Because, I suppose, there were once two sides to her bread-board, both of which she used for sketching2. She brought the board from the Fine Arts room at college to her new home, carrying it one day to the kitchen to try her hand at modeling—in dough3. There are several of her early sketches4 about the house, of that period prior to the dough, which show real talent. Her bread, however, had about it the touch of genius. The loaves grew larger all the time, the bakings more frequent. The walls of any house are rather quickly covered with pictures, but there is no bottom to the bread-box. There are still two sides to her bread-board, and she uses both sides for dough.
“Why thus longing, thus forever sighing?
For the far-off, unattained and dim?”
Because, I suppose, time was when I thought of other things than the price of flour; not because[42] of much money in those times, but because she made angel-cake most of the time then, and what bread we did eat was had of the baker5; and because the price of flour was then a matter of course. The price of flour now is a good deal more than a matter of course, and the price of corn-meal even more than the price of flour; so that we must count the slices now, and cut them thin.
We shall have angel-cake again, I promise the children, with the biggest kind of a hole in the middle, giving them a bran muffin to munch6 meanwhile, and wondering in my heart if this fight for bread will ever end in angel-cake.
One can live on potatoes and bran muffins, although there was never any romance about them, not even during the Great War when Wall Street took them as collateral7. We need cake. I don’t remember that I ever lacked potatoes as a child, but, as a child, I do remember dancing while the pickaninnies sang,
“Mammy gwine make some short’nin’, short’nin’,
Mammy gwine make some short’nin’ cake.
Ay lak short’nin’, short’nin’, short’nin’,
Ay lak short’nin’, short’nin’ cake,”
[43]
Short’nin’ cake, angel-cake, floating island, coffee jelly—are they not victuals9 spirituels, drifted deep with frosting, honeyed over with an amber-beaded sweat, with melting sweetness, insubstantial, impalpable, ethereal, that vanish into the brain, that thrill along the nerves, feeding not the body, not the mind, nor yet the spirit, for these are but three of our four elements—we are also the stuff that dreams are made of, and we cannot wholly subsist10 on more material fare.
What makes pie pie is its four-and-twenty-blackbirds. Singing-blackbird pie is the only pie, whether you make it of apples or rhubarb or custard or squash, with one crust or two. He dreamed a dream who made the original pie. And even now I cannot pass a baker in apron11 and paper cap without a sense of frostings and méringues—of the white of life separated from the yolk12 of life and stirred into a dream. I find the same touch of romance on many faces, both young and old, as I find it over the landscape at dusk and dawn, and on certain days even at high noon.
[44]It was so this morning when a flock of migrating bluebirds went over, calling down to me. They came out of the dawn, hovered13 idly over the barn and the tops of the cedars14 in the pasture, then faded into the blue about them and beyond them, where a fleet of great white clouds was drifting slowly far off to the south. But their plaintive15 voices floating down to me I still hear calling, with more yearning16 than a man, perhaps, should allow himself to know. For at the first sip17 of such sweet misery18 some poet chides19,
“Why thus longing, thus forever sighing
For the far-off, unattained and dim,
While the beautiful, all about us lying,
As if longing were a weakness and not the heart’s hope; and our sighing— Shall I sigh for what I have? Or stop sighing? Some of my possessions I may well sigh over, but there are very few to sigh for, seeing none of them are farther off than the barn or the line fence, except a few books that I have lent my friends, and now and then a few dollars.
And such is the magic in the morning light that I see the beautiful all about me lying—in[45] the bend of the road, on the sweep of the meadow, across the commonplace dooryard asleep in the sun; and such is the sweet silence of the autumn day that I hear the low perpetual hymn—in the lingering notes of the bluebirds, in the strumming of the crickets, in the curving stems of the goldenrods, the loud humming of the aster-dusted bees, even in the wavering red leaves of the maples21 singing in their fall.
It lacks an hour of mail-time, and the newspaper, and the world. The bluebirds are leaving before the mail-man comes, and everything with wings is flying with them, or is poised22 for flight as if there were no world, except a world for wings.
