Every day he came to read and talk with her, and whatever objections Mrs. Lavington expressed were silenced by Argemone. She would have it so, and her mother neither dared nor knew how to control her. The daughter had utterly5 out-read and out-thought her less educated parent, who was clinging in honest bigotry6 to the old forms, while Argemone was wandering forth7 over the chaos8 of the strange new age,- -a poor homeless Noah’s dove, seeking rest for the sole of her foot and finding none. And now all motherly influence and sympathy had vanished, and Mrs. Lavington, in fear and wonder, let her daughter go her own way. She could not have done better, perhaps; for Providence9 had found for Argemone a better guide than her mother could have done, and her new pupil was rapidly becoming her teacher. She was matched, for the first time, with a man who was her own equal in intellect and knowledge; and she felt how real was that sexual difference which she had been accustomed to consider as an insolent10 calumny11 against woman. Proudly and indignantly she struggled against the conviction, but in vain. Again and again she argued with him, and was vanquished12 — or, at least, what is far better, made to see how many different sides there are to every question. All appeals to authority he answered with a contemptuous smile. ‘The best authorities?’ he used to say. ‘On what question do not the best authorities flatly contradict each other? And why? Because every man believes just what it suits him to believe. Don’t fancy that men reason themselves into convictions; the prejudices and feelings of their hearts give them some idea or theory, and then they find facts at their leisure to prove their theory true. Every man sees facts through narrow spectacles, red, or green, or blue, as his nation or his temperament13 colours them: and he is quite right, only he must allow us the liberty of having our spectacles too. Authority is only good for proving facts. We must draw our own conclusions.’ And Argemone began to suspect that he was right — at least to see that her opinions were mere14 hearsays, picked up at her own will and fancy; while his were living, daily-growing ideas. Her mind was beside his as the vase of cut flowers by the side of the rugged15 tree, whose roots are feeding deep in the mother earth. In him she first learnt how one great truth received into the depths of the soul germinates16 there, and bears fruit a thousandfold; explaining, and connecting, and glorifying17 innumerable things, apparently18 the most unlike and insignificant19; and daily she became a more reverent20 listener, and gave herself up, half against her will and conscience, to the guidance of a man whom she knew to be her inferior in morals and in orthodoxy. She had worshipped intellect, and now it had become her tyrant21; and she was ready to give up every belief which she once had prized, to flutter like a moth4 round its fascinating brilliance22.
Who can blame her, poor girl? For Lancelot’s humility23 was even more irresistible24 than his eloquence25. He assumed no superiority. He demanded her assent26 to truths, not because they were his opinions, but simply for the truth’s sake; and on all points which touched the heart he looked up to her as infallible and inspired. In questions of morality, of taste, of feeling, he listened not as a lover to his mistress, but rather as a baby to its mother; and thus, half unconsciously to himself, he taught her where her true kingdom lay,- -that the heart, and not the brain, enshrines the priceless pearl of womanhood, the oracular jewel, the ‘Urim and Thummim,’ before which gross man can only inquire and adore.
And, in the meantime, a change was passing upon Lancelot. His morbid27 vanity — that brawl-begotten child of struggling self-conceit28 and self-disgust — was vanishing away; and as Mr. Tennyson says in one of those priceless idyls of his, before which the shade of Theocritus must hide his diminished head —
‘He was altered, and began
To move about the house with joy,
And with the certain step of man.’
He had, at last, found one person who could appreciate him. And in deliberate confidence he set to work to conquer her, and make her his own. It was a traitorous29 return, but a very natural one. And she, sweet creature! walked straight into the pleasant snare30, utterly blind, because she fancied that she saw clearly. In the pride of her mysticism, she had fancied herself above so commonplace a passion as love. It was a curious feature of lower humanity, which she might investigate and analyse harmlessly as a cold scientific spectator; and, in her mingled31 pride and purity, she used to indulge Lancelot in metaphysical disquisitions about love and beauty, like that first one in their walk home from Minchampstead, from which a less celestially33 innocent soul would have shrunk. She thought, forsooth, as the old proverb says, that she could deal in honey, without putting her hand to her mouth. But Lancelot knew better, and marked her for his own. And daily his self-confidence and sense of rightful power developed, and with them, paradoxical as it may seem, the bitterest self-abasement. The contact of her stainless34 innocence35, the growing certainty that the destiny of that innocence was irrevocably bound up with his own, made him shrink from her whenever he remembered his own guilty career. To remember that there were passages in it which she must never know — that she would cast him from her with abhorrence37 if she once really understood their vileness38? To think that, amid all the closest bonds of love, there must for ever be an awful, silent gulf39 in the past, of which they must never speak! — That she would bring to him what he could never, never bring to her! — The thought was unbearable40. And as hideous41 recollections used to rise before him, devilish caricatures of his former self, mopping and mowing42 at him in his dreams, he would start from his lonely bed, and pace the room for hours, or saddle his horse, and ride all night long aimlessly through the awful woods, vainly trying to escape himself. How gladly, at those moments, he would have welcomed centuries of a material hell, to escape from the more awful spiritual hell within him — to buy back that pearl of innocence which he had cast recklessly to be trampled43 under the feet of his own swinish passions! But, no; that which was done could never be undone44 — never, to all eternity45. And more than once, as he wandered restlessly from one room to another, the barrels of his pistols seemed to glitter with a cold, devilish smile, and call to him —
‘Come to us! and with one touch of your finger, send that bursting spirit which throbs46 against your brow to flit forth free, and nevermore to defile47 her purity by your presence!’
