From that day forth1, Alan and Herminia met frequently. Alan was given to sketching2, and he sketched3 a great deal in his idle times on the common. He translated the cottages from real estate into poetry. On such occasions, Herminia's walks often led her in the same direction. For Herminia was frank; she liked the young man, and, the truth having made her free, she knew no reason why she should avoid or pretend to avoid his company. She had no fear of that sordid4 impersonal5 goddess who rules Philistia; it mattered not to her what "people said," or whether or not they said anything about her. "Aiunt: quid aiunt? aiant," was her motto. Could she have known to a certainty that her meetings on the common with Alan Merrick had excited unfavorable comment among the old ladies of Holmwood, the point would have seemed to her unworthy of an emancipated7 soul's consideration. She could estimate at its true worth the value of all human criticism upon human action.
So, day after day, she met Alan Merrick, half by accident, half by design, on the slopes of the Holmwood. They talked much together, for Alan liked her and understood her. His heart went out to her. Compact of like clay, he knew the meaning of her hopes and aspirations8. Often as he sketched he would look up and wait, expecting to catch the faint sound of her light step, or see her lithe9 figure poised10 breezy against the sky on the neighboring ridges11. Whenever she drew near, his pulse thrilled at her coming,—a somewhat unusual experience with Alan Merrick. For Alan, though a pure soul in his way, and mixed of the finer paste, was not quite like those best of men, who are, so to speak, born married. A man with an innate12 genius for loving and being loved cannot long remain single. He MUST marry young; or at least, if he does not marry, he must find a companion, a woman to his heart, a help that is meet for him. What is commonly called prudence13 in such concerns is only another name for vice14 and cruelty. The purest and best of men necessarily mate themselves before they are twenty. As a rule, it is the selfish, the mean, the calculating, who wait, as they say, "till they can afford to marry." That vile15 phrase scarcely veils hidden depths of depravity. A man who is really a man, and who has a genius for loving, must love from the very first, and must feel himself surrounded by those who love him. 'Tis the first necessity of life to him; bread, meat, raiment, a house, an income, rank far second to that prime want in the good man's economy.
But Alan Merrick, though an excellent fellow in his way, and of noble fibre, was not quite one of the first, the picked souls of humanity. He did not count among the finger-posts who point the way that mankind will travel. Though Herminia always thought him so. That was her true woman's gift of the highest idealizing power. Indeed, it adds, to my mind, to the tragedy of Herminia Barton's life that the man for whom she risked and lost everything was never quite worthy6 of her; and that Herminia to the end not once suspected it. Alan was over thirty, and was still "looking about him." That alone, you will admit, is a sufficiently16 grave condemnation17. That a man should have arrived at the ripe age of thirty and not yet have lighted upon the elect lady—the woman without whose companionship life would be to him unendurable is in itself a strong proof of much underlying18 selfishness, or, what comes to the same thing, of a calculating disposition19. The right sort of man doesn't argue with himself at all on these matters. He doesn't say with selfish coldness, "I can't afford a wife;" or, "If I marry now, I shall ruin my prospects20." He feels and acts. He mates, like the birds, because he can't help himself. A woman crosses his path who is to him indispensable, a part of himself, the needful complement21 of his own personality; and without heed22 or hesitation23 he takes her to himself, lawfully24 or unlawfully, because he has need of her. That is how nature has made us; that is how every man worthy of the name of man has always felt, and thought, and acted. The worst of all possible and conceivable checks upon population is the vile one which Malthus glossed26 over as "the prudential," and which consists in substituting prostitution for marriage through the spring-tide of one's manhood.
Alan Merrick, however, was over thirty and still unmarried. More than that, he was heart-free,—a very evil record. And, like most other unmarried men of thirty, he was a trifle fastidious. He was "looking about him." That means to say, he was waiting to find some woman who suited him. No man does so at twenty. He sees and loves. But Alan Merrick, having let slip the golden moment when nature prompts every growing youth to fling himself with pure devotion at the feet of the first good angel who happens to cross his path and attract his worship, had now outlived the early flush of pure passion, and was thinking only of "comfortably settling himself." In one word, when a man is young, he asks himself with a thrill what he can do to make happy this sweet soul he loves; when he has let that critical moment flow by him unseized, he asks only, in cold blood, what woman will most agreeably make life run smooth for him. The first stage is pure love; the second, pure selfishness.
Still, Alan Merrick was now "getting on in his profession," and, as people said, it was high time he should be settled. They said it as they might have said it was high time he should take a business partner. From that lowest depth of emotional disgrace Herminia Barton was to preserve him. It was her task in life, though she knew it not, to save Alan Merrick's soul. And nobly she saved it.
Alan, "looking about him," with some fine qualities of nature underlying in the background that mean social philosophy of the class from which he sprang, fell frankly28 in love almost at first sight with Herminia. He admired and respected her. More than that, he understood her. She had power in her purity to raise his nature for a time to something approaching her own high level. True woman has the real Midas gift: all that she touches turns to purest gold. Seeing Herminia much and talking with her, Alan could not fail to be impressed with the idea that here was a soul which could do a great deal more for him than "make him comfortable,"—which could raise him to moral heights he had hardly yet dreamt of,—which could wake in him the best of which he was capable. And watching her thus, he soon fell in love with her, as few men of thirty are able to fall in love for the first time,—as the young man falls in love, with the unselfish energy of an unspoilt nature. He asked no longer whether Herminia was the sort of girl who could make him comfortable; he asked only, with that delicious tremor29 of self-distrust which belongs to naive30 youth, whether he dare offer himself to one so pure and good and beautiful. And his hesitation was justified31; for our sordid England has not brought forth many such serene32 and single-minded souls as Herminia Barton.
At last one afternoon they had climbed together the steep red face of the sandy slope that rises abruptly33 from the Holmwood towards Leith Hill, by the Robin34 Gate entrance. Near the top, they had seated themselves on a carpet of sheep-sorrel, looking out across the imperturbable35 expanse of the Weald, and the broad pastures of Sussex. A solemn blue haze36 brooded soft over the land. The sun was sinking low; oblique37 afternoon lights flooded the distant South Downs. Their combes came out aslant38 in saucer-shaped shadows. Alan turned and gazed at Herminia; she was hot with climbing, and her calm face was flushed. A town-bred girl would have looked red and blowsy; but the color and the exertion39 just suited Herminia. On that healthy brown cheek it seemed natural to discern the visible marks of effort. Alan gazed at her with a sudden rush of untrammelled feeling. The elusive40 outline of her grave sweet face, the wistful eyes, the ripe red mouth enticed41 him. "Oh, Herminia," he cried, calling her for the first time by her Christian42 name alone, "how glad I am I happened to go that afternoon to Mrs. Dewsbury's. For otherwise perhaps I might never have known you."
Herminia's heart gave a delicious bound. She was a woman, and therefore she was glad he should speak so. She was a woman, and therefore she shrank from acknowledging it. But she looked him back in the face tranquilly43, none the less on that account, and answered with sweet candor44, "Thank you so much, Mr. Merrick."
"I said 'Herminia,'" the young man corrected, smiling, yet aghast at his own audacity45.
"And I thanked you for it," Herminia answered, casting down those dark lashes46, and feeling the heart throb47 violently under her neat bodice.
Alan drew a deep breath. "And it was THAT you thanked me for," he ejaculated, tingling48.
"Yes, it was that I thanked you for," Herminia answered, with a still deeper rose spreading down to her bare throat. "I like you very much, and it pleases me to hear you call me Herminia. Why should I shrink from admitting it? 'Tis the Truth, you know; and the Truth shall make us Free. I'm not afraid of my freedom."
Alan paused for a second, irresolute49. "Herminia," he said at last, leaning forward till his face was very close to hers, and he could feel the warm breath that came and went so quickly; "that's very, very kind of you. I needn't tell you I've been thinking a great deal about you these last three weeks or so. You have filled my mind; filled it to the brim, and I think you know it."
Philosopher as she was, Herminia plucked a blade of grass, and drew it quivering through her tremulous fingers. It caught and hesitated. "I guessed as much, I think," she answered, low but frankly.
The young man's heart gave a bound. "And YOU, Herminia?" he asked, in an eager ecstasy50.
Herminia was true to the Truth. "I've thought a great deal about you too, Mr. Merrick," she answered, looking down, but with a great gladness thrilling her.
"I said 'Herminia,'" the young man repeated, with a marked stress on the Christian name.
Herminia hesitated a second. Then two crimson51 spots flared52 forth on her speaking face, as she answered with an effort, "About you too, Alan."
The young man drew back and gazed at her.
She was very, very beautiful. "Dare I ask you, Herminia?" he cried. "Have I a right to ask you? Am I worthy of you, I mean? Ought I to retire as not your peer, and leave you to some man who could rise more easily to the height of your dignity?"
"I've thought about that too," Herminia answered, still firm to her principles. "I've thought it all over. I've said to myself, Shall I do right in monopolizing53 him, when he is so great, and sweet, and true, and generous? Not monopolizing, of course, for that would be wrong and selfish; but making you my own more than any other woman's. And I answered my own heart, Yes, yes, I shall do right to accept him, if he asks me; for I love him, that is enough. The thrill within me tells me so. Nature put that thrill in our souls to cry out to us with a clear voice when we had met the soul she then and there intended for us."
Alan's face flushed like her own. "Then you love me," he cried, all on fire. "And you deign54 to tell me so; Oh, Herminia, how sweet you are. What have I done to deserve it?"
He folded her in his arms. Her bosom55 throbbed56 on his. Their lips met for a second. Herminia took his kiss with sweet submission57, and made no faint pretence58 of fighting against it. Her heart was full. She quickened to the finger-tips.
There was silence for a minute or two,—the silence when soul speaks direct to soul through the vehicle of touch, the mother-tongue of the affections. Then Alan leaned back once more, and hanging over her in a rapture59 murmured in soft low tones, "So Herminia, you will be mine! You say beforehand you will take me."
"Not WILL be yours," Herminia corrected in that silvery voice of hers. "AM yours already, Alan. I somehow feel as if I had always been yours. I am yours this moment. You may do what you would with me."
She said it so simply, so purely60, so naturally, with all the supreme61 faith of the good woman, enamoured, who can yield herself up without blame to the man who loves her, that it hardly even occurred to Alan's mind to wonder at her self-surrender. Yet he drew back all the same in a sudden little crisis of doubt and uncertainty62. He scarcely realized what she meant. "Then, dearest," he cried tentatively, "how soon may we be married?"
At sound of those unexpected words from such lips as his, a flush of shame and horror overspread Herminia's cheek. "Never!" she cried firmly, drawing away. "Oh, Alan, what can you mean by it? Don't tell me, after all I've tried to make you feel and understand, you thought I could possibly consent to MARRY you?"
The man gazed at her in surprise. Though he was prepared for much, he was scarcely prepared for such devotion to principle. "Oh, Herminia," he cried, "you can't mean it. You can't have thought of what it entails63. Surely, surely, you won't carry your ideas of freedom to such an extreme, such a dangerous conclusion!"
Herminia looked up at him, half hurt. "Can't have thought of what it entails!" she repeated. Her dimples deepened. "Why, Alan, haven't I had my whole lifetime to think of it? What else have I thought about in any serious way, save this one great question of a woman's duty to herself, and her sex, and her unborn children? It's been my sole study. How could you fancy I spoke64 hastily, or without due consideration on such a subject? Would you have me like the blind girls who go unknowing to the altar, as sheep go to the shambles65? Could you suspect me of such carelessness?—such culpable66 thoughtlessness?—you, to whom I have spoken of all this so freely?"
Alan stared at her, disconcerted, hardly knowing how to answer. "But what alternative do you propose, then?" he asked in his amazement67.
"Propose?" Herminia repeated, taken aback in her turn. It all seemed to her so plain, and transparent68, and natural. "Why, simply that we should be friends, like any others, very dear, dear friends, with the only kind of friendship that nature makes possible between men and women."
She said it so softly, with some womanly gentleness, yet with such lofty candor, that Alan couldn't help admiring her more than ever before for her translucent69 simplicity70, and directness of purpose. Yet her suggestion frightened him. It was so much more novel to him than to her. Herminia had reasoned it all out with herself, as she truly said, for years, and knew exactly how she felt and thought about it. To Alan, on the contrary, it came with the shock of a sudden surprise, and he could hardly tell on the spur of the moment how to deal with it. He paused and reflected. "But do you mean to say, Herminia," he asked, still holding that soft brown hand unresisted in his, "you've made up your mind never to marry any one? made up your mind to brave the whole mad world, that can't possibly understand the motives71 of your conduct, and live with some friend, as you put it, unmarried?"
"Yes, I've made up my mind," Herminia answered, with a faint tremor in her maidenly72 voice, but with hardly a trace now of a traitorous73 blush, where no blush was needed. "I've made up my mind, Alan; and from all we had said and talked over together, I thought you at least would sympathize in my resolve."
She spoke with a gentle tinge75 of regret, nay76 almost of disillusion77. The bare suggestion of that regret stung Alan to the quick. He felt it was shame to him that he could not rise at once to the height of her splendid self-renunciation. "You mistake me, dearest," he answered, petting her hand in his own (and she allowed him to pet it). "It wasn't for myself, or for the world I hesitated. My thought was for you. You are very young yet. You say you have counted the cost. I wonder if you have. I wonder if you realize it."
"Only too well," Herminia replied, in a very earnest mood. "I have wrought78 it all out in my mind beforehand,—covenanted with my soul that for women's sake I would be a free woman. Alan, whoever would be free must himself strike the blow. I know what you will say,—what every man would say to the woman he loved under similar circumstances,—'Why should YOU be the victim? Why should YOU be the martyr79? Bask80 in the sun yourself; leave this doom81 to some other.' But, Alan, I can't. I feel I must face it. Unless one woman begins, there will be no beginning." She lifted his hand in her own, and fondled it in her turn with caressing82 tenderness. "Think how easy it would be for me, dear friend," she cried, with a catch in her voice, "to do as other women do; to accept the HONORABLE MARRIAGE you offer me, as other women would call it; to be false to my sex, a traitor74 to my convictions; to sell my kind for a mess of pottage, a name and a home, or even for thirty pieces of silver, to be some rich man's wife, as other women have sold it. But, Alan, I can't. My conscience won't let me. I know what marriage is, from what vile slavery it has sprung; on what unseen horrors for my sister women it is reared and buttressed83; by what unholy sacrifices it is sustained, and made possible. I know it has a history, I know its past, I know its present, and I can't embrace it; I can't be untrue to my most sacred beliefs. I can't pander85 to the malignant86 thing, just because a man who loves me would be pleased by my giving way and would kiss me, and fondle me for it. And I love you to fondle me. But I must keep my proper place, the freedom which I have gained for myself by such arduous87 efforts. I have said to you already, 'So far as my will goes, I am yours; take me, and do as you choose with me.' That much I can yield, as every good woman should yield it, to the man she loves, to the man who loves her. But more than that, no. It would be treason to my sex; not my life, not my future, not my individuality, not my freedom."
"I wouldn't ask you for those," Alan answered, carried away by the torrent88 flood of her passionate89 speech. "I would wish you to guard them. But, Herminia, just as a matter of form,—to prevent the world from saying the cruel things the world is sure to say,—and as an act of justice to you, and your children! A mere90 ceremony of marriage; what more does it mean now-a-days than that we two agree to live together on the ordinary terms of civilized91 society?"
Still Herminia shook her head. "No, no," she cried vehemently92. "I deny and decline those terms; they are part and parcel of a system of slavery. I have learnt that the righteous soul should avoid all appearance of evil. I will not palter and parley93 with the unholy thing. Even though you go to a registry-office and get rid as far as you can of every relic94 of the sacerdotal and sacramental idea, yet the marriage itself is still an assertion of man's supremacy95 over woman. It ties her to him for life, it ignores her individuality, it compels her to promise what no human heart can be sure of performing; for you can contract to do or not to do, easily enough, but contract to feel or not to feel,—what transparent absurdity96! It is full of all evils, and I decline to consider it. If I love a man at all, I must love him on terms of perfect freedom. I can't bind97 myself down to live with him to my shame one day longer than I love him; or to love him at all if I find him unworthy of my purest love, or unable to retain it; or if I discover some other more fit to be loved by me. You admitted the other day that all this was abstractly true; why should you wish this morning to draw back from following it out to its end in practice?"
Alan was only an Englishman, and shared, of course, the inability of his countrymen to carry any principle to its logical conclusion. He was all for admitting that though things must really be so, yet it were prudent27 in life to pretend they were otherwise. This is the well-known English virtue98 of moderation and compromise; it has made England what she is, the shabbiest, sordidest, worst-organized of nations. So he paused for a second and temporized99. "It's for your sake, Herminia," he said again; "I can't bear to think of your making yourself a martyr. And I don't see how, if you act as you propose, you could escape martyrdom."
Herminia looked up at him with pleading eyes. Tears just trembled on the edge of those glistening100 lashes. "It never occurred to me to think," she said gently but bravely, "my life could ever end in anything else but martyrdom. It MUST needs be so with all true lives, and all good ones. For whoever sees the truth, whoever strives earnestly with all his soul to be good, must be raised many planes above the common mass of men around him; he must be a moral pioneer, and the moral pioneer is always a martyr. People won't allow others to be wiser and better than themselves, unpunished. They can forgive anything except moral superiority. We have each to choose between acquiescence101 in the wrong, with a life of ease, and struggle for the right, crowned at last by inevitable102 failure. To succeed is to fail, and failure is the only success worth aiming at. Every great and good life can but end in a Calvary."
"And I want to save you from that," Alan cried, leaning over her with real tenderness, for she was already very dear to him. "I want to save you from yourself; I want to make you think twice before you rush headlong into such a danger."
"NOT to save me from myself, but to save me from my own higher and better nature," Herminia answered with passionate seriousness. "Alan, I don't want any man to save me from that; I want you rather to help me, to strengthen me, to sympathize with me. I want you to love me, not for my face and form alone, not for what I share with every other woman, but for all that is holiest and deepest within me. If you can't love me for that, I don't ask you to love me; I want to be loved for what I am in myself, for the yearnings I possess that are most of all peculiar103 to me. I know you are attracted to me by those yearnings above everything; why wish me untrue to them? It was because I saw you could sympathize with me in these impulses that I said to myself, Here, at last, is the man who can go through life as an aid and a spur to me. Don't tell me I was mistaken; don't belie84 my belief. Be what I thought you were, what I know you are. Work with me, and help me. Lift me! raise me! exalt104 me! Take me on the sole terms on which I can give myself up to you."
She stretched her arms out, pleading; she turned those subtle eyes to him, appealingly. She was a beautiful woman. Alan Merrick was human. The man in him gave way; he seized her in his clasp, and pressed her close to his bosom. It heaved tumultuously. "I could do anything for you, Herminia," he cried, "and indeed, I do sympathize with you. But give me, at least, till to-morrow to think this thing over. It is a momentous105 question; don't let us be precipitate106."
Herminia drew a long breath. His embrace thrilled through her. "As you will," she answered with a woman's meekness107. "But remember, Alan, what I say I mean; on these terms it shall be, and upon none others. Brave women before me have tried for awhile to act on their own responsibility, for the good of their sex; but never of their own free will from the very beginning. They have avoided marriage, not because they thought it a shame and a surrender, a treason to their sex, a base yielding to the unjust pretensions108 of men, but because there existed at the time some obstacle in their way in the shape of the vested interest of some other woman. When Mary Godwin chose to mate herself with Shelley, she took her good name in her hands; but still there was Harriet. As soon as Harriet was dead, Mary showed she had no deep principle of action involved, by marrying Shelley. When George Eliot chose to pass her life with Lewes on terms of equal freedom, she defied the man-made law; but still, there was his wife to prevent the possibility of a legalized union. As soon as Lewes was dead, George Eliot showed she had no principle involved, by marrying another man. Now, I have the rare chance of acting109 otherwise; I can show the world from the very first that I act from principle, and from principle only. I can say to it in effect, 'See, here is the man of my choice, the man I love, truly, and purely, the man any one of you would willingly have seen offering himself in lawful25 marriage to your own daughters. If I would, I might go the beaten way you prescribe, and marry him legally. But of my own free will I disdain110 that degradation111; I choose rather to be free. No fear of your scorn, no dread112 of your bigotry113, no shrinking at your cruelty, shall prevent me from following the thorny114 path I know to be the right one. I seek no temporal end. I will not prove false to the future of my kind in order to protect myself from your hateful indignities115. I know on what vile foundations your temple of wedlock116 is based and built, what pitiable victims languish117 and die in its sickening vaults118; and I will not consent to enter it. Here, of my own free will, I take my stand for the right, and refuse your sanctions! No woman that I know of has ever yet done that. Other women have fallen, as men choose to put it in their odious119 dialect; no other has voluntarily risen as I propose to do.'" She paused a moment for breath. "Now you know how I feel," she continued, looking straight into his eyes. "Say no more at present; it is wisest so. But go home and think it out, and talk it over with me tomorrow."
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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sordid
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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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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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lithe
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poised
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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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innate
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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sufficiently
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condemnation
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underlying
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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prospects
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complement
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heed
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hesitation
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lawfully
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lawful
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glossed
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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frankly
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tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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naive
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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32
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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33
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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34
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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35
imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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36
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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37
oblique
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| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
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38
aslant
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| adv.倾斜地；adj.斜的 | |
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39
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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40
elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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41
enticed
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| 诱惑，怂恿( entice的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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43
tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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44
candor
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| n.坦白，率真 | |
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45
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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46
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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47
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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48
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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49
irresolute
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| adj.无决断的，优柔寡断的，踌躇不定的 | |
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50
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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51
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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52
Flared
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| adj. 端部张开的, 爆发的, 加宽的, 漏斗式的 动词flare的过去式和过去分词 | |
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53
monopolizing
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| v.垄断( monopolize的现在分词 )；独占；专卖；专营 | |
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54
deign
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| v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
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55
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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56
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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57
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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58
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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59
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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60
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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61
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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62
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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63
entails
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| 使…成为必要( entail的第三人称单数 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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64
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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65
shambles
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| n.混乱之处；废墟 | |
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66
culpable
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| adj.有罪的，该受谴责的 | |
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67
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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68
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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69
translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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70
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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71
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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72
maidenly
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| adj. 像处女的, 谨慎的, 稳静的 | |
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73
traitorous
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| adj. 叛国的, 不忠的, 背信弃义的 | |
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74
traitor
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| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
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75
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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76
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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77
disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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78
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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79
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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80
bask
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| vt.取暖，晒太阳，沐浴于 | |
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81
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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82
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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83
buttressed
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| v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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84
belie
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| v.掩饰，证明为假 | |
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85
pander
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| v.迎合；n.拉皮条者，勾引者；帮人做坏事的人 | |
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86
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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87
arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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88
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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89
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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90
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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91
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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92
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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93
parley
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| n.谈判 | |
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94
relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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95
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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96
absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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97
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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98
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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99
temporized
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| v.敷衍( temporize的过去式和过去分词 )；拖延；顺应时势；暂时同意 | |
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100
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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101
acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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102
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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103
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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104
exalt
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| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
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105
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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106
precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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107
meekness
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| n.温顺，柔和 | |
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108
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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109
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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110
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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111
degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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112
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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113
bigotry
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| n.偏见，偏执，持偏见的行为[态度]等 | |
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114
thorny
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| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
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115
indignities
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| n.侮辱，轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 ) | |
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116
wedlock
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| n.婚姻，已婚状态 | |
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117
languish
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| vi.变得衰弱无力，失去活力，（植物等）凋萎 | |
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118
vaults
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| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
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119
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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