Two weeks later, when Aaron returned to the little red office building across the road from the mill, he found on his desk a paper marked “Articles of Dissolution.” Attached was a note of two lines from Enoch, saying: “Let any changes proposed to be made herein appear in the form of writing, or through an attorney at law.”
The articles prepared by Enoch provided that the ore and coal lands, which had been pooled on a royalty4 basis, should release from that agreement and revert5 to their respective owners; that the eight blast furnaces should be divided equally, four and four; that Gib should buy from Breakspeare, for cash, his interest in the rolling mill, because it could not be divided, the price to be one-half the original cost, according to the books, and that all the money in the firm’s treasury6, less current liabilities, should be halved7 on the date of signature.
Aaron read the paper once through, put it down and signed it. The terms were unfair. Yet he had no impulse to change them. They were unfair because nothing was made of those two intangible assets which[58] sometimes in business are worth more than the physical properties—namely, spirit of organization and good will of trade—all of which would automatically belong to the one who bought out the other’s interest in the mill. This was so because the mill was now the crown of the business. What the firm sold was no longer pig iron, as at first, but wrought8 iron in standard bars manufactured from the pig by remelting, kneading, hammering and rolling it. The product of the blast furnaces, instead of going to market, only fed the mill.
What would Aaron do?
He could not sell the product of his blast furnaces to Enoch. Business transactions between them were unimaginable; besides, no sooner were the articles of dissolution signed than Enoch went about building four more blast furnaces of his own. That was to make himself independent of Aaron’s product. Aaron, therefore, might choose between seeking a market outside for his pig iron or building a mill to work it. To build a mill would require, first, a large outlay9 of capital, then an organization of expert workers and superintendents10, and thirdly a market for his wrought iron in competition with the product of the established mill, now Enoch’s. For of course Enoch’s iron would continue to be called Damascus Iron, which was its trade name, and it was already famous in the country for its fine texture11 and purity. Aaron’s might be just as good, but it would have to take a new name and earn its own good will.
Well, but what he did was unexpected. He drew[59] the fires from his blast furnaces and went to Europe with Esther.
It was more than a honeymoon12, or less, as you may happen to think. In Aaron’s case romance and work were easily combined, for as love is an adventure of the spirit, so to a man of his temperament13 work is a romantic enterprise of the mind and creative in a manner less wonderful than the mysterious life process only because we take it for granted. What is an engine? a steamship14? a blast furnace? a tower? It is the materialization in form and function of an idea itself imponderable. It is the psychic15 power of man exteriorized in substance and there is no accounting16 for such phenomena17 save that it happens. Who knows but the Gods are as much puzzled by that form of glow worm full of parasites18 that we call a railroad train as we are by the things of cosmic origin?
Specifically Aaron was in quest of a secret that had eluded19 and baffled iron masters always. They were sure it existed. That certainty was deducible from the data of knowledge. Many times they had almost touched it; then it was lost again, like a coy, tantalizing20 vision of loveliness, and the pursuers were discouraged. Still, they never gave up. Whoever found it would be made exceedingly rich and the iron industry at the same time would be revolutionized.
It is to be explained.
Everybody probably knows that in the first place all the iron was trapped in the blazing heart of the earth. It forms no part anywhere of the earth’s true granite21 crust. But it was rebellious22 and indigestible and had[60] to be spewed up from the inflamed24 Plutonic belly25 through the tops of volcanoes. At that time volcanoes were near or under water generally, and when the molten iron came jetting forth26 in red lava27 streams a spectacular melodrama28 was enacted29. Water was its adverse30 element. At the lava’s touch the oceans boiled, hissed31, upheaved and draped themselves in steam. They were not hurt really; they were outraged32.
What happened to the lava?
The water shivered it to atoms and cast it high upon the wind as dust and ashes.
In that free and irresponsible condition iron travelled far, made his bed in many places, took up with new and strange affinities33,—the flapper sisters Chlorine, the Sulphur Gerties, the lazy Nitrate Susans, the harmless Silicates34, a score of others known and unknown, and most of all with a comfortable, indispensable element called Oxygen. The extent and variety of his embracings may be imagined from the fact that he is never found in a state of unattached purity save now and then when he falls from the heavens as a meteorite35. In these haphazard36, bigamous earthly alliances he is of no avail to man. The problem is how to disentangle him,—how to divorce him from his undesirable37 affinities and wed23 him durably38 and in a lawful39 manner to those elements which supplement his power.
It becomes extremely complicated when you begin seriously to consider it. How shall one be divorced from many miscellaneous affinities? You have to have been regularly wedded40 in order to get divorced. Well, the only way is the long, pragmatic way. You wed[61] him to the affinities that are to be legally got rid of and then divorce him from them.
Now take it: The iron ore is in the ore bed, embracing those other elements at random41, particularly Oxygen. First you oxidize him by roasting. That is, you wed him to Oxygen; you give him Oxygen until he is sick of it. Then you melt him down with coal in a furnace to deoxidize him—to divorce him, that is to say, from his affinity42 Oxygen. It is the first fiery43 ordeal44. But at the same time you wed him to Carbon. Thus deoxidized and carbonized, divorced and wedded by one stroke, he becomes pig iron.
The wedding with Carbon, however, is not permanent. It has been contracted so to speak under duress45, a miserable46 makeshift, because his earthly nature is such that he must be wedded to something all the time. Besides, there is now too much Carbon for his own good. So you melt him again and divorce him from Carbon, by the unexpected method of blowing Oxygen through him. At the end of this second ordeal he is free of both Carbon and Oxygen, many other elements have disappeared also, and you have wrought iron, practically pure, limp and malleable47.
Now suppose you want to make him hard. You want to convert him into steel. In that case you melt him a third time and wed him permanently48 to a small amount of Carbon, more or less, the amount to be governed by the degree of hardness required. That makes steel. But to make it has required one roasting and three meltings.
The dream of the iron masters, beginning with the[62] 19th century, was to make it all one continuous, fluid process, and bring the complete result to pass at one melting. If that could be done the cost of production would be enormously reduced.
The discovery of such a method now seemed imminent49 in either England or Germany. Many experts were pressing on the door. Suddenly it would fly open and whoever was there at the moment would be able to seize the secret. Rumors50 of success had been heard, disbelieved, denied, scoffed51 at and repeated. Aaron believed them, or believed at least that if the secret had not already been captured it was about to be. That was his quest in Europe.
After a year he returned with a steel making patent, enormous quantities of queer looking material, a crew of expert English erectors, and proceeded to build what the curious Damascenes called a concern. That word was in lieu of a proper name for an object which, without being supernatural, was unique on earth. In shape it somewhat resembled a gigantic snail52 shell, in a vertical53 position, open end up, thirty feet high, made of iron plates bolted together, lined with fire clay and so mounted at its axis54 that it could be tipped to spill its contents. On the same foundation was mounted a blowing engine to force air at high pressure through perforations in the bottom of the shell; and there was also a great ladle in chains for hoisting55 molten metal to its mouth.
The work of construction was slow and tedious; it came several times to a full stop for want of something[63] that had not been provided beforehand and could not be made on the spot. Nearly another year passed.
Then one day smoke appeared at the top of one of Aaron’s four blast furnaces and people by this sign were notified that the great experiment was about to begin. In a general way the population knew, from what the workers said, that the intention was to produce steel and to produce it direct from the ore, and also that if such a thing were possible the iron industry would undergo a basic transformation57.