But no, again: a voice within seemed to command him to go on, and claim her, and win her, spite of his own vileness. And in after years, slowly, and in fear and trembling, he knew it for the voice of God, who had been leading him to become worthy48 of her through that bitter shame of his own unworthiness.
As One higher than them would have it, she took a fancy to read Homer in the original, and Lancelot could do no less than offer his services as translator. She would prepare for him portions of the Odyssey49, and every day that he came up to the Priory he used to comment on it to her; and so for many a week, in the dark wainscoted library, and in the clipt yew-alleys of the old gardens, and under the brown autumn trees, they quarried50 together in that unexhausted mine, among the records of the rich Titan-youth of man. And step by step Lancelot opened to her the everlasting51 significance of the poem; the unconscious purity which lingers in it, like the last rays of the Paradise dawn; its sense of the dignity of man as man; the religious reverence52 with which it speaks of all human ties, human strength and beauty — ay, even of merely animal human appetites, as God-given and Godlike symbols. She could not but listen and admire, when he introduced her to the sheer paganism of Schiller’s Gods of Greece; for on this subject he was more eloquent53 than on any. He had gradually, in fact, as we have seen, dropped all faith in anything but Nature; the slightest fact about a bone or a weed was more important to him than all the books of divinity which Argemone lent him — to be laid by unread.
‘What DO you believe in?’ she asked him one day, sadly.
‘In this!’ he said, stamping his foot on the ground. ‘In the earth I stand on, and the things I see walking and growing on it. There may be something beside it — what you call a spiritual world. But if He who made me intended me to think of spirit first, He would have let me see it first. But as He has given me material senses, and put me in a material world, I take it as a fair hint that I am meant to use those senses first, whatever may come after. I may be intended to understand the unseen world, but if so, it must be, as I suspect, by understanding the visible one: and there are enough wonders there to occupy me for some time to come.’
‘But the Bible?’ (Argemone had given up long ago wasting words about the ‘Church.’)
‘My only Bible as yet is Bacon. I know that he is right, whoever is wrong. If that Hebrew Bible is to be believed by me, it must agree with what I know already from science.’
What was to be done with so intractable a heretic? Call him an infidel and a Materialist54, of course, and cast him off with horror. But Argemone was beginning to find out that, when people are really in earnest, it may be better sometimes to leave God’s methods of educating them alone, instead of calling the poor honest seekers hard names, which the speakers themselves don’t understand.
But words would fail sometimes, and in default of them Lancelot had recourse to drawings, and manifested in them a talent for thinking in visible forms which put the climax55 to all Argemone’s wonder. A single profile, even a mere mathematical figure, would, in his hands, become the illustration of a spiritual truth. And, in time, every fresh lesson on the Odyssey was accompanied by its illustration — some bold and simple outline drawing. In Argemone’s eyes, the sketches58 were immaculate and inspired; for their chief, almost their only fault, was just those mere anatomical slips which a woman would hardly perceive, provided the forms were generally graceful59 and bold.
One day his fancy attempted a bolder flight. He brought a large pen-and-ink drawing, and laying it silently on the table before her, fixed60 his eyes intensely on her face. The sketch57 was labelled, the ‘Triumph of Woman.’ In the foreground, to the right and left, were scattered61 groups of men, in the dresses and insignia of every period and occupation. The distance showed, in a few bold outlines, a dreary62 desert, broken by alpine63 ridges64, and furrowed65 here and there by a wandering watercourse. Long shadows pointed66 to the half-risen sun, whose disc was climbing above the waste horizon. And in front of the sun, down the path of the morning beams, came Woman, clothed only in the armour67 of her own loveliness. Her bearing was stately, and yet modest; in her face pensive68 tenderness seemed wedded69 with earnest joy. In her right hand lay a cross, the emblem70 of self-sacrifice. Her path across the desert was marked by the flowers which sprang up beneath her steps; the wild gazelle stept forward trustingly to lick her hand; a single wandering butterfly fluttered round her head. As the group, one by one, caught sight of her, a human tenderness and intelligence seemed to light up every face. The scholar dropt his book, the miser71 his gold, the savage72 his weapons; even in the visage of the half-slumbering sot some nobler recollection seemed wistfully to struggle into life. The artist caught up his pencil, the poet his lyre, with eyes that beamed forth sudden inspiration. The sage36, whose broad brow rose above the group like some torrent73 furrowed Alp, scathed74 with all the temptations and all the sorrows of his race, watched with a thoughtful smile that preacher more mighty75 than himself. A youth, decked out in the most fantastic fopperies of the middle age, stood with clasped hands and brimming eyes, as remorse76 and pleasure struggled in his face; and as he looked, the fierce sensual features seemed to melt, and his flesh came again to him like the flesh of a little child. The slave forgot his fetters77; little children clapped their hands; and the toil-worn, stunted78, savage woman sprung forward to kneel at her feet, and see herself transfigured in that new and divine ideal of her sex.
