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§ 16

If his shoulder-blade was to mend, Peter could not be moved; and for a time he remained in the French hospital 511in a long, airy room that was full mostly with flying men like himself. At first he could not talk very much, but later he made some friends. He was himself very immobile, but other men came and sat by him to talk.

He talked chiefly to two Americans, who were serving at that time in the French flying corps¹. He found it much easier to talk English than French in his exhausted² state, for though both he and Joan spoke³ French far above the average public school level, he found that now it came with an effort. It was as if his mind had for a time been pared down to its essentials.

These Americans amused and interested him tremendously. He had met hardly any Americans before so as to talk to them at all intimately, but they suffered from an inhibition of French perhaps more permanent than his own, and so the three were thrown into an unlimited⁴ intimacy⁵ of conversation. At first he found these Americans rather fatiguing⁶, and then he found them very refreshing⁷ because of their explicitness⁸ of mind. Except when they broke into frothy rapids of slang they were never allusive⁹; in serious talk they said everything. They laid a firm foundation for all their assertions. That is the last thing an Englishman does. They talked of the war and of the prospect¹⁰ of America coming into the war, and of England and America and again of the war, and of the French and of the French and Americans and of the war, and of Taft’s League to Enforce Peace and the true character of Wilson and Teddy and of the war, and of Sam Hughes and Hughes the Australian, and whether every country has the Hughes it deserves and of the war, and of going to England after the war, and of Stratford-on-Avon and Chester and Windsor, and of the peculiarities¹¹ of English people. Their ideas of England Peter discovered were strange and picturesque¹². They believed all Englishmen lived in a glow of personal loyalty¹³ to the Monarch¹⁴, and were amazed to learn that Peter’s sentiments were republican; and they thought that every Englishman dearly loved a lord. “We think that of Americans,” said Peter. “That’s our politeness,” said they in a chorus, and started a train of profound discoveries in international relationships in Peter’s mind.

512“The ideas of every country about every country are necessarily a little stale. What England is, what England thinks, and what England is becoming, isn’t on record. What is on record is the England of the ’eighties and ’nineties.”

“Now, that’s very true,” said the nearer American. “And you can apply it right away, with a hundred per cent. or so added, to all your ideas of America.”

As a consequence both sides in this leisurely¹⁵ discussion found how widely they had been out in their ideas about each other. Peter discovered America as not nearly so commercial and individualistic as he had supposed; he had been altogether ignorant of the increasing part the universities were playing in her affairs; the Americans were equally edified¹⁶ to find that the rampant¹⁷ imperialism¹⁸ of Cecil Rhodes and his group no longer ruled the British imagination. “If things are so,” said the diplomatist in the nearer bed, “then I seem to see a lot more coming together between us than I’ve ever been disposed to think possible before. If you British aren’t so keen over this king business——”

“Keen!” said Peter.

“If you don’t hold you are IT and unapproachable—in the way of Empires.”

“The Empire is yours for the asking,” said Peter.

“Then all there is between us is the Atlantic—and that grows narrower every year. We’re the same people.”

“So long as we have the same languages and literature,” said Peter....

From these talks onward¹⁹ Peter may be regarded as having a Foreign Policy of his own.

1 corps   

n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组

参考例句：

• The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

2 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

3 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：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

5 intimacy   

n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行

参考例句：

• His claims to an intimacy with the President are somewhat exaggerated.他声称自己与总统关系密切，这有点言过其实。
• I wish there were a rule book for intimacy.我希望能有个关于亲密的规则。

6 fatiguing   

a.使人劳累的

参考例句：

• He was fatiguing himself with his writing, no doubt. 想必他是拼命写作，写得精疲力尽了。
• Machines are much less fatiguing to your hands, arms, and back. 使用机器时，手、膊和后背不会感到太累。

7 refreshing   

adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的

参考例句：

• I find it'so refreshing to work with young people in this department.我发现和这一部门的青年一起工作令人精神振奋。
• The water was cold and wonderfully refreshing.水很涼，特别解乏提神。

8 explicitness   

参考例句：

• Coherence enjoys in nature the dichotomy between explicitness and implicitness, stability and dynamics, and and macrocosm. 连贯呈现出显性与隐性、静态性与动态性、微观性与宏观性的二元性特征。
• Bill Venners: What explicitness buys me, then, is that it is easier to understand the code. 比尔：我同意明确性能让我们更容易理解代码。

9 allusive   

adj.暗示的；引用典故的

参考例句：

• Allusive speech is characterized by allusions.含沙射影的演讲以指桑骂槐为特征。
• Her allusive style is difficult to follow.她引经据典的风格晦涩难懂。

10 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

11 peculiarities   

n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪

参考例句：

• the cultural peculiarities of the English 英国人的文化特点
• He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another. 他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。

12 picturesque   

adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的

参考例句：

• You can see the picturesque shores beside the river.在河边你可以看到景色如画的两岸。
• That was a picturesque phrase.那是一个形象化的说法。

13 loyalty   

n.忠诚，忠心

参考例句：

• She told him the truth from a sense of loyalty.她告诉他真相是出于忠诚。
• His loyalty to his friends was never in doubt.他对朋友的一片忠心从来没受到怀疑。

14 monarch   

n.帝王，君主，最高统治者

参考例句：

• The monarch's role is purely ceremonial.君主纯粹是个礼仪职位。
• I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth.我觉得这个时候比世界上什么帝王都快乐。

15 leisurely   

adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的

参考例句：

• We walked in a leisurely manner,looking in all the windows.我们慢悠悠地走着，看遍所有的橱窗。
• He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.他从容的吃了早餐，高兴的开车去工作。

16 edified   

v.开导，启发( edify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He must be edified by what he sees. 他耳濡目染，一定也受到影响。 来自辞典例句
• For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified. 你感谢的固然是好，无奈不能造就别人。 来自互联网

17 rampant   

adj.(植物)蔓生的；狂暴的，无约束的

参考例句：

• Sickness was rampant in the area.该地区疾病蔓延。
• You cannot allow children to rampant through the museum.你不能任由小孩子在博物馆里乱跑。

18 imperialism   

n.帝国主义，帝国主义政策

参考例句：

• They held the imperialism in contempt.他们鄙视帝国主义。
• Imperialism has not been able to subjugate China.帝国主义不能征服中国。

19 onward   

adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先

参考例句：

• The Yellow River surges onward like ten thousand horses galloping.黄河以万马奔腾之势滚滚向前。
• He followed in the steps of forerunners and marched onward.他跟随着先辈的足迹前进。