The day is warm, with little breezes on the wing, hardly larger than swallows. They stir the grasses of the knoll23, and race with them up the slope, to fly on over the wavy24 crest25, following the bluebirds off toward the deep-sea spaces among the drifting clouds. And the curving knoll itself is in motion, a yellow-brown billow heaving against the moving clouds where they ride along the sky. And over the knoll sweep the hawking26 swallows, white bellies27 and brown[46] and glinting steel-blue backs aflash in the sun. Winging swallows, winging seeds, winging winds, winging clouds and spheres, and my own soul winging away into the beckoning28 blue where the bluebirds have gone!
But I shall return—to the mail-box on this rural free delivery route, to the newspaper, to the tariff29, to the Turk. The Democratic State Committee is assembled this day in Springfield. I am not there. I also ran. I stumped30 the State for nomination31 to the National Senate, and landed here on Mullein Hill, Hingham. Here I set out. Through many years I have developed the safe habit of returning here. It was a magical chance Life offered me; a dream of beating the protective tariff devils. But Mullein Hill is clothed with dreams; and magical chances make this their stopping-place.
It is certainly true to-day. To begin with, I have this day bought the field by the side of my house. For all the twenty years of my living here I have dreamed of this rolling field with its pines and pointed32 cedars, and rounded knoll against the sky. Not every day in the autumn is like this for dreams; not many of them in all[47] the year. I shall be building fences about the field now for many days; and paying taxes on the field every day from this time on. There are not many autumn days like this for dreams. Yet to know one such day, one touched with this golden melancholy33, this sweet unrest and yearning, should it not outlast34 the noon, is to know,
“And one thing more that may not be,
Old earth were fair enough for me.”
You say that I am still thinking of the United States Senate. Possibly. “One thing more that may not be” I must be thinking on, for we all are. After the nomination comes the election; and what chance has the sworn enemy of a high protective tariff of election in Massachusetts?
Old Earth is fair enough for me ordinarily, and she is passing fair to-day. But even the dog, for all his appetite and growing years, is not always satisfied with bread and play. He clings closer than ever to me, as if sometimes frightened at inner voices calling him, which, like deep waters, seem to widen between us, and which no love, though pure and immeasurable, may be able to cross. He is nothing uncommon[48] as a dog, except in the size of his spirit and the quality of his love. He will tackle anything, from a railroad train to a buzzing bumble-bee, that he imagines has intentions inimical to me; and there is nothing on the move, either coming or going, quite innocent of such intentions. Without fear, or awe35, or law, he wears his collar, and his license36 number, 66, but not as a sign of bondage37, for that sign he wears all over his alert and fearless front. He growls38 in his sleep before the fire at ghosts of things that have designs against the house; he risks his life all day long.
But he reserves a portion of his soul. He will deliberately39 chew off his leash40 at night, and, making sure that nothing stirs about the helpless house, will steal away to the woods, where he hears the baying of some spectral41 pack down the forest’s high-arched halls. I do not know what the little cross-bred terrier is hunting along the frosted paths—fox or rabbit or wild mice; I cannot run the cold trails that are so warm to his nose; but far ahead of his nose lope two panting hearts, his and mine, following the Gleam.
All dogs are dreamers, travelers by twilight42,[49] who wander toward a slow deferring43 dawn. They cannot see in the white fire of noon. A lovelier light, diffused44 and dim with dusk, is in the eyes of dogs and all dumb creatures, through which they watch a world of shadows moving with them like lantern-lighted shapes at night upon a wall.
“Not of the sunlight,
Not of the moonlight,
Not of the starlight,”
is the tender, troubled light in the eyes of dogs.
There is a deposit, an infinitesimal deposit, it may be, of the radium of romance in the slag45 of all souls. Call it by other names—optimism, idealism, religion—you still leave it undefined; an inherent, essential element, harder to separate from the spiritual dross46 of us than radium from its carnotite; a kind of atomic property of the spirit which breaks up its substance; which ionizes, energizes47, and illumines it.
There may be souls that never knew its power, but I can hardly think there ever was a soul shut in a cave so darksome, that romance never entered with its touch of radiance, if only as
“A little glooming light, much like a shade.”
This is the light in the eyes of dogs, the light[50] that birds and bees follow, and the jellyfish steering48 round and round his course. Something like its quivering flame burns down in the green, dismal49 depths of the sea; down in the black subliminal50 depths; and on down in the heart of the world. For what other light is it, that guides the herring every spring, in from the ocean up Weymouth Back River? or the salmon51 in from the Pacific, up, high up the Columbia to the Snake, and higher up the Snake into the deep, dark gorges52 of the Imnaha?