Descriptions of drawings are clumsy things at best; the reader must fill up the sketch for himself by the eye of faith.
Entranced in wonder and pleasure, Argemone let her eyes wander over the drawing. And her feelings for Lancelot amounted almost to worship, as she apprehended79 the harmonious80 unity81 of the manifold conception — the rugged boldness of the groups in front, the soft grandeur82 of the figure which was the lodestar of all their emotions — the virginal purity of the whole. And when she fancied that she traced in those bland83 aquiline84 lineaments, and in the crisp ringlets which floated like a cloud down to the knees of the figure, some traces of her own likeness85, a dream of a new destiny flitted before her — she blushed to her very neck; and as she bent86 her face over the drawing and gazed, her whole soul seemed to rise into her eyes, and a single tear dropped upon the paper. She laid her hand over it, and then turned hastily away.
‘You do not like it! I have been too bold,’— said Lancelot, fearfully.
‘Oh, no! no! It is so beautiful — so full of deep wisdom! But — but — You may leave it.’
Lancelot slipped silently out of the room, he hardly knew why; and when he was gone, Argemone caught up the drawing, pressed it to her bosom87, covered it with kisses, and hid it, as too precious for any eyes but her own, in the farthest corner of her secretaire.
And yet she fancied that she was not in love!
The vicar saw the growth of this intimacy88 with a fast-lengthening face; for it was very evident that Argemone could not serve two masters so utterly contradictory89 as himself and Lancelot, and that either the lover or the father-confessor must speedily resign office. The vicar had had great disadvantages, by the bye, in fulfilling the latter function; for his visits at the Priory had been all but forbidden; and Argemone’s ‘spiritual state’ had been directed by means of a secret correspondence — a method which some clergymen, and some young ladies too, have discovered, in the last few years, to be quite consistent with moral delicacy90 and filial obedience91. John Bull, like a stupid fellow as he is, has still his doubts upon the point; but he should remember that though St. Paul tells women when they want advice to ask their husbands at home, yet if the poor woman has no husband, or, as often happens, her husband’s advice is unpleasant, to whom is she to go but to the next best substitute, her spiritual cicisbeo, or favourite clergyman? In sad earnest, neither husband nor parent deserves pity in the immense majority of such cases. Woman will have guidance. It is her delight and glory to be led; and if her husband or her parents will not meet the cravings of her intellect, she must go elsewhere to find a teacher, and run into the wildest extravagances of private judgment92, in the very hope of getting rid of it, just as poor Argemone had been led to do.
And, indeed, she had, of late, wandered into very strange paths: would to God they were as uncommon93 as strange! Both she and the vicar had a great wish that she should lead a ‘devoted life;’ but then they both disdained94 to use common means for their object. The good old English plan of district visiting, by which ladies can have mercy on the bodies and souls of those below them, without casting off the holy discipline which a home, even the most ungenial, alone supplies, savoured too much of mere ‘Protestantism.’ It might be God’s plan for christianising England just now, but that was no reason, alas96! for its being their plan: they wanted something more ‘Catholic,’ more in accordance with Church principles (for, indeed, is it not the business of the Church to correct the errors of Providence!); and what they sought they found at once in a certain favourite establishment of the vicar’s, a Church-of-England beguinage, or quasi-Protestant nunnery, which he fostered in a neighbouring city, and went thither98 on all high tides to confess the young ladies, who were in all things nuns99, but bound by no vows100, except, of course, such as they might choose to make for themselves in private.
Here they laboured among the lowest haunts of misery102 and sin, piously103 and self-denyingly enough, sweet souls! in hope of ‘the peculiar104 crown,’ and a higher place in heaven than the relations whom they had left behind them ‘in the world,’ and unshackled by the interference of parents, and other such merely fleshly relationships, which, as they cannot have been instituted by God merely to be trampled under foot on the path to holiness, and cannot well have instituted themselves (unless, after all, the Materialists are right, and this world does grind of itself, except when its Maker106 happens to interfere105 once every thousand years), must needs have been instituted by the devil. And so more than one girl in that nunnery, and out of it, too, believed in her inmost heart, though her ‘Catholic principles,’ by a happy inconsistency, forbade her to say so.
In a moment of excitement, fascinated by the romance of the notion, Argemone had proposed to her mother to allow her to enter this beguinage, and called in the vicar as advocate; which produced a correspondence between him and Mrs. Lavington, stormy on her side, provokingly calm on his: and when the poor lady, tired of raging, had descended107 to an affecting appeal to his human sympathies, entreating108 him to spare a mother’s feelings, he had answered with the same impassive fanaticism110, that ‘he was surprised at her putting a mother’s selfish feelings in competition with the sanctity of her child,’ and that ‘had his own daughter shown such a desire for a higher vocation111, he should have esteemed112 it the very highest honour;’ to which Mrs. Lavington answered, naively114 enough, that ‘it depended very much on what his daughter was like.’— So he was all but forbidden the house. Nevertheless he contrived115, by means of this same secret correspondence, to keep alive in Argemone’s mind the longing116 to turn nun97, and fancied honestly that he was doing God service, while he was pampering117 the poor girl’s lust56 for singularity and self-glorification.
But, lately, Argemone’s letters had become less frequent and less confiding119; and the vicar, who well knew the reason, had resolved to bring the matter to a crisis.
So he wrote earnestly and peremptorily120 to his pupil, urging her, with all his subtle and refined eloquence, to make a final appeal to her mother, and if that failed, to act ‘as her conscience should direct her;’ and enclosed an answer from the superior of the convent, to a letter which Argemone had in a mad moment asked him to write. The superior’s letter spoke121 of Argemone’s joining her as a settled matter, and of her room as ready for her, while it lauded122 to the skies the peaceful activity and usefulness of the establishment. This letter troubled Argemone exceedingly. She had never before been compelled to face her own feelings, either about the nunnery or about Lancelot. She had taken up the fancy of becoming a Sister of Charity, not as Honoria might have done, from genuine love of the poor, but from ‘a sense of duty.’ Almsgiving and visiting the sick were one of the methods of earning heaven prescribed by her new creed123. She was ashamed of her own laziness by the side of Honoria’s simple benevolence124; and, sad though it may be to have to say it, she longed to outdo her by some signal act of self-sacrifice. She had looked to this nunnery, too, as an escape, once and for all, from her own luxury, just as people who have not strength to be temperate125 take refuge in teetotalism; and the thought of menial services towards the poor, however distasteful to her, came in quite prettily126 to fill up the little ideal of a life of romantic asceticisms and mystic contemplation, which gave the true charm in her eyes to her wild project. But now — just as a field had opened to her cravings after poetry and art, wider and richer than she had ever imagined — just as those simple childlike views of man and nature, which she had learnt to despise, were assuming an awful holiness in her eyes — just as she had found a human soul to whose regeneration she could devote all her energies — to be required to give all up, perhaps for ever (and she felt that if at all, it ought to be for ever); — it was too much for her little heart to bear; and she cried bitterly; and tried to pray, and could not; and longed for a strong and tender bosom on which to lay her head, and pour out all her doubts and struggles; and there was none. Her mother did not understand — hardly loved her. Honoria loved her; but understood her even less than her mother. Pride — the pride of intellect, the pride of self-will — had long since sealed her lips to her own family . . . .
And then, out of the darkness of her heart, Lancelot’s image rose before her stronger than all, tenderer than all; and as she remembered his magical faculty127 of anticipating all her thoughts, embodying129 for her all her vague surmises130, he seemed to beckon131 her towards him. — She shuddered132 and turned away. And now she first became conscious how he had haunted her thoughts in the last few months, not as a soul to be saved, but as a living man — his face, his figure, his voice, his every gesture and expression, rising clear before her, in spite of herself, by day and night.
And then she thought of his last drawing, and the looks which had accompanied it — unmistakable looks of passionate134 and adoring love. There was no denying it — she had always known that he loved her, but she had never dared to confess it to herself. But now the earthquake was come, and all the secrets of her heart burst upward to the light, and she faced the thought in shame and terror. ‘How unjust I have been to him! how cruel! thus to entice135 him on in hopeless love!’
She lifted up her eyes, and saw in the mirror opposite the reflection of her own exquisite136 beauty.
‘I could have known what I was doing! I knew all the while! And yet it is so delicious to feel that any one loves me! Is it selfishness? It is selfishness, to pamper118 my vanity on an affection which I do not, will not return. I will not be thus in debt to him, even for his love. I do not love him — I do not; and even if I did, to give myself up to a man of whom I know so little, who is not even a Christian95, much less a Churchman! Ay! and to give up my will to any man! to become the subject, the slave, of another human being! I, who have worshipped the belief in woman’s independence, the hope of woman’s enfranchisement137, who have felt how glorious it is to live like the angels, single and self-sustained! What if I cut the Gordian knot, and here make, once for all, a vow101 of perpetual celibacy138?’
She flung herself on her knees — she could not collect her thoughts.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I am not prepared for this. It is too solemn to be undertaken in this miserable139 whirlwind of passion. I will fast, and meditate140, and go up formally to the little chapel141, and there devote myself to God; and, in the meantime, to write at once to the superior of the Beguines; to go to my mother, and tell her once for all — What? Must I lose him? — must I give him up? Not his love — I cannot give up that — would that I could! but no! he will love me for ever. I know it as well as if an angel told me. But to give up him! Never to see him! never to hear his voice! never to walk with him among the beech142 woods any more! Oh, Argemone! Argemone! miserable girl! and is it come to this?’ And she threw herself on the sofa, and hid her face in her hands.
Yes, Argemone, it is come to this; and the best thing you can do, is just what you are doing — to lie there and cry yourself to sleep, while the angels are laughing kindly143 (if a solemn public, who settles everything for them, will permit them to laugh) at the rickety old windmill of sham-Popery which you have taken for a real giant.
At that same day and hour, as it chanced, Lancelot, little dreaming what the said windmill was grinding for him, was scribbling144 a hasty and angry answer to a letter of Luke’s, which, perhaps, came that very morning in order to put him into a proper temper for the demolishing145 of windmills. It ran thus —
‘Ay, my good Cousin — So I expected —
‘Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem . . .
Pleasant and easy for you Protestants (for I will call you what you are, in spite of your own denials, a truly consistent and logical Protestant — and therefore a Materialist)— easy for you, I say, to sit on the shore, in cold, cruel self-satisfaction, and tell the poor wretch146 buffeting147 with the waves what he ought to do while he is choking and drowning. . . . Thank Heaven, the storm has stranded148 me upon the everlasting Rock of Peter; — but it has been a sore trouble to reach it. Protestants, who look at creeds149 as things to be changed like coats, whenever they seem not to fit them, little know what we Catholic-hearted ones suffer. . . . If they did, they would be more merciful and more chary150 in the requirements of us, just as we are in the very throe of a new-born existence. The excellent man, to whose care I have committed myself, has a wise and a tender heart . . . he saw no harm in my concealing151 from my father the spiritual reason of my giving up my curacy (for I have given it up), and only giving the outward, but equally true reason, that I found it on the whole an ineligible152 and distressing153 post. . . . I know you will apply to such an act that disgusting monosyllable of which Protestants are so fond. He felt with me and for me — for my horror of giving pain to my father, and for my wearied and excited state of mind; and strangely enough — to show how differently, according to the difference of the organs, the same object may appear to two people — he quoted in my favour that very verse which you wrest154 against me. He wished me to show my father that I had only changed my heaven, and not my character, by becoming an Ultramontane–Catholic . . . that, as far as his esteem113 and affection were founded on anything in me, the ground of it did not vanish with my conversion155. If I had told him at once of my altered opinions, he would have henceforth viewed every word and action with a perjudiced eye. . . . Protestants are so bigoted156 . . . but if, after seeing me for a month or two the same Luke that he had ever known me, he were gradually informed that I had all the while held that creed which he had considered incompatible157 with such a life as I hope mine would be-you must see the effect which it ought to have. . . . I don’t doubt that you will complain of all this. . . . All I can say is, that I cannot sympathise with that superstitious158 reverence for mere verbal truth, which is so common among Protestants. . . . It seems to me they throw away the spirit of truth, in their idolatry of its letter. For instance — what is the use of informing a man of a true fact but to induce a true opinion in him? But if, by clinging to the exact letter of the fact, you create a false opinion in his mind, as I should do in my father’s case, if by telling him at once of my change, I gave him an unjust horror of Catholicism — you do not tell him the truth. . . . You may speak what is true to you — but it becomes an error when received into his mind. . . . If his mind is a refracting and polarising medium — if the crystalline lens of his soul’s eye has been changed into tourmaline or Labrador spar — the only way to give him a true image of the fact, is to present it to him already properly altered in form, and adapted to suit the obliquity159 of his vision; in order that the very refractive power of his faculties160 may, instead of distorting it, correct it, and make it straight for him; and so a verbal wrong in fact may possess him with a right opinion . . . .
‘You see the whole question turns on your Protestant deification of the intellect. . . . If you really believed, as you all say you do, that the nature of man, and therefore his intellect among the rest, was utterly corrupt161, you would not be so superstitiously162 careful to tell the truth . . . as you call it; because you would know that man’s heart, if not his head, would needs turn the truth into a lie by its own corruption163. . . . The proper use of reasoning is to produce opinion — and if the subject in which you wish to produce the opinion is diseased, you must adapt the medicine accordingly.’
To all which Lancelot, with several strong curses, scrawled164 the following answer:—
‘And this is my Cousin Luke! — Well, I shall believe henceforward that there is, after all, a thousand times greater moral gulf fixed between Popery and Tractarianism, than between Tractarianism and the extremest Protestantism. My dear fellow — I won’t bother you, by cutting up your charming ambiguous middle terms, which make reason and reasoning identical, or your theory that the office of reasoning is to induce opinions —(the devil take opinions, right or wrong — I want facts, faith in real facts!)— or about deifying the intellect — as if all sound intellect was not in itself divine light — a revelation to man of absolute laws independent of him, as the very heathens hold. But this I will do — thank you most sincerely for the compliment you pay us Cismontane heretics. We do retain some dim belief in a God — even I am beginning to believe in believing in Him. And therefore, as I begin to suppose, it is, that we reverence facts, as the work of God, His acted words and will, which we dare not falsify; which we believe will tell their own story better than we can tell it for them. If our eyes are dimmed, we think it safer to clear them, which do belong to us, than to bedevil, by the light of those very already dimmed eyes, the objects round, which do not belong to us. Whether we are consistent or not about the corruptness of man, we are about the incorruptness of God; and therefore about that of the facts by which God teaches men: and believe, and will continue to believe, that the blackest of all sins, the deepest of all Atheisms, that which, above all things, proves no faith in God’s government of the universe, no sense of His presence, no understanding of His character, is — a lie.
‘One word more — Unless you tell your father within twenty-four hours after receiving this letter, I will. And I, being a Protestant (if cursing Popery means Protestantism), mean what I say.’
