such urgent irritated determination, she had driven him, she would, for life, have reaped a small fund of his Russian courage and indifference9.... It was with his impulse and interest, almost it seemed, actually in his person, that she drew up in front of the placard at the side of the strange low ecclesiastical looking porch. But as she read its contents, he left her, sped into forgetfulness by the swift course of her amazement10. She had come, leaving her room at exactly the right moment, directly, by appointment, to this spot. Glancing once more for perfect assurance, at the liberal invitation printed in large letters at the foot of the heavenly announcement, she went boldly into the porch.
At the top of the shallow flight of grey stone steps up which she passed almost directly from the ecclesiastical doorway11, a large black-draped figure, surmounted12 by the sweeping13 curves of an immense black hat voluminously swathed in a gauze veil of pale grey, stood bent14 towards a small woman standing on the step below her in dingy15 indoor black. The large outline, standing generously out below the broad low stone archway curving above the steps, against the further grey stone of what appeared to be part of a low ceiled corridor, was in extraordinary contrast to the graciously bending, surrendered attitude of the figure. Passing close to the group, Miriam caught a glimpse of large plump features, bold eyebrows16, and firm dark eyes. The whole face, imagined as unscreened, was rounded, simple and undistinguished; blurred17 by the veil, it swam, without edges, a misty18 full moon. Through the veil came a voice that thrilled her as she moved
on, led by a card bearing an arrowed instruction, down the grey stone corridor, with the desire for immediate19 audible mimicry20. The behaviour of the voice was a perfect confirmation21 of deliberate intentional22 blurring23 of the large face. The little scanty24 frugally25 upstanding woman who had appeared to be of the artisan class, was either a humorous brick, or a toady26, or of the old-fashioned respectful servant type, to stand it. The superfluous27 statement might, at least, even if the voice had become second nature, she might be thirty, have been delivered at an ordinary conversational28 pace. But to make the unimportant comment in the deliberately29 refined distressed30 ladylike voice, with pauses, as if every word were a precious gift .... She was waiting for some occasion, keeping her manner going, and the little woman had to stand out the performance.
On her way down the corridor she met a young man with a long neck above a low collar, walking like an undergraduate, with a rapid lope and a forward hen-like jerk of the head, but with kind religious looking eyes. Underneath31 his conforming manner and his English book and talk-found thoughts, he was acutely miserable32, but never alone long enough to find it out; never even long enough to feel his own impulses. Two girls came swiftly by, bare-headed, in reform dresses, talking eagerly in high-pitched out-turned cultured voices, their uncommunicating selves watchfully33 entrenched34 behind the polite Norman idiom. She carried on their manner of speech at lightning speed in her mind, watching its effect upon everything it handled, of damming up, shaping, excluding all but ready-made
thought and opinion. Just ahead was an arched doorway and a young man with a sheaf of pamphlets standing within it. “It may” she announced in character to an imaginary companion, “prove necessary to have some sort of conversational interchange with this individual.” Certainly it left one better prepared for the interview than saying Good Lord shall we have to say something to this creature? She got safely through the doorway, exchanging a slight bow with the young man as he provided her with a syllabus35, and entered a large lofty quietly-lit room, where a considerable audience sat facing a raised platform more brightly illuminated36, and from which they were confronted by a row of seated forms. She went down the central gangway, bold in her desire for a perfect hearing and slipped into a seat in the second row of chairs. The chairman was taking his place and in the dying down of conversation she heard a quiet flurry of draperies approaching with delicate apologetic rhythm up the gangway. It was the tall young woman. She passed, a veiled figure with bent head and floating scarf, along the little passage between the front row of the audience and the fern-edged platform, upon which she presently emerged, taking her place next to a lady who now rose and came forward, tall and black robed, and whose face, sharply pointing beneath the shadow of a plumy hat, had the expression of an eagle searching the distance with calm piercing eyes. In rousing ringing grievous tones she begged to be allowed to precede the chairman with an important announcement. Miriam inwardly groaned37 as the voice chid38
tragically39 on, demanding a realisation on the part of all, of the meaning for London of the promised arrival in its midst of a world-famed authority in Greek letters. She felt the audience behind her quelled40 into absolute stillness, and took angry refuge in the cover of her syllabus. “The Furthermore Settlement” she read, printed boldly at the head of the page. It was one of those missions; to bring culture amongst the London poor ..... “devoted young men from the Universities.” Those girls in the corridor, wrapped in their code, were doing “settlement work.” They did not look philanthropic. What they loved most was the building, the grey stone corridors and archways, and being away from home on a prolonged adventure, free to weave bright colours along the invisible edges of life. She could not imagine them ever becoming in the least like the elderly philanthropists on the platform. But they were not free. The place was a sort of monastery41 of culture. If they wore habits they would be free and deeply inspiring. But they went about dressed longingly43 in the colours of sunlit landscapes, and lived their social life with ideas. There was something monastic about the lofty hall, with its neutral tinted44 walls and high-placed windows. But the place was modern and well-ventilated, even sternly chilly45. Turning on her shoulder to examine the dutiful audience, she was startled by its effect of massed intellectuality. These people were certainly not the poor of the neighbourhood. By far the larger number were men, and wherever she looked she met faces from which she turned quickly away lest she
should smile her pleasure. Even those that were heavy with stoutness46 and beards had the same lit moving look of kindly47 adventurous48 thought. They were a picked gathering49; like the Royal Institution; but more glowing. She turned back to the platform in high hope amidst the outburst of applause greeting the retirement50 of the distressful51 lady and deepening to enthusiasm as there emerged timidly from behind one of the large platform screens a tall figure in evening dress, a great grown-up boy, with a large fresh face and helpless straight hanging arms and hands. He sat big and fixed52, like an idol53, whilst the chairman standing bowing over his table hurriedly remarked that an introduction was superfluous, and gazed at the audience with large moist blue eyes that seemed permanently54 open and expressionless and yet to pray for protection, or permission to retreat once more behind his screen. Miriam pitied him from the bottom of her heart and saw with relief when he rose that he produced a roll of papers for which a little one-legged ecclesiastical reading desk was conveniently waiting. He was going to read. But he placed his papers with large incapable55 fingers and she feared they would flutter to the ground, till he turned and took one fumbling56 expressionless step clear of the little desk and standing just as he was, his arms hanging once more heavy and helpless at his side, his eyes motionlessly fixed neither on the distance nor on any part of the audience, as if sightlessly focussing everything before him, began, without movement, or warning gesture, to speak. With the first sound of his voice, Miriam surrendered herself
to breathless listening. It sounded out, at conversational pitch, with a colourless serenity57 that instantly explained his bearing, revealing him beyond the region either of diffidence or temerity58. It was a voice speaking to no one, in a world emptied of everything that had gone before.
“The progress of philosophy” went the words, in letters of gold across the dark void “is by a series of systems; that of science by the constant addition of small facts to accumulated knowledge.” In the slight pause Miriam held back from the thoughts flying out in all directions round the glowing words, they would come again, if she could memorise59 the words from which they were born, coolly, registering the shape and length of the phrases and the leading terms. Before the voice began again she had read and re-read many times; driving back an exciting intruder trying, from the depths of her mind to engage her on the subject of the time-expanding swiftness of thought.
“A system” pursued the voice “very generally corrects the fallacy of the preceding system, and leans perhaps in the opposite direction.” She flushed warm beneath the pressure of her longing42 to remain cool...... “Thus the movements of philosophic60 thought may be compared to the efforts of a drunken man to reach his home.” The blue eyes remained unaltered, while the large fresh face expanded with a smiling radiance. He was a darling. “He reels against the wall to his right and gains an impetus61 which sends him staggering to the left and so on; his progress being a series of zigzags62. But in the end he gets home.
And we may hope that philosophy will do the same, though the road seems at times unnecessarily broad.”
He turned back to his papers, leaving his sentence on the air in an intense silence through which Miriam felt the eager expectancy63 of the audience flow and hang waiting, gathered towards the fresh centre whence, unless he suddenly vanished, would come, through the perfect medium of the unobstructive voice, his utmost presentation of reasons for the tantalising hope.
At the end of the lecture she sat hurriedly sorting and re-sorting what she had gleaned64; aware that her attention had again and again wandered off with single statements that had appealed to her, longing to communicate with other members of the audience in the hope of filling up the gaps. Perhaps the questions would bring back some of the things she had missed. But no one seemed to have anything to ask. The relaxation65 of the hearty66 and prolonged applause, had given way to the sort of silence that falls in a room after vociferous67 greetings, when the anticipated occasion vanishes and the gathered friends become suddenly unrecognisably small and dense68. She looked at the woman at her side and caught a swift responsive glance that shocked her, clear blue and white and remote in limpid69 freshness though it was, with its chill understanding familiarity. Something had gone irrevocably from the evening and from herself. The strange woman was exactly like somebody .... a disguise of somebody. Shattering the silence came a voice from the back of the hall. “If
the lecturer thinks, and seems to deprecate the fact, that theology deals with metaphysical problems in an unmetaphysical way, that is, from the point of view of metaphysic, in an unscientific way ....” compared to Dr. McHibbert’s his voice was like the voice of an intoxicated70 man arguing to himself in a railway carriage ..... “may we not say that when metaphysic takes upon itself to criticise71 the validity of scientific conceptions, it does so, from the point of view of science in an unscientific way?”
This Miriam felt, was terribly unanswerable. But the hushed platform was alive with the standing figure almost before the muffling74 of the last emphatic75 word told that the assailant had re-assumed his seat.
“I think I have said” his face beaming with the repressed radiance of an invading smile, was lifted towards the audience, but the blue eyes modestly addressed the frill of green along the platform edge, “that metaphysic, with respect to some of the conceptions of science, while admitting that they have their uses for practical purposes, denies that they are exactly true. Theology does not deny the problems of metaphysic, but answers them in a way metaphysic cannot accept.”
“In that case Theology” began a rich, reverberating76 clerical voice .....
“This is veggy boring” said the woman.
He was going to claim, thought Miriam, noting the evidence of foreign intelligence in her neighbour’s pronunciation, that religion, like metaphysic and science, had a right to its premises77 and denied that metaphysic was adequate for the study
of the ultimate nature of reality, exactly as metaphysic denied that science was adequate.
“Yes, isn’t it” she murmured, a little late, through the deep caressing78 thunder of the clerical voice, wondering how far she had admitted her willingness to be at the disposal of anyone who found, in these tremendous onslaughts, nothing but irrelevance79.
“If one could peacefully fall asleep until the summing up.”
She spoke80 out quite clearly, moving so that she was half turned towards Miriam, and completely exposed to her, as she sat with an elbow on the back of her chair and her knees comfortably crossed, in all her slender grey-clad length, still set towards the centre of the platform. Miriam unwillingly81 searched her curious effect of making in the atmosphere about her, a cold, delicate, blue and white glare. She had seemed, all the evening, a well-dressed presence. But her little oval hat, entirely83 covered with a much washed piece of cream coloured lace and set back from her forehead at the angle of an old-fashioned flat lace cap, had not been bought at a shop, and the light grey garment so delicate in tone and expression, open at the neck, where creamy lace continued the effect of the hat, was nothing but a cheap rain-cloak. Either she was poor, and triumphing over her poverty with a laborious84 depressing ingenuity85, or she was one of those people who deliberately do everything cheaply. There was something faintly horrible, Miriam felt, about the narrowness of her escape from dowdiness86 to distinction.... Washable lace was the simplest
possible solution of the London hat problem. No untravelled Englishwoman would have thought of it...... Behind the serenity of her smooth white brow, behind her cold wide clearly ringed sea-blue eyes, was the dominant87 intelligence of it all, the secret of the strange atmosphere, that enveloped88 her whole effect; so strong and secure that it infected her words and movements with a faint robust89 delicate levity90. In most women the sum of the tangible91 items would have produced the eye-wearying, eye-estranging pathos92 of the spectacle of patience fighting a lost battle, supplied so numerously all over London by women who were no longer young; or at least a consciously resigned cheerfulness. But she sat there with the enviable cool clear radiant eyes of a child that is held still and unsmiling by the deep entrancement of its mirth.
The chairman had risen and suddenly quelled the vast voice in the midst of its rising tide of tone, with the reminder93 that there would be opportunity for discussion a little later. A question rang out, short and sharp, exploding, as if released automatically by the renewal94 of stillness, so abruptly95 that Miriam missed its significance. The woman laughed instantly, a little clear tinkling96 gleeful sound, hesitatingly supported here and there amongst the forward rows of chairs by stirrings and small sounds of amusement. Miriam glowed with shame. It had been a common voice; perhaps some lonely uninstructed man, struggling with problems that were as terrible to him as to anyone; in the end desperately97 getting round them, by logical somersaults,
so funny, that these habitually98 cultured minds could see only the absurdity99. Her heart beat with gratitude100 as the lecturer, with gentle respectful gravity, paraphrased101 at some length an extract from the earlier part of his address. She was once more recalled by the voice at her side. Turning she found the unchanged face still set towards the platform. She answered the question in a low toneless voice that yet sounded more disturbing than the easy smooth conversational tone of her neighbour. She talked on, questioning and commenting, in neat inclusive phrases, and Miriam, turned towards her, reading the history of the duel102 of audience and lecturer in the flickerings across her face, of amusement or of scorn, responded freely, delighting in a converse103 that was more wonderful, with its background of cosmic discussion, than even the untrammelled exchange of confidences with a stranger on a bus. Presently there was a complete stillness.
“If there are no more questions” said the chairman, rising.
“I should just like” broke in a ringing cheerful voice quite near at hand, “to ask Dr. McHibbert why if he considers that metaphysic is of no use in a man’s life, he finds it worth while, to pursue such a fruitless study?”
“Don’t answer” said the woman in clear penetrating104 tones.
“Don’t answer; don’t answer,” repeated in the immediate neighbourhood two or three masculine voices. The lecturer, sitting bent forward, his friendly open brow yielded up to the invading
audience, his big hands clasped capaciously between his knees, sent a blue glance swiftly in her direction, hesitated a moment, and then sat silent, smiling broadly down at his clasped hands.
“Isn’t he a perfect darling,” murmured Miriam while the chairman declared the lecture open for discussion and she gathered herself together for close attention.
“There will be nothing worth heahghing till he sums up” said her companion and went on to ask her if she meant to attend the next lecture. Miriam perceived that unless she chose to escape forcibly, her companion had her in a close net of conversation. She glanced and saw that her face was already that of a familiar associate, no longer spurring her to trace to its source the strange impression that at first it had given her of being a forgotten face, whose sudden return, unrecognisably disguised, and yet so recognisable, filled her with a remembered sentiment of dislike.
“Rather” she said and then, watching the opening prospect105 of the long series of speeches, and protected by the monotonous106 booming of a pessimistic male voice “I’m so awfully108 relieved to find that science is only half true. But I can’t see why he says that metaphysic is no practical use. It would make all the difference every moment, to know for certain that mind is more real than matter.”
“Pahghfaitement.”
Dr. McHibbert’s voice interrupted her, damming up the urgent flow of communications. She watched him, listening without attention.
“He’s like a marvellously intelligent bolster” she said tonelessly “but with a heart and a soul. He certainly has a soul.”
Flattered by a soft chuckle109 of amusement, she added in a low murmuring man’s voice “the objectors are like candle-lit turnip110 ghosts,” and was rewarded by the first direct glance from the blue eyes, smiling, assuring her that she was acceptable. The ghost of the remembered face was laid. Whoever it was, if in reality it were to reappear in her life, she would be able to overcome her aversion by bold flirtation111.
When the lecturer at last rose to reply, the guiding phrases of his discourse112 were the worn familiar keys of a past experience. Used for the second time at the doors of the chambers113 they had opened within the background of life, they grated, hesitating, and the heavy sound threw the bright spaces into shadow and spread a film of doubt over Miriam’s eagerness to escape and share her illumination with people waiting outside in the surrounding gloom. The light would return and remain for her. But it was something accomplished114 unaccountably. The mere115 reproduction of the magic phrases, even when after solitary116 peaceful contemplation she should have reassembled them in their right relations and their marvellously advancing sequence, would not carry her hearers along the road she had travelled. The something that held them together, lively and enlivening, was incommunicable.
