And he was at last in the city of the unending murmuring streets, a part of the stirring shadow, of the amber-lighted gloom.
It seemed a long time since he had knelt before his sweetheart in the lane, the moon-fire streaming upon them from the dark circle of the fort, the air and the light and his soul full of haunting, the touch of the unimaginable thrilling his heart; and now he sat in a terrible “bed-sitting-room” in a western suburb, confronted by a heap and litter of papers on the desk of a battered2 old bureau.
He had put his breakfast-tray out on the landing, and was thinking of the morning’s work, and of some very dubious3 pages that he had blackened the night before. But when he had lit his disreputable briar, he remembered there was an unopened letter waiting for him on the table; he had recognized the vague, staggering script of Miss Deacon, his cousin. There was not much news; his father was “just the same as usual,” there had been a good deal of rain, the farmers expected to make a lot of cider, and so forth4. But at the close of the letter Miss Deacon became useful for reproof5 and admonition.
“I was at Caermaen on Tuesday,” she said, “and called on the Gervases and the Dixons. Mr. Gervase smiled when I told him you were a literary man, living in London, and said he was afraid you wouldn’t find it a very practical career. Mrs. Gervase was very proud of Henry’s success; he passed fifth for some examination, and will begin with nearly four hundred a year. I don’t wonder the Gervases are delighted. Then I went to the Dixons, and had tea. Mrs. Dixon wanted to know if you had published anything yet, and I said I thought not. She showed me a book everybody is talking about, called the Dog and the Doctor. She says it’s selling by thousands, and that one can’t take up a paper without seeing the author’s name. She told me to tell you that you ought to try to write something like it. Then Mr. Dixon came in from the study, and your name was mentioned again. He said he was afraid you had made rather a mistake in trying to take up literature as if it were a profession, and seemed to think that a place in a house of business would be more suitable and more practical. He pointed6 out that you had not had the advantages of a university training, and said that you would find men who had made good friends, and had the tone of the university, would be before you at every step. He said Edward was doing very well at Oxford7. He writes to them that he knows several noblemen, and that young Philip Bullingham (son of Sir John Bullingham) is his most intimate friend; of course this is very satisfactory for the Dixons. I am afraid, my dear Lucian, you have rather overrated your powers. Wouldn’t it be better, even now, to look out for some real work to do, instead of wasting your time over those silly old books? I know quite well how the Gervases and the Dixons feel; they think idleness so injurious for a young man, and likely to lead to bad habits. You know, my dear Lucian, I am only writing like this because of my affection for you, so I am sure, my dear boy, you won’t be offended.”
Lucian pigeon-holed the letter solemnly in the receptacle lettered “Barbarians8.” He felt that he ought to ask himself some serious questions: “Why haven9’t I passed fifth? why isn’t Philip (son of Sir John) my most intimate friend? why am I an idler, liable to fall into bad habits?” but he was eager to get to his work, a curious and intricate piece of analysis. So the battered bureau, the litter of papers, and the thick fume10 of his pipe, engulfed11 him and absorbed him for the rest of the morning. Outside were the dim October mists, the dreary12 and languid life of a side street, and beyond, on the main road, the hum and jangle of the gliding13 trains. But he heard none of the uneasy noises of the quarter, not even the shriek14 of the garden gates nor the yelp15 of the butcher on his round, for delight in his great task made him unconscious of the world outside.
He had come by curious paths to this calm hermitage between Shepherd’s Bush and Acton Vale. The golden weeks of the summer passed on in their enchanted16 procession, and Annie had not returned, neither had she written. Lucian, on his side, sat apart, wondering why his longing17 for her were not sharper. As he though of his raptures18 he would smile faintly to himself, and wonder whether he had not lost the world and Annie with it. In the garden of Avallaunius his sense of external things had grown dim and indistinct; the actual, material life seemed every day to become a show, a fleeting20 of shadows across a great white light. At last the news came that Annie Morgan had been married from her sister’s house to a young farmer, to whom it appeared, she had been long engaged, and Lucian was ashamed to find himself only conscious of amusement, mingled21 with gratitude22. She had been the key that opened the shut palace, and he was now secure on the throne of ivory and gold. A few days after he had heard the news he repeated the adventure of his boyhood; for the second time he scaled the steep hillside, and penetrated23 the matted brake. He expected violent disillusion25, but his feeling was rather astonishment26 at the activity of boyish imagination. There was no terror nor amazement27 now in the green bulwarks29, and the stunted30 undergrowth did not seem in any way extraordinary. Yet he did not laugh at the memory of his sensations, he was not angry at the cheat. Certainly it had been all illusion, all the heats and chills of boyhood, its thoughts of terror were without significance. But he recognized that the illusions of the child only differed from those of the man in that they were more picturesque31; belief in fairies and belief in the Stock Exchange as bestowers of happiness were equally vain, but the latter form of faith was ugly as well as inept32. It was better, he knew, and wiser, to wish for a fairy coach than to cherish longings33 for a well-appointed brougham and liveried servants.
He turned his back on the green walls and the dark oaks without any feeling of regret or resentment34. After a little while he began to think of his adventures with pleasure; the ladder by which he had mounted had disappeared, but he was safe on the height. By the chance fancy of a beautiful girl he had been redeemed35 from a world of misery36 and torture, the world of external things into which he had come a stranger, by which he had been tormented37. He looked back at a kind of vision of himself seen as he was a year before, a pitiable creature burning and twisting on the hot coals of the pit, crying lamentably39 to the laughing bystanders for but one drop of cold water wherewith to cool his tongue. He confessed to himself, with some contempt, that he had been a social being, depending for his happiness on the goodwill40 of others; he had tried hard to write, chiefly, it was true, from love of the art, but a little from a social motive41. He had imagined that a written book and the praise of responsible journals would ensure him the respect of the county people. It was a quaint42 idea, and he saw the lamentable43 fallacies naked; in the first place, a painstaking44 artist in words was not respected by the respectable; secondly45, books should not be written with the object of gaining the goodwill of the landed and commercial interests; thirdly and chiefly, no man should in any way depend on another.
From this utter darkness, from danger of madness, the ever dear and sweet Annie had rescued him. Very beautifully and fitly, as Lucian thought, she had done her work without any desire to benefit him, she had simply willed to gratify her own passion, and in doing this had handed to him the priceless secret. And he, on his side, had reversed the process; merely to make himself a splendid offering for the acceptance of his sweetheart, he had cast aside the vain world, and had found the truth, which now remained with him, precious and enduring.
And since the news of the marriage he found that his worship of her had by no means vanished; rather in his heart was the eternal treasure of a happy love, untarnished and spotless; it would be like a mirror of gold without alloy47, bright and lustrous48 for ever. For Lucian, it was no defect in the woman that she was desirous and faithless; he had not conceived an affection for certain moral or intellectual accidents, but for the very woman. Guided by the self-evident axiom that humanity is to be judged by literature, and not literature by humanity, he detected the analogy between Lycidas and Annie. Only the dullard would object to the nauseous cant49 of the one, or to the indiscretions of the other. A sober critic might say that the man who could generalize Herbert and Laud50, Donne and Herrick, Sanderson and Juxon, Hammond and Lancelot Andrewes into “our corrupted51 Clergy” must be either an imbecile or a scoundrel, or probably both. The judgment52 would be perfectly53 true, but as a criticism of Lycidas it would be a piece of folly54. In the case of the woman one could imagine the attitude of the conventional lover; of the chevalier who, with his tongue in his cheek, “reverences and respects” all women, and coming home early in the morning writes a leading article on St English Girl. Lucian, on the other hand, felt profoundly grateful to the delicious Annie, because she had at precisely55 the right moment voluntarily removed her image from his way. He confessed to himself that, latterly, he had a little dreaded56 her return as an interruption; he had shivered at the thought that their relations would become what was so terribly called an “intrigue” or “affair.” There would be all the threadbare and common stratagems57, the vulgarity of secret assignations, and an atmosphere suggesting the period of Mr. Thomas Moore and Lord Byron and “segars.” Lucian had been afraid of all this; he had feared lest love itself should destroy love.
He considered that now, freed from the torment38 of the body, leaving untasted the green water that makes thirst more burning, he was perfectly initiated58 in the true knowledge of the splendid and glorious love. There seemed to him a monstrous59 paradox60 in the assertion that there could be no true love without a corporal presence of the beloved; even the popular sayings of “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” and “familiarity breeds contempt,” witnessed to the contrary. He thought, sighing, and with compassion61, of the manner in which men are continually led astray by the cheat of the senses. In order that the unborn might still be added to the born, nature had inspired men with the wild delusion62 that the bodily companionship of the lover and the beloved was desirable above all things, and so, by the false show of pleasure, the human race was chained to vanity, and doomed63 to an eternal thirst for the non-existent.
Again and again he gave thanks for his own escape; he had been set free from a life of vice64 and sin and folly, from all the dangers and illusions that are most dreaded by the wise. He laughed as he remembered what would be the common view of the situation. An ordinary lover would suffer all the sting of sorrow and contempt; there would be grief for a lost mistress, and rage at her faithlessness, and hate in the heart; one foolish passion driving on another, and driving the man to ruin. For what would be commonly called the real woman he now cared nothing; if he had heard that she had died in her farm in Utter Gwent, he would have experienced only a passing sorrow, such as he might feel at the death of any one he had once known. But he did not think of the young farmer’s wife as the real Annie; he did not think of the frost-bitten leaves in winter as the real rose. Indeed, the life of many reminded him of the flowers; perhaps more especially of those flowers which to all appearance are for many years but dull and dusty clumps65 of green, and suddenly, in one night, burst into the flame of blossom, and fill all the misty66 lawns with odor; till the morning. It was in that night that the flower lived, not through the long unprofitable years; and, in like manner, many human lives, he thought, were born in the evening and dead before the coming of day. But he had preserved the precious flower in all its glory, not suffering it to wither67 in the hard light, but keeping it in a secret place, where it could never be destroyed. Truly now, and for the first time, he possessed68 Annie, as a man possesses the gold which he has dug from the rock and purged69 of its baseness.
He was musing70 over these things when a piece of news, very strange and unexpected, arrived at the rectory. A distant, almost a mythical71 relative, known from childhood as “Cousin Edward in the Isle72 of Wight,” had died, and by some strange freak had left Lucian two thousand pounds. It was a pleasure to give his father five hundred pounds, and the rector on his side forgot for a couple of days to lean his head on his hand. From the rest of the capital, which was well invested, Lucian found he would derive73 something between sixty and seventy pounds a year, and his old desires for literature and a refuge in the murmuring streets returned to him. He longed to be free from the incantations that surrounded him in the country, to work and live in a new atmosphere; and so, with many good wishes from his father, he came to the retreat in the waste places of London.
He was in high spirits when he found the square, clean room, horribly furnished, in the by-street that branched from the main road, and advanced in an unlovely sweep to the mud pits and the desolation that was neither town nor country. On every side monotonous74 grey streets, each house the replica75 of its neighbor, to the east an unexplored wilderness76, north and west and south the brickfields and market-gardens, everywhere the ruins of the country, the tracks where sweet lanes had been, gangrened stumps77 of trees, the relics78 of hedges, here and there an oak stripped of its bark, white and haggard and leprous, like a corpse79. And the air seemed always grey, and the smoke from the brickfields was grey.
At first he scarcely realized the quarter into which chance had led him. His only thought was of the great adventure of letters in which he proposed to engage, and his first glance round his “bed-sitting-room” showed him that there was no piece of furniture suitable for his purpose. The table, like the rest of the suite80, was of bird’s-eye maple81; but the maker82 seemed to have penetrated the druidic secret of the rocking-stone, the thing was in a state of unstable83 equilibrium84 perpetually. For some days he wandered through the streets, inspecting the second-hand85 furniture shops, and at last, in a forlorn byway, found an old Japanese bureau, dishonored and forlorn, standing86 amongst rusty87 bedsteads, sorry china, and all the refuse of homes dead and desolate88. The bureau pleased him in spite of its grime and grease and dirt. Inlaid mother-of-pearl, the gleam of lacquer dragons in red gold, and hints of curious design shone through the film of neglect and ill-usage, and when the woman of the shop showed him the drawers and well and pigeon-holes, he saw that it would be an apt instrument for his studies.
The bureau was carried to his room and replaced the “bird’s-eye” table under the gas-jet. As Lucian arranged what papers he had accumulated: the sketches89 of hopeless experiments, shreds90 and tatters of stories begun but never completed, outlines of plots, two or three notebooks scribbled91 through and through with impressions of the abandoned hills, he felt a thrill of exaltation at the prospect92 of work to be accomplished93, of a new world all open before him.
He set out on the adventure with a fury of enthusiasm; his last thought at night when all the maze28 of streets was empty and silent was of the problem, and his dreams ran on phrases, and when he awoke in the morning he was eager to get back to his desk. He immersed himself in a minute, almost a microscopic94 analysis of fine literature. It was no longer enough, as in the old days, to feel the charm and incantation of a line or a word; he wished to penetrate24 the secret, to understand something of the wonderful suggestion, all apart from the sense, that seemed to him the differentia of literature, as distinguished95 from the long follies96 of “character-drawing,” “psychological analysis,” and all the stuff that went to make the three-volume novel of commerce.
He found himself curiously97 strengthened by the change from the hills to the streets. There could be no doubt, he thought, that living a lonely life, interested only in himself and his own thoughts, he had become in a measure inhuman98. The form of external things, black depths in woods, pools in lonely places, those still valleys curtained by hills on every side, sounding always with the ripple99 of their brooks100, had become to him an influence like that of a drug, giving a certain peculiar101 color and outline to his thoughts. And from early boyhood there had been another strange flavor in his life, the dream of the old Roman world, those curious impressions that he had gathered from the white walls of Caermaen, and from the looming102 bastions of the fort. It was in reality the subconscious103 fancies of many years that had rebuilt the golden city, and had shown him the vine-trellis and the marbles and the sunlight in the garden of Avallaunius. And the rapture19 of love had made it all so vivid and warm with life, that even now, when he let his pen drop, the rich noise of the tavern104 and the chant of the theatre sounded above the murmur1 of the streets. Looking back, it was as much a part of his life as his schooldays, and the tessellated pavements were as real as the square of faded carpet beneath his feet.
But he felt that he had escaped. He could now survey those splendid and lovely visions from without, as if he read of opium105 dreams, and he no longer dreaded a weird106 suggestion that had once beset107 him, that his very soul was being molded into the hills, and passing into the black mirror of still waterpools. He had taken refuge in the streets, in the harbor of a modern suburb, from the vague, dreaded magic that had charmed his life. Whenever he felt inclined to listen to the old wood-whisper or to the singing of the fauns he bent108 more earnestly to his work, turning a deaf ear to the incantations.
In the curious labor109 of the bureau he found refreshment110 that was continually renewed. He experienced again, and with a far more violent impulse, the enthusiasm that had attended the writing of his book a year or two before, and so, perhaps, passed from one drug to another. It was, indeed, with something of rapture that he imagined the great procession of years all to be devoted111 to the intimate analysis of words, to the construction of the sentence, as if it were a piece of jewelry112 or mosaic113.
Sometimes, in the pauses of the work, he would pace up and down his cell, looking out of the window now and again and gazing for an instant into the melancholy114 street. As the year advanced the days grew more and more misty, and he found himself the inhabitant of a little island wreathed about with the waves of a white and solemn sea. In the afternoon the fog would grow denser115, shutting out not only sight but sound; the shriek of the garden gates, the jangling of the tram-bell echoed as if from a far way. Then there were days of heavy incessant116 rain; he could see a grey drifting sky and the drops plashing in the street, and the houses all dripping and saddened with wet.
He cured himself of one great aversion. He was no longer nauseated117 at the sight of a story begun and left unfinished. Formerly118, even when an idea rose in his mind bright and wonderful, he had always approached the paper with a feeling of sickness and dislike, remembering all the hopeless beginnings he had made. But now he understood that to begin a romance was almost a separate and special art, a thing apart from the story, to be practiced with sedulous119 care. Whenever an opening scene occurred to him he noted120 it roughly in a book, and he devoted many long winter evenings to the elaboration of these beginnings. Sometimes the first impression would yield only a paragraph or a sentence, and once or twice but a splendid and sonorous121 word, which seemed to Lucian all dim and rich with unsurmised adventure. But often he was able to write three or four vivid pages, studying above all things the hint and significance of the words and actions, striving to work into the lines the atmosphere of expectation and promise, and the murmur of wonderful events to come.
In this one department of his task the labor seemed almost endless. He would finish a few pages and then rewrite them, using the same incident and nearly the same words, but altering that indefinite something which is scarcely so much style as manner, or atmosphere. He was astonished at the enormous change that was thus effected, and often, though he himself had done the work, he could scarcely describe in words how it was done. But it was clear that in this art of manner, or suggestion, lay all the chief secrets of literature, that by it all the great miracles were performed. Clearly it was not style, for style in itself was untranslatable, but it was that high theurgic magic that made the English Don Quixote, roughly traduced122 by some Jervas, perhaps the best of all English books. And it was the same element that made the journey of Roderick Random123 to London, so ostensibly a narrative124 of coarse jokes and common experiences and burlesque125 manners, told in no very choice diction, essentially126 a wonderful vision of the eighteenth century, carrying to one’s very nostrils127 the aroma128 of the Great North Road, iron-bound under black frost, darkened beneath shuddering129 woods, haunted by highwaymen, with an adventure waiting beyond every turn, and great old echoing inns in the midst of lonely winter lands.
It was this magic that Lucian sought for his opening chapters; he tried to find that quality that gives to words something beyond their sound and beyond their meaning, that in the first lines of a book should whisper things unintelligible130 but all significant. Often he worked for many hours without success, and the grim wet dawn once found him still searching for hieroglyphic131 sentences, for words mystical, symbolic132. On the shelves, in the upper part of his bureau, he had placed the books which, however various as to matter, seemed to have a part in this curious quality of suggestion, and in that sphere which might almost be called supernatural. To these books he often had recourse, when further effort appeared altogether hopeless, and certain pages in Coleridge and Edgar Allan Poe had the power of holding him in a trance of delight, subject to emotions and impressions which he knew to transcend133 altogether the realm of the formal understanding. Such lines as:
Bottomless vales and boundless134 floods,
And chasms135, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
had for Lucian more than the potency136 of a drug, lulling137 him into a splendid waking-sleep, every word being a supreme138 incantation. And it was not only his mind that was charmed by such passages, for he felt at the same time a strange and delicious bodily languor139 that held him motionless, without the desire or power to stir from his seat. And there were certain phrases in Kubla Khan that had such a magic that he would sometimes wake up, as it were, to the consciousness that he had been lying on the bed or sitting in the chair by the bureau, repeating a single line over and over again for two or three hours. Yet he knew perfectly well that he had not been really asleep; a little effort recalled a constant impression of the wall-paper, with its pink flowers on a buff ground, and of the muslin-curtained window, letting in the grey winter light. He had been some seven months in London when this odd experience first occurred to him. The day opened dreary and cold and clear, with a gusty140 and restless wind whirling round the corner of the street, and lifting the dead leaves and scraps141 of paper that littered the roadway into eddying142 mounting circles, as if a storm of black rain were to come. Lucian had sat late the night before, and rose in the morning feeling weary and listless and heavy-headed. While he dressed, his legs dragged him as with weights, and he staggered and nearly fell in bending down to the mat outside for his tea-tray. He lit the spirit lamp on the hearth143 with shaking, unsteady hands, and could scarcely pour out the tea when it was ready. A delicate cup of tea was one of his few luxuries; he was fond of the strange flavor of the green leaf, and this morning he drank the straw-colored liquid eagerly, hoping it would disperse144 the cloud of languor. He tried his best to coerce145 himself into the sense of vigor146 and enjoyment147 with which he usually began the day, walking briskly up and down and arranging his papers in order. But he could not free himself from depression; even as he opened the dear bureau a wave of melancholy came upon him, and he began to ask himself whether he were not pursuing a vain dream, searching for treasures that had no existence. He drew out his cousin’s letter and read it again, sadly enough. After all there was a good deal of truth in what she said; he had “overrated” his powers, he had no friends, no real education. He began to count up the months since he had come to London; he had received his two thousand pounds in March, and in May he had said good-bye to the woods and to the dear and friendly paths. May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and half of December had gone by; and what had he to show? Nothing but the experiment, the attempt, futile148 scribblings which had no end nor shining purpose. There was nothing in his desk that he could produce as evidence of his capacity, no fragment even of accomplishment149. It was a thought of intense bitterness, but it seemed as if the barbarians were in the right — a place in a house of business would have been more suitable. He leaned his head on his desk overwhelmed with the severity of his own judgment. He tried to comfort himself again by the thought of all the hours of happy enthusiasm he had spent amongst his papers, working for a great idea with infinite patience. He recalled to mind something that he had always tried to keep in the background of his hopes, the foundation-stone of his life, which he had hidden out of sight. Deep in his heart was the hope that he might one day write a valiant150 book; he scarcely dared to entertain the aspiration151, he felt his incapacity too deeply, but yet this longing was the foundation of all his painful and patient effort. This he had proposed in secret to himself, that if he labored152 without ceasing, without tiring, he might produce something which would at all events be art, which would stand wholly apart from the objects shaped like books, printed with printers’ ink, and called by the name of books that he had read. Giotto, he knew, was a painter, and the man who imitated walnut-wood on the deal doors opposite was a painter, and he had wished to be a very humble153 pupil in the class of the former. It was better, he thought, to fail in attempting exquisite154 things than to succeed in the department of the utterly155 contemptible156; he had vowed157 he would be the dunce of Cervantes’s school rather than top-boy in the academy of A Bad Un to Beat and Millicent’s Marriage. And with this purpose he had devoted himself to laborious158 and joyous159 years, so that however mean his capacity, the pains should not be wanting. He tried now to rouse himself from a growing misery by the recollection of this high aim, but it all seemed hopeless vanity. He looked out into the grey street, and it stood a symbol of his life, chill and dreary and grey and vexed160 with a horrible wind. There were the dull inhabitants of the quarter going about their common business; a man was crying “mackerel” in a doleful voice, slowly passing up the street, and staring into the white-curtained “parlors161,” searching for the face of a purchaser behind the India-rubber plants, stuffed birds, and piles of gaudy162 gilt163 books that adorned164 the windows. One of the blistered165 doors over the way banged, and a woman came scurrying166 out on some errand, and the garden gate shrieked167 two melancholy notes as she opened it and let it swing back after her. The little patches called gardens were mostly untilled, uncared for, squares of slimy moss168, dotted with clumps of coarse ugly grass, but here and there were the blackened and rotting remains169 of sunflowers and marigolds. And beyond, he knew, stretched the labyrinth170 of streets more or less squalid, but all grey and dull, and behind were the mud pits and the steaming heaps of yellowish bricks, and to the north was a great wide cold waste, treeless, desolate, swept by bitter wind. It was all like his own life, he said again to himself, a maze of unprofitable dreariness171 and desolation, and his mind grew as black and hopeless as the winter sky. The morning went thus dismally172 till twelve o’clock, and he put on his hat and great-coat. He always went out for an hour every day between twelve and one; the exercise was a necessity, and the landlady173 made his bed in the interval174. The wind blew the smoke from the chimneys into his face as he shut the door, and with the acrid175 smoke came the prevailing176 odor of the street, a blend of cabbage-water and burnt bones and the faint sickly vapor177 from the brickfields. Lucian walked mechanically for the hour, going eastward178, along the main road. The wind pierced him, and the dust was blinding, and the dreariness of the street increased his misery. The row of common shops, full of common things, the blatant179 public-houses, the Independent chapel180, a horrible stucco parody181 of a Greek temple with a fa?ade of hideous182 columns that was a nightmare, villas183 like smug Pharisees, shops again, a church in cheap Gothic, an old garden blasted and riven by the builder, these were the pictures of the way. When he got home again he flung himself on the bed, and lay there stupidly till sheer hunger roused him. He ate a hunch184 of bread and drank some water, and began to pace up and down the room, wondering whether there were no escape from despair. Writing seemed quite impossible, and hardly knowing what he did he opened his bureau and took out a book from the shelves. As his eyes fell on the page the air grew dark and heavy as night, and the wind wailed185 suddenly, loudly, terribly.
“By woman wailing186 for her Demon187 lover.” The words were on his lips when he raised his eyes again. A broad band of pale clear light was shining into the room, and when he looked out of the window he saw the road all brightened by glittering pools of water, and as the last drops of the rain-storm starred these mirrors the sun sank into the wrack188. Lucian gazed about him, perplexed189, till his eyes fell on the clock above his empty hearth. He had been sitting, motionless, for nearly two hours without any sense of the passage of time, and without ceasing he had murmured those words as he dreamed an endless wonderful story. He experienced somewhat the sensations of Coleridge himself; strange, amazing, ineffable190 things seemed to have been presented to him, not in the form of the idea, but actually and materially, but he was less fortunate than Coleridge in that he could not, even vaguely191, image to himself what he had seen. Yet when he searched his mind he knew that the consciousness of the room in which he sat had never left him; he had seen the thick darkness gather, and had heard the whirl of rain hissing192 through the air. Windows had been shut down with a crash, he had noted the pattering footsteps of people running to shelter, the landlady’s voice crying to some one to look at the rain coming in under the door. It was like peering into some old bituminous picture, one could see at last that the mere46 blackness resolved itself into the likeness193 of trees and rocks and travelers. And against this background of his room, and the storm, and the noises of the street, his vision stood out illuminated194, he felt he had descended195 to the very depths, into the caverns196 that are hollowed beneath the soul. He tried vainly to record the history of his impressions; the symbols remained in his memory, but the meaning was all conjecture197.
The next morning, when he awoke, he could scarcely understand or realize the bitter depression of the preceding day. He found it had all vanished away and had been succeeded by an intense exaltation. Afterwards, when at rare intervals198 he experienced the same strange possession of the consciousness, he found this to be the invariable result, the hour of vision was always succeeded by a feeling of delight, by sensations of brightened and intensified199 powers. On that bright December day after the storm he rose joyously200, and set about the labor of the bureau with the assurance of success, almost with the hope of formidable difficulties to be overcome. He had long busied himself with those curious researches which Poe had indicated in the Philosophy of Composition, and many hours had been spent in analyzing201 the singular effects which may be produced by the sound and resonance202 of words. But he had been struck by the thought that in the finest literature there were more subtle tones than the loud and insistent203 music of “never more,” and he endeavored to find the secret of those pages and sentences which spoke204, less directly, and less obviously, to the soul rather than to the ear, being filled with a certain grave melody and the sensation of singing voices. It was admirable, no doubt, to write phrases that showed at a glance their designed rhythm, and rang with sonorous words, but he dreamed of a prose in which the music should be less explicit205, of names rather than notes. He was astonished that morning at his own fortune and facility; he succeeded in covering a page of ruled paper wholly to his satisfaction, and the sentences, when he read them out, appeared to suggest a weird elusive206 chanting, exquisite but almost imperceptible, like the echo of the plainsong reverberated207 from the vault208 of a monastic church.
He thought that such happy mornings well repaid him for the anguish209 of depression which he sometimes had to suffer, and for the strange experience of “possession” recurring210 at rare intervals, and usually after many weeks of severe diet. His income, he found, amounted to sixty-five pounds a year, and he lived for weeks at a time on fifteen shillings a week. During these austere211 periods his only food was bread, at the rate of a loaf a day; but he drank huge draughts212 of green tea, and smoked a black tobacco, which seemed to him a more potent213 mother of thought than any drug from the scented214 East. “I hope you go to some nice place for dinner,” wrote his cousin; “there used to be some excellent eating-houses in London where one could get a good cut from the joint215, with plenty of gravy216, and a boiled potato, for a shilling. Aunt Mary writes that you should try Mr. Jones’s in Water Street, Islington, whose father came from near Caermaen, and was always most comfortable in her day. I daresay the walk there would do you good. It is such a pity you smoke that horrid217 tobacco. I had a letter from Mrs. Dolly (Jane Diggs, who married your cousin John Dolly) the other day, and she said they would have been delighted to take you for only twenty-five shillings a week for the sake of the family if you had not been a smoker218. She told me to ask you if you had ever seen a horse or a dog smoking tobacco. They are such nice, comfortable people, and the children would have been company for you. Johnnie, who used to be such a dear little fellow, has just gone into an office in the City, and seems to have excellent prospects219. How I wish, my dear Lucian, that you could do something in the same way. Don’t forget Mr. Jones’s in Water Street, and you might mention your name to him.”
Lucian never troubled Mr. Jones; but these letters of his cousin’s always refreshed him by the force of contrast. He tried to imagine himself a part of the Dolly family, going dutifully every morning to the City on the bus, and returning in the evening for high tea. He could conceive the fine odor of hot roast beef hanging about the decorous house on Sunday afternoons, papa asleep in the dining-room, mamma lying down, and the children quite good and happy with their “Sundays books.” In the evening, after supper, one read the Quiver till bedtime. Such pictures as these were to Lucian a comfort and a help, a remedy against despair. Often when he felt overwhelmed by the difficulty of the work he had undertaken, he thought of the alternative career, and was strengthened.
He returned again and again to that desire of a prose which should sound faintly, not so much with an audible music, but with the memory and echo of it. In the night, when the last tram had gone jangling by, and he had looked out and seen the street all wrapped about in heavy folds of the mist, he conducted some of his most delicate experiments. In that white and solitary220 midnight of the suburban221 street he experienced the curious sense of being on a tower, remote and apart and high above all the troubles of the earth. The gas lamp, which was nearly opposite, shone in a pale halo of light, and the houses themselves were merely indistinct marks and shadows amidst that palpable whiteness, shutting out the world and its noises. The knowledge of the swarming222 life that was so still, though it surrounded him, made the silence seem deeper than that of the mountains before the dawn; it was as if he alone stirred and looked out amidst a host sleeping at his feet. The fog came in by the open window in freezing puffs223, and as Lucian watched he noticed that it shook and wavered like the sea, tossing up wreaths and drifts across the pale halo of the lamp, and, these vanishing, others succeeded. It was as if the mist passed by from the river to the north, as if it still passed by in the silence.