It is now long past October, and where is the bluebird’s mate of June? She has forgotten him, and is forgotten by him, but he has not forgotten his dream-of-her; for I saw him in the orchard53, while southward bound, going in and out of the apple-tree holes, the lover still, the dream-of-her in his heart, holding over from the summer and coming to meet him ahead of her, down the winter, out of the coming spring.
The dog and you and I and even the humble54 toad55 are dreamers at heart, all of us, only we are deeper adream than they.
“If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same,”
[51]says Freneau to a flower. Yet the flowers are of the dust that I am made of, and they too are the stuff of dreams. And the toad under the kitchen-steps, what he knows of my heart! As if the unrequited pain of lovers, the sweetest, saddest things of poets, had always been his portion, and their vague melancholy the only measure of his tremulous twilight song. When the soft spring dusk has stolen into the young eyes of the day, as the first shadow of some sweet fear into the startled eyes of a girl, then out of the hush56, quavering through the tender gloom,
“A voice, a mystery!”
From his earth-hole under the kitchen-steps I have known the toad, by dint57 of stretching and hitching59 up on chance stones, to get nine inches up, nine inches from the surface of the globe, up on the lowest of the steps! Yet it is given him to pipe a serenade in the gloaming that no other lover, bird or poet, ever quite equaled, even when he sang,
“I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night.”
Life is always a romance. There is fire in its heart, even in the three cold chambers60 of the[52] toad’s heart; and the light of the fire flickers61 fainter than the guttered62 candle before it will go out. This may not be “the true light”; yet it lighteth every man that cometh into the world, every man with a pen, and his brother with a hoe, though they comprehend it not. One of our poets has written of “The Man With The Hoe” and left the man out and put only the hoe in the poem. This poet has written more than he has hoed, I am sure; as the painter of “The Man with the Hoe” had painted more than he had hoed, I am sure. Here is a poet who sees no light at all in “The Man with the Hoe,” because that poet has written more than he has hoed, which is to gather where he has not strawed. When a hoe looks as black as this to a pen, you will search the premises63 of the pen in vain for hoes. I hoe; I know men who hoe; and none of us knows Mr. Markham’s scarecrow for ourself. Here a realist sees what another realist thought he saw; as if you could ever see life!
Life is not what the realist sees, but what the realist is and knows, plus what the man with the hoe is and knows; and he knows that, if chained to a pick instead of a hoe, down in the[53] black pit of some Siberian mine, he could not work life out in the utter dark.
Realism, if not a distortion and a disease, is at best only a half-truth; and the realist, if more than a medical examiner for his district, is but the undertaker besides.
Whoever sings a true song, or pens the humblest plodding64 prose, whether of Achilles, son of Peleus, or of John Gilley, a milkman down in Maine, or of the toad, or of the bee, has essentially65 one story to tell, and must be a Homer, truly to tell it.
Here on my desk lies the story of John Gilley, and over in the next farmhouse66 lingers the unwritten story of another milkman, my neighbor, Joel Moore; and in the other neighbor-houses live like people—humble, humdrum67 country people, with their stories, which, if lighted with nothing but their own hovering68 gleam, would glow forever.
The next man I meet would make a book; for either he is, or he knows, a good-enough story, could I but come by the tale.
O. Henry, pacing the streets in an agony of fear at having run out of story-matter, is only[54] a case of nerves. The one inexhaustible supply of matter in the Universe that is of use to man is story-matter; for, as the first human pair have been a perpetual song and story, so the last pair shall be the theme for some recording69 angel, or else they will leave a diary.
The real ill with literature is writer’s cramp70, an inability to seize the story, all of it, its truth as well as its facts—an ill, not of too much observation, but of too little imagination. Art does not watch life and record it. Art loves life and creates it.
“No one knows the stars,” says Stevenson, “who has not slept, as the French happily put it, à la belle71 étoile. He may know all their names, and distances, and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone concerns mankind, their serene72 and gladsome influence on the mind.”
Art and literature have turned scientist of late, as if our magnitudes, names, and distances, as if the concern of psychologists, physiologists73, ethnologists, criminologists, and pathologists, were the concern of mankind! These things all belong to the specialists.