All of that was exciting and very important, especially to a town like New Damascus, whose living was in iron. Yet it was no technical interest in a metallurgical process that moved people to gather in large numbers to witness the experiment. What they sensed was its human meaning. It symbolized58 a struggle between the former partners. The outcome might deeply affect the economic position of New Damascus in the course of time. Immediately it had tense dramatic value. It would prove which was the greater man and which was right,—Aaron who believed steel cheaply produced in large quantities by a continuous one-melt process would supersede59 iron and bring a new age to pass, or Enoch who scoffed, who was known privately60 to have predicted Aaron’s ruin, and who held that to think of getting steel direct from ore in that manner, skipping the iron stage, was as absurd as to think of getting a grandson from a grandfather, skipping the father. It was contrary to the way of nature.
All the iron wisdom of the community was with Enoch. All the inert61 scepticism with which people[64] behold62 the trial of a new thing was on his side. But the heart was for Aaron. Everybody liked him still, as in the old days, and ardently63 wished him success. Besides, if he brought it off, Enoch Gib would be humbled64. His tyrannical ways were increasingly complained of. New Damascus would rather be a steel town under Aaron than an iron town under Enoch.
With the outcome in suspense65, the experiment itself was worth seeing as a spectacle. Nothing like it could have been imagined.
First, that strange, enormous tilting67 vessel68, resembling a snail shell, was filled with fuel and fired under blast from the blowing engine until its clay-lined interior was white hot. Then it was tilted69 on its axis, emptied and tilted back again. Next the molten iron from the blast furnace, instead of being run off in the sand to make the sow the pigs devour70, was tapped into that great ladle in chains, hoisted71 on high, and poured into the white hot gullet of the tilting vessel. At the same time the blowing engine to force air through the perforations in the bottom was set in fast motion with a terrible roar. A blast of air at high pressure began now to pass upward through the fluid metal.
In the belly of the tilting vessel occurred a dry, chortling sound, followed by a dull, regular clapping, as of Plutonic amusement and applause. From the mouth of the vessel issued millions of sparks, particles burning brilliantly in the air. This went on for seven or eight minutes. Suddenly the sparks went out and a[65] dull, sluggish73 red flame appeared, turning bright and yellowish, then becoming high, brilliant and dart-like. After several minutes terrific detonations74 began to take place in the vessel. With each detonation75 the flame shot higher. This uproar76 was succeeded by a period of calm. The yellowish, dart-like flame rising from the throat of the vessel was replaced by a long, white flame, which stood for several seconds proudly, then trembled, tore at the edges and abruptly77 collapsed78. Dense79 black smoke issued from the mouth of the crater80 and the scene was dark. This was the moment at which the metal itself began to burn. The workers, uttering shrill81 cries of anxiety, readiness, encouragement and damnation, seized the levers controlling the vessel and tilted it over to a spilling position. Through the black smoke that corked82 its throat burst the fluid, blazing metal, hissing83 like a tortured serpent, alive in every incandescent84 crystal, yet doomed85 quickly to cool and blacken, every element touching86 it being fatally adverse. Men in waiting caught it headfirst neatly87 into a trundle pot and wheeled it off to be decanted88 into sand molds, like pig iron molds, but smaller.
The experiment was finished. The test was yet to come. That waited on the cooling. What was in those molds? Those squarish lumps blackening in the sand,—what would they turn out to be? No one knew.
Aaron waited until one was cool enough to handle. Then placing it like a stick of kindling89 against the chopping block, he hit it one blow in the middle with a sledge90 hammer. It broke with an ironic91, ringing[66] sound and lay in two pieces apart. He never stooped to pick them up. Without a word he dropped the hammer and walked away.
Esther received him on the terrace. She had been there for hours, anxiously watching the spectacle from afar, then waiting for him to come and tell her what the outcome was. But he did not have to tell her. She knew by his look, by his walk, by the way he took her arm. They sat for some time in silence.
“It beats me,” he said. “I can’t explain it. I don’t know what happened.”
“What was it like?” she asked. “The product I mean—was it iron or steel?”
“Pot metal,” he said contemptuously.
For a long time they stood there on the terrace looking their thoughts into space. Hers were personal. His were not. This she knew. There is probably no sense of loneliness so poignant93 as that which a woman feels when the idol94 of her being disembodies his soul and departs with it, leaving in her hands the fact of his empty presence. Lacking in herself his power of abstraction she cannot understand this phenomenon. But she verifies it and it fills her with terror. The form is there at her side, even in her arms, as it was a moment before. The man is gone. She has no idea where he is or what he is doing.
“Aaron!”
Esther whispered his name as one who dreads95 to wake the sleeper96 and yet cannot forbear to do so. Impulsively97 she buried her face beneath his arm as if she would enter the vacant premises98. He laid his arm[67] around her shoulder. It was an absent gesture. She had not waked him quite.
“Aaron!” she called again. “What does it matter? Come back to me.”
At that he started slightly and began to talk in a slow, far-away manner, very much as he had talked to Enoch that moonlight night after the birthday party when the idea of making New Damascus an iron town had suddenly crystallized in his mind. Esther, loving the mere99 sound of his voice, did not at first get the sense of his speech. He was saying:
These were the first words she understood. They thrilled her. She was almost faint with an ecstasy101 that ran through her fibre up and down. “So,” she thought, “it was that.” And she had been thinking he was far away. Now she listened tensely. He went on:
“... Millions, infinite millions, clamoring to get born, perhaps dying because they cannot cross. Here is life on this side. There, out there, is but the hope of it.”
“Between life that is and life unborn I see the primal103 chasm104,” he said. “We who live have crossed. We do not remember how. The number that can cross is small. You cannot imagine how small it is. Only one in millions has the luck to get across. The rest are crowded on the edge, weeping, reaching out their hands, silently imploring105 us to get them over.[68] They struggle, overwhelm themselves and fall into the void like a cataract106.”
“Why is that?” asked Esther.
“Because the number that can cross is limited by the preparations of the living,” Aaron answered. “The living are selfish and forgetful. All this I see as it has been for ages, as now it is, and as it shall be. Always it has been as it is on the other side—that infinite, voiceless, despairing multitude pressing down to the brink107 of the void. Here in the world of the living there has been some change. We have the power of preparation. How pitiably we have exercised it! I’ll tell you all that has ever happened. Long ago, before he began by imagination to extend his faculties108, man was like the other animals. He had only his hands and legs, his sheer brute109 strength, to work with. He housed himself in holes and caves and ate what the untilled earth set forth. You must imagine then across that primal chasm a chain of human bodies, a living monkey bridge, by which the unborn came to life most dangerously. How few they were! And yet, if more had come just then they would have starved,—died here instead of there,—because the means did not exist to house and clothe and feed them. It is man’s business not only to bridge the chasm; he must also beforehand prepare the world for those who cross. Come ten thousand years through time this way. Now see him beginning to till the soil. See him building huts. More life may be sustained. Above the void a swaying bridge of sticks. More may safely get across. And yet so very few! Another thousand years. Enter[69] historic man. He builds him cities and fine temples and there is a narrow stone arch to span the void. The bridge, as you will note, is at any time of that material in which mankind is working. This is better. The unborn begin to rush across. But, alas110! the case is worse than ever. Many now are born that never will be fed. Why?
“Imagine the world at this time in panorama111. There are cities, noble cities walled about; but they are few and very far apart, and the world at large is still an untilled waste. Tillage is in small adjacent areas, and when the produce of those areas is not enough the people in the cities starve. Further away are vast fertile plains uncultivated. They are of no use because food cannot be transported thousands of miles in great quantities. The art of transportation is undiscovered. Hence frightful112 famines on the bounteous113 earth. Then in his imagination man finds a ship. That makes it possible to transport food long distances, and yet the world is hardly touched. Life is increasable only on the rim56 of the sea and in the valleys of rivers. An inland city is impossible.