He would shut his window gently, and sit down in his lighted room with all the consciousness of the white advancing shroud224 upon him. It was then that he found himself in the mood for curious labors225, and able to handle with some touch of confidence the more exquisite instruments of the craft. He sought for that magic by which all the glory and glamour226 of mystic chivalry227 were made to shine through the burlesque and gross adventures of Don Quixote, by which Hawthorne had lit his infernal Sabbath fires, and fashioned a burning aureole about the village tragedy of the Scarlet228 Letter. In Hawthorne the story and the suggestion, though quite distinct and of different worlds, were rather parallel than opposed to one another; but Cervantes had done a stranger thing. One read of Don Quixote, beaten, dirty, and ridiculous, mistaking windmills for giants, sheep for an army; but the impression was of the enchanted forest, of Avalon, of the San Graal, “far in the spiritual city.” And Rabelais showed him, beneath the letter, the Tourainian sun shining on the hot rock above Chinon, on the maze of narrow, climbing streets, on the high-pitched, gabled roofs, on the grey-blue tourelles, pricking229 upward from the fantastic labyrinth of walls. He heard the sound of sonorous plain-song from the monastic choir230, of gross exuberant231 gaiety from the rich vineyards; he listened to the eternal mystic mirth of those that halted in the purple shadow of the sorbier by the white, steep road. The gracious and ornate chateaux on the Loire and the Vienne rose fair and shining to confront the incredible secrets of vast, dim, far-lifted Gothic naves232, that seemed ready to take the great deep, and float away from the mist and dust of earthly streets to anchor in the haven of the clear city that hath foundations. The rank tale of the garderobe, of the farm-kitchen, mingled with the reasoned, endless legend of the schools, with luminous233 Platonic234 argument; the old pomp of the Middle Ages put on the robe of a fresh life. There was a smell of wine and of incense235, of June meadows and of ancient books, and through it all he hearkened, intent, to the exultation236 of chiming bells ringing for a new feast in a new land. He would cover pages with the analysis of these marvels237, tracking the suggestion concealed238 beneath the words, and yet glowing like the golden threads in a robe of samite, or like that device of the old binders239 by which a vivid picture appeared on the shut edges of a book. He tried to imitate this art, to summon even the faint shadow of the great effect, rewriting a page of Hawthorne, experimenting and changing an epithet240 here and there, noting how sometimes the alteration241 of a trifling242 word would plunge243 a whole scene into darkness, as if one of those blood-red fires had instantly been extinguished. Sometimes, for severe practice, he attempted to construct short tales in the manner of this or that master. He sighed over these desperate attempts, over the clattering244 pieces of mechanism245 which would not even simulate life; but he urged himself to an infinite perseverance246. Through the white hours he worked on amidst the heap and litter of papers; books and manuscripts overflowed247 from the bureau to the floor; and if he looked out he saw the mist still pass by, still passing from the river to the north.
It was not till the winter was well advanced that he began at all to explore the region in which he lived. Soon after his arrival in the grey street he had taken one or two vague walks, hardly noticing where he went or what he saw; but for all the summer he had shut himself in his room, beholding248 nothing but the form and color of words. For his morning walk he almost invariably chose the one direction, going along the Uxbridge Road towards Notting Hill, and returning by the same monotonous thoroughfare. Now, however, when the new year was beginning its dull days, he began to diverge249 occasionally to right and left, sometimes eating his luncheon250 in odd corners, in the bulging251 parlors of eighteenth-century taverns252, that still fronted the surging sea of modern streets, or perhaps in brand new “publics” on the broken borders of the brickfields, smelling of the clay from which they had swollen253. He found waste by-places behind railway embankments where he could smoke his pipe sheltered from the wind; sometimes there was a wooden fence by an old pear-orchard where he sat and gazed at the wet desolation of the market-gardens, munching254 a few currant biscuits by way of dinner. As he went farther afield a sense of immensity slowly grew upon him; it was as if, from the little island of his room, that one friendly place, he pushed out into the grey unknown, into a city that for him was uninhabited as the desert.
He came back to his cell after these purposeless wanderings always with a sense of relief, with the thought of taking refuge from grey. As he lit the gas and opened the desk of his bureau and saw the pile of papers awaiting him, it was as if he had passed from the black skies and the stinging wind and the dull maze of the suburb into all the warmth and sunlight and violent color of the south.
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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fume
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| n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽 | |
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engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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yelp
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| vi.狗吠 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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raptures
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| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
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rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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bulwarks
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| n.堡垒( bulwark的名词复数 )；保障；支柱；舷墙 | |
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stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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inept
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| adj.不恰当的，荒谬的，拙劣的 | |
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longings
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| 渴望，盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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lamentably
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| adv.哀伤地，拙劣地 | |
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goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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42
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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painstaking
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| adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的 | |
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secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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47
alloy
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| n.合金，(金属的)成色 | |
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lustrous
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| adj.有光泽的；光辉的 | |
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49
cant
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| n.斜穿，黑话，猛扔 | |
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50
laud
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| n.颂歌；v.赞美 | |
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51
corrupted
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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52
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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53
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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54
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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55
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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56
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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57
stratagems
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| n.诡计，计谋( stratagem的名词复数 )；花招 | |
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58
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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59
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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60
paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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61
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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63
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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64
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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65
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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67
wither
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| vt.使凋谢，使衰退，(用眼神气势等)使畏缩；vi.枯萎，衰退，消亡 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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69
purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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71
mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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73
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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replica
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| n.复制品 | |
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76
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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77
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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81
maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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82
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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83
unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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84
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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85
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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86
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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87
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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88
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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89
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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90
shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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91
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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92
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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93
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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94
microscopic
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| adj.微小的，细微的，极小的，显微的 | |
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95
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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96
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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97
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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98
inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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99
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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100
brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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101
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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102
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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103
subconscious
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| n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的) | |
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104
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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105
opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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106
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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107
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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108
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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109
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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110
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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111
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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112
jewelry
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| n.（jewllery）（总称）珠宝 | |
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113
mosaic
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| n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的 | |
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114
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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115
denser
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| adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的 | |
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116
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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117
nauseated
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| adj.作呕的，厌恶的v.使恶心，作呕( nauseate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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118
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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119
sedulous
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| adj.勤勉的，努力的 | |
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120
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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121
sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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122
traduced
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| v.诋毁( traduce的过去式和过去分词 )；诽谤；违反；背叛 | |
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123
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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124
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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125
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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126
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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127
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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128
aroma
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| n.香气，芬芳，芳香 | |
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129
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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130
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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131
hieroglyphic
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| n.象形文字 | |
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132
symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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133
transcend
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| vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围 | |
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134
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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135
chasms
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| 裂缝( chasm的名词复数 )； 裂口； 分歧； 差别 | |
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136
potency
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| n. 效力，潜能 | |
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137
lulling
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的现在分词形式） | |
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138
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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139
languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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140
gusty
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| adj.起大风的 | |
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141
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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142
eddying
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| 涡流，涡流的形成 | |
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143
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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144
disperse
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| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
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145
coerce
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| v.强迫，压制 | |
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146
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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147
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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148
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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149
accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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150
valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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151
aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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152
labored
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| 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 | |
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153
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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154
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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155
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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156
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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157
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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158
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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159
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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160
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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161
parlors
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| 客厅( parlor的名词复数 )； 起居室； （旅馆中的）休息室； （通常用来构成合成词）店 | |
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162
gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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163
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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164
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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165
blistered
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|
| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
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166
scurrying
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的现在分词 ) | |
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167
shrieked
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| v.尖叫( shriek的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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168
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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169
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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170
labyrinth
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| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
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171
dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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172
dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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173
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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174
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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175
acrid
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| adj.辛辣的，尖刻的，刻薄的 | |
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176
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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177
vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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178
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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179
blatant
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| adj.厚颜无耻的；显眼的；炫耀的 | |
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180
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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181
parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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182
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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183
villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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184
hunch
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| n.预感，直觉 | |
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185
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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186
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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187
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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188
wrack
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| v.折磨；n.海草 | |
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189
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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190
ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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191
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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192
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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193
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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194
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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195
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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196
caverns
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| 大山洞，大洞穴( cavern的名词复数 ) | |
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197
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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198
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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199
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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200
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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201
analyzing
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| v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析 | |
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202
resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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203
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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204
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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205
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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206
elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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207
reverberated
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| 回响，回荡( reverberate的过去式和过去分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射 | |
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208
vault
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| n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室 | |
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209
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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210
recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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211
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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212
draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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213
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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214
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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215
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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216
gravy
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| n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快 | |
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217
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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218
smoker
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| n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室 | |
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219
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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220
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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221
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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222
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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223
puffs
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| n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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224
shroud
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| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
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225
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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226
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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227
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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228
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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229
pricking
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| 刺，刺痕，刺痛感 | |
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230
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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231
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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232
naves
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| n.教堂正厅( nave的名词复数 )；本堂；中央部；车轮的中心部 | |
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233
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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234
platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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235
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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236
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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237
marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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238
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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239
binders
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| n.（司机行话）刹车器；（书籍的）装订机( binder的名词复数 )；（购买不动产时包括预付订金在内的）保证书；割捆机；活页封面 | |
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240
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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241
alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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242
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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243
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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244
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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245
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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246
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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247
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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248
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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249
diverge
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| v.分叉，分歧，离题，使...岔开，使转向 | |
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250
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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251
bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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252
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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253
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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254
munching
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| v.用力咀嚼（某物），大嚼( munch的现在分词 ) | |
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