As Lancelot walked up to the Priory that morning, the Reverend Panurgus O’Blareaway dashed out of a cottage by the roadside, and seized him unceremoniously by the shoulders. He was a specimen165 of humanity which Lancelot could not help at once liking166 and despising; a quaint167 mixture of conceit and earnestness, uniting the shrewdness of a stockjobber with the frolic of a schoolboy broke loose. He was rector of a place in the west of Ireland, containing some ten Protestants and some thousand Papists. Being, unfortunately for himself, a red-hot Orangeman, he had thought fit to quarrel with the priest, in consequence of which he found himself deprived both of tithes168 and congregation; and after receiving three or four Rockite letters, and a charge of slugs through his hat (of which he always talked as if being shot at was the most pleasant and amusing feature of Irish life), he repaired to England, and there, after trying to set up as popular preacher in London, declaiming at Exeter Hall, and writing for all the third-rate magazines, found himself incumbent169 of Lower Whitford. He worked there, as he said himself, ‘like a horse;’ spent his mornings in the schools, his afternoons in the cottages; preached four or five extempore sermons every week to overflowing170 congregations; took the lead, by virtue171 of the ‘gift of the gab,’ at all ‘religious’ meetings for ten miles round; and really did a great deal of good in his way. He had an unblushing candour about his own worldly ambition, with a tremendous brogue; and prided himself on exaggerating deliberately172 both of these excellences173.
‘The top of the morning to ye, Mr. Smith. Ye haven’t such a thing as a cegar about ye? I’ve been preaching to school-children till me throat’s as dry as the slave of a lime-burner’s coat.’
‘I am very sorry; but, really, I have left my case at home.’
‘Oh! ah! faix and I forgot. Ye mustn’t be smokin’ the nasty things going up to the castle. Och, Mr. Smith, but you’re the lucky man!’
‘I am much obliged to you for the compliment,’ said Lancelot, gruffly; ‘but really I don’t see how I deserve it.’
‘Desarve it! Sure luck’s all, and that’s your luck, and not your deserts at all. To have the handsomest girl in the county dying for love of ye’—(Panurgus had a happy knack174 of blurting175 out truths — when they were pleasant ones). ‘And she just the beautifulest creature that ever spilte shoe-leather, barring Lady Philandria Mountflunkey, of Castle Mountflunkey, Quane’s County, that shall be nameless.’
‘Upon my word, O’Blareaway, you seem to be better acquainted with my matters than I am. Don’t you think, on the whole, it might be better to mind your own business?’
‘Me own business! Poker176 o’ Moses! and ain’t it me own business? Haven’t ye spilte my tenderest hopes? And good luck to ye in that same, for ye’re as pretty a rider as ever kicked coping-stones out of a wall; and poor Paddy loves a sportsman by nature. Och! but ye’ve got a hand of trumps177 this time. Didn’t I mate the vicar the other day, and spake my mind to him?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Lancelot, with a strong expletive.
‘Faix, I told him he might as well Faugh a ballagh — make a rid road, and get out of that, with his bowings and his crossings, and his Popery made asy for small minds, for there was a gun a-field that would wipe his eye — maning yourself, ye Prathestant.’
‘All I can say is, that you had really better mind your own business, and I’ll mind my own.’
‘Och,’ said the good-natured Irishman, ‘and it’s you must mind my business, and I’ll mind yours; and that’s all fair and aqual. Ye’ve cut me out intirely at the Priory, ye Tory, and so ye’re bound to give me a lift somehow. Couldn’t ye look me out a fine fat widow, with an illigant little fortune? For what’s England made for except to find poor Paddy a wife and money? Ah, ye may laugh, but I’d buy me a chapel at the West-end: me talents are thrown away here intirely, wasting me swateness on the desert air, as Tom Moore says’ (Panurgus used to attribute all quotations178 whatsoever179 to Irish geniuses); ‘and I flatter meself I’m the boy to shute the Gospel to the aristocracy.’
Lancelot burst into a roar of laughter, and escaped over the next gate: but the Irishman’s coarse hints stuck by him as they were intended to do. ‘Dying for the love of me!’ He knew it was an impudent180 exaggeration, but, somehow, it gave him confidence; ‘there is no smoke,’ he thought, ‘without fire.’ And his heart beat high with new hopes, for which he laughed at himself all the while. It was just the cordial which he needed. That conversation determined181 the history of his life.
He met Argemone that morning in the library, as usual; but he soon found that she was not thinking of Homer. She was moody182 and abstracted; and he could not help at last saying —
‘I am afraid I and my classics are de trop this morning, Miss Lavington.’
‘Oh, no, no. Never that.’ She turned away her head. He fancied that it was to hide a tear.
Suddenly she rose, and turned to him with a clear, calm, gentle gaze.
