The only thing that moved upon the vast semicircle of the beach was one small black spot. As it came nearer to the ribs1 and spine2 of the stranded3 pilchard boat, it became apparent from a certain tenuity in its blackness that this spot possessed4 four legs; and moment by moment it became more unmistakable that it was composed of the persons of two young men. Even thus in outline against the sand there was an unmistakable vitality5 in them; an indescribable vigour6 in the approach and withdrawal7 of the bodies, slight though it was, which proclaimed some violent argument issuing from the tiny mouths of the little round heads. This was corroborated8 on closer view by the repeated lunging of a walking-stick on the right-hand side. “You mean to tell me . . . You actually believe . . . ” thus the walkingstick on the right-hand side next the waves seemed to be asserting as it cut long straight stripes upon the sand.
“Politics be damned!” issued clearly from the body on the left-hand side, and, as these words were uttered, the mouths, noses, chins, little moustaches, tweed caps, rough boots, shooting coats, and check stockings of the two speakers became clearer and clearer; the smoke of their pipes went up into the air; nothing was so solid, so living, so hard, red, hirsute9 and virile10 as these two bodies for miles and miles of sea and sandhill.
They flung themselves down by the six ribs and spine of the black pilchard boat. You know how the body seems to shake itself free from an argument, and to apologize for a mood of exaltation; flinging itself down and expressing in the looseness of its attitude a readiness to take up with something new — whatever it may be that comes next to hand. So Charles, whose stick had been slashing11 the beach for half a mile or so, began skimming flat pieces of slate12 over the water; and John, who had exclaimed “Politics be damned!” began burrowing13 his fingers down, down, into the sand. As his hand went further and further beyond the wrist, so that he had to hitch14 his sleeve a little higher, his eyes lost their intensity15, or rather the background of thought and experience which gives an inscrutable depth to the eyes of grown people disappeared, leaving only the clear transparent16 surface, expressing nothing but wonder, which the eyes of young children display. No doubt the act of burrowing in the sand had something to do with it. He remembered that, after digging for a little, the water oozes17 round your finger-tips; the hole then becomes a moat; a well; a spring; a secret channel to the sea. As he was choosing which of these things to make it, still working his fingers in the water, they curled round something hard — a full drop of solid matter — and gradually dislodged a large irregular lump, and brought it to the surface. When the sand coating was wiped off, a green tint18 appeared. It was a lump of glass, so thick as to be almost opaque19; the smoothing of the sea had completely worn off any edge or shape, so that it was impossible to say whether it had been bottle, tumbler or window-pane; it was nothing but glass; it was almost a precious stone. You had only to enclose it in a rim20 of gold, or pierce it with a wire, and it became a jewel; part of a necklace, or a dull, green light upon a finger. Perhaps after all it was really a gem21; something worn by a dark Princess trailing her finger in the water as she sat in the stern of the boat and listened to the slaves singing as they rowed her across the Bay. Or the oak sides of a sunk Elizabethan treasure-chest had split apart, and, rolled over and over, over and over, its emeralds had come at last to shore. John turned it in his hands; he held it to the light; he held it so that its irregular mass blotted22 out the body and extended right arm of his friend. The green thinned and thickened slightly as it was held against the sky or against the body. It pleased him; it puzzled him; it was so hard, so concentrated, so definite an object compared with the vague sea and the hazy23 shore.
Now a sigh disturbed him — profound, final, making him aware that his friend Charles had thrown all the flat stones within reach, or had come to the conclusion that it was not worth while to throw them. They ate their sandwiches side by side. When they had done, and were shaking themselves and rising to their feet, John took the lump of glass and looked at it in silence. Charles looked at it too. But he saw immediately that it was not flat, and filling his pipe he said with the energy that dismisses a foolish strain of thought:
“To return to what I was saying ——”
He did not see, or if he had seen would hardly have noticed, that John, after looking at the lump for a moment, as if in hesitation24, slipped it inside his pocket. That impulse, too, may have been the impulse which leads a child to pick up one pebble25 on a path strewn with them, promising26 it a life of warmth and security upon the nursery mantelpiece, delighting in the sense of power and benignity27 which such an action confers, and believing that the heart of the stone leaps with joy when it sees itself chosen from a million like it, to enjoy this bliss28 instead of a life of cold and wet upon the high road. “It might so easily have been any other of the millions of stones, but it was I, I, I!”