“Don’t huggy away. The audience will take a considerable time to disperse117.”
Miriam desired only to escape into the night.
Just outside, in the darkness, was the balm that would disperse her disquietude. The grey-clad woman held it suspended in the hot room, piling mountainously up. But they sat enclosed, a closely locked party of two. Conversation was going on all over the room. This woman with her little deprecating frown at the idea of immediate departure, had the secret of the congregational aspect of audiences. Miriam sat still, passively surrendering to the forcible initiation118 into the new role of lingerer, to the extent of floundering through absent-minded responses.
“What?” she said suddenly, turning full round. Something had thrilled upon the air about her, bringing the whole evening to a head.
“Haldane’s Pathway to Reality” repeated the woman as their eyes met. Miriam was held by the intense radiance of the blue eyes. Light, strangely cool and pure, flowed from the still face. She was beautiful, with a curious impersonal119 glowless beauty. The light that came from her was the light of something she saw, habitually.
“But I ought not to recommend you to read. You ought to spend all your free time in the open air. Moreover, it’s very stiff reading.”
Miriam rose, beleaguered120 and flinching121. How did people find out about books? Where did they get them from? This woman could not afford to buy big expensive volumes...... Why did her quick mind assume that the difficulty of the book would be a barrier, and not see that it was the one book she was waiting for, even if it were the stiffest and dryest in the world?...... But the title
was unforgettable; one day she would come across the book somewhere and get at its meaning in her own way.
“Well; we may meet next week, if we are both early; I shall be early.” She rose enlivening her grey cloak with the swift grace of her movements and together they proceeded down the rapidly emptying room.
“My name is Lucie Duclaux.”
The shock of this unexpected advance arrested Miriam’s rapid flight towards the harbour of solitude122. She smiled a formal acknowledgment, unable and entirely unwilling82 to identify herself with a name. Her companion, remaining close in her neighbourhood as they threaded their way amongst talking groups along the corridor, said nothing more, and when they reached the doorway Miriam’s determination to be free, kept her blind and dumb. She was aware of an exclamation123 about the rain. That was enough. She would not risk a parting intimate enough to suggest another meeting, with anyone who at the sight of rain, belaboured the air and the people about her, with an exclamation that was, however gracious and elegant, a deliberate assault, condemning124 her moreover of the possession of two voices...... Gathering up her Lucie Duclaux cloak, the woman bowed swiftly and disappeared into the night.
The girls had understood that the evening had been a vital experience. But they had sat far away, seeming to be more than ever enclosed in their attitude of tolerant amusement at her doings; more than ever supporting each other in a manner that
told, with regard to herself, of some final unanimous conclusion reached and decision taken, after much discussion, once for all. In the old days they would have thought nothing of her dropping in at eleven o’clock at night, with no reason but that of just dropping in. But now, their armoury of detached expectancy demanded always that she should supply some pretext125. To-night, feeling that the pretext was theirs, everyone’s, news too pressing to wait, she had rushed in unprepared, with something of her old certainty of welcome. It was so simple. It must be important to Jan that what Hegel meant was only just beginning to be understood. If Jan’s acceptance of Haeckel made her sad, here was what she wanted; even though McHibbert said that we have no right to believe a theory because we could not be happy unless it were true...... All the same a theory that makes you miserable can’t be altogether true ...... Miserable; not sorry. Everything depends upon the kind of man who sets up the theory ..... Pessimists126 can find as good reasons as optimists127 ..... but if the optimist128 is cheerful because he is healthy and the pessimist107 gloomy because ... everything is a matter of temperament129. Neither of them sees that the fact of there being anything anywhere is more wonderful than any theory about the fact ...... making optimists and pessimists look exactly alike ...... then why was philosophy so fascinating?
“You will lose your colour, my child, and get protuberances on your brow.”
“What then?”
St. Pancras clock struck midnight as she reached
home. The house was in darkness. She went noiselessly up the first two flights and forward, welcomed, towards the blue glimmer130 of street lamps showing through the open drawing-room door. It was long since she had seen the room empty. His absence had restored it to her in its old shadowy character; deep black shadows, and spaces of faint blue light that came in through the lace curtains, painting their patterned mesh131 on the sheen of the opposite walls. The old familiar presence was there in the hush73 of the night, dissolving the echoes of the day and promising132, if she stayed long enough within it, the emergence133 of to-morrow, a picture, with long perspectives, seen suddenly in the distance, alone upon a bare wall. She stood still, moving rapidly into the neutral zone between the two days, further and further into the spaces of the darkness, until everything disappeared, and all days were far-off strident irrelevances, for ever unable to come between her and the sound of the stillness and its touch, a cool breath, passing through her unimpeded.
She could not remember whether she had first seen him rise or heard the deep tones coming out of the velvety134 darkness.
“No, you did not startle me. I’ve been to a lecture,” she said sinking in a sleep-like stupor135 into a chair drawn136 up beyond the light of the window, opposite his own, across which there struck a shaft137 of light falling, now that he was again seated, only on his face. Miriam gazed at him from within the sheltering darkness, fumbling sleepily for the way back to some lucid138 recovery of the event of her evening.
“Ah. It is a pity I could not be there.” His words broke into the stillness, an immensity of communication, thrown forward through their unrestricted sitting, in the darkness, where, to bridge, before to-morrow, the gap made by his evening’s absence, he had waited for her. She sat silent, her days once more wound closely about her, an endless hospitable139 chain.
“Tell me of this lecture.”
“Philosophy.”
“Tsa. It is indeed a pity.”
“It is a series” ... are you sitting there already involved in engagements ... cut off; changed ...
“Excellent. I shall most certainly come.” He was looking freely ahead. His evening had not interested him .... he had gone and come back, his horizons unenlarged .... but not seeing the impression he had made on those people; the steps they would take.
“It would be splendid for you. The lecturer’s English wonderful. The way the close thought made his sentences, fascinated me so much, that I often missed the meaning in listening to the rhythm; like a fugue.” Aren’t you glad you’ve enlarged your horizons? Don’t you know what people are ... what you, a person, are to people? Are you a person? In a blankness, life streamed up in spirals, vanishing, leaving nothing ....
“That is not bad. Ah I should not have paid this visit. It was also in some respects most painful to me.” Poor little man, poor little lonely man white-faced and sensitive, in a world without individuals; grown and formed and wise without
realising an individual; never to realise. Audible within the darkness was a singing, hovering140 on spaces of warm rosy141 light.
“You must not regret your visit.”
“Regret no; it was much as I anticipated. But it is disheartening, this actual witnessing.” They were disposed of in some way; in one piece; he would have a formula.
“What are they like?”
“Quite as I expected; good simple people, kind and hospitable. I have been the whole evening there. Ah but it is sad for me this first meeting with English Jews.”
“Perhaps you can make Zionists of them.”
“That is absolutely impossible.”
“Did you talk to them about Zionism?”
“It is useless to talk to these people whose first pride is that they are British.”
“But they’re not.”
“You should tell them so. They will tell you they are British of the Jewish persuasion142. Ah it has revolted me to hear them talk of this war, the British Empire, and the subject races.”
“I know; disgusting; but very British. But the British Empire has done a good deal for the Jews and I suppose the Jews feel loyal.”
“That is true. But what they do not see is that they are not, and never can be, British; that the British do not accept them as such.”
“That’s true I know; the general attitude; but there are no disabilities. The Jews are free in England.”
“They are free; to the honour of England in all
history. But they are nevertheless Jews and not Englishmen. Those Jews who deny, or try to ignore this have ceased to be Jews without becoming Englishmen. The toleration for Jews, moreover, will last only so long as the English remain in ignorance of the immense and increasing power and influence of the Jew in this country. Once that is generally recognised, even England will have its antisemitic movement.”
“Never. England can assimilate anything. Look at the races that have been built into us in the past.”
“No nation can assimilate the Jew.”
“What about inter-marriages?”
“That is the minority.”
“If it was right to make a refuge for the Jews here it is still right and England will never regret it.”
“Believe me it is not so simple. Remember that British Jewry is perpetually and increasingly reinforced by immigration from those countries where Jews are segregated143 and ever more terribly persecuted144. At present there is England, both for the Jewish speculator and the refugee pauper145. But for those who look at facts, the end of this possibility is in sight. The time for the closing of this last door is approaching.”
“I don’t believe England will ever do it. How can they? Where will the Jews go? It’s impossible to think of. It will be the end of England if we begin that sort of thing.”
“It may be the beginning of Jewish nationality. Ah at least this visit has reawakened all the Zionist in me.”
“It is a glorious idea.” His evening had been eventful; sending him back to the freshness of the days at Basel. It was then, she thought, at the moment he was bathed in the unceasing beauty of the surroundings, and immersed within it, in inextinguishable association with the students of the photographs, poised147 blissfully irresponsible in a permanent boundless148 beguilement149, himself the most untouched of all, the most smoothly150 rounded, and elastically151 surrendered with his deep-singing, child-like confident face, that he had been touched and shaped and sent forth; his future set towards a single separate thing, the narrowest, strangest, most unknown of movements, far away from the wide European life that had flowed through his mind.
“It is a dream, far-off. In England hardly even that.” There was a blankness before him. Unconscious of his youth, and his radiating charm, distilled152 from the modern world; Frenchman, Russian, philosophical153 German-brained, he sat there white-faced, an old old Jew, immeasurably old, cut off, alone with his conviction, facing the blank spaces of the future. Why could he not be content to be a European? She swayed, dragging at the knot. In his deeply saturated154 intelligence there still was a balance on the side from which he had declared to his father, that he was first a man; then a Jew. By the accidents of living, this might be cherished. The voices of the night cried out against the treachery. She glanced remorsefully155 across at him and recognised with a sharp pang156 of pity, in his own eyes, the well-known eyes wide open towards the darkness where she sat invisible, the look he had
described ... wehmütig; in spite of his sheltered happy prosperous youth it was there; he belonged to those millions whose sufferings he had revealed to her, a shadow lying for ever across the bright unseeing confidence of Europe, hopeless. And now, at this moment, standing out from their midst the strange beautiful Old Testament157 figure in modern clothes; the fine beautifully moulded Hebrew head, so like his own.....
“But it is extraordinary; that just when everything is at its worst, this idea should have arisen...... It’s all very well for people to laugh at Micawber.”
“Who is this man?”
“The man who is always waiting for something to turn up. Things do turn up, exactly at the right moment. It doesn’t mean fatalism. I don’t believe in laisser-aller as a principle; but there is something in things, something the people who make plans and think they are thinking out everything in advance, don’t know; their oblivion of it, while they go busily on knowing exactly what they are going to do and why, even at picnics, is a terrible thing. And somehow they always fail.”
“They do not by any means always fail. In all concerted action there must be a plan. Herzl is certainly a man with a plan.”
“Yes but it’s different; his idea is his plan. It isn’t clever. And now that it is here it seems so simple. Why was it never put forward before?”
“The greatest ideas are always simple; though not in their resultants. This dream however, has always been present with Jews.”
“Of course. The Zionist Movement, coming now, when it is most wanted, is not altogether Herzl. It’s that strange thing, the thing that makes you stare, in history. A sort of shape ......”
“It is the collective pressure of life; an unseen movement. But if you feel this what now becomes of your individualism? Eh?” He chuckled158 his delight .... passing so easily and leisurely159 to personal things.
“Oh the shape doesn’t affect the individual, in himself. There’s something behind all those outside things that goes on independently of them, something much more wonderful.”
“You are wrong. What you call the shape, affects most profoundly every individual in spite of himself.”
“But he must be an individual to be affected160 at all, and no two people are affected in the same way ...... after this evening I’m more of an individualist than before. It is relief to know that science is a smaller kind of truth than philosophy. The real difficulty is not between science and religion at all, but between religion and philosophy. Philosophy seems to think science assumes too much to begin with and can never get any further than usefulness.”
“Science can afford to smile at this.”
“And that religion is philosophically161 unsound, though modern religious controversy162 is metaphysical.”
“All controversy depends from differences in estimation of term significations.”
“That’s why arguments are so maddening; even
small discussions; people go rushing on, getting angrier and angrier, talking about quite different things, especially men, because they never want to get at the truth, only to score a point.”
“You are unjust; many men put truth before any other consideration whatsoever163. It is not only unjust, it is most bad for you to hold this cynical164 estimation.”
“Well, men arguing always look like that to women. That’s why women always go off at a tangent; because they reply not to what men say but to what they mean, which is to score a point, which anybody can do, with practice, and while they hold on to the point they mean to score, they are revealed, under all sorts of circumstances, all sorts of things about them are as plain as a pike-staff, to a woman, and the results of these things; so that she suddenly finds herself saying something that sounds quite irrelevant165, but isn’t.”
“Nevertheless there is honourable166 controversy, and most fruitful.”
“There are people here and there with open minds. Very few.”
“The point is not the few, but that they are.”
“The few just men, who save the city.”
“Exactly.”
“But even existence is not quite certain.”
“What is this?”
“Descartes said, my existence is certain; that is a fallacy.”
“If this is a fallacy for metaphysic, so much the worse for metaphysic.”
“That is argumentum ad hominem.”
“I am not afraid of it.”
“But what can you put in place of metaphysic?”
“Life is larger.”
“I know. I know. I know. Something exists. Metaphysic admits that. I nearly shouted when Dr. McHibbert said that. It’s enough. It answers everything. Even to have seen it for a moment is enough. The first time I thought of it I nearly died of joy. Descartes should have said “I am aware that there is something, therefore I am.” If I am, other people are; but that does not seem to matter. That is their own affair.”
“Beware of solipsism.”
“I don’t care what it is called. It is certainty. You must begin with the individual. There we are again.” There was an end to the conversation that could not be shared. The words of it already formed, intangibly, waited, ready to disappear, until she should be alone and could read them on a clear background. If she stayed they would disappear irrevocably. She rose, bidding him a hurried good-night, suddenly aware of the busily sleeping household, friendly guardian167 of this wide leisurely night-life. He too was aware and grateful, picking his way cautiously through the shadows of the large room, sheltered from his loneliness, invisibly enclosed by the waiting incommunicable statement that yet left him, accusing him of wilful168 blindness, so cruelly outside.
“Materialism169” scribbled170 Miriam eagerly “has the recommendation of being a Monism, and therefore a more perfect explanation of the universe than
a Dualism can be...... And Matter forms one great whole, persisting through many ages. Mind appears in the form of separate individuals, isolated171 from each other by Matter, and each ceasing, so far as observation goes, after a very few years. Also the changes which we can observe Mind to make in Matter are comparatively insignificant172, while a very slight change in Matter will either destroy mind, or, at least, remove it from the only circumstances in which we can observe its existence. All these characteristics make matter appear much more powerful and important than mind.”
“I consider this a very strong reasoning” muttered Mr. Shatov.
“Ssh. Wait.” He was sitting intent, with an awakened146 youthful student’s face, meeting, through her agency, in England, a first-class intelligence. He would hear the beautiful building up, strophe and antistrophe, of the apparently173 unassailable argument, the pause, and then, in the same shapely cadences174, its complete destruction, for ever, the pleasant face smiling at the audience above the ruins, like a child who has just shattered a castle of bricks.
“Idealism was weakened by being supposed to be bound up with certain theological doctrines175 which became discredited176. All these things account for the great strength of materialism some years ago. There has been a reaction against this, but the extent of the reaction has been exaggerated.”
“Quite so.”
“Wait, wait.”
“It still remains177 the belief to which most people
tend on first leaving an unreflecting position. And many remain there. Science is a large element in our lives now, and if we try to make science serve as metaphysic, we get materialism. Nor is it to be wished—even by idealists—that materialism should become too weak. For idealism is seldom really vigorous except in those who have had a serious struggle with materialism...... It would be very difficult to disprove materialism, if we once accepted the reality of matter as a thing in itself. But, as we saw when considering dualism, such a reality of matter is untenable. And this conclusion is obviously more fatal to materialism than it was to dualism. And again, if materialism is true, all our thoughts are produced by purely178 material antecedents. These are quite blind, and are just as likely to produce falsehood as truth. We have thus no reason for believing any of our conclusions—including the truth of materialism, which is therefore a self-contradictory hypothesis.”
“I find this too easily stated.”
Then God is proved .....
“You weren’t here before. Philosophy is not difficult. It is common sense systematised and clarified.” .... wayfaring179 men, though fools, shall not err72 therein. It is not what people think but what they know. Thought is words. Philosophy will never find words to express life; the philosopher is the same as the criminal?
“He seems to say spirit when he means life.”
“What is life?”
“Moreover presentationism is incompatible180 with the truth of general propositions—and therefore
with itself, since it can only be expressed by a general proposition. And closer analysis shows that it is incompatible even with particular propositions, since these involve both the union of two terms and the use of general ideas.” People know this faintly when they say things; not why; but faintly everyone knows that nothing can be said. Then why listen any more? Because if you know, exactly, that nothing can be said and the expert reasons for it, you know for certain in times of weakness, how much there is that might be expressed if there were any way of expressing it ...... But there was no need to listen any more since God was proved by the impossibility of his absence, like an invisible star. No one seemed at all disturbed; the lecturer least of all. Perhaps he felt that the effects of real realisation would be so tremendous that he could not face them. The thought of no God made life simply silly. The thought of God made it embarrassing. If a hand suddenly appeared writing on the wall, what would he do? He would blush; standing there as a competitor, fighting for his theories, amongst the theories of other men. Yet if there were no philosophers, if the world were imagined without philosophy, there would be nothing but theology, getting more and more superstitious181.
Everybody was so calm. The calmness of insanity182. Nobody quite all there. Yet intelligent. What were they all thinking about, wreathed in films of intelligent insanity; watching the performance in the intervals183 of lives filled with words that meant nothing ...... breath was more than words;
the fact of breathing ... but everyone was in such a hurry.
“I would ask” ... one horrified184 glance revealed his profile quivering as he hesitated. A louder, confident, dictatorial185 English voice had rung out simultaneously186 from the other side of the hall. He would have to sit down, shaken by his brave attempt. But to the whole evening, the deep gentle tones had been added, welling through and beyond the Englishman’s strident, neat proclamation, and containing, surely everyone must hear it, so much of the answer to the essential question. The chairman hesitated, turned decisively and the other man sat down.
“What the lecturer makes of the psycho-physical parallelism?”
He drove home his question on a note of reproachful expostulation and sat down drawn together, with bent head and eye downcast, but listening intently with his serenely187 singing child’s brow. Miriam was instantly sorry that his words had got through, their naked definiteness changing the eloquent188 tone, sharpening it to a weapon, a borrowed weapon.
“That’s it” she breathed, hoping the lecturer’s answer would throw some light on the meaning of the fascinating phrase, floating before her, fresh from far-off philosophical battle-fields, bright from centuries of contemplation, flashing out now, to-day, in Europe triumphantly189, in desperate encounters. The lecturer was on his feet, gleaming towards their centre of the audience his recognition of the clean thrust.
“The correlation190 between physical and mental gives an empirical support to materialism.” That couldn’t be spirited away. The scientists swore there was no break; so convincingly; perhaps they would yet win and prove it. “But it is necessary to distinguish between metaphysic and psychology191. Psychology, like physical science, is to be put to the score of our knowledge of matter.”
“In which he doesn’t believe” scoffed192 Miriam, distractedly poised between Mr. Shatov’s drama and the prospect opening within her mind.
“I find this a most arbitrary statement.”
“Yes, rather” murmured Miriam emphatically, and waited for a moment as if travelling with him along his line of thought. But he was recovering, had recovered, did not seem to be dwelling193 or moving in any relation to what he had said, appeared to be disinterestedly194 listening to the next question.
“Besides” she said, “the empirical method is a most important method, and jolly” .....
“Poor chap; what a stupidity is this question.” Miriam smiled solicitously195, but she had travelled back enraptured196 across nine years to the day, now only yesterday, of her first meeting with her newly recovered word. Jevons. From the first the sienna brown volume had been wonderful, the only one of the English books that had any connection with life; and that day, Sunday afternoon prep in the dining-room, with the laburnum and pink may outside the window changing as she read from a tantalising reproach to a vivid encirclement of her being by all the spring scenes she had lived through,
coming and going, the sight and scent197 and shimmering198 movement of them, as if she moved, bodiless and expanded, about in their midst. Something about the singing, lifting word appearing suddenly on the page, even before she had grasped its meaning, intensified199 the relation to life of the little hard motionless book, leaving it, when she had read on, centred round the one statement; the rest remaining in shadow, interesting but in some strange way ill-gotten.
The recovery of the forgotten word at the centre of “the philosophical problems of the present day” cast a fresh glow of reality across her schooldays. The efforts she had so blindly made, so indolently and prodigally200 sacrificing her chances of success in the last examination, to the few things that had made the world shine about her, had been in some way right, with a shapeliness and fruitfulness of their own. Her struggles with Jevons had been bread cast upon the waters ...... how differently the word now fell into her mind, with “intuition” happily at home there to keep it company. If materialism could be supported empirically, there was something in it, something in matter that had not yet been found out...... Meantime philosophy proved God. And Hegel had not brushed away the landscape. There was God and the landscape.
“Materialism isn’t dead yet” she heard herself say recklessly.
“More. Chemistry will yet carry us further than this kind of metaphysical surmising201.”
Taking part, even being with someone who took
part in the proceedings202, altered them. Some hidden chain of evidence was broken. Things no longer stood quietly in the air for acceptance or rejection203. The memory of the evening would be a memory of social life, isolated revelations of personality.
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1
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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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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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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12
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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13
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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14
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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15
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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17
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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18
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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19
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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mimicry
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| n.（生物）拟态，模仿 | |
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confirmation
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| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
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22
intentional
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| adj.故意的，有意（识）的 | |
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blurring
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| n.模糊，斑点甚多，（图像的）混乱v.（使）变模糊( blur的现在分词 )；（使）难以区分 | |
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24
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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25
frugally
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| adv. 节约地, 节省地 | |
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26
toady
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| v.奉承；n.谄媚者，马屁精 | |
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27
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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conversational
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| adj.对话的，会话的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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31
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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32
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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watchfully
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| 警惕地，留心地 | |
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34
entrenched
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| adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯) | |
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35
syllabus
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| n.教学大纲，课程大纲 | |
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36
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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37
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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38
chid
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| v.责骂，责备( chide的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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40
quelled
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| v.（用武力）制止，结束，镇压( quell的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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42
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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43
longingly
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| adv. 渴望地 热望地 | |
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44
tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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45
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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stoutness
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| 坚固，刚毅 | |
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47
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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48
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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49
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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50
retirement
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| n.退休，退职 | |
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51
distressful
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| adj.苦难重重的，不幸的，使苦恼的 | |
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52
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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53
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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54
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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55
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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56
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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57
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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58
temerity
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| n.鲁莽，冒失 | |
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59
memorise
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| vt.记住，熟记 | |
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60
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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61
impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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62
zigzags
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| n.锯齿形的线条、小径等( zigzag的名词复数 )v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的第三人称单数 ) | |
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63
expectancy
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| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
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64
gleaned
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| v.一点点地收集（资料、事实）( glean的过去式和过去分词 )；（收割后）拾穗 | |
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65
relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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66
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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67
vociferous
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| adj.喧哗的，大叫大嚷的 | |
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68
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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limpid
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| adj.清澈的，透明的 | |
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70
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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71
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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72
err
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| vi.犯错误，出差错 | |
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73
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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74
muffling
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| v.压抑，捂住( muffle的现在分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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75
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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76
reverberating
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| 回响，回荡( reverberate的现在分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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77
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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79
irrelevance
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| n.无关紧要；不相关；不相关的事物 | |
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80
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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81
unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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82
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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83
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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84
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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85
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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86
dowdiness
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87
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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88
enveloped
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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89
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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90
levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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91
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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92
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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93
reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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94
renewal
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| adj.(契约)延期，续订，更新，复活，重来 | |
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95
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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96
tinkling
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| n.丁当作响声 | |
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97
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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98
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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99
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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100
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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101
paraphrased
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| v.释义，意译( paraphrase的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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102
duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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103
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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104
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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105
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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106
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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107
pessimist
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| n.悲观者；悲观主义者；厌世 | |
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108
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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109
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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110
turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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111
flirtation
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| n.调情，调戏，挑逗 | |
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112
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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113
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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114
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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115
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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116
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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117
disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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118
initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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119
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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120
beleaguered
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| adj.受到围困[围攻]的；包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词)；困扰；骚扰 | |
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121
flinching
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的现在分词 ) | |
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122
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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123
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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124
condemning
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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125
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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126
pessimists
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| n.悲观主义者( pessimist的名词复数 ) | |
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127
optimists
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| n.乐观主义者( optimist的名词复数 ) | |
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128
optimist
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| n.乐观的人，乐观主义者 | |
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129
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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130
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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131
mesh
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| n.网孔，网丝，陷阱；vt.以网捕捉，啮合，匹配；vi.适合； [计算机]网络 | |
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132
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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133
emergence
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| n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体 | |
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134
velvety
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| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
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135
stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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136
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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137
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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138
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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139
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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140
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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141
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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142
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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143
segregated
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| 分开的； 被隔离的 | |
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144
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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145
pauper
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| n.贫民，被救济者，穷人 | |
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146
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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147
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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148
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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149
beguilement
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| n.欺骗，散心，欺瞒 | |
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150
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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151
elastically
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| adv.有弹性地，伸缩自如地 | |
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152
distilled
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| adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华 | |
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153
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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154
saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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155
remorsefully
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| adv.极为懊悔地 | |
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156
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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157
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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158
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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159
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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160
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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161
philosophically
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| adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地 | |
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162
controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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163
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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164
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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165
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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166
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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167
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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168
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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169
materialism
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| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
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170
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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171
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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172
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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173
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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174
cadences
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| n.（声音的）抑扬顿挫( cadence的名词复数 )；节奏；韵律；调子 | |
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175
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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176
discredited
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| 不足信的，不名誉的 | |
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177
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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178
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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179
wayfaring
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| adj.旅行的n.徒步旅行 | |
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180
incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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181
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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182
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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183
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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184
horrified
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| a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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185
dictatorial
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| adj. 独裁的，专断的 | |
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186
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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187
serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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188
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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189
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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190
correlation
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| n.相互关系，相关，关连 | |
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191
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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192
scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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193
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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194
disinterestedly
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195
solicitously
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| adv.热心地，热切地 | |
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196
enraptured
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| v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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197
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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198
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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199
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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200
prodigally
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| adv.浪费地，丰饶地 | |
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201
surmising
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| v.臆测，推断( surmise的现在分词 )；揣测；猜想 | |
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202
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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203
rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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