‘Listen to me, Mr. Smith. We must part today, and for ever. This intimacy has gone on — too long, I am afraid, for your happiness. And now, like all pleasant things in this miserable world, it must cease. I cannot tell you why; but you will trust me. I thank you for it — I thank God for it. I have learnt things from it which I shall never forget. I have learnt, at least from it, to esteem and honour you. You have vast powers. Nothing, nothing, I believe, is too high for you to attempt and succeed. But we must part; and now, God be with you. Oh, that you would but believe that these glorious talents are His loan! That you would but be a true and loyal knight183 to him who said —“Learn of me, for I am meek184 and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls!”— Ay,’ she went on, more and more passionately185, for she felt that not she, but One mightier186 than herself was speaking through her, ‘then you might be great indeed. Then I might watch your name from afar, rising higher and higher daily in the ranks of God’s own heroes. I see it — and you have taught me to see it — that you are meant for a faith nobler and deeper than all doctrines187 and systems can give. You must become the philosopher, who can discover new truths — the artist who can embody128 them in new forms, while poor I— And that is another reason why we should part. — Hush188! hear me out. I must not be a clog189, to drag you down in your course. Take this, and farewell; and remember that you once had a friend called Argemone.’
She put into his hands a little Bible. He took it, and laid it down on the table.
For a minute he stood silent and rooted to the spot. Disappointment, shame, rage, hatred190, all boiled up madly within him. The bitterest insults rose to his lips —‘Flirt, cold-hearted pedant191, fanatic109!’ but they sank again unspoken, as he looked into the celestial32 azure192 of those eyes, calm and pure as a soft evening sky. A mighty struggle between good and evil shook his heart to the roots; and, for the first time in his life, his soul breathed out one real prayer, that God would help him now or never to play the man. And in a moment the darkness passed; a new spirit called out all the latent strength within him; and gently and proudly he answered her —
‘Yes, I will go. I have had mad dreams, conceited193 and insolent, and have met with my deserts. Brute194 and fool as I am, I have aspired195 even to you! And I have gained, in the sunshine of your condescension196, strength and purity. — Is not that enough for me? And now I will show you that I love you — by obeying you. You tell me to depart — I go for ever.’
He turned away. Why did she almost spring after him?
‘Lancelot! one word! Do not misunderstand me, as I know you will. You will think me so cold, heartless, fickle197. — Oh, you do not know — you never can know — how much I, too, have felt!’
He stopped, spell-bound. In an instant his conversation with the Irishman flashed up before him with new force and meaning. A thousand petty incidents, which he had driven contemptuously from his mind, returned as triumphant198 evidences; and, with an impetuous determination, he cried out —
‘I see — I see it all, Argemone! We love each other! You are mine, never to be parted!’
What was her womanhood, that it could stand against the energy of his manly199 will! The almost coarse simplicity200 of his words silenced her with a delicious violence. She could only bury her face in her hands and sob201 out —
‘Oh, Lancelot, Lancelot, whither are you forcing me?’
‘I am forcing you no whither. God, the Father of spirits, is leading you! You, who believe in Him, how dare you fight against Him?’
‘Lancelot, I cannot — I cannot listen to you — read that!’ And she handed him the vicar’s letter. He read it, tossed it on the carpet, and crushed it with his heel.
‘Wretched pedant! Can your intellect be deluded202 by such barefaced203 sophistries204? “God’s will,” forsooth! And if your mother’s opposition205 is not a sign that God’s will — if it mean anything except your own will, or that — that man’s — is against this mad project, and not for it, what sign would you have? So “celibacy is the highest state!” And why? Because “it is the safest and the easiest road to heaven?” A pretty reason, vicar! I should have thought that that was a sign of a lower state and not a higher. Noble spirits show their nobleness by daring the most difficult paths. And even if marriage was but one weed-field of temptations, as these miserable pedants206 say, who have either never tried it, or misused207 it to their own shame, it would be a greater deed to conquer its temptations than to flee from them in cowardly longings208 after ease and safety!’
She did not answer him, but kept her face buried in her hands.
‘Again, I say, Argemone, will you fight against Fate — Providence — God — call it what you will? Who made us meet at the chapel? Who made me, by my accident, a guest in your father’s house! Who put it into your heart to care for my poor soul? Who gave us this strange attraction towards each other, in spite of our unlikeness? Wonderful that the very chain of circumstances which you seem to fancy the offspring of chance or the devil, should have first taught me to believe that there is a God who guides us! Argemone! speak, tell me, if you will, to go for ever; but tell me first the truth — You love me!’
A strong shudder133 ran through her frame — the ice of artificial years cracked, and the clear stream of her woman’s nature welled up to the light, as pure as when she first lay on her mother’s bosom: she lifted up her eyes, and with one long look of passionate tenderness she faltered209 out —
‘I love you!’
He did not stir, but watched her with clasped hands, like one who in dreams finds himself in some fairy palace, and fears that a movement may break the spell.
‘Now, go,’ she said; ‘go, and let me collect my thoughts. All this has been too much for me. Do not look sad — you may come again tomorrow.’
She smiled and held out her hand. He caught it, covered it with kisses, and pressed it to his heart. She half drew it back, frightened. The sensation was new to her. Again the delicious feeling of being utterly in his power came over her, and she left her hand upon his heart, and blushed as she felt its passionate throbbings.
He turned to go — not as before. She followed with greedy eyes her new-found treasure; and as the door closed behind him, she felt as if Lancelot was the whole world, and there was nothing beside him, and wondered how a moment had made him all in all to her; and then she sank upon her knees, and folded her hands upon her bosom, and her prayers for him were like the prayers of a little child.
