself all — more than all — yet found beauties and wonders — woman!
Draw, draw the veil and weep, guardian36 angel! if such there be. What was to be expected? Pleasant things were pleasant — there was no doubt of that, whatever else might be doubtful. He had read Byron by stealth; he had been flogged into reading Ovid and Tibullus; and commanded by his private tutor to read Martial37 and Juvenal ‘for the improvement of his style.’ All conversation on the subject of love had been prudishly avoided, as usual, by his parents and teacher. The parts of the Bible which spoke38 of it had been always kept out of his sight. Love had been to him, practically, ground tabooed and ‘carnal.’ What was to be expected? Just what happened — if woman’s beauty had nothing holy in it, why should his fondness for it? Just what happens every day — that he had to sow his wild oats for himself, and eat the fruit thereof, and the dirt thereof also.
O fathers! fathers! and you, clergymen, who monopolise education! either tell boys the truth about love, or do not put into their hands, without note or comment, the foul39 devil’s lies about it, which make up the mass of the Latin poets — and then go, fresh from teaching Juvenal and Ovid, to declaim at Exeter Hall against poor Peter Dens’s well-meaning prurience40! Had we not better take the beam out of our own eye before we meddle41 with the mote42 in the Jesuit’s?
But where is my description of the weather all this time?
I cannot, I am sorry to say, give any very cheerful account of the weather that day. But what matter? Are Englishmen hedge-gnats, who only take their sport when the sun shines? Is it not, on the contrary, symbolical43 of our national character, that almost all our field amusements are wintry ones? Our fowling44, our hunting, our punt-shooting (pastime for Hymir himself and the frost giants)— our golf and skating — our very cricket, and boat-racing, and jack45 and grayling fishing, carried on till we are fairly frozen out. We are a stern people, and winter suits us. Nature then retires modestly into the background, and spares us the obtrusive46 glitter of summer, leaving us to think and work; and therefore it happens that in England, it may be taken as a general rule, that whenever all the rest of the world is indoors, we are out and busy, and on the whole, the worse the day, the better the deed.
The weather that day, the first day Lancelot ever saw his beloved, was truly national. A silent, dim, distanceless, steaming, rotting day in March. The last brown oak-leaf which had stood out the winter’s frost, spun47 and quivered plump down, and then lay; as if ashamed to have broken for a moment the ghastly stillness, like an awkward guest at a great dumb dinner-party. A cold suck of wind just proved its existence, by toothaches on the north side of all faces. The spiders having been weather-bewitched the night before, had unanimously agreed to cover every brake and brier with gossamer-cradles, and never a fly to be caught in them; like Manchester cotton-spinners madly glutting48 the markets in the teeth of ‘no demand.’ The steam crawled out of the dank turf, and reeked49 off the flanks and nostrils50 of the shivering horses, and clung with clammy paws to frosted hats and dripping boughs51. A soulless, skyless, catarrhal day, as if that bustling52 dowager, old mother Earth — what with match-making in spring, and fetes champetres in summer, and dinner-giving in autumn — was fairly worn out, and put to bed with the influenza53, under wet blankets and the cold-water cure.
There sat Lancelot by the cover-side, his knees aching with cold and wet, thanking his stars that he was not one of the whippers-in who were lashing54 about in the dripping cover, laying up for themselves, in catering55 for the amusement of their betters, a probable old age of bed-ridden torture, in the form of rheumatic gout. Not that he was at all happy — indeed, he had no reason to be so; for, first, the hounds would not find; next, he had left half-finished at home a review article on the Silurian System, which he had solemnly promised an abject56 and beseeching57 editor to send to post that night; next, he was on the windward side of the cover, and dare not light a cigar; and lastly, his mucous58 membrane59 in general was not in the happiest condition, seeing that he had been dining the evening before with Mr. Vaurien of Rottenpalings, a young gentleman of a convivial60 and melodious61 turn of mind, who sang — and played also — as singing men are wont62 — in more senses than one, and had ‘ladies and gentlemen’ down from town to stay with him; and they sang and played too; and so somehow between vingt-un and champagne-punch, Lancelot had not arrived at home till seven o’clock that morning, and was in a fit state to appreciate the feelings of our grandfathers, when, after the third bottle of port, they used to put the black silk tights into their pockets, slip on the leathers and boots, and ride the crop-tailed hack thirty miles on a winter’s night, to meet the hounds in the next county by ten in the morning. They are ‘gone down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of heroes,’ with John Warde of Squerries at their head — the fathers of the men who conquered at Waterloo; and we their degenerate63 grandsons are left instead, with puny64 arms, and polished leather boots, and a considerable taint65 of hereditary66 disease, to sit in club-houses, and celebrate the progress of the species.
Whether Lancelot or his horse, under these depressing circumstances, fell asleep; or whether thoughts pertaining67 to such a life, and its fitness for a clever and ardent68 young fellow in the nineteenth century, became gradually too painful, and had to be peremptorily69 shaken off, this deponent sayeth not; but certainly, after five-and-thirty minutes of idleness and shivering, Lancelot opened his eyes with a sudden start, and struck spurs into his hunter without due cause shown; whereat Shiver-the-timbers, who was no Griselda in temper —(Lancelot had bought him out of the Pytchley for half his value, as unrideably vicious, when he had killed a groom70, and fallen backwards71 on a rough-rider, the first season after he came up from Horncastle)— responded by a furious kick or two, threw his head up, put his foot into a drain, and sprawled72 down all but on his nose, pitching Lancelot unawares shamefully73 on the pommel of his saddle. A certain fatality74, by the bye, had lately attended all Lancelot’s efforts to shine; he never bought a new coat without tearing it mysteriously next day, or tried to make a joke without bursting out coughing in the middle . . . and now the whole field were looking on at his mishap75; between disgust and the start he turned almost sick, and felt the blood rush into his cheeks and forehead as he heard a shout of coarse jovial76 laughter burst out close to him, and the old master of the hounds, Squire77 Lavington, roared aloud —
‘A pretty sportsman you are, Mr. Smith, to fall asleep by the cover-side and let your horse down — and your pockets, too! What’s that book on the ground? Sapping and studying still? I let nobody come out with my hounds with their pocket full of learning. Hand it up here, Tom; we’ll see what it is. French, as I am no scholar! Translate for us, Colonel Bracebridge!’
And, amid shouts of laughter, the gay Guardsman read out —
‘St. Francis de Sales: Introduction to a Devout79 Life.’
Poor Lancelot! Wishing himself fathoms80 under-ground, ashamed of his book, still more ashamed of himself for his shame, he had to sit there ten physical seconds, or spiritual years, while the colonel solemnly returned him the book, complimenting him on the proofs of its purifying influence which he had given the night before, in helping81 to throw the turnpike-gate into the river.
But ‘all things do end,’ and so did this; and the silence of the hounds also; and a faint but knowing whimper drove St. Francis out of all heads, and Lancelot began to stalk slowly with a dozen horsemen up the wood-ride, to a fitful accompaniment of wandering hound-music, where the choristers were as invisible as nightingales among the thick cover. And hark! just as the book was returned to his pocket, the sweet hubbub82 suddenly crashed out into one jubilant shriek83, and then swept away fainter and fainter among the trees. The walk became a trot84 — the trot a canter. Then a faint melancholy85 shout at a distance, answered by a ‘Stole away!’ from the fields; a doleful ‘toot!’ of the horn; the dull thunder of many horsehoofs rolling along the farther woodside. Then red coats, flashing like sparks of fire across the gray gap of mist at the ride’s-mouth, then a whipper-in, bringing up a belated hound, burst into the pathway, smashing and plunging86, with shut eyes, through ash-saplings and hassock-grass; then a fat farmer, sedulously87 pounding through the mud, was overtaken and bespattered in spite of all his struggles; — until the line streamed out into the wide rushy pasture, startling up pewits and curlews, as horsemen poured in from every side, and cunning old farmers rode off at inexplicable88 angles to some well-known haunts of pug: and right ahead, chiming and jangling sweet madness, the dappled pack glanced and wavered through the veil of soft grey mist. ‘What’s the use of this hurry?’ growled89 Lancelot. ‘They will all be back again. I never have the luck to see a run.’
But no; on and on — down the wind and down the vale; and the canter became a gallop90, and the gallop a long straining stride; and a hundred horsehoofs crackled like flame among the stubbles, and thundered fetlock-deep along the heavy meadows; and every fence thinned the cavalcade91, till the madness began to stir all bloods, and with grim earnest silent faces, the initiated92 few settled themselves to their work, and with the colonel and Lancelot at their head, ‘took their pleasure sadly, after the manner of their nation,’ as old Froissart has it.
‘Thorough bush, through brier,
Thorough park, through pale;’
till the rolling grass-lands spread out into flat black open fallows, crossed with grassy93 baulks, and here and there a long melancholy line of tall elms, while before them the high chalk ranges gleamed above the mist like a vast wall of emerald enamelled with snow, and the winding94 river glittering at their feet.
‘A polite fox!’ observed the colonel. ‘He’s leading the squire straight home to Whitford, just in time for dinner.’
They were in the last meadow, with the stream before them. A line of struggling heads in the swollen95 and milky96 current showed the hounds’ opinion of Reynard’s course. The sportsmen galloped97 off towards the nearest bridge. Bracebridge looked back at Lancelot, who had been keeping by his side in sulky rivalry98, following him successfully through all manner of desperate places, and more and more angry with himself and the guiltless colonel, because he only followed, while the colonel’s quicker and unembarrassed wit, which lived wholly in the present moment, saw long before Lancelot, ‘how to cut out his work,’ in every field.
‘I shan’t go round,’ quietly observed the colonel.
‘Do you fancy I shall?’ growled Lancelot, who took for granted — poor thin-skinned soul! that the words were meant as a hit at himself.
‘You’re a brace78 of geese,’ politely observed the old squire; ‘and you’ll find it out in rheumatic fever. There —“one fool makes many!” You’ll kill Smith before you’re done, colonel!’ and the old man wheeled away up the meadow, as Bracebridge shouted after him —
‘Oh, he’ll make a fine rider — in time!’
‘In time!’ Lancelot could have knocked the unsuspecting colonel down for the word. It just expressed the contrast, which had fretted99 him ever since he began to hunt with the Whitford Priors hounds. The colonel’s long practice and consummate100 skill in all he took in hand — his experience of all society, from the prairie Indian to Crockford’s, from the prize-ring to the continental101 courts — his varied102 and ready store of information and anecdote103 — the harmony and completeness of the man — his consistency104 with his own small ideal, and his consequent apparent superiority everywhere and in everything to the huge awkward Titan-cub, who, though immeasurably beyond Bracebridge in intellect and heart, was still in a state of convulsive dyspepsia, ‘swallowing formulae,’ and daily well-nigh choked; diseased throughout with that morbid105 self-consciousness and lust106 of praise, for which God prepares, with His elect, a bitter cure. Alas107! poor Lancelot! an unlicked bear, ‘with all his sorrows before him!’—
‘Come along,’ quoth Bracebridge, between snatches of a tune33, his coolness maddening Lancelot. ‘Old Lavington will find us dry clothes, a bottle of port, and a brace of charming daughters, at the Priory. In with you, little Mustang of the prairie! Neck or nothing!’—
And in an instant the small wiry American, and the huge Horncastle-bred hunter, were wallowing and staggering in the yeasty stream, till they floated into a deep reach, and swam steadily108 down to a low place in the bank. They crossed the stream, passed the Priory Shrubberies, leapt the gate into the park, and then on and upward, called by the unseen Ariel’s music before them. — Up, into the hills; past white crumbling109 chalk-pits, fringed with feathered juniper and tottering110 ashes, their floors strewed111 with knolls112 of fallen soil and vegetation, like wooded islets in a sea of milk. — Up, between steep ridges114 of tuft crested115 with black fir-woods and silver beech116, and here and there a huge yew117 standing118 out alone, the advanced sentry119 of the forest, with its luscious120 fretwork of green velvet121, like a mountain of Gothic spires122 and pinnacles123, all glittering and steaming as the sun drank up the dew-drops. The lark124 sprang upward into song, and called merrily to the new-opened sunbeams, while the wreaths and flakes125 of mist lingered reluctantly about the hollows, and clung with dewy fingers to every knoll113 and belt of pine. — Up into the labyrinthine126 bosom127 of the hills — but who can describe them? Is not all nature indescribable? every leaf infinite and transcendental? How much more those mighty128 downs, with their enormous sheets of spotless turf, where the dizzy eye loses all standard of size and distance before the awful simplicity129, the delicate vastness, of those grand curves and swells130, soft as the outlines of a Greek Venus, as if the great goddess-mother Hertha had laid herself down among the hills to sleep, her Titan limbs wrapt in a thin veil of silvery green.
Up, into a vast amphitheatre of sward, whose walls banked out the narrow sky above. And here, in the focus of the huge ring, an object appeared which stirred strange melancholy in Lancelot — a little chapel131, ivy-grown, girded with a few yews132, and elders, and grassy graves. A climbing rose over the porch, and iron railings round the churchyard, told of human care; and from the graveyard133 itself burst up one of those noble springs known as winter-bournes in the chalk ranges, which, awakened134 in autumn from the abysses to which it had shrunk during the summer’s drought, was hurrying down upon its six months’ course, a broad sheet of oily silver over a temporary channel of smooth greensward.
The hounds had checked in the woods behind; now they poured down the hillside, so close together ‘that you might have covered them with a sheet,’ straight for the little chapel.
A saddened tone of feeling spread itself through Lancelot’s heart. There were the everlasting135 hills around, even as they had grown and grown for countless136 ages, beneath the still depths of the primeval chalk ocean, in the milky youth of this great English land. And here was he, the insect of a day, fox-hunting upon them! He felt ashamed, and more ashamed when the inner voice whispered —‘Fox-hunting is not the shame — thou art the shame. If thou art the insect of a day, it is thy sin that thou art one.’
And his sadness, foolish as it may seem, grew as he watched a brown speck137 fleet rapidly up the opposite hill, and heard a gay view-halloo burst from the colonel at his side. The chase lost its charm for him the moment the game was seen. Then vanished that mysterious delight of pursuing an invisible object, which gives to hunting and fishing their unutterable and almost spiritual charm; which made Shakespeare a nightly poacher; Davy and Chantrey the patriarchs of fly-fishing; by which the twelve-foot rod is transfigured into an enchanter’s wand, potent138 over the unseen wonders of the water-world, to ‘call up spirits from the vasty deep,’ which will really ‘come if you do call for them’— at least if the conjuration be orthodox — and they there. That spell was broken by the sight of poor wearied pug, his once gracefully-floating brush all draggled and drooping139, as he toiled140 up the sheep-paths towards the open down above.
But Lancelot’s sadness reached its crisis, as he met the hounds just outside the churchyard. Another moment — they had leaped the rails; and there they swept round under the gray wall, leaping and yelling, like Berserk fiends among the frowning tombstones, over the cradles of the quiet dead.
Lancelot shuddered141 — the thing was not wrong —‘it was no one’s fault,’— but there was a ghastly discord142 in it. Peace and strife143, time and eternity144 — the mad noisy flesh, and the silent immortal145 spirit — the frivolous146 game of life’s outside show, and the terrible earnest of its inward abysses, jarred together without and within him. He pulled his horse up violently, and stood as if rooted to the place, gazing at he knew not what.
The hounds caught sight of the fox, burst into one frantic147 shriek of joy — and then a sudden and ghastly stillness, as, mute and breathless, they toiled up the hillside, gaining on their victim at every stride. The patter of the horsehoofs and the rattle148 of rolling flints died away above. Lancelot looked up, startled at the silence; laughed aloud, he knew not why, and sat, regardless of his pawing and straining horse, still staring at the chapel and the graves.
On a sudden the chapel-door opened, and a figure, timidly yet loftily stepped out without observing him, and suddenly turning round, met him full, face to face, and stood fixed149 with surprise as completely as Lancelot himself.
That face and figure, and the spirit which spoke through them, entered his heart at once, never again to leave it. Her features were aquiline150 and grand, without a shade of harshness; her eyes shone out like twain lakes of still azure151, beneath a broad marble cliff of polished forehead; her rich chestnut152 hair rippled153 downward round the towering neck. With her perfect masque and queenly figure, and earnest, upward gaze, she might have been the very model from which Raphael conceived his glorious St. Catherine — the ideal of the highest womanly genius, softened154 into self-forgetfulness by girlish devotion. She was simply, almost coarsely dressed; but a glance told him that she was a lady, by the courtesy of man as well as by the will of God.
They gazed one moment more at each other — but what is time to spirits? With them, as with their Father, ‘one day is as a thousand years.’ But that eye-wedlock was cut short the next instant by the decided155 interference of the horse, who, thoroughly156 disgusted at his master’s whole conduct, gave a significant shake of his head, and shamming157 frightened (as both women and horses will do when only cross), commenced a war-dance, which drove Argemone Lavington into the porch, and gave the bewildered Lancelot an excuse for dashing madly up the hill after his companions.
‘What a horrible ugly face!’ said Argemone to herself, ‘but so clever, and so unhappy!’
Blest pity! true mother of that graceless scamp, young Love, who is ashamed of his real pedigree, and swears to this day that he is the child of Venus! — the coxcomb158!
[Here, for the sake of the reader, we omit, or rather postpone159 a long dissertation160 on the famous Erototheogonic chorus of Aristophanes’s Birds, with illustrations taken from all earth and heaven, from the Vedas and Proclus to Jacob Boehmen and Saint Theresa.]
‘The dichotomy of Lancelot’s personality,’ as the Germans would call it, returned as he dashed on. His understanding was trying to ride, while his spirit was left behind with Argemone. Hence loose reins161 and a looser seat. He rolled about like a tipsy man, holding on, in fact, far more by his spurs than by his knees, to the utter infuriation of Shiver-the-timbers, who kicked and snorted over the down like one of Mephistopheles’s Demon-steeds. They had mounted the hill — the deer fled before them in terror — they neared the park palings. In the road beyond them the hounds were just killing their fox, struggling and growling162 in fierce groups for the red gobbets of fur, a panting, steaming ring of horses round them. Half a dozen voices hailed him as he came up.
‘Where have you been?’ ‘He’ll tumble off!’ ‘He’s had a fall!’ ‘No he hasn’t!’ ”Ware hounds, man alive!’ ‘He’ll break his neck!’
‘He has broken it, at last!’ shouted the colonel, as Shiver-the-timbers rushed at the high pales, out of breath, and blind with rage. Lancelot saw and heard nothing till he was awakened from his dream by the long heave of the huge brute’s shoulder, and the maddening sensation of sweeping163 through the air over the fence. He started, checked the curb164, the horse threw up his head, fulfilling his name by driving his knees like a battering-ram against the pales — the top-bar bent165 like a withe, flew out into a hundred splinters, and man and horse rolled over headlong into the hard flint-road.
For one long sickening second Lancelot watched the blue sky between his own knees. Then a crash as if a shell had burst in his face — a horrible grind — a sheet of flame — and the blackness of night. Did you ever feel it, reader?
When he awoke, he found himself lying in bed, with Squire Lavington sitting by him. There was real sorrow in the old man’s face, ‘Come to himself!’ and a great joyful166 oath rolled out. ‘The boldest rider of them all! I wouldn’t have lost him for a dozen ready-made spick and span Colonel Bracebridges!’
‘Quite right, squire!’ answered a laughing voice from behind the curtain. ‘Smith has a clear two thousand a year, and I live by my wits!’
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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oozing
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的现在分词 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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mashed
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| a.捣烂的 | |
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quagmire
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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strapped
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| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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fretting
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| n. 微振磨损 adj. 烦躁的, 焦虑的 | |
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hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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barometer
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| n.气压表，睛雨表，反应指标 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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veneration
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| n.尊敬，崇拜 | |
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benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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beetles
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| n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 ) | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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23
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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24
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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25
measles
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| n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子 | |
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26
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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27
pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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28
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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29
ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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30
mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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31
sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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32
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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33
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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34
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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35
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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36
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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37
martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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38
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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39
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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40
prurience
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| n.好色；迷恋；淫欲；（焦躁等的）渴望 | |
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41
meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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42
mote
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| n.微粒；斑点 | |
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43
symbolical
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| a.象征性的 | |
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44
fowling
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| 捕鸟，打鸟 | |
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45
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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46
obtrusive
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| adj.显眼的；冒失的 | |
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47
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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48
glutting
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| v.吃得过多( glut的现在分词 )；（对胃口、欲望等）纵情满足；使厌腻；塞满 | |
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49
reeked
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的过去式和过去分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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50
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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51
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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52
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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53
influenza
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| n.流行性感冒，流感 | |
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54
lashing
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| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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55
catering
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| n. 给养 | |
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56
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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57
beseeching
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| adj.恳求似的v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的现在分词 ) | |
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58
mucous
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| adj. 黏液的，似黏液的 | |
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59
membrane
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| n.薄膜，膜皮，羊皮纸 | |
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60
convivial
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| adj.狂欢的，欢乐的 | |
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61
melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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62
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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63
degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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64
puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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65
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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66
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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67
pertaining
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| 与…有关系的，附属…的，为…固有的(to) | |
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68
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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69
peremptorily
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| adv.紧急地，不容分说地，专横地 | |
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70
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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71
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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72
sprawled
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| v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的过去式和过去分词)；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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73
shamefully
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| 可耻地； 丢脸地； 不体面地； 羞耻地 | |
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74
fatality
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| n.不幸，灾祸，天命 | |
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75
mishap
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| n.不幸的事，不幸；灾祸 | |
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76
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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77
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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78
brace
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| n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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79
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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80
fathoms
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| 英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
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81
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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82
hubbub
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| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
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83
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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84
trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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85
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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86
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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87
sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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88
inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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89
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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90
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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91
cavalcade
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| n.车队等的行列 | |
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92
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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93
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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94
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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95
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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96
milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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97
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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98
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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99
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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100
consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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101
continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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102
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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103
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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104
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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105
morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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106
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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107
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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108
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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109
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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110
tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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111
strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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112
knolls
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| n.小圆丘，小土墩( knoll的名词复数 ) | |
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113
knoll
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| n.小山，小丘 | |
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114
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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115
crested
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| adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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116
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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117
yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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118
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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119
sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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120
luscious
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| adj.美味的；芬芳的；肉感的，引与性欲的 | |
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121
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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122
spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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123
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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124
lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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125
flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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126
labyrinthine
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| adj.如迷宫的；复杂的 | |
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127
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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128
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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129
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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130
swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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131
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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132
yews
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| n.紫杉( yew的名词复数 ) | |
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133
graveyard
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| n.坟场 | |
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134
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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135
everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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136
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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137
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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138
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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139
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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140
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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141
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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142
discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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143
strife
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| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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144
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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145
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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146
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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147
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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148
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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149
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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150
aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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151
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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152
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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153
rippled
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| 使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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154
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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155
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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156
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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157
shamming
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| 假装，冒充( sham的现在分词 ) | |
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158
coxcomb
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| n.花花公子 | |
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159
postpone
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| v.延期，推迟 | |
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160
dissertation
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| n.（博士学位）论文，学术演讲，专题论文 | |
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161
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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162
growling
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| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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163
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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164
curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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165
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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166
joyful
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| adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的 | |
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