Whether this thought or not was in John’s mind, the lump of glass had its place upon the mantelpiece, where it stood heavy upon a little pile of bills and letters and served not only as an excellent paper-weight, but also as a natural stopping place for the young man’s eyes when they wandered from his book. Looked at again and again half consciously by a mind thinking of something else, any object mixes itself so profoundly with the stuff of thought that it loses its actual form and recomposes itself a little differently in an ideal shape which haunts the brain when we least expect it. So John found himself attracted to the windows of curiosity shops when he was out walking, merely because he saw something which reminded him of the lump of glass. Anything, so long as it was an object of some kind, more or less round, perhaps with a dying flame deep sunk in its mass, anything — china, glass, amber30, rock, marble — even the smooth oval egg of a prehistoric31 bird would do. He took, also, to keeping his eyes upon the ground, especially in the neighbourhood of waste land where the household refuse is thrown away. Such objects often occurred there — thrown away, of no use to anybody, shapeless, discarded. In a few months he had collected four or five specimens32 that took their place upon the mantelpiece. They were useful, too, for a man who is standing33 for Parliament upon the brink34 of a brilliant career has any number of papers to keep in order — addresses to constituents35, declarations of policy, appeals for subscriptions36, invitations to dinner, and so on.
One day, starting from his rooms in the Temple to catch a train in order to address his constituents, his eyes rested upon a remarkable37 object lying half-hidden in one of those little borders of grass which edge the bases of vast legal buildings. He could only touch it with the point of his stick through the railings; but he could see that it was a piece of china of the most remarkable shape, as nearly resembling a starfish as anything — shaped, or broken accidentally, into five irregular but unmistakable points. The colouring was mainly blue, but green stripes or spots of some kind overlaid the blue, and lines of crimson38 gave it a richness and lustre39 of the most attractive kind. John was determined40 to possess it; but the more he pushed, the further it receded41. At length he was forced to go back to his rooms and improvise42 a wire ring attached to the end of a stick, with which, by dint43 of great care and skill, he finally drew the piece of china within reach of his hands. As he seized hold of it he exclaimed in triumph. At that moment the clock struck. It was out of the question that he should keep his appointment. The meeting was held without him. But how had the piece of china been broken into this remarkable shape? A careful examination put it beyond doubt that the star shape was accidental, which made it all the more strange, and it seemed unlikely that there should be another such in existence. Set at the opposite end of the mantelpiece from the lump of glass that had been dug from the sand, it looked like a creature from another world — freakish and fantastic as a harlequin. It seemed to be pirouetting through space, winking44 light like a fitful star. The contrast between the china so vivid and alert, and the glass so mute and contemplative, fascinated him, and wondering and amazed he asked himself how the two came to exist in the same world, let alone to stand upon the same narrow strip of marble in the same room. The question remained unanswered.
He now began to haunt the places which are most prolific45 of broken china, such as pieces of waste land between railway lines, sites of demolished46 houses, and commons in the neighbourhood of London. But china is seldom thrown from a great height; it is one of the rarest of human actions. You have to find in conjunction a very high house, and a woman of such reckless impulse and passionate47 prejudice that she flings her jar or pot straight from the window without thought of who is below. Broken china was to be found in plenty, but broken in some trifling48 domestic accident, without purpose or character. Nevertheless, he was often astonished as he came to go into the question more deeply, by the immense variety of shapes to be found in London alone, and there was still more cause for wonder and speculation49 in the differences of qualities and designs. The finest specimens he would bring home and place upon his mantelpiece, where, however, their duty was more and more of an ornamental50 nature, since papers needing a weight to keep them down became scarcer and scarcer.
He neglected his duties, perhaps, or discharged them absent-mindedly, or his constituents when they visited him were unfavourably impressed by the appearance of his mantelpiece. At any rate he was not elected to represent them in Parliament, and his friend Charles, taking it much to heart and hurrying to condole51 with him, found him so little cast down by the disaster that he could only suppose that it was too serious a matter for him to realize all at once.
In truth, John had been that day to Barnes Common, and there under a furze bush had found a very remarkable piece of iron. It was almost identical with the glass in shape, massy and globular, but so cold and heavy, so black and metallic52, that it was evidently alien to the earth and had its origin in one of the dead stars or was itself the cinder53 of a moon. It weighed his pocket down; it weighed the mantelpiece down; it radiated cold. And yet the meteorite54 stood upon the same ledge55 with the lump of glass and the star-shaped china.
As his eyes passed from one to another, the determination to possess objects that even surpassed these tormented56 the young man. He devoted57 himself more and more resolutely58 to the search. If he had not been consumed by ambition and convinced that one day some newly-discovered rubbish heap would reward him, the disappointments he had suffered, let alone the fatigue59 and derision, would have made him give up the pursuit. Provided with a bag and a long stick fitted with an adaptable60 hook, he ransacked61 all deposits of earth; raked beneath matted tangles62 of scrub; searched all alleys63 and spaces between walls where he had learned to expect to find objects of this kind thrown away. As his standard became higher and his taste more severe the disappointments were innumerable, but always some gleam of hope, some piece of china or glass curiously64 marked or broken lured65 him on. Day after day passed. He was no longer young. His career — that is his political career — was a thing of the past. People gave up visiting him. He was too silent to be worth asking to dinner. He never talked to anyone about his serious ambitions; their lack of understanding was apparent in their behaviour.
He leaned back in his chair now and watched Charles lift the stones on the mantelpiece a dozen times and put them down emphatically to mark what he was saying about the conduct of the Government, without once noticing their existence.
“What was the truth of it, John?” asked Charles suddenly, turning and facing him. “What made you give it up like that all in a second?”
“I’ve not given it up,” John replied.
“But you’ve not the ghost of a chance now,” said Charles roughly.
“I don’t agree with you there,” said John with conviction. Charles looked at him and was profoundly uneasy; the most extraordinary doubts possessed him; he had a queer sense that they were talking about different things. He looked round to find some relief for his horrible depression, but the disorderly appearance of the room depressed66 him still further. What was that stick, and the old carpet bag hanging against the wall? And then those stones? Looking at John, something fixed67 and distant in his expression alarmed him. He knew only too well that his mere29 appearance upon a platform was out of the question.
“Pretty stones,” he said as cheerfully as he could; and saying that he had an appointment to keep, he left John — for ever.
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ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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corroborated
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| v.证实，支持（某种说法、信仰、理论等）( corroborate的过去式 ) | |
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hirsute
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| adj.多毛的 | |
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virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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slashing
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| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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burrowing
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的现在分词 )；翻寻 | |
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hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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oozes
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| v.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出( ooze的第三人称单数 )；使（液体）缓缓流出；（浓液）渗出，慢慢流出 | |
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tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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rim
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| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
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gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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blotted
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| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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pebble
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| n.卵石，小圆石 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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benignity
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| n.仁慈 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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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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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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constituents
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| n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素 | |
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subscriptions
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| n.（报刊等的）订阅费( subscription的名词复数 )；捐款；（俱乐部的）会员费；捐助 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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improvise
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| v.即兴创作；临时准备，临时凑成 | |
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dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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prolific
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| adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的 | |
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46
demolished
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| v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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47
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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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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49
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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50
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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condole
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| v.同情；慰问 | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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cinder
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| n.余烬，矿渣 | |
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meteorite
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| n.陨石；流星 | |
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ledge
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| n.壁架，架状突出物；岩架，岩礁 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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resolutely
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| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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adaptable
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| adj.能适应的，适应性强的，可改编的 | |
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ransacked
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| v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
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tangles
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| （使）缠结， （使）乱作一团( tangle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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lured
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| 吸引，引诱（lure的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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