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1
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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bigotry
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| n.偏见，偏执，持偏见的行为[态度]等 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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calumny
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| n.诽谤，污蔑，中伤 | |
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vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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germinates
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| n.（使）发芽( germinate的名词复数 )v.（使）发芽( germinate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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glorifying
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| 赞美( glorify的现在分词 )； 颂扬； 美化； 使光荣 | |
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18
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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19
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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conceit
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| n.自负，自高自大 | |
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29
traitorous
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| adj. 叛国的, 不忠的, 背信弃义的 | |
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30
snare
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| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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31
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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32
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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celestially
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| adv.神地，神圣地 | |
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stainless
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| adj.无瑕疵的，不锈的 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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sage
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| n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的 | |
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abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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vileness
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| n.讨厌，卑劣 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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mowing
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| n.割草，一次收割量，牧草地v.刈，割( mow的现在分词 ) | |
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trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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throbs
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| 体内的跳动( throb的名词复数 ) | |
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defile
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| v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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odyssey
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| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
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quarried
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| v.从采石场采得( quarry的过去式和过去分词 )；从（书本等中）努力发掘（资料等）；在采石场采石 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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52
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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materialist
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| n. 唯物主义者 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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57
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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58
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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59
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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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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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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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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63
alpine
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| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
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64
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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furrowed
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| v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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71
miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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scathed
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| v.伤害，损害（尤指使之枯萎）( scathe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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fetters
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| n.脚镣( fetter的名词复数 )；束缚v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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82
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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83
bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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84
aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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85
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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86
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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87
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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89
contradictory
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| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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90
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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91
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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92
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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93
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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94
disdained
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| 鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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95
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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96
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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97
nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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98
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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99
nuns
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| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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100
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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101
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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102
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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103
piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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104
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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105
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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106
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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107
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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108
entreating
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的现在分词 ) | |
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109
fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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110
fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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111
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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112
esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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113
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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114
naively
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| adv. 天真地 | |
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115
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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116
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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117
pampering
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| v.纵容，宠，娇养( pamper的现在分词 ) | |
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118
pamper
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| v.纵容，过分关怀 | |
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119
confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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120
peremptorily
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| adv.紧急地，不容分说地，专横地 | |
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121
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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122
lauded
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| v.称赞，赞美( laud的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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123
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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124
benevolence
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| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
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125
temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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126
prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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127
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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128
embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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129
embodying
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| v.表现( embody的现在分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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130
surmises
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的第三人称单数 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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131
beckon
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| v.(以点头或打手势)向...示意，召唤 | |
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132
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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133
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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134
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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135
entice
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| v.诱骗，引诱，怂恿 | |
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136
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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137
enfranchisement
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| 选举权 | |
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138
celibacy
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| n.独身(主义) | |
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139
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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140
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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141
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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142
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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143
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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144
scribbling
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| n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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145
demolishing
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| v.摧毁( demolish的现在分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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146
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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147
buffeting
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| 振动 | |
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148
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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149
creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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150
chary
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| adj.谨慎的，细心的 | |
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151
concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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152
ineligible
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| adj.无资格的，不适当的 | |
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153
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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154
wrest
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| n.扭，拧，猛夺；v.夺取，猛扭，歪曲 | |
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155
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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156
bigoted
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| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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157
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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158
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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159
obliquity
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| n.倾斜度 | |
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160
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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161
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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162
superstitiously
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| 被邪教所支配 | |
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163
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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164
scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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165
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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166
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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167
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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168
tithes
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| n.（宗教捐税）什一税，什一的教区税，小部分( tithe的名词复数 ) | |
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169
incumbent
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| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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170
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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171
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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172
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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173
excellences
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| n.卓越( excellence的名词复数 )；（只用于所修饰的名词后）杰出的；卓越的；出类拔萃的 | |
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174
knack
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| n.诀窍，做事情的灵巧的，便利的方法 | |
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175
blurting
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的现在分词 ) | |
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176
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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177
trumps
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| abbr.trumpets 喇叭；小号；喇叭形状的东西；喇叭筒v.（牌戏）出王牌赢（一牌或一墩）( trump的过去式 )；吹号公告，吹号庆祝；吹喇叭；捏造 | |
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178
quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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179
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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180
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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181
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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182
moody
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| adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的 | |
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183
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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184
meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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185
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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186
mightier
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| adj. 强有力的，强大的，巨大的 adv. 很，极其 | |
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187
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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188
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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189
clog
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| vt.塞满，阻塞；n.[常pl.]木屐 | |
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190
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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191
pedant
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| n.迂儒；卖弄学问的人 | |
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192
azure
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| adj.天蓝色的，蔚蓝色的 | |
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193
conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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194
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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195
aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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196
condescension
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| n.自以为高人一等，贬低(别人) | |
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197
fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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198
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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199
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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200
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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201
sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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202
deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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203
barefaced
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| adj.厚颜无耻的，公然的 | |
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204
sophistries
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| n.诡辩术( sophistry的名词复数 )；（一次）诡辩 | |
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205
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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206
pedants
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| n.卖弄学问的人，学究，书呆子( pedant的名词复数 ) | |
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207
misused
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| v.使用…不当( misuse的过去式和过去分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用 | |
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208
longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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209
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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