“At length the iron age. It is our time. By mechanical means man has enormously increased his power to prepare the world for that infinite multitude unborn. It is tremendously excited—the voiceless, spectral114 multitude. It presses more wildly toward the void. An iron bridge has replaced the stone arch. It is a sign that many more may come. Now with railroads it is possible to bring food quickly from afar. No fertile area of the earth is inaccessible115. Inland cities[70] may begin to rise. More life in more ways can be sustained than ever before. Nevertheless, the iron bridge is a premature116 sign. The material is defective117. It is not hard enough to bear the strain of that host pressing upon life. Besides, by no process yet discovered can it be made fast enough.
“And I see what has not yet happened. I see whole cities built higher than the tower of Babel. Those are steel buildings, sheathed118 with brick and stone. Brick and stone upon mortar119 would not stand so high. To serve but one of these cities,—to bring its food and take away its manufactures,—I see a thousand railroad trains,—trains of steel running on rails of steel. Compared with these the iron shod trains we know and think so marvellous are merely toys. I see ships of steel so vast in size that on the side of one the little vessel in which Columbus found a new world would swing like a silly skiff. I see steel in all its power—towers, tunnels, aqueducts, fantastic structures I cannot sense the meaning of. I see miles of smoking chimneys where steel is made for all these uses in unimaginable quantities. And spanning the prismal chasm I see a series of great steel bridges, multiplying as I look, seeming to cast themselves in air across the void like cobwebs. But reflect! We have not yet discovered the way to make this steel. Unless we find it quickly we shall fail that unborn host. It cannot get across; if it did it could not live. The iron bridge cannot bear its weight. Nor can the world be prepared with iron. These things of iron are premature,[71] too soft, too slowly made, not big enough. Now do you know what it is we seek?”
“Forgive me. I did not mean to speak lightly of it,” Esther said. “None of this had been revealed to me.”
“Nor to me,” said Aaron. “Not clearly until this instant. Man works mostly in the dark, without knowing what he seeks or why....”
They repeated the experiment many times, never with precisely120 the same technical result, though always with the same disappointment. The metal they got was worthless. It was neither iron nor steel. The process was true. It remarkably121 foreshadowed the Bessemer process which some years later did achieve the result, revolutionize the industry and cause steel to overlap122 iron. It failed in Aaron’s hands for want of skill and chemical knowledge. The elements are not passive. They are wilful123 and rebellious. In their efforts to thwart124 man’s designs upon them they become cunning and clannish125. One helps the other to escape. With this same mechanical equipment steel workers of a later time would have been able to make a perfect steel. They would have known how at a certain stage of the process to cast into the fiery, detonating mass a handful of some tame, cajoling substance, and then the exact instant at which to stop the air blast and tilt66 the vessel to a spilling position.
Aaron was discouraged but not despairing. Half his fortune was gone. Still, it was not an irretrievable disaster.
To hold his organization together he built a small[72] rolling mill. He called it the Blue Jay. The site on which it stood may still be seen in New Damascus after all these years. Nothing else has ever occupied it. The mill was large enough to keep two blast furnaces going,—that is, it absorbed their output of pig iron. This was merely to fill a gap. He was bent126 upon steel. Having opened the mill and having found a market for all the Blue Jay iron it could make, again he took Esther and went to Europe on the same quest as before.
While they were abroad a son was born. They named him John.
On the homeward voyage Esther died and was buried at sea. The waters at last did swallow her up.
Aaron returned to New Damascus with a new steel making patent, an infant and an empty heart.
What there was in the patent nobody ever knew. He did nothing with it. The whole steel adventure was too intimately associated with memories of Esther. To succeed without her would be worse than to fail. He could not think of it. There was very little in this world he could think of. He could not bear living in the mansion127 without her. He closed it and went to live at the inn with his child and nurse. Then presently he could not bear living in New Damascus without her. People said it was the state of his fortunes that made him morose128. He had meant to retrieve129 his fortunes with Esther standing130 by. Now he neglected business, caring nothing about it, until one day he came awake to the fact that even so little business as it takes to[73] support a lone92 man and child will not attend to itself. He had to do something. But he could not do it there.
One day he dismantled131 the mill, loaded it in a canal boat, abandoned the irremovable blast furnaces, took his child in his arms and disappeared.
The Blue Jay Rolling Mill became famous not for its output but for its migrations132. He set it up in Scranton, then moved it to Pittsburgh. It was next reported in Texas and after that in Colorado. Then he ceased to be heard of, except once, when the old Woolwine Mansion was sold to a Roman Catholic order.
So he vanished from the light of New Damascus, with his steel patent, his grief and the fourth generation in swaddling cloths,—vanished away on a flying iron mill.
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partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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sundered
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| v.隔开，分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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revert
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| v.恢复，复归，回到 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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halved
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| v.把…分成两半( halve的过去式和过去分词 )；把…减半；对分；平摊 | |
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wrought
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outlay
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superintendents
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| 警长( superintendent的名词复数 )； （大楼的）管理人； 监管人； （美国）警察局长 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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honeymoon
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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steamship
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| n.汽船，轮船 | |
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psychic
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accounting
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phenomena
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parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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eluded
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tantalizing
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granite
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rebellious
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wed
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inflamed
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belly
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forth
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lava
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melodrama
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enacted
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adverse
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hissed
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outraged
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affinities
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silicates
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meteorite
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haphazard
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undesirable
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durably
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| adv.经久地，坚牢地 | |
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lawful
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| adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的 | |
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wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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42
affinity
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| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
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43
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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45
duress
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| n.胁迫 | |
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46
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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47
malleable
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| adj.(金属)可锻的;有延展性的；(性格)可训练的 | |
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48
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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49
imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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50
rumors
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| n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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51
scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
snail
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| n.蜗牛 | |
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53
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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54
axis
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| n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线 | |
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55
hoisting
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| 起重，提升 | |
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56
rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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57
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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58
symbolized
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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59
supersede
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| v.替代；充任 | |
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60
privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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61
inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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62
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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63
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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64
humbled
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| adj. 卑下的，谦逊的，粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下，贬低 | |
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65
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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66
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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67
tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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68
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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69
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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70
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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71
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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72
awesome
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| adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的 | |
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73
sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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74
detonations
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| n.爆炸 （声）( detonation的名词复数 ) | |
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75
detonation
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| n.爆炸；巨响 | |
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76
uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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77
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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78
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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79
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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80
crater
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| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
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81
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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82
corked
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| adj.带木塞气味的，塞着瓶塞的v.用瓶塞塞住( cork的过去式 ) | |
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83
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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84
incandescent
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| adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的 | |
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85
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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86
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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87
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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decanted
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| v.将（酒等）自瓶中倒入另一容器( decant的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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89
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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sledge
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| n.雪橇，大锤；v.用雪橇搬运，坐雪橇往 | |
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91
ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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92
lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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93
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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94
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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95
dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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96
sleeper
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| n.睡眠者，卧车，卧铺 | |
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97
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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98
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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99
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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100
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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101
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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102
awesomely
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| 赫然 | |
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103
primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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104
chasm
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| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
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105
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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106
cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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107
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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108
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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109
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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110
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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111
panorama
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| n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置] | |
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112
frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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113
bounteous
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| adj.丰富的 | |
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114
spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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115
inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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116
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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117
defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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118
sheathed
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| adj.雕塑像下半身包在鞘中的；覆盖的；铠装的；装鞘了的v.将（刀、剑等）插入鞘( sheathe的过去式和过去分词 )；包，覆盖 | |
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119
mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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120
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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121
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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122
overlap
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| v.重叠，与…交叠；n.重叠 | |
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123
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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124
thwart
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| v.阻挠，妨碍，反对；adj.横(断的) | |
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125
clannish
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| adj.排他的，门户之见的 | |
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126
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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127
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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128
morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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129
retrieve
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| vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索 | |
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130
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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131
dismantled
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| 拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消 | |
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132
migrations
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| n.迁移，移居( migration的名词复数 ) | |
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