What does mankind reck of the revolution of[55] the node and apsides? that Neptune’s line of apsides completes its revolution in 540,000 years? Instead of an astronomer74, mankind is still the simple shepherd, keeping watch by night, and all he knows of the stars is that they brood above the sleeping hills, and now and then, in some holy hush, they sing together.
Science is concerned with the names, distances, and magnitudes of the stars; and with problems touching75 the “intestinal parasites76 of the flea77.” Art, literature, and religion are concerned only with mankind; with the elemental, the universal, the eternal; with the dream, the defeat, the romance of life.
I have much to do with writers—with great writers, could they only think of something to write about. “There is nothing left,” they cry, “to write about.” “But here am I. Take me,” I answer. Out come pads and pencils flying. There is hard looking at me for a moment. Then a cynical78 smile. I won’t do. Becky might have done, but Thackeray got her; just as some one has got everybody! My tribe can never furnish her like again. Yet my tribe is not infertile79; it is Thackeray’s, rather, that has run out.
[56]A sweet young thing in one of my extension courses, voicing the literary despair of the class in a poem called “The Fairy Door,” made this end of the whole matter:
“The world seems black and ugly
When I shut the Fairy Door;
I want to go to Fairyland
And live forever more.”
“The world seems black and ugly”
I thrust the manuscript back into my bag in disgust and turned for relief to the morning paper. Here—for the young writer was the daughter of a prominent Bostonian—I saw the announcement of her engagement to a Chicago man, and I knew, of course, what ailed82 the poetry; and I knew the medicine that I should administer.
How far apart literature and life sometimes get! And how much more real and romantic is ordinary life than ordinary literature!
The girl was to meet me that afternoon in the university extension lecture. The amphitheater[57] was full of city folk, and there in the middle of the hall sat the young poet. She was very pretty, one of the daughters of men still fair. Taking her poem, I read it aloud to that last stanza, when, turning sharply, and pointing the manuscript hard at her, I demanded,
“Is this so? Do you want to leave Boston for Fairyland, instead of Chicago? Do you?”
She was staggered by the suddenness and savageness83 of it all and rose to her feet, adorably pink in her confusion, stammering84, “No, no, I beg—of course I—no, I don’t”—by this time so recovered that her eyes flashed wrath85 as she dropped to her seat amid the gaping86 and the twittering of the class.
“If you don’t mean it,” I demanded, “why in the sacred name of literature did you write it? Why don’t you ever write what you mean? And you mean that Boston has suddenly become a back number for literature; that the literary center has shifted to Chicago—that’s what you mean. Chicago! the one romantic, fairy-like spot on earth! Isn’t that what you mean? Then don’t you see how fresh, how thrilling a theme you have in your Chicago?[58] No one else, perhaps, ever saw Chicago in quite this rosy87, romantic light before.”
Hers is the enduring truth about Chicago; as against that set forth88 by Mr. Armour89 in “The Packers, the Private Car Lines, and the People.” Here she was, herself the very stuff of the eternal in literature, and forced to Fairyland for something to write about! Sheer nonsense. One need not take the wings of the morning to the uttermost sea, or make one’s bed in Hell for “copy.” Chicago will do—or Boston—or even Hingham.
To be, if to be only a stock or a stone, beast or bird or man, is to be a story, while to be any one of my neighbors is to be an epic90.
The day we moved out here, before our goods arrived, a strangely youthful pair, far on in the eighties, struggled up the hill from the old farm below to greet us. He was clad in overalls91 and topcoat, and she in flowers, overflowing92 from both her arms, and in wild confusion on the gayest Easter bonnet93 that ever bloomed.
“How do you do, neighbors!” she began, extending her armfuls of glorious mountain laurel; “Mr. White and I bring you the welcome[59] of the Hingham Hills”—Mr. White’s rough old hand grasping mine amid the blossoms.
“Why,” I cried, “I didn’t know the Hingham Hills could hold such a welcome. I have tramped the woods about here, but I never found a bunch of laurel.”
“Ah, you didn’t get into Valley Swamp! Mr. White and I will show you, won’t we, Georgie? We know where odes hang on hawthorns94, don’t we? We are busy farmers, and you know what farming is; but we have never ploughed up our poetry-patch, have we, Georgie?”
They never had; nor much of their other ninety-six acres either—the whole farm a joyous95 riot of free verse: fences without line or meter: cattle running where they liked; the farm kit—a mowing96 machine, a sulky plough, and a stolid97 old grindstone—straying romantically about the shy sweet fields.
It was an ode of a carriage that the spoony old couple went to town in, with wheels dactylic on one side and iambic on the other, and so broken a line for a back spring that Mrs. White would slide into Mr. White’s lap without c?sura or even a punctuation98 mark to hinder.
[60]I was at the village market one muddy March day, when Cupid and the old mare99, neither wearing blinders, brought this chariot to the curb100. Mr. White, descending101 to the street, reached up for Mrs. White, who, giving him both her hands, put out a dainty foot to the carriage-step and there poised, dismayed at the March mud. Instantly Mr. White, disengaging one hand, lifted a folded blanket from the seat, shot it grandly out across the mud, and with a bow as gallant102 as Sir Walter’s own, handed the dear old shoes unblemished to the shop.
Eighteen or eighty, it is just the same. Boston or Chicago or Hingham, it is just the same. White or red or yellow or black, it is just the same. The radium of romance is mixed with the slag of all our souls. Here is my colored neighbor down toward the village.
“Hello!” I called to him over the telephone, “aren’t you going to do that job for me?”
This neighbor is a most useful colored citizen, with a complete line of avocations103, cleaning cesspools nocturnally and on Saturday afternoons being one of these sporadic104 and subsidiary callings.
[61]“Hello!” he answered; “I most assuredly am! And exceedingly sorry I am, too, for this delay.” (He had been coming for one year and six months now.) “But my business grows enormously. It is really more than I can administer. The fact is, professor, I must increase my equipment. I can’t dip any longer. I am rapidly approaching the proportions of a pump.”
“I am rapidly approaching the proportions of a pump.” Divine! I like the sound. For it is the true measure of life as set over against that which life may merely appear to be. To trudge105 along through life beside your humble cart of the long-handled dipper, and to know that your dipper is approaching the proportions of a pump is to know that you are greater than you know.
I saw yesterday in the Sunday newspaper the lovely face of a girl, who, “rumor has it,” ran the legend, “will be the next Queen of England.” She, too, like my colored neighbor, like us all, is approaching the proportions of a pump. We are all the stuff that pumps and dreams are made of, and great art, and great literature.
I spoke106 of Joel Moore here in the next house[62] to me. For twenty-six years he was chained to a milk-route, covering Lovell’s Corner, East Weymouth, and our back wood-road; but he always drove it in a trotting107 sulky.
From behind the bushes I have seen him calming the leg-weary team as it labored108 up the humps in the road, his feet braced109, his arms extended to the slack lines, his eyes fixed110 on the Judge’s Stand ahead, while he maneuvered111 against Ed Geers and Ben Hur and all the Weymouths for the pole.
He came home in that lumbering112, rattling113 milk-cart as if it wore winged wheels, and were being drawn114 by the steeds of Aurora115 around the half-mile track at the great Brockton Fair.
It was sixteen years ago that Joel drove home with Flora116 IV, a black mare without a leg to stand on, but with a record of 2.12? There was large fixing of the little barn for her, and much rubbing-down of withers117.
One day Joel was seen wandering over the knoll here near the house, kicking stones around. Something was the matter. I sauntered out toward my barn casually118 and called to him. Picking up a piece of rock in the pasture, he[63] staggered with it to the fence, and fixing it into the wall, said with labored breath, “Flora IV has a foal!” And, lifting another stone off the wall, for ballast, he strode up the hill and over, and down to his barn, not knowing the “Magnificat,” it may be, but singing it in his heart all the way down.
And this happened on the very hill which this day I bought with the field by the side of the house. Joel owned the field then. But he longed for a fast horse. I never set my heart on a fast horse; but I cannot resist a field. I did not covet119 this field of Joel’s. I merely dreamed of it as part of my dooryard, and waited—longer than Jacob waited for Rachel. What a dream she must have been!
But let me come back to Joel and Flora and the foal.
My youngest boy was born that same summer—sixteen years ago—the double event in Joel’s mind wearing the mixed complexion120 of twins. He had had no children till the colt came, and naturally he spoiled her. She was a willful little thing by inheritance, though—arch, skittish121, and very pretty; and long before[64] she wore shoes had got the petulant122 habit of kicking the siding off the barn at any delay of dinner.
She should have been broken by her second birthday, but Joel would take no risks; and in the third summer, though he “had her used to leather,” he needed a steady old horse to hitch58 her with, and she came up to her fourth birthday untrained. Then, the first time he took her out, she behaved so badly, and cut herself so, forward, that it was necessary to turn her loose for months. Then she was sent away to be broken, but came back a little more willful than ever, and prettier than ever, if possible.
That winter Joel had to give up his milk-route on account of sickness, and with the opening of spring got the blacksmith to take the colt in hand. He took her, and threw her, dislocating her shoulder. Then he pulled off her new shoes, and she was put into the boxstall to get well.
After that, I don’t know just why, but we talked of other things than the colt. She kicked a board off the back of the barn one day, sending a splinter whizzing past my head, but neither of us noticed it. She was seven years old now,[65] a creature shaped for speed, but Joel was not strong enough to manage her, and a horse like this could so easily be harmed. In fact, he never harnessed her again.
I urged him from time to time, with what directness I dared, to let me take him into the hospital. But he had never left the farm and his wife alone overnight in all these years. Then one day he sent for me. He would go, he said, if I could arrange for him.
A March snow lay on the fields the day before he was to go, and all that day, at odd times, I would see him creeping like a shadow about his place: to the hen-coops, up to the line fence, out to the apple tree in the meadow, taking a last look at things. It was quite impossible for me to work that day.
The next morning the four boys, on their way to school, went down ahead of me to say good-bye. They filed in, shook hands bravely, fighting back their tears, and playing fine the game of bluff123 with him, though the little fellow, born the summer the colt was born, nearly spoiled it all. He is a dear impulsive124 child and had frankly125 been Joel’s favorite.
[66]“I’ve taken the eveners off the disk harrow,” he was saying as he came out to the sleigh. “I gave the kittens a bed of fresh rowan. I drove a nail under the shutter126 of the can-house, where you can hang the key. You had better lock up a little till I get back”—his words half muffled127 under the big robes of the sleigh.
“I hate to leave home,” he said, as we went along; “but she couldn’t stand it. She’s not well. It isn’t so bad for me with you along.”
Two or three times he was about to say something else, but felt too tired. I had him duly entered; introduced him to his surgeon; helped him to his cot, where a cheery nurse made him easy; then gave him my hand.
“Good-day,” he said; “I’m going to pay you back some time. Only I can’t.” He clung a moment longer to me. “I’ve never had many of the luxuries. I’ve worked hard for all I’ve got—except for the little colt. She was thrown in. I never fed her a quart of grain—the cleanest little eater—as fat as butter—and on nothing but roughage all the time!”
Then, looking me straight in the eye, he said calmly, “You and I know and the doctors know.[67] But I couldn’t tell her. You tell her. You can. And tell her I guess she had better sell the little colt.”
He paused a moment. Something yet he wished to say—the thing he had tried before to say. I hope the Recording Angel took it down, and the way he said it, down. Not quite daring to look into my eyes, he asked, wistfully, “You don’t need a fast horse yourself, of course, having your auto128?”
“Yes, I do, Joel,” I answered firmly; “I do need a fast horse. We all do, or something like that.” And I bent129 over and kissed him, for his wife, and for my little boy at home.
There is balm in Gilead; but are there racetracks in Heaven?—and fast horses there? Perhaps not. But I often wish that I had told Joel I believed there were. Of course there are. There is romance in Heaven, and the magical chance of escape there.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
longing
|
|
| n.（for）渴望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
sketching
|
|
| n.草图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
dough
|
|
| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
sketches
|
|
| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
baker
|
|
| n.面包师 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
munch
|
|
| v.用力嚼，大声咀嚼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
collateral
|
|
| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
ecstasy
|
|
| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
victuals
|
|
| n.食物；食品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
subsist
|
|
| vi.生存，存在，供养 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
apron
|
|
| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
yolk
|
|
| n.蛋黄，卵黄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
hovered
|
|
| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
cedars
|
|
| 雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
plaintive
|
|
| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
yearning
|
|
| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
sip
|
|
| v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
chides
|
|
| v.责骂，责备( chide的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
hymn
|
|
| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
maples
|
|
| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
poised
|
|
| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
knoll
|
|
| n.小山，小丘 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
wavy
|
|
| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
crest
|
|
| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
hawking
|
|
| 利用鹰行猎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
bellies
|
|
| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
beckoning
|
|
| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
tariff
|
|
| n.关税，税率；(旅馆、饭店等)价目表，收费表 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
stumped
|
|
| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的过去式和过去分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
nomination
|
|
| n.提名，任命，提名权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
outlast
|
|
| v.较…耐久 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
awe
|
|
| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
license
|
|
| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
bondage
|
|
| n.奴役，束缚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
growls
|
|
| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的第三人称单数 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
leash
|
|
| n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
spectral
|
|
| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
twilight
|
|
| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
deferring
|
|
| v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的现在分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
diffused
|
|
| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
slag
|
|
| n.熔渣，铁屑，矿渣；v.使变成熔渣，变熔渣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
dross
|
|
| n.渣滓；无用之物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
energizes
|
|
| v.给予…精力，能量( energize的第三人称单数 )；使通电 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
steering
|
|
| n.操舵装置 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
dismal
|
|
| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
subliminal
|
|
| adj.下意识的，潜意识的；太弱或太快以至于难以觉察的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
salmon
|
|
| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
gorges
|
|
| n.山峡，峡谷( gorge的名词复数 )；咽喉v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 )；作呕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
orchard
|
|
| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
toad
|
|
| n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
hush
|
|
| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
dint
|
|
| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
hitch
|
|
| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
hitching
|
|
| 搭乘； （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的现在分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
chambers
|
|
| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
flickers
|
|
| 电影制片业； （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
guttered
|
|
| vt.形成沟或槽于…（gutter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
premises
|
|
| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
plodding
|
|
| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
essentially
|
|
| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
farmhouse
|
|
| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
humdrum
|
|
| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
hovering
|
|
| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
recording
|
|
| n.录音，记录 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
cramp
|
|
| n.痉挛；[pl.](腹)绞痛；vt.限制，束缚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
belle
|
|
| n.靓女 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
serene
|
|
| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
physiologists
|
|
| n.生理学者( physiologist的名词复数 )；生理学( physiology的名词复数 )；生理机能 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
astronomer
|
|
| n.天文学家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
touching
|
|
| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
parasites
|
|
| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
flea
|
|
| n.跳蚤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
cynical
|
|
| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
infertile
|
|
| adj.不孕的；不肥沃的，贫瘠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
climax
|
|
| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
stanza
|
|
| n.（诗）节，段 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
ailed
|
|
| v.生病( ail的过去式和过去分词 )；感到不舒服；处境困难；境况不佳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
savageness
|
|
| 天然，野蛮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
stammering
|
|
| v.结巴地说出( stammer的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
wrath
|
|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
gaping
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
rosy
|
|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
armour
|
|
| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
epic
|
|
| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
overalls
|
|
| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
overflowing
|
|
| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
bonnet
|
|
| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
hawthorns
|
|
| n.山楂树( hawthorn的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
joyous
|
|
| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
mowing
|
|
| n.割草，一次收割量，牧草地v.刈，割( mow的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
stolid
|
|
| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
punctuation
|
|
| n.标点符号，标点法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
mare
|
|
| n.母马，母驴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
curb
|
|
| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
descending
|
|
| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
gallant
|
|
| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
avocations
|
|
| n.业余爱好，嗜好( avocation的名词复数 )；职业 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
sporadic
|
|
| adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
trudge
|
|
| v.步履艰难地走；n.跋涉，费力艰难的步行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
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： |
|
|
|
|
107
trotting
|
|
| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
labored
|
|
| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
braced
|
|
| adj.拉牢的v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
maneuvered
|
|
| v.移动，用策略( maneuver的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
lumbering
|
|
| n.采伐林木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
rattling
|
|
| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
aurora
|
|
| n.极光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
flora
|
|
| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
withers
|
|
| 马肩隆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
casually
|
|
| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
covet
|
|
| vt.垂涎；贪图(尤指属于他人的东西) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
complexion
|
|
| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
skittish
|
|
| adj.易激动的，轻佻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
petulant
|
|
| adj.性急的，暴躁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
bluff
|
|
| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
impulsive
|
|
| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
shutter
|
|
| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
muffled
|
|
| 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） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
auto
|
|
| n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |