THE PRACTICES AND PRECEPTS1 OF VAUDEVILLE2
A Friend of the Easy Chair came in the other day after a frost from the magazine editor which had nipped a tender manuscript in its bloom, and was received with the easy hospitality we are able to show the rejected from a function involving neither power nor responsibility.
"Ah!" we breathed, sadly, at the sight of the wilted3 offering in the hands of our friend. "What is it he won't take now?"
"Wait till I get my second wind," the victim of unrequited literature answered, dropping into the Easy Chair, from which the occupant had risen; and he sighed, pensively4, "I felt so sure I had got him this time." He closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the uncomfortably carven top of the Easy Chair. It was perhaps his failure to find rest in it that restored him to animation5. "It is a little thing," he murmured, "on the decline of the vaudeville."
"The decline of the vaudeville?" we repeated, wrinkling our forehead in grave misgiving6. Then, for want of something better, we asked, "Do you think that is a very dignified7 subject for the magazine?"
"Why, bless my soul!" the rejected one cried, starting somewhat violently forward, "what is your magazine itself but vaudeville, with your contributors all doing their stunts8 of fiction, or poetry, or travel, or sketches11 of life, or articles of popular science and sociological interest, and I don't know what all! What are your illustrations but the moving pictures of the kalatechnoscope! Why," he said, with inspiration, "what are you yourself but a species of Chaser that comes at the end of the show, and helps clear the ground for the next month's performance by tiring out the lingering readers?"
"You don't think," we suggested, "you're being rather unpleasant?"
Our friend laughed harshly, and we were glad to see him restored to so much cheerfulness, at any rate. "I think the notion is a pretty good fit, though if you don't like to wear it I don't insist. Why should you object to being likened to those poor fellows who come last on the programme at the vaudeville? Very often they are as good as the others, and sometimes, when I have determined12 to get my five hours' enjoyment13 to the last moment before six o'clock, I have had my reward in something unexpectedly delightful14 in the work of the Chasers. I have got into close human relations with them, I and the half-dozen brave spirits who have stuck it out with me, while the ushers15 went impatiently about, clacking the seats back, and picking up the programmes and lost articles under them. I have had the same sense of kindly16 comradery with you, and now and then my patience has been rewarded by you, just as it has been by the Chasers at the vaudeville, and I've said so to people. I've said: 'You're wrong to put down the magazine the way most of you do before you get to those departments at the end. Sometimes there are quite good things in them.'"
"Really," said the unreal editor, "you seem to have had these remarks left over from your visit to the real editor. We advise you to go back and repeat them. They may cause him to revise his opinion of your contribution."
"It's no use my going back. I read finality in his eye before I left him, and I feel that no compliment, the most fulsome17, would move him. Don't turn me out! I take it all back about your being a Chaser. You are the first act on the bill for me. I read the magazine like a Chinese book—from the back. I always begin with the Easy Chair."
"Ah, now you are talking," we said, and we thought it no more than human to ask, "What is it you have been saying about the vaudeville, anyway?"
The rejected one instantly unfolded his manuscript. "I will just read—"
"No, no!" we interposed. "Tell us about it—give us the general drift. We never can follow anything read to us."
The other looked incredulous, but he was not master of the situation, and he resigned himself to the secondary pleasure of sketching18 the paper he would so much rather have read.
"Why, you know what an inveterate19 vaudeville-goer I have always been?"
We nodded. "We know how you are always trying to get us to neglect the masterpieces of our undying modern dramatists, on the legitimate20 stage, and go with you to see the ridiculous stunts you delight in."
"Well, it comes to the same thing. I am an inveterate vaudeville-goer, for the simple reason that I find better acting21 in the vaudeville, and better drama, on the whole, than you ever get, or you generally get, on your legitimate stage. I don't know why it is so very legitimate. I have no doubt but the vaudeville, or continuous variety performance, is the older, the more authentic22 form of histrionic art. Before the Greek dramatists, or the longer-winded Sanskrit playwrights23, or the exquisitely24 conventionalized Chinese and Japanese and Javanese were heard of, it is probable that there were companies of vaudeville artists going about the country and doing the turns that they had invented themselves, and getting and giving the joy that comes of voluntary and original work, just as they are now. And in the palmiest days of the Greek tragedy or the Roman comedy, there were, of course, variety shows all over Athens and Rome where you could have got twice the amusement for half the money that you would at the regular theatres. While the openly wretched and secretly rebellious26 actors whom Euripides and Terence had cast for their parts were going through r?les they would never have chosen themselves, the wilding heirs of art at the vaudeville were giving things of their own imagination, which they had worked up from some vague inspiration into a sketch10 of artistic27 effect. No manager had foisted28 upon them his ideals of 'what the people wanted,' none had shaped their performance according to his own notion of histrionics. They had each come to him with his or her little specialty29, that would play fifteen or twenty minutes, and had, after trying it before him, had it rejected or accepted in its entirety. Then, author and actor in one, they had each made his or her appeal to the public."
"There were no hers on the stage in those days," we interposed.
"No matter," the rejected contributor retorted. "There are now, and that is the important matter. I am coming to the very instant of actuality, to the show which I saw yesterday, and which I should have brought my paper down to mention if it had been accepted." He drew a long breath, and said, with a dreamy air of retrospect30: "It is all of a charming unity31, a tradition unbroken from the dawn of civilization. When I go to a variety show, and drop my ticket into the chopping-box at the door, and fastidiously choose my unreserved seat in the best place I can get, away from interposing posts and persons, and settle down to a long afternoon's delight, I like to fancy myself a far-fetched phantom32 of the past, who used to do the same thing at Thebes or Nineveh as many thousand years ago as you please. I like to think that I too am an unbroken tradition, and my pleasure will be such as shaped smiles immemorially gone to dust."
We made our reflection that this passage was probably out of the rejected contribution, but we did not say anything, and our visitor went on.
"And what a lot of pleasure I did get, yesterday, for my fifty cents! There were twelve stunts on the bill, not counting the kalatechnoscope, and I got in before the first was over, so that I had the immediate33 advantage of seeing a gifted fellow-creature lightly swinging himself between two chairs which had their outer legs balanced on the tops of caraffes full of water, and making no more of the feat34 than if it were a walk in the Park or down Fifth Avenue. How I respected that man! What study had gone to the perfection of that act, and the others that he equally made nothing of! He was simply billed as 'Equilibrist,' when his name ought to have been blazoned35 in letters a foot high if they were in any wise to match his merit. He was followed by 'Twin Sisters,' who, as 'Refined Singers and Dancers,' appeared in sweeping36 confections of white silk, with deeply drooping37, widely spreading white hats, and long-fringed white parasols heaped with artificial roses, and sang a little tropical romance, whose burden was
'Under the bámboo-trée,'
brought in at unexpected intervals38. They also danced this romance with languid undulations, and before you could tell how or why, they had disappeared and reappeared in short green skirts, and then shorter white skirts, with steps and stops appropriate to their costumes, but always, I am bound to say, of the refinement39 promised. I can't tell you in what their refinement consisted, but I am sure it was there, just as I am sure of the humor of the two brothers who next appeared as 'Singing and Dancing Comedians40' of the coon type. I know that they sang and they danced, and worked sable41 pleasantries upon one another with the help of the pianist, who often helps out the dialogue of the stage in vaudeville. They were not so good as the next people, a jealous husband and a pretty wife, who seized every occasion in the slight drama of 'The Singing Lesson,' and turned it to account in giving their favorite airs. I like to have a husband disguise himself as a German maestro, and musically make out why his wife is so zealous42 in studying with him, and I do not mind in the least having the sketch close without reason: it leaves something to my imagination. Two of 'America's Leading Banjoists' charmed me next, for, after all, there is nothing like the banjo. If one does not one's self rejoice in its plunking, there are others who do, and that is enough for my altruistic43 spirit. Besides, it is America's leading instrument, and those who excel upon it appeal to the patriotism44 which is never really dormant45 in us. Its close association with color in our civilization seemed to render it the fitting prelude46 of the next act, which consisted of 'Monologue47 and Songs' by a divine creature in lampblack, a shirt-waist worn outside his trousers, and an exaggerated development of stomach. What did he say, what did he sing? I don't know; I only know that it rested the soul and brain, that it soothed48 the conscience, and appeased49 the hungerings of ambition. Just to sit there and listen to that unalloyed nonsense was better than to 'sport with Amaryllis in the shade, or with the tangles50 of Ne?ra's hair,' or to be the object of a votive dinner, or to be forgiven one's sins; there is no such complete purgation of care as one gets from the real Afro-American when he is unreal, and lures51 one completely away from life, while professing52 to give his impressions of it. You, with your brute53 preferences for literality, will not understand this, and I suppose you would say I ought to have got a purer and higher joy out of the little passage of drama, which followed, and I don't know but I did. It was nothing but the notion of a hapless, half-grown girl, who has run away from the poorhouse for a half-holiday, and brings up in the dooryard of an old farmer of the codger type, who knew her father and mother. She at once sings, one doesn't know why, 'Oh, dear, what can the matter be,' and she takes out of her poor little carpet-bag a rag-doll, and puts it to sleep with 'By low, baby,' and the old codger puts the other dolls to sleep, nodding his head, and kicking his foot out in time, and he ends by offering that poor thing a home with him. If he had not done it, I do not know how I could have borne it, for my heart was in my throat with pity, and the tears were in my eyes. Good heavens! What simple instruments we men are! The falsest note in all Hamlet is in those words of his to Guildenstern: 'You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass.... 'S blood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?' Guildenstern ought to have said: 'Much, my lord! Here is an actor who has been summering in the country, and has caught a glimpse of pathetic fact commoner than the dust in the road, and has built it up in a bit of drama as artless as a child would fancy, and yet it swells54 your heart and makes you cry. Your mystery? You have no mystery to an honest man. It is only fakes and frauds who do not understand the soul. The simplest willow55 whistle is an instrument more complex than man.' That is what I should have said in Guildenstern's place if I had had Hamlet with me there at the vaudeville show.
"In the pretty language of the playbill," the contributor went on, "this piece was called 'A Pastoral Playlet,' and I should have been willing to see 'Mandy Hawkins' over again, instead of the 'Seals and Sea Lions,' next placarded at the sides of the curtain immediately lifted on them. Perhaps I have seen too much of seals, but I find the range of their accomplishments56 limited, and their impatience57 for fish and lump sugar too frankly58 greedy before and after each act. Their banjo-playing is of a most casual and irrelevant59 sort; they ring bells, to be sure; in extreme cases they fire small cannon60; and their feat of balancing large and little balls on their noses is beyond praise. But it may be that the difficulties overcome are too obvious in their instances; I find myself holding my breath, and helping61 them along too strenuously62 for my comfort. I am always glad when the curtain goes down on them; their mere63 flumping about the stage makes me unhappy; but they are not so bad, after all, as trained dogs. They were followed by three 'Artistic European Acrobats64,' who compensated65 and consoled me for the seals, by the exquisite25 ease with which they wrought66 the impossibilities of their art, in the familiar sack-coats and top-coats of every day. I really prefer tights and spangles, but I will not refuse impossibilities simply because they are performed, as our diplomats67 are instructed to appear at European courts, in the ordinary dress of a gentleman; it may even add a poignancy68 to the pleasure I own so reluctantly.
"There came another pair of 'Singers and Dancers,' and then a 'Trick Cyclist,' but really I cannot stand trick cycling, now that plain cycling, glory be! has so nearly gone out. As soon as the cyclist began to make his wheel rear up on its hind69 leg and carry him round the stage in that posture70, I went away. But I had had enough without counting him, though I left the kalatechnoscope, with its shivering and shimmering71 unseen. I had had my fill of pleasure, rich and pure, such as I could have got at no legitimate theatre in town, and I came away opulently content."
We reflected awhile before we remarked: "Then I don't see what you have to complain of or to write of. Where does the decline of the vaudeville come in?"
"Oh," the rejected contributor said, with a laugh, "I forgot that. It's still so good, when compared with the mechanical drama of the legitimate theatre, that I don't know whether I can make out a case against it now. But I think I can, both in quality and quantity. I think the change began insidiously72 to steal upon the variety show with the increasing predominance of short plays. Since they were short, I should not have minded them so much, but they were always so bad! Still, I could go out, when they came on, and return for the tramp magician, or the comic musician, who played upon joints73 of stovepipe and the legs of reception-chairs and the like, and scratched matches on his two days' beard, and smoked a plaintive74 air on a cigarette. But when the 'playlets' began following one another in unbroken succession, I did not know what to do. Almost before I was aware of their purpose three of the leading vaudeville houses threw off the mask, and gave plays that took up the whole afternoon; and though they professed75 to intersperse76 the acts with what they called 'big vaudeville,' I could not be deceived, and I simply stopped going. When I want to see a four-act play, I will go to the legitimate theatre, and see something that I can smell, too. The influence of the vaudeville has, on the whole, been so elevating and refining that its audiences cannot stand either the impurity77 or the imbecility of the fashionable drama. But now the vaudeville itself is beginning to decline in quality as well as quantity."
"Not toward immodesty?"
"No, not so much that. But the fine intellectual superiority of the continuous performance is beginning to suffer contamination from the plays where there are waits between the acts. I spoke78 just now of the tramp magician, but I see him no longer at the variety houses. The comic musician is of the rarest occurrence; during the whole season I have as yet heard no cornet solo on a revolver or a rolling-pin. The most dangerous acts of the trapeze have been withdrawn79. The acrobats still abound80, but it is three long years since I looked upon a coon act with real Afro-Americans in it, or saw a citizen of Cincinnati in a fur overcoat keeping a silk hat, an open umbrella, and a small wad of paper in the air with one hand. It is true that the conquest of the vaudeville houses by the full-fledged drama has revived the old-fashioned stock companies in many cases, and has so far worked for good, but it is a doubtful advantage when compared with the loss of the direct inspiration of the artists who created and performed their stunts."
"Delightful word!" we dreamily noted81. "How did it originate?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's probably a perversion82 of stint83, a task or part, which is also to be found in the dictionary as stent. What does it matter? There is the word, and there is the thing, and both are charming. I approve of the stunt9 because it is always the stuntist's own. He imagined it, he made it, and he loves it. He seems never to be tired of it, even when it is bad, and when nobody in the house lends him a hand with it. Of course, when it comes to that, it has to go, and he with it. It has to go when it is good, after it has had its day, though I don't see why it should go; for my part there are stunts I could see endlessly over again, and not weary of them. Can you say as much of any play?"
"Gilbert and Sullivan's operas," we suggested.
"That is true. But without the music? And even with the music, the public won't have them any longer. I would like to see the stunt fully84 developed. I should like to have that lovely wilding growth delicately nurtured85 into drama as limitless and lawless as life itself, owing no allegiance to plot, submitting to no rule or canon, but going gayly on to nothingness as human existence does, full of gleaming lights, and dark with inconsequent glooms, musical, merry, melancholy86, mad, but never-ending as the race itself."
"You would like a good deal more than you are ever likely to get," we said; and here we thought it was time to bring our visitor to book again. "But about the decline of vaudeville?"
"Well, it isn't grovelling87 yet in the mire88 with popular fiction, but it is standing89 still, and whatever is standing still is going backward, or at least other things are passing it. To hold its own, the vaudeville must grab something more than its own. It must venture into regions yet unexplored. It must seize not only the fleeting90 moments, but the enduring moments of experience; it should be wise not only to the whims91 and moods, but the passions, the feelings, the natures of men; for it appeals to a public not sophisticated by mistaken ideals of art, but instantly responsive to representations of life. Nothing is lost upon the vaudeville audience, not the lightest touch, not the airiest shadow of meaning. Compared with the ordinary audience at the legitimate theatres—"
"Then what you wish," we concluded, "is to elevate the vaudeville."
The visitor got himself out of the Easy Chair, with something between a groan92 and a growl93. "You mean to kill it."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
precepts
|
|
| n.规诫，戒律，箴言( precept的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
vaudeville
|
|
| n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
wilted
|
|
| （使）凋谢，枯萎( wilt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
pensively
|
|
| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
animation
|
|
| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
misgiving
|
|
| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
dignified
|
|
| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
stunts
|
|
| n.惊人的表演( stunt的名词复数 )；（广告中）引人注目的花招；愚蠢行为；危险举动v.阻碍…发育[生长]，抑制，妨碍( stunt的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
stunt
|
|
| n.惊人表演，绝技，特技；vt.阻碍...发育，妨碍...生长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
sketch
|
|
| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
sketches
|
|
| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
enjoyment
|
|
| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
delightful
|
|
| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
ushers
|
|
| n.引座员( usher的名词复数 )；招待员；门房；助理教员v.引，领，陪同( usher的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
fulsome
|
|
| adj.可恶的，虚伪的，过分恭维的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
sketching
|
|
| n.草图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
inveterate
|
|
| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
legitimate
|
|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
acting
|
|
| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
authentic
|
|
| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
playwrights
|
|
| n.剧作家( playwright的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
exquisitely
|
|
| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
exquisite
|
|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
rebellious
|
|
| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
artistic
|
|
| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
foisted
|
|
| 强迫接受，把…强加于( foist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
specialty
|
|
| n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
retrospect
|
|
| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
unity
|
|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
phantom
|
|
| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
feat
|
|
| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
blazoned
|
|
| v.广布( blazon的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布；夸示；装饰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
sweeping
|
|
| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
drooping
|
|
| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
intervals
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
refinement
|
|
| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
comedians
|
|
| n.喜剧演员，丑角( comedian的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
sable
|
|
| n.黑貂；adj.黑色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
zealous
|
|
| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
altruistic
|
|
| adj.无私的，为他人着想的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
patriotism
|
|
| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
dormant
|
|
| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
prelude
|
|
| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
monologue
|
|
| n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
soothed
|
|
| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
appeased
|
|
| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
tangles
|
|
| （使）缠结， （使）乱作一团( tangle的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
lures
|
|
| 吸引力，魅力（lure的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
professing
|
|
| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
brute
|
|
| n.野兽，兽性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
swells
|
|
| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
willow
|
|
| n.柳树 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
accomplishments
|
|
| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
impatience
|
|
| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
irrelevant
|
|
| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
cannon
|
|
| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
helping
|
|
| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
strenuously
|
|
| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
acrobats
|
|
| n.杂技演员( acrobat的名词复数 )；立场观点善变的人，主张、政见等变化无常的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
compensated
|
|
| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
wrought
|
|
| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
diplomats
|
|
| n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
poignancy
|
|
| n.辛酸事，尖锐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
hind
|
|
| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
posture
|
|
| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
shimmering
|
|
| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
insidiously
|
|
| 潜在地，隐伏地，阴险地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
joints
|
|
| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
plaintive
|
|
| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
professed
|
|
| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
intersperse
|
|
| vt.散布，散置，点缀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
impurity
|
|
| n.不洁，不纯，杂质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
withdrawn
|
|
| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
abound
|
|
| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
perversion
|
|
| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
stint
|
|
| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
nurtured
|
|
| 养育( nurture的过去式和过去分词 )； 培育； 滋长； 助长 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
grovelling
|
|
| adj.卑下的，奴颜婢膝的v.卑躬屈节，奴颜婢膝( grovel的现在分词 )；趴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
mire
|
|
| n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
fleeting
|
|
| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
WHIMS
|
|
| 虚妄，禅病 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
groan
|
|
| vi./n.呻吟，抱怨；(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
growl
|
|
| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |