I had to go back to the forking of the Icknield Way and follow the Lower road from Ivinghoe. St. Mary’s Church at Ivinghoe stands pleasantly among sycamores and beeches1, and next door to a small creeper-covered brewery3 which is next door to a decent creeper-covered house with round-topped windows and a most cool and comfortable expression. Some stout4 and red-faced men stood talking outside the brewery in cheerful mood. On the opposite side of the road was a green enclosed by a low railing. The village was a straggling one, and there were many newish houses, of pale brick here and there, as well as old timbered cottages. I went into a grocer’s shop at the moment when they were killing5 a pig on the other side of the wall. Neither the shrieking6 nor the end of it disturbed the stout proprietor7 cutting up lard and the women talking of the coronation.
Grand Junction8 Canal.
The road was a dull, straight one going south-westwards over the London and North Western Railway a mile north of the Upper road, and two[177] and a half miles north-west of Tring station. It passed allotment gardens and had the company of heavy-laden telegraph-posts, whose wires cut across the terraces or “linces” of Southend Hill on the right. But if the corn-bunting sang its curst dry monotony on the telegraph-wire a blackbird also sang in an oak. Beyond the railway the road was[178] better and had level green edges up to the roses of the high hedge on the right and the low one on the left, over which I could see across the oats to the Chilterns lying dark under the sun. On the other side of the barley9, which was a cold and bluish green, rose Marsworth Church tower to the right. The reservoirs beyond the turning to Marsworth were broad and rough-edged, and with some trimmed poplars at a corner, a straight rank of trimmed elm trees near the further edge, and the line of telegraph-wires on this side, they made a foreign scene, against the background of the Chilterns, of a fascinating dreariness11; one man was fishing from the bank. Crossing the canal I was in Hertfordshire, which I left at the far side of the last reservoir. These dreary12 waters had attracted some thickets13 which the sedge-warbler loved and sang in, as by the Wilstone Reservoir. The inns (where they provide for anglers) and the houses near the locks had the look of canalside and wharfside settlements, a certain squalor more than redeemed14 by the individuality. The unpopulated hills on the left of it, and the Vale of Aylesbury on the right, emphasized this half-urban, half-marine15 character. The road here was very much broken into sharp turns not always by a crossing. Immediately after the last reservoir, before the turning to Drayton Beauchamp, the road was at its best, winding16 between not too level green edges of unequal breadth, and hedges of thorns and roses and a few ash trees; and on the edges the grass had been cut and was lying across the low clover. Doves cooed and a lark[179] overhead sang “as if he never would be old.” Then, at a bend where a ditch came in and had a willow17 above it and some meadow-sweet round about, a sedge-warbler was singing, the soul of a little world ten yards across. The crossing of the road to Drayton was one I shall not forget. The signpost pointed18 back to Ivinghoe, forward to Aylesbury, Buckland, and Aston Clinton, on the right to Puttenham, on the left to Drayton. There was a small crook19 to the left before my road went forward again. In the midst of the meeting ways the signpost had a green triangle to stand on. Also, each road had green borders which all widened to the crossing; some of the borders had rushes. The road to Puttenham swelled20 up a little and fell, and over the rim10 showed the trees of the vale. Ahead and to the left were the wooded downs. As I left the signpost I had a very sweet, gentle-spoken “Good morning” from a traveller coming towards me, a little and rickety dark foreign man, cheerful and old, carrying a thick satchel21 on his back and looking neither to the right nor to the left.
Instead of going on into Akeman Street and then turning at right angles along it for a mile, I took a path half a mile on this side of it which led towards Buckland Church. Where the path crossed the first hedge, a narrow, low embankment went off to the left along the hedge, followed by the path to the church and entering at last an elmy and nettly lane. Buckland village has many elm trees, plain little houses, twisting lanes, and a “Buck’s Head” in a dim corner of them. Its church is of[180] alternating flints and freestone, but the tower all of stone. It was a very cool place with a slow, muffled22, beating clock and a carpet of sun lying across the floor from the netted open door. One of the tablets on the wall was to Judith ——. High on the wall under the tower was an inscription23 saying:—
“Near this place, together with those of an infant daughter, lie the earthly remains24 of Frances Russell, relict of William Russell of Great Missenden, daughter of Edward and Frances Horwood of this place. She died October 8, 1793, aged25 73 years.
“The fleeting26 moments of Prosperity, the tedious hours of Adversity, and the lingering illness which Providence27 allotted28, she bore with equanimity29 and Christian30 resignation.
“Reader! Go and do likewise.”
It was a rusty31 and dusty inscription read mostly by the bellringers standing32 under the tower, and one of the most dismal33 certificates of life, marriage, motherhood, religion, death and the philosophy of relatives that I have seen. It was cheerful afterwards to read the name of Peter Parrot on a tombstone out in the sun.
Aston Clinton.
Past Buckland Church, I turned to the right and almost at once to the left along a road which went through a hayfield and then became a borderless hedged road, but with parallel marks as of traffic on the left. It came out opposite Aston Clinton Church into Akeman Street, a main road of elms, chestnuts35, and telegraph-poles, going through a typical “peaceful” village street, with a smithy and a “Rose and Crown,” “Swan,” and “Palm in Hand,” an advertisement of petrol, a horse’s brass36 trappings gleaming under a tree, and in the park on the left hand a peacock proclaiming the neighbourhood of a large house. I had to turn to the right along Akeman Street for a quarter mile before turning out to the left into a road with houses facing the park. They were poor cottages, a little sordid37 and all jammed in a row, and three public houses amongst them. Past these houses the road was a dull, straight one under elms, with a clear view over a level beanfield to the Downs and their trees, with bright tops and dark, misty38 shadows below. Presently a brooklet39 appeared alongside the road among willow-herb and overhung by alder41, elder, and willow, and at the beginning of Weston Turville it provided entertainment for half a hundred ducklings. The road went through the midst of Weston Turville and among inns on both sides and down the turnings, a “Vine,” a “Chequers,” a “Plough,” a “Six Bells,” a “Black Horse,” a “Chandos,” and a “Crown,” followed not much beyond the church by a “Marquis of Granby” and a “Swan”—but these were at World’s End. It was a village with here a house and there two or three round a square of streets, with the manor42-house and elmy church tower outside it to the south; and between the houses there were intervals43 of garden. I noticed a little house lost between the great bare trunks of half a forest of trees in a timber merchant’s yard. I found an inn which had a straight settle facing a curved one of elm with a sloping back and reasonable arm-rests. There were quoits on pegs44 under[183] the ceiling, and above the usual circular target for darts45; the open fireplace had a kitchen range placed in it. The floor was composed of bluish-black and red tiles alternating.
I did not make certain how the Icknield Way went through Weston Turville, though a possible course seemed to turn left on entering the village and go by Brook40 Farm and Malthouse Row, and a little west of the old manor-house and by the “Vine.” Unless it took some such course, it could hardly have got to Terrick and Little Kimble, but must rather have gone straight on through Stoke Mandeville, Kimblewick, and Owlswick and into the road now marked “Lower Icknield Way” at Pitch Green. I went past the Weston reservoir to World’s End, and then over the Wendover and Aylesbury road only a mile north of Wendover, having clearly in view the obelisk46 on Coombe Hill, and a little later the towered Ellesborough Church looking ghostly in the sunlight under Beacon47 Hill. The hay was cut on both sides, and the road wound between broad borders of thistles and nettles48. Near Terrick I saw the first meadow crane’s-bill of that season and that country—the purple flower whose purple is the emblem49 of a rich inward burning passion. At the very edges of the roadside turf the white clover grew. In the hawthorns50 a blackbird sang.
Soon I came to Kimble station on the Aylesbury branch of the Great Western and Great Central Junction Railway, and some new houses, one of them named “Beware of the Dogs.” Under the[184] railway I turned left to Risborough and Longwick, not right to Hartwell. And now the road settled down to a fairly straight course for about ten miles, with meadow-sweet and rose in its low hedges and a view over the wheat to the Chilterns. It was usually about a hundred feet lower than the Upper way, and from one to two miles north of it. It was crossed by hardly any road more important than itself, except that from Thame to Princes Risborough. At this crossing, outside “The Duke of Wellington” or “Sportsman’s Arms,” a street organ played “Beside the Seaside” and other national anthems51. Little more than a mile beyond I entered Oxfordshire. I left the road to see Chinnor Church, half a mile south, which looks southward on the juniper-dotted hills skirted by the Upper way. The most notable thing in the church was an oval tablet near the screen inscribed53 with the words:—
Beneath
lie
the remains of
William Turner
Esqre
who died 23rd March
1797 aged 61
“Here the wicked cease
from troubling and
the weary are
at rest.”
The word “here” my fancy took quite literally54, and I saw a skeleton cramped55 behind the tablet protesting to the living that there, inside the wall, denuded56 of flesh and of all organs, nerves, and desires, a wicked man ceased from troubling and[185] a weary one could be at rest; the teeth of the skeleton shook in their dry sockets57 as it, now a hundred and ten years old, uttered those sweet words: “Here the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.” Some of the dead outside bore formidable monosyllabic names, such as Wall, Crook, Saw, and Cocks. At the “Royal Oak” I listened for half an hour to information and complaints about the heat, which was at the time about ninety degrees in the shade, and then went out to make the most of the heat itself, which I could well do, having myself, as a good critic has pronounced, an unvarying temperature of about forty-five degrees (Fahr.).
I left the “Bird in Hand” and a squat58, white windmill on the left and entered a fine green road going straight south-west. One of the hedges was high enough for shade, in the other some young chestnut34 trees were growing up. After some distance the left half of the road was rough and had a ditch along it; then a tiny stream flowed across, and the way lost its left hedge and went slightly raised between wheat and oats, poppy and tall, pale scabious. After that I had clover and bird’s-foot trefoil and bedstraw and rest-harrow underfoot—corn on the left as far as elms in masses, and behind these the Chilterns—corn on the right and ridges59 of elms beyond. Then another rillet traversed the road and cooled the feet. In places the grass was very long. Crossing the road to Kingston Blount the way was more used and rougher; as before it had corn on both hands—barley and oats speckled[186] like a partridge. Then a third rillet, and then wheat, barley, oats, and beans in turn; on the other side of the way wych-elms. There were always elms, and here and there a farm under them, beyond the corn on the left. Aston Rowant lay near on my left, with a towered church, a big house, and men upon a rick, at the edge of the elms. To cross the Aston road my way made a slight crook to the left and then skirted the hay of Aston Rowant park, with elms and sweet limes amidst the hay: it was a good grass and clover track, not deeply rutted. Presently in the mowed60 and cleared fields on both sides cattle were walking out from milking. With another slight crook to the left the way crossed the High Wycombe and Stokenchurch and Oxford52 road, where yellow-hammers were singing in the beeches alongside the telegraph-posts. My way was now a hard road bordered by beeches and firs, through which I could see the tower of Lewknor Church across a hayfield. A willow-wren, with a voice like the sweet voice of someone a thousand years away, was singing among the tops of the trees. Below, briers and thorns were interwoven, and silver-weed grew at the edge of the dust. Some country people say that silver-weed is good for the feet, a belief which might well have no better foundation than the fact that it grows commonly close to the road which is cruel to the feet. On the right I passed a little deserted61 lodge62 with pointed windows and doorway63 gaping64 blank, and on the left a wood of beech2, elm, and chestnut shadowing a wall in which there was a door barricaded65 almost to the lintel by nettles.[187] This cool wood was full of the chiding66 of blackbirds and one thrush’s singing. Near the end this piece of road turns decidedly to the left; but over the wall on the right are some signs of a track which had not this southward bend. At the end of the present road, but a little way to the right along the road to Wheatfield, which it enters, is Moor67 Court, a small old house of bricks and tiles, with wings at each side, and a massive stone chimney at the road end; and it has a range of thatched farm buildings and a line of Lombardy poplars all enclosed in a wet moat. A little farther up, a farm road, which might have continued the track on the right of the road just quitted, turns out to the left and with a short break leads to Pyrton and Cuxham and Brightwell Baldwin and so to Wallingford; or from Pyrton the route might be to Watcombe Manor, Britwell, and Ewelme. But the Lower Icknield Way is, to judge from the map, supposed to give up its individuality at Moor Court and make straight away through Lewknor and by Sheepcote Lane to join the Upper road. There seems no good reason why this connection between the two, if it were such, should have been more than a convenience for a few travellers, unless we suppose that the very hilly and uneven68 portion of the Upper road, between the beginning of the separation and Chinnor Hill, so frequently became impassable that it was abandoned for short or long periods or altogether. But as a road close to Ewelme was known in the seventeenth century as the Lower Icknield Way, I was determined69 to go by Ewelme. From Moor Court I went down to the[188] pretty group of a smithy, a “Leather Bottle,” and Lewknor’s towered church at the crossing, where I entered the high road, making past Shirburn Castle to Watlington. At Watlington the road bends sharp to the right, and so comes into line with the Lower Icknield Way, as it was near Moor Court.
This road between the Chilterns and the corn was followed by a single line of telegraph wire. It had a slightly raised green edge on the right, marked by footpaths70. It went within a few yards of the moated castle of Shirburn. Here, says the marvelling71 countryside, the drawbridge is nightly drawn73 up, presumably with the philanthropic motive74 of giving work to somebody. I wished to see the castle as the home of a library which has lately given to the world a collection of ballads75 from manuscript of the early sixteenth century—“The Shirburn Ballads.” But a great length of eight-foot wall alongside the road shut off the view. It was a bad wall too, and could not be liked or admired for its own sake. I succeeded only in seeing one new battlemented tower, which, I was told, supplied water for the castle laundry. The best thing at Shirburn was almost opposite the castle entrance—a narrow strip of land raised above the road, and protected from it by a row of goodly elm trees, so that I walked between a high hedge and them in a private coolness and green gloom as of an airy church about a hundred yards long. On the hedge side of this strip there was a depression which might have been the old road: or perhaps at one time[189] the elms stood in the middle of the road like those yonder on the Upper Icknield Way under Watlington Hill. Hereby they have set up the reputed remains of one of Queen Eleanor’s funeral crosses.
Watlington.
Watlington is a big square village of no great beauty or extraordinary antiquity76, all of a piece and rustic77, but urban in its compression of house against house. A castle stood at the north edge near the present church. The Oxford road bounds[190] the town on its garden side, where farm-houses begin and cottages with gardens of monkshood and roses. Near this road there was a “pleasure fair,” where the roundabouts and swings of some travelling company were putting in time on their way to a bigger town and a regular engagement. There must be great wisdom in the men of Watlington, to be able to harmonize their grave, rustic streets with the town-bred music as of a steam-engine in pain. It was a feat78 I could not accomplish. The most I could do was to go into a taproom, where the music did not penetrate79 and the weary were at rest. It was a most beautiful evening, and the swifts were shrieking low down along the deserted streets at nine o’clock. I should like to see them crowded with sheep from Ilsley, and the old drover wearing a thistle in his cap, or with Welsh ponies80 going to Stokenchurch Fair over the Chilterns. But there is no market at Watlington, and nothing but a “pleasure” fair; a cheap week-end railway ticket to London pleases the country people by making them feel near London, whether they go or not; and it may encourage new residents. This was what my host wanted; his taproom was much too peaceful for living men, though he liked well enough to smoke his last pipe there, sitting in his shirt sleeves until the silent room was quite dark and his children came home from the roundabouts. A man came heavily down the street wheeling a barrow, stopped outside and called for a pint81; while he waited he ruminated82, looking down the street to the first stars and whistling “Beside the seaside, beside the sea,”[191] then he tipped up his tankard, emptied it, and went off in a determined manner.
When I went up to bed I was astonished to find a bedroom that was not at all new to me, though I had never before, to my knowledge, stopped at this inn. If it was an illusion, the pictures created it. I had certainly seen them before, in Wales, in Cornwall, in Wiltshire, and in Kent. What first caught my eye was a beauteous female of a far from slender type kneeling unharmed in the midst of roaring waters. She had on a snowy night-dress, over which her curls flowed far down in admirable disorder83. The foam84 of the sea flew all over and round her without wetting her night-dress or taking the gloss85 out of her curls. Her face also seemed unaffected by her extraordinary position on a small, isolated86 rock in the sea, and wore an expression that would have been better suited to an afflicted87 lady in her own apartment. She was suffering, but not from exposure to cold and wet, and what was more extraordinary still was, that on this solitary88 rock she had found a quantity of thick, velvety89 stuff, and on this, as was natural, she was kneeling to save her tender knees from the unaccustomed rock.
On the opposite wall hung a similar picture, I suppose by the same artist, for surely there could be only one man who had these marvellous visions—visions they must have been, since no one could invent things so improbable and, without their visionary character, so ridiculous. Here also the scene was a wild sea and a rock in the midst. One beauteous girl of the same type as in the other pic[192]ture was in the water, another had apparently91 just clambered up on to the rock. I say apparently, but her night-dress was dry, snow-white, and untorn. I say apparently, because I could only imagine that the two had been swimming together and one had got first to the rock; for it was not likely that one should find herself on a rock in this position and then by mere92 chance see a fellow-mortal of the same sex, age, beauty, and costume struggling with the waves close by. Her struggle was nearly over, for the beauty on the rock, kneeling on the velvet90 carpet which, by a fortunate accident, almost covered it, bent93 over in an attitude of much grace and caught her unhappy sister by one of her fair hands. The face of the swimmer was upturned and exquisitely94 sad, but, as in the other picture, it was not the sadness of a swimmer in stormy and dark waters, but rather of a lady inwardly tormented95 by some difficulty of the “heart” or of the “spirit,” to use a popular physiology96. Her sadness was great, and naturally so; but I should have expected to see astonishment97 mingled98 with it, because what could be seen of her night-dress was dry as it had ever been in the linen99 cupboard at her stately home; and her hair, though loose, was not untidy and would have pleased a lover, had she confessed one and had he, instead of another lady, been aiding her in distress100. I had last seen these two pictures at Tregaron, and I sighed with a serene101 and pleasant recollection of the place, the season, and the company.
I was glad also to see a third work of the same artist, or at least of the same school. It belonged[193] to a different period, geological rather than marine; and again it must be insisted that the work was visionary because no one capable of a mere invention so ridiculous is likely to have the power and the patience to execute it with such completeness and finish. The scene was midnight in a valley of rocks and of high, precipitous, rocky sides, wide enough apart to have admitted a mountain torrent103 of some size. But it was dry, and over the sharp rocks went a most beautiful lady. She was dressed in thin and clinging garments from her shoulders down to her ankles. To meet a woman so beautiful and so suitably and yet unusually dressed all alone in the mountains would be at least as surprising as to see her on a little rock in the sea as one was passing in a storm. I could imagine her easily upon the velvet-covered rock. Her arms were bare, and with one she clasped a book to her left breast, while with the other she felt her way along the precipitous wall of the valley and steadied herself over the cruel rocks. It was to be noticed that there was no velvet over these rocks, and this is another proof of the genuineness of the artist’s vision, unless it should be suspected that he disliked the appearance of a long strip of carpet all down a valley. A fierce and extravagant104 vision, you will say. But the gentleness which had somehow ensured the carpet in the marine vision had not been eclipsed in the geological. From the edge of the farther wall of the valley shone a light. Someone was up there with a lantern and was turning its beams down on to the spot under the fair traveller’s feet. There[194] could be little doubt that he was following her along with the light, but he could not be seen. The lantern would have been more natural in a narrow alley102 in a town, but there was no question here of mere nature. If it comes to nature, was there ever a period when a woman of such beauty, and of very great refinement105, strayed out with a book among inhospitable mountains, clad in a dress that was fitted rather to suggest and even display the form of limbs and bosom106 than to protect them from rocks, thorns, and weather, not to speak of men and other wild beasts? A voluptuous107 Oriental or Frenchman might of course sit down and invent an earthly paradise with a small population of like beauties, but their object would be as unmistakable as it would be objectionable to persons of sensibility and discipline, except when alone or off their guard. But an Englishman or a German could only have copied such a picture from a vision having nothing to do with the flesh, and a charge of any such thing would recoil108 upon the accuser. I believe it was by an Englishman or a German. I should like to see some of the work of his less visionary moods. I should like to see him with his family, talking to his wife about the butcher’s bill and his daughter’s marriage—I should like to know if he had a daughter or a child at all. I should like to see him with his friends after dinner, and reading Mr. George Moore’s Memoirs109 of my Dead Life.
I thought at one time that one of the other pictures was by the same man, partly because it is so often to be seen with his work and appeals to[195] the same people, such as myself, and partly because it had a similar detachment from modern life; but I could not feel sure that it was the result of a vision and not of pure invention. The scene was a summer garden sloping down to a river, and at the foot of the slope a terrace of turf and a flight of steps to the water. On the terrace four girls were having tea. They were much thinner than those on the rocks; they wore white clinging dresses and their heads were bare. They were all smiling and their faces were such that no man could imagine a god, providence, fate, parent, lover, doctor or little boy in the street hard-hearted enough to interrupt the smiles. Human beings like them are not to be seen now, and no portraits or records of them in the past have come down to us. They seemed born to eat chocolate and drink sweet lemonade and never suffer from the consequences. There had been five of them, but one stood on the bottom step feeding two swans without any apparent effort. She had a hat in her hand either because a hat is more beautiful than a hand or because it is more easy to draw. She was hanging down her head thinking of something—or it might be nothing—unconnected with the swans or the slow, still river. Behind her a person whose mouth would not melt butter stood looking at her back. He was dressed in pretty breeches and buckled110 shoes, and was interesting chiefly as making the observer marvel72 what witty111 power had added a creature so appropriate to such a company. As marvellous must have been the artist’s invention. If it could[196] be imagined that dresses should, out of their own spirit, magically produce beings to wear them they would be like these five ladies; and if dainty breeches, silk stockings, and buckled shoes should have the same power they would unfold a man like the lover. The effect of the whole was to suggest summer, a lovely and harmless place (for the artist’s fresh water would not drown, any more than his sea water would wet a night-dress), wealth, luxury, happiness, youth, frivolity112, innocence113, benevolence—to suggest them, especially to those who know very little of these things.
There were several pictures of scenery. One showed a steep and very romantic forest road. It was deep in snow, and enormous trees, whose roots were nourished in Hades, towered up above on either hand, but let in the light of a full moon that shone straight down the road. Towards the moon and up the road went a tall, mantled114 traveller, leaning on a staff and turning his head to look into the wood. The picture had no name, text, or explanation. It was a nameless man and a nameless traveller, both unknown to history. Nothing was happening. It was simply a combination of four or five grand, simple elements; a mighty115 forest—a moon—snow—a solitary road—a tall traveller.
One of the other pictures was the same, except that a foaming116 river took the place of the snowy road. The forest and the moon were the same. The traveller was not there, and to one who had seen the last picture there was a touch of tragedy in his absence which atoned117 for it; he might have[197] been surprised at the very moment when the snowy road was being changed into a foaming river. Those who had not seen the other had to be content with a moon, a romantic forest, a river running down through it, and foam instead of snow. It hardly seemed to me to be enough—lacking the human interest. A small flock of sheep among the trees, with or even without a shepherd, would have made a vital difference, and the picture could then also have been recognized by purchasers and recipients118 of Christmas cards. And this picture was one which would appeal to those who knew the kind of thing depicted119. Rough woodlanders and their wives, people who have suffered in snow, poor men who have travelled alone and leaned on their staffs, would gladly put both pictures on their walls. There were photographs of such people on the mantelpiece, people whom no best clothes or photographer’s polish could turn into poetic120 heroes or cigar-box beauties; men with queer hairy faces, legs bent like oak branches, and eyes squinting121 at the photographer; women their equals, but if anything more hardened, more tortured, more smiling upon the occasion of being photographed.
Between photographs of a gamekeeper, whose face was like a furze bush with eyes in it, and a card of mourning for Jane Mary Sims, aged seventy-three, hung a picture seeming to have little to do with either. It was of a high-born and well-dressed lady with regular features and graceful122, mature figure sitting beside a cradled child. She was bending over towards the child, and her face, though[198] composed, was sorrowful. Had she looked up she would have seen an unusual sight, and it was a mercy that she did not, for it would have certainly upset her composure through astonishment and fear. For not many feet from her was the head of a human being who was coming towards her head foremost through the window, or more probably the ceiling. I say a human being because her body—it was a mature and athletic123, slender lady—was of the same general form, size, and proportions as those of our own species, and she wore the clinging night-dress so much favoured by the visionary artist. But she had wings attached to her shoulders, not large enough to be of any use, supposing her to have learned their management, but sufficient to make part of a becoming fancy dress or fairy dancing costume. She had apparently dived from some height, and in a bewitching attitude was making straight for the cradle. As she was no Ariel’s sister capable of playing “i’ th’ plighted124 clouds,” the danger both to her and to the cradle was great. She faced it with no sign of fear, her soft eyes and her even and not too full lips expressing a mind in tranquillity125 and scarcely, if at all, stirred by expectation or surmise126. There was no sequel to this daring but painful picture, nor, of course, any explanation. It was, I should say, the fancy of a genius who had mingled the common and the improbable in dreams produced by opium127 or other drug.
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1
beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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brewery
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| n.啤酒厂 | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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barley
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| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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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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thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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16
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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17
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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18
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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19
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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20
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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21
satchel
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| n.(皮或帆布的)书包 | |
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22
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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23
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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24
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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25
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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26
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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27
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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28
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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30
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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31
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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32
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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33
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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34
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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35
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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36
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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37
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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38
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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39
brooklet
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| n. 细流, 小河 | |
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40
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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41
alder
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| n.赤杨树 | |
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42
manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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43
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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44
pegs
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| n.衣夹( peg的名词复数 )；挂钉；系帐篷的桩；弦钮v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的第三人称单数 )；使固定在某水平 | |
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45
darts
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| n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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46
obelisk
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| n.方尖塔 | |
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47
beacon
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| n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔 | |
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48
nettles
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| n.荨麻( nettle的名词复数 ) | |
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49
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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50
hawthorns
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| n.山楂树( hawthorn的名词复数 ) | |
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51
anthems
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| n.赞美诗( anthem的名词复数 )；圣歌；赞歌；颂歌 | |
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52
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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53
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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54
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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55
cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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56
denuded
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| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
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57
sockets
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| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
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58
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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59
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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60
mowed
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| v.刈，割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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61
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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62
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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63
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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64
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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65
barricaded
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| 设路障于，以障碍物阻塞( barricade的过去式和过去分词 )； 设路障[防御工事]保卫或固守 | |
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66
chiding
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| v.责骂，责备( chide的现在分词 ) | |
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67
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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68
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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69
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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70
footpaths
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| 人行小径，人行道( footpath的名词复数 ) | |
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71
marvelling
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的现在分词 ) | |
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72
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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73
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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74
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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75
ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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76
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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77
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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78
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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79
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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80
ponies
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| 矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑 | |
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81
pint
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| n.品脱 | |
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82
ruminated
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| v.沉思( ruminate的过去式和过去分词 )；反复考虑；反刍；倒嚼 | |
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83
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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84
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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85
gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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86
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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87
afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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89
velvety
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| adj. 像天鹅绒的, 轻软光滑的, 柔软的 | |
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90
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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91
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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92
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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93
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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94
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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95
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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96
physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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97
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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98
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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99
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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100
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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101
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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102
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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103
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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104
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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105
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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106
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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107
voluptuous
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| adj.肉欲的，骄奢淫逸的 | |
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108
recoil
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| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
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109
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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110
buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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111
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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112
frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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113
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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114
mantled
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| 披着斗篷的，覆盖着的 | |
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115
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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116
foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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117
atoned
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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118
recipients
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| adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器 | |
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119
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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120
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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121
squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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122
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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123
athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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124
plighted
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| vt.保证，约定（plight的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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125
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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126
surmise
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| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
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127
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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