Section 1
I HAVE set myself to write the story of the Great Change, so far as it has affected1 my own life and the lives of one or two people closely connected with me, primarily to please myself.
Long ago in my crude unhappy youth, I conceived the desire of writing a book. To scribble2 secretly and dream of authorship was one of my chief alleviations, and I read with a sympathetic envy every scrap3 I could get about the world of literature and the lives of literary people. It is something, even amidst this present happiness, to find leisure and opportunity to take up and partially4 realize these old and hopeless dreams. But that alone, in a world where so much of vivid and increasing interest presents itself to be done, even by an old man, would not, I think, suffice to set me at this desk. I find some such recapitulation of my past as this will involve, is becoming necessary to my own secure mental continuity. The passage of years brings a man at last to retrospection; at seventy-two one’s youth is far more important than it was at forty. And I am out of touch with my youth. The old life seems so cut off from the new, so alien and so unreasonable6, that at times I find it bordering upon the incredible. The data have gone, the buildings and places. I stopped dead the other afternoon in my walk across the moor7, where once the dismal8 outskirts9 of Swathinglea straggled toward Leet, and asked, “Was it here indeed that I crouched10 among the weeds and refuse and broken crockery and loaded my revolver ready for murder? Did ever such a thing happen in my life? Was such a mood and thought and intention ever possible to me? Rather, has not some queer nightmare spirit out of dreamland slipped a pseudo-memory into the records of my vanished life?” There must be many alive still who have the same perplexities. And I think too that those who are now growing up to take our places in the great enterprise of mankind, will need many such narratives12 as mine for even the most partial conception of the old world of shadows that came before our day. It chances too that my case is fairly typical of the Change; I was caught midway in a gust13 of passion; and a curious accident put me for a time in the very nucleus14 of the new order.
My memory takes me back across the interval15 of fifty years to a little ill-lit room with a sash window open to a starry16 sky, and instantly there returns to me the characteristic smell of that room, the penetrating17 odor of an ill-trimmed lamp, burning cheap paraffin. Lighting18 by electricity had then been perfected for fifteen years, but still the larger portion of the world used these lamps. All this first scene will go, in my mind at least, to that olfactory19 accompaniment. That was the evening smell of the room. By day it had a more subtle aroma20, a closeness, a peculiar21 sort of faint pungency22 that I associate — I know not why — with dust.
Let me describe this room to you in detail. It was perhaps eight feet by seven in area and rather higher than either of these dimensions; the ceiling was of plaster, cracked and bulging23 in places, gray with the soot24 of the lamp, and in one place discolored by a system of yellow and olive-green stains caused by the percolation25 of damp from above. The walls were covered with dun-colored paper, upon which had been printed in oblique26 reiteration27 a crimson28 shape, something of the nature of a curly ostrich29 feather, or an acanthus flower, that had in its less faded moments a sort of dingy31 gaiety. There were several big plaster-rimmed wounds in this, caused by Parload’s ineffectual attempts to get nails into the wall, whereby there might hang pictures. One nail had hit between two bricks and got home, and from this depended, sustained a little insecurely by frayed32 and knotted blind-cord, Parload’s hanging bookshelves, planks33 painted over with a treacly blue enamel34 and further decorated by a fringe of pinked American cloth insecurely fixed35 by tacks36. Below this was a little table that behaved with a mulish vindictiveness38 to any knee that was thrust beneath it suddenly; it was covered with a cloth whose pattern of red and black had been rendered less monotonous40 by the accidents of Parload’s versatile41 ink bottle, and on it, leit motif42 of the whole, stood and stank43 the lamp. This lamp, you must understand, was of some whitish translucent44 substance that was neither china nor glass, it had a shade of the same substance, a shade that did not protect the eyes of a reader in any measure, and it seemed admirably adapted to bring into pitiless prominence45 the fact that, after the lamp’s trimming, dust and paraffin had been smeared46 over its exterior47 with a reckless generosity48.
The uneven49 floor boards of this apartment were covered with scratched enamel of chocolate hue50, on which a small island of frayed carpet dimly blossomed in the dust and shadows.
There was a very small grate, made of cast-iron in one piece and painted buff, and a still smaller misfit of a cast-iron fender that confessed the gray stone of the hearth51. No fire was laid, only a few scraps52 of torn paper and the bowl of a broken corn-cob pipe were visible behind the bars, and in the corner and rather thrust away was an angular japanned coal-box with a damaged hinge. It was the custom in those days to warm every room separately from a separate fireplace, more prolific54 of dirt than heat, and the rickety sash window, the small chimney, and the loose-fitting door were expected to organize the ventilation of the room among themselves without any further direction.
Parload’s truckle bed hid its gray sheets beneath an old patchwork55 counterpane on one side of the room, and veiled his boxes and suchlike oddments, and invading the two corners of the window were an old whatnot and the washhandstand, on which were distributed the simple appliances of his toilet.
This washhandstand had been made of deal by some one with an excess of turnery appliances in a hurry, who had tried to distract attention from the rough economies of his workmanship by an arresting ornamentation of blobs and bulbs upon the joints57 and legs. Apparently58 the piece had then been placed in the hands of some person of infinite leisure equipped with a pot of ocherous paint, varnish59, and a set of flexible combs. This person had first painted the article, then, I fancy, smeared it with varnish, and then sat down to work with the combs to streak60 and comb the varnish into a weird61 imitation of the grain of some nightmare timber. The washhandstand so made had evidently had a prolonged career of violent use, had been chipped, kicked, splintered, punched, stained, scorched62, hammered, dessicated, damped, and defiled64, had met indeed with almost every possible adventure except a conflagration65 or a scrubbing, until at last it had come to this high refuge of Parload’s attic66 to sustain the simple requirements of Parload’s personal cleanliness. There were, in chief, a basin and a jug67 of water and a slop-pail of tin, and, further, a piece of yellow soap in a tray, a tooth-brush, a rat-tailed shaving brush, one huckaback towel, and one or two other minor68 articles. In those days only very prosperous people had more than such an equipage, and it is to be remarked that every drop of water Parload used had to be carried by an unfortunate servant girl,— the “slavey,” Parload called her — up from the basement to the top of the house and subsequently down again. Already we begin to forget how modern an invention is personal cleanliness. It is a fact that Parload had never stripped for a swim in his life; never had a simultaneous bath all over his body since his childhood. Not one in fifty of us did in the days of which I am telling you.
A chest, also singularly grained and streaked69, of two large and two small drawers, held Parload’s reserve of garments, and pegs70 on the door carried his two hats and completed this inventory71 of a “bed-sitting-room” as I knew it before the Change. But I had forgotten — there was also a chair with a “squab” that apologized inadequately73 for the defects of its cane74 seat. I forgot that for the moment because I was sitting on the chair on the occasion that best begins this story.
I have described Parload’s room with such particularity because it will help you to understand the key in which my earlier chapters are written, but you must not imagine that this singular equipment or the smell of the lamp engaged my attention at that time to the slightest degree. I took all this grimy unpleasantness as if it were the most natural and proper setting for existence imaginable. It was the world as I knew it. My mind was entirely75 occupied then by graver and intenser matters, and it is only now in the distant retrospect5 that I see these details of environment as being remarkable76, as significant, as indeed obviously the outward visible manifestations77 of the old world disorder78 in our hearts.
Section 2
Parload stood at the open window, opera-glass in hand, and sought and found and was uncertain about and lost again, the new comet.
I thought the comet no more than a nuisance then because I wanted to talk of other matters. But Parload was full of it. My head was hot, I was feverish79 with interlacing annoyances80 and bitterness, I wanted to open my heart to him — at least I wanted to relieve my heart by some romantic rendering82 of my troubles — and I gave but little heed83 to the things he told me. It was the first time I had heard of this new speck84 among the countless85 specks86 of heaven, and I did not care if I never heard of the thing again.
We were two youths much of an age together, Parload was two and twenty, and eight months older than I. He was — I think his proper definition was “engrossing clerk” to a little solicitor87 in Overcastle, while I was third in the office staff of Rawdon’s pot-bank in Clayton. We had met first in the “Parliament” of the Young Men’s Christian88 Association of Swathinglea; we had found we attended simultaneous classes in Overcastle, he in science and I in shorthand, and had started a practice of walking home together, and so our friendship came into being. (Swathinglea, Clayton, and Overcastle were contiguous towns, I should mention, in the great industrial area of the Midlands.) We had shared each other’s secret of religious doubt, we had confided89 to one another a common interest in Socialism, he had come twice to supper at my mother’s on a Sunday night, and I was free of his apartment. He was then a tall, flaxen-haired, gawky youth, with a disproportionate development of neck and wrist, and capable of vast enthusiasm; he gave two evenings a week to the evening classes of the organized science school in Overcastle, physiography was his favorite “subject,” and through this insidious90 opening of his mind the wonder of outer space had come to take possession of his soul. He had commandeered an old opera-glass from his uncle who farmed at Leet over the moors91, he had bought a cheap paper planisphere and Whitaker’s Almanac, and for a time day and moonlight were mere63 blank interruptions to the one satisfactory reality in his life — star-gazing. It was the deeps that had seized him, the immensities, and the mysterious possibilities that might float unlit in that unplumbed abyss. With infinite labor92 and the help of a very precise article in The Heavens, a little monthly magazine that catered93 for those who were under this obsession94, he had at last got his opera-glass upon the new visitor to our system from outer space. He gazed in a sort of rapture95 upon that quivering little smudge of light among the shining pin-points — and gazed. My troubles had to wait for him.
“Wonderful,” he sighed, and then as though his first emphasis did not satisfy him, “wonderful!”
He turned to me. “Wouldn’t you like to see?”
I had to look, and then I had to listen, how that this scarce-visible intruder was to be, was presently to be, one of the largest comets this world has ever seen, how that its course must bring it within at most — so many score of millions of miles from the earth, a mere step, Parload seemed to think that; how that the spectroscope was already sounding its chemical secrets, perplexed96 by the unprecedented97 band in the green, how it was even now being photographed in the very act of unwinding — in an unusual direction — a sunward tail (which presently it wound up again), and all the while in a sort of undertow I was thinking first of Nettie Stuart and the letter she had just written me, and then of old Rawdon’s detestable face as I had seen it that afternoon. Now I planned answers to Nettie and now belated repartees to my employer, and then again “Nettie” was blazing all across the background of my thoughts . . . .
Nettie Stuart was daughter of the head gardener of the rich Mr. Verrall’s widow, and she and I had kissed and become sweethearts before we were eighteen years old. My mother and hers were second cousins and old schoolfellows, and though my mother had been widowed untimely by a train accident, and had been reduced to letting lodgings99 (she was the Clayton curate’s landlady), a position esteemed100 much lower than that of Mrs. Stuart, a kindly101 custom of occasional visits to the gardener’s cottage at Checkshill Towers still kept the friends in touch. Commonly I went with her. And I remember it was in the dusk of one bright evening in July, one of those long golden evenings that do not so much give way to night as admit at last, upon courtesy, the moon and a choice retinue102 of stars, that Nettie and I, at the pond of goldfish where the yew-bordered walks converged103, made our shy beginners’ vow104. I remember still — something will always stir in me at that memory — the tremulous emotion of that adventure. Nettie was dressed in white, her hair went off in waves of soft darkness from above her dark shining eyes; there was a little necklace of pearls about her sweetly modeled neck, and a little coin of gold that nestled in her throat. I kissed her half-reluctant lips, and for three years of my life thereafter — nay105! I almost think for all the rest of her life and mine — I could have died for her sake.
You must understand — and every year it becomes increasingly difficult to understand — how entirely different the world was then from what it is now. It was a dark world; it was full of preventable disorder, preventable diseases, and preventable pain, of harshness and stupid unpremeditated cruelties, but yet, it may be even by virtue106 of the general darkness, there were moments of a rare and evanescent beauty that seem no longer possible in my experience. The great Change has come for ever more, happiness and beauty are our atmosphere, there is peace on earth and good will to all men. None would dare to dream of returning to the sorrows of the former time, and yet that misery107 was pierced, ever and again its gray curtain was stabbed through and through by joys of an intensity108, by perceptions of a keenness that it seems to me are now altogether gone out of life. Is it the Change, I wonder, that has robbed life of its extremes, or is it perhaps only this, that youth has left me — even the strength of middle years leaves me now — and taken its despairs and raptures109, leaving me judgment110, perhaps, sympathy, memories?
I cannot tell. One would need to be young now and to have been young then as well, to decide that impossible problem.
Perhaps a cool observer even in the old days would have found little beauty in our grouping. I have our two photographs at hand in this bureau as I write, and they show me a gawky youth in ill-fitting ready-made clothing, and Nettie — Indeed Nettie is badly dressed, and her attitude is more than a little stiff; but I can see her through the picture, and her living brightness and something of that mystery of charm she had for me, comes back again to my mind. Her face has triumphed over the photographer — or I would long ago have cast this picture away.
The reality of beauty yields itself to no words. I wish that I had the sister art and could draw in my margin111 something that escapes description. There was a sort of gravity in her eyes. There was something, a matter of the minutest difference, about her upper lip so that her mouth closed sweetly and broke very sweetly to a smile. That grave, sweet smile!
After we had kissed and decided112 not to tell our parents for awhile of the irrevocable choice we had made, the time came for us to part, shyly and before others, and I and my mother went off back across the moonlit park — the bracken thickets113 rustling114 with startled deer — to the railway station at Checkshill and so to our dingy basement in Clayton, and I saw no more of Nettie — except that I saw her in my thoughts — for nearly a year. But at our next meeting it was decided that we must correspond, and this we did with much elaboration of secrecy115, for Nettie would have no one at home, not even her only sister, know of her attachment116. So I had to send my precious documents sealed and under cover by way of a confidential117 schoolfellow of hers who lived near London. . . . I could write that address down now, though house and street and suburb have gone beyond any man’s tracing.
Our correspondence began our estrangement118, because for the first time we came into more than sensuous119 contact and our minds sought expression.
Now you must understand that the world of thought in those days was in the strangest condition, it was choked with obsolete120 inadequate72 formulae, it was tortuous121 to a maze-like degree with secondary contrivances and adaptations, suppressions, conventions, and subterfuges122. Base immediacies fouled124 the truth on every man’s lips. I was brought up by my mother in a quaint125 old-fashioned narrow faith in certain religious formulae, certain rules of conduct, certain conceptions of social and political order, that had no more relevance126 to the realities and needs of everyday contemporary life than if they were clean linen127 that had been put away with lavender in a drawer. Indeed, her religion did actually smell of lavender; on Sundays she put away all the things of reality, the garments and even the furnishings of everyday, hid her hands, that were gnarled and sometimes chapped with scrubbing, in black, carefully mended gloves, assumed her old black silk dress and bonnet129 and took me, unnaturally130 clean and sweet also, to church. There we sang and bowed and heard sonorous131 prayers and joined in sonorous responses, and rose with a congregational sigh refreshed and relieved when the doxology, with its opening “Now to God the Father, God the Son,” bowed out the tame, brief sermon. There was a hell in that religion of my mother’s, a red-haired hell of curly flames that had once been very terrible; there was a devil, who was also ex officio the British King’s enemy, and much denunciation of the wicked lusts132 of the flesh; we were expected to believe that most of our poor unhappy world was to atone133 for its muddle134 and trouble here by suffering exquisite135 torments136 for ever after, world without end, Amen. But indeed those curly flames looked rather jolly. The whole thing had been mellowed137 and faded into a gentle unreality long before my time; if it had much terror even in my childhood I have forgotten it, it was not so terrible as the giant who was killed by the Beanstalk, and I see it all now as a setting for my poor old mother’s worn and grimy face, and almost lovingly as a part of her. And Mr. Gabbitas, our plump little lodger138, strangely transformed in his vestments and lifting his voice manfully to the quality of those Elizabethan prayers, seemed, I think, to give her a special and peculiar interest with God. She radiated her own tremulous gentleness upon Him, and redeemed139 Him from all the implications of vindictive37 theologians; she was in truth, had I but perceived it, the effectual answer to all she would have taught me.
So I see it now, but there is something harsh in the earnest intensity of youth, and having at first taken all these things quite seriously, the fiery140 hell and God’s vindictiveness at any neglect, as though they were as much a matter of fact as Bladden’s iron-works and Rawdon’s pot-bank, I presently with an equal seriousness flung them out of my mind again.
Mr. Gabbitas, you see, did sometimes, as the phrase went, “take notice” of me, he had induced me to go on reading after I left school, and with the best intentions in the world and to anticipate the poison of the times, he had lent me Burble’s “Scepticism Answered,” and drawn141 my attention to the library of the Institute in Clayton.
The excellent Burble was a great shock to me. It seemed clear from his answers to the sceptic that the case for doctrinal orthodoxy and all that faded and by no means awful hereafter, which I had hitherto accepted as I accepted the sun, was an extremely poor one, and to hammer home that idea the first book I got from the Institute happened to be an American edition of the collected works of Shelley, his gassy prose as well as his atmospheric142 verse. I was soon ripe for blatant143 unbelief. And at the Young Men’s Christian Association I presently made the acquaintance of Parload, who told me, under promises of the most sinister144 secrecy, that he was “a Socialist145 out and out.” He lent me several copies of a periodical with the clamant title of The Clarion146, which was just taking up a crusade against the accepted religion. The adolescent years of any fairly intelligent youth lie open, and will always lie healthily open, to the contagion147 of philosophical148 doubts, of scorns and new ideas, and I will confess I had the fever of that phase badly. Doubt, I say, but it was not so much doubt — which is a complex thing — as startled emphatic149 denial. “Have I believed THIS!” And I was also, you must remember, just beginning love-letters to Nettie.
We live now in these days, when the Great Change has been in most things accomplished150, in a time when every one is being educated to a sort of intellectual gentleness, a gentleness that abates151 nothing from our vigor152, and it is hard to understand the stifled153 and struggling manner in which my generation of common young men did its thinking. To think at all about certain questions was an act of rebellion that set one oscillating between the furtive154 and the defiant155. People begin to find Shelley — for all his melody — noisy and ill conditioned now because his Anarchs have vanished, yet there was a time when novel thought HAD to go to that tune156 of breaking glass. It becomes a little difficult to imagine the yeasty state of mind, the disposition157 to shout and say, “Yah!” at constituted authority, to sustain a persistent158 note of provocation159 such as we raw youngsters displayed. I began to read with avidity such writing as Carlyle, Browning, and Heine have left for the perplexity of posterity160, and not only to read and admire but to imitate. My letters to Nettie, after one or two genuinely intended displays of perfervid tenderness, broke out toward theology, sociology, and the cosmos161 in turgid and startling expressions. No doubt they puzzled her extremely.
I retain the keenest sympathy and something inexplicably162 near to envy for my own departed youth, but I should find it difficult to maintain my case against any one who would condemn163 me altogether as having been a very silly, posturing164, emotional hobbledehoy indeed and quite like my faded photograph. And when I try to recall what exactly must have been the quality and tenor165 of my more sustained efforts to write memorably166 to my sweetheart, I confess I shiver . . . Yet I wish they were not all destroyed.
Her letters to me were simple enough, written in a roundish, unformed hand and badly phrased. Her first two or three showed a shy pleasure in the use of the word “dear,” and I remember being first puzzled and then, when I understood, delighted, because she had written “Willie ASTHORE” under my name. “Asthore,” I gathered, meant “darling.” But when the evidences of my fermentation began, her answers were less happy.
I will not weary you with the story of how we quarreled in our silly youthful way, and how I went the next Sunday, all uninvited, to Checkshill, and made it worse, and how afterward167 I wrote a letter that she thought was “lovely,” and mended the matter. Nor will I tell of all our subsequent fluctuations168 of misunderstanding. Always I was the offender170 and the final penitent171 until this last trouble that was now beginning; and in between we had some tender near moments, and I loved her very greatly. There was this misfortune in the business, that in the darkness, and alone, I thought with great intensity of her, of her eyes, of her touch, of her sweet and delightful172 presence, but when I sat down to write I thought of Shelley and Burns and myself, and other such irrelevant173 matters. When one is in love, in this fermenting174 way, it is harder to make love than it is when one does not love at all. And as for Nettie, she loved, I know, not me but those gentle mysteries. It was not my voice should rouse her dreams to passion . . . So our letters continued to jar. Then suddenly she wrote me one doubting whether she could ever care for any one who was a Socialist and did not believe in Church, and then hard upon it came another note with unexpected novelties of phrasing. She thought we were not suited to each other, we differed so in tastes and ideas, she had long thought of releasing me from our engagement. In fact, though I really did not apprehend175 it fully128 at the first shock, I was dismissed. Her letter had reached me when I came home after old Rawdon’s none too civil refusal to raise my wages. On this particular evening of which I write, therefore, I was in a state of feverish adjustment to two new and amazing, two nearly overwhelming facts, that I was neither indispensable to Nettie nor at Rawdon’s. And to talk of comets!
Where did I stand?
I had grown so accustomed to think of Nettie as inseparably mine — the whole tradition of “true love” pointed176 me to that — that for her to face about with these precise small phrases toward abandonment, after we had kissed and whispered and come so close in the little adventurous177 familiarities of the young, shocked me profoundly. I! I! And Rawdon didn’t find me indispensable either. I felt I was suddenly repudiated178 by the universe and threatened with effacement179, that in some positive and emphatic way I must at once assert myself. There was no balm in the religion I had learnt, or in the irreligion I had adopted, for wounded self-love.
Should I fling up Rawdon’s place at once and then in some extraordinary, swift manner make the fortune of Frobisher’s adjacent and closely competitive pot-bank?
The first part of that program, at any rate, would be easy of accomplishment180, to go to Rawdon and say, “You will hear from me again,” but for the rest, Frobisher might fail me. That, however, was a secondary issue. The predominant affair was with Nettie. I found my mind thick-shot with flying fragments of rhetoric181 that might be of service in the letter I would write her. Scorn, irony182, tenderness — what was it to be?
“Brother!” said Parload, suddenly.
“What?” said I.
“They’re firing up at Bladden’s iron-works, and the smoke comes right across my bit of sky.”
The interruption came just as I was ripe to discharge my thoughts upon him.
“Parload,” said I, “very likely I shall have to leave all this. Old Rawdon won’t give me a rise in my wages, and after having asked I don’t think I can stand going on upon the old terms anymore. See? So I may have to clear out of Clayton for good and all.”
Section 3
That made Parload put down the opera-glass and look at me.
“It’s a bad time to change just now,” he said after a little pause.
Rawdon had said as much, in a less agreeable tone.
But with Parload I felt always a disposition to the heroic note. “I’m tired,” I said, “of humdrum183 drudgery184 for other men. One may as well starve one’s body out of a place as to starve one’s soul in one.”
“I don’t know about that altogether,” began Parload, slowly . . . .
And with that we began one of our interminable conversations, one of those long, wandering, intensely generalizing, diffusely185 personal talks that will be dear to the hearts of intelligent youths until the world comes to an end. The Change has not abolished that, anyhow.
It would be an incredible feat30 of memory for me now to recall all that meandering186 haze187 of words, indeed I recall scarcely any of it, though its circumstances and atmosphere stand out, a sharp, clear picture in my mind. I posed after my manner and behaved very foolishly no doubt, a wounded, smarting egotist, and Parload played his part of the philosopher preoccupied188 with the deeps.
We were presently abroad, walking through the warm summer’s night and talking all the more freely for that. But one thing that I said I can remember. “I wish at times,” said I, with a gesture at the heavens, “that comet of yours or some such thing would indeed strike this world — and wipe us all away, strikes, wars, tumults189, loves, jealousies190, and all the wretchedness of life!”
“Ah!” said Parload, and the thought seemed to hang about him.
“It could only add to the miseries191 of life,” he said irrelevantly192, when presently I was discoursing193 of other things.
“What would?”
“Collision with a comet. It would only throw things back. It would only make what was left of life more savage194 than it is at present.”
“But why should ANYTHING be left of life?” said I . . . .
That was our style, you know, and meanwhile we walked together up the narrow street outside his lodging98, up the stepway and the lanes toward Clayton Crest195 and the high road.
But my memories carry me back so effectually to those days before the Change that I forget that now all these places have been altered beyond recognition, that the narrow street and the stepway and the view from Clayton Crest, and indeed all the world in which I was born and bred and made, has vanished clean away, out of space and out of time, and wellnigh out of the imagination of all those who are younger by a generation than I. You cannot see, as I can see, the dark empty way between the mean houses, the dark empty way lit by a bleary gas-lamp at the corner, you cannot feel the hard checkered196 pavement under your boots, you cannot mark the dimly lit windows here and there, and the shadows upon the ugly and often patched and crooked197 blinds of the people cooped within. Nor can you presently pass the beerhouse with its brighter gas and its queer, screening windows, nor get a whiff of foul123 air and foul language from its door, nor see the crumpled198 furtive figure — some rascal199 child — that slinks past us down the steps.
We crossed the longer street, up which a clumsy steam tram, vomiting200 smoke and sparks, made its clangorous way, and adown which one saw the greasy201 brilliance202 of shop fronts and the naphtha flares203 of hawkers’ barrows dripping fire into the night. A hazy204 movement of people swayed along that road, and we heard the voice of an itinerant205 preacher from a waste place between the houses. You cannot see these things as I can see them, nor can you figure — unless you know the pictures that great artist Hyde has left the world — the effect of the great hoarding206 by which we passed, lit below by a gas-lamp and towering up to a sudden sharp black edge against the pallid207 sky.
Those hoardings! They were the brightest colored things in all that vanished world. Upon them, in successive layers of paste and paper, all the rough enterprises of that time joined in chromatic208 discord209; pill vendors210 and preachers, theaters and charities, marvelous soaps and astonishing pickles211, typewriting machines and sewing machines, mingled212 in a sort of visualized213 clamor. And passing that there was a muddy lane of cinders215, a lane without a light, that used its many puddles216 to borrow a star or so from the sky. We splashed along unheeding as we talked.
Then across the allotments, a wilderness218 of cabbages and evil-looking sheds, past a gaunt abandoned factory, and so to the high road. The high road ascended219 in a curve past a few houses and a beerhouse or so, and round until all the valley in which four industrial towns lay crowded and confluent was overlooked.
I will admit that with the twilight221 there came a spell of weird magnificence over all that land and brooded on it until dawn. The horrible meanness of its details was veiled, the hutches that were homes, the bristling222 multitudes of chimneys, the ugly patches of unwilling223 vegetation amidst the makeshift fences of barrel-stave and wire. The rusty224 scars that framed the opposite ridges225 where the iron ore was taken and the barren mountains of slag227 from the blast furnaces were veiled; the reek228 and boiling smoke and dust from foundry, pot-bank, and furnace, transfigured and assimilated by the night. The dust-laden atmosphere that was gray oppression through the day became at sundown a mystery of deep translucent colors, of blues229 and purples, of somber230 and vivid reds, of strange bright clearnesses of green and yellow athwart the darkling sky. Each upstart furnace, when its monarch231 sun had gone, crowned itself with flames, the dark cinder214 heaps began to glow with quivering fires, and each pot-bank squatted232 rebellious233 in a volcanic234 coronet of light. The empire of the day broke into a thousand feudal235 baronies of burning coal. The minor streets across the valley picked themselves out with gas-lamps of faint yellow, that brightened and mingled at all the principal squares and crossings with the greenish pallor of incandescent236 mantles237 and the high cold glare of the electric arc. The interlacing railways lifted bright signal-boxes over their intersections238, and signal stars of red and green in rectangular constellations239. The trains became articulated black serpents breathing fire.
Moreover, high overhead, like a thing put out of reach and near forgotten, Parload had rediscovered a realm that was ruled by neither sun nor furnace, the universe of stars.
This was the scene of many a talk we two had held together. And if in the daytime we went right over the crest and looked westward240 there was farmland, there were parks and great mansions241, the spire242 of a distant cathedral, and sometimes when the weather was near raining, the crests243 of remote mountains hung clearly in the sky. Beyond the range of sight indeed, out beyond, there was Checkshill; I felt it there always, and in the darkness more than I did by day. Checkshill, and Nettie!
And to us two youngsters as we walked along the cinder path beside the rutted road and argued out our perplexities, it seemed that this ridge226 gave us compendiously244 a view of our whole world.
There on the one hand in a crowded darkness, about the ugly factories and work-places, the workers herded245 together, ill clothed, ill nourished, ill taught, badly and expensively served at every occasion in life, uncertain even of their insufficient246 livelihood247 from day to day, the chapels248 and churches and public-houses swelling249 up amidst their wretched homes like saprophytes amidst a general corruption250, and on the other, in space, freedom, and dignity, scarce heeding217 the few cottages, as overcrowded as they were picturesque251, in which the laborers252 festered, lived the landlords and masters who owned pot-banks and forge and farm and mine. Far away, distant, beautiful, irrelevant, from out of a little cluster of secondhand bookshops, ecclesiastical residences, and the inns and incidentals of a decaying market town, the cathedral of Lowchester pointed a beautiful, unemphatic spire to vague incredible skies. So it seemed to us that the whole world was planned in those youthful first impressions.
We saw everything simple, as young men will. We had our angry, confident solutions, and whosoever would criticize them was a friend of the robbers. It was a clear case of robbery, we held, visibly so; there in those great houses lurked253 the Landlord and the Capitalist, with his scoundrel the Lawyer, with his cheat the Priest, and we others were all the victims of their deliberate villainies. No doubt they winked254 and chuckled255 over their rare wines, amidst their dazzling, wickedly dressed women, and plotted further grinding for the faces of the poor. And amidst all the squalor on the other hand, amidst brutalities, ignorance, and drunkenness, suffered multitudinously their blameless victim, the Working Man. And we, almost at the first glance, had found all this out, it had merely to be asserted now with sufficient rhetoric and vehemence256 to change the face of the whole world. The Working Man would arise — in the form of a Labor Party, and with young men like Parload and myself to represent him — and come to his own, and then ———?
Then the robbers would get it hot, and everything would be extremely satisfactory.
Unless my memory plays me strange tricks that does no injustice257 to the creed258 of thought and action that Parload and I held as the final result of human wisdom. We believed it with heat, and rejected with heat the most obvious qualification of its harshness. At times in our great talks we were full of heady hopes for the near triumph of our doctrine259, more often our mood was hot resentment260 at the wickedness and stupidity that delayed so plain and simple a reconstruction261 of the order of the world. Then we grew malignant262, and thought of barricades263 and significant violence. I was very bitter, I know, upon this night of which I am now particularly telling, and the only face upon the hydra264 of Capitalism265 and Monopoly that I could see at all clearly, smiled exactly as old Rawdon had smiled when he refused to give me more than a paltry266 twenty shillings a week.
I wanted intensely to salve my self-respect by some revenge upon him, and I felt that if that could be done by slaying267 the hydra, I might drag its carcass to the feet of Nettie, and settle my other trouble as well. “What do you think of me NOW, Nettie?”
That at any rate comes near enough to the quality of my thinking, then, for you to imagine how I gesticulated and spouted268 to Parload that night. You figure us as little black figures, unprepossessing in the outline, set in the midst of that desolating269 night of flaming industrialism, and my little voice with a rhetorical twang protesting, denouncing . . . .
You will consider those notions of my youth poor silly violent stuff; particularly if you are of the younger generation born since the Change you will be of that opinion. Nowadays the whole world thinks clearly, thinks with deliberation, pellucid270 certainties, you find it impossible to imagine how any other thinking could have been possible. Let me tell you then how you can bring yourself to something like the condition of our former state. In the first place you must get yourself out of health by unwise drinking and eating, and out of condition by neglecting your exercise, then you must contrive271 to be worried very much and made very anxious and uncomfortable, and then you must work very hard for four or five days and for long hours every day at something too petty to be interesting, too complex to be mechanical, and without any personal significance to you whatever. This done, get straightway into a room that is not ventilated at all, and that is already full of foul air, and there set yourself to think out some very complicated problem. In a very little while you will find yourself in a state of intellectual muddle, annoyed, impatient, snatching at the obvious presently in choosing and rejecting conclusions haphazard272. Try to play chess under such conditions and you will play stupidly and lose your temper. Try to do anything that taxes the brain or temper and you will fail.
Now, the whole world before the Change was as sick and feverish as that, it was worried and overworked and perplexed by problems that would not get stated simply, that changed and evaded273 solution, it was in an atmosphere that had corrupted274 and thickened past breathing; there was no thorough cool thinking in the world at all. There was nothing in the mind of the world anywhere but half-truths, hasty assumptions, hallucinations, and emotions. Nothing . . . .
I know it seems incredible, that already some of the younger men are beginning to doubt the greatness of the Change our world has undergone, but read — read the newspapers of that time. Every age becomes mitigated275 and a little ennobled in our minds as it recedes276 into the past. It is the part of those who like myself have stories of that time to tell, to supply, by a scrupulous277 spiritual realism, some antidote278 to that glamour279.
Section 4
Always with Parload I was chief talker.
I can look back upon myself with, I believe, an almost perfect detachment, things have so changed that indeed now I am another being, with scarce anything in common with that boastful foolish youngster whose troubles I recall. I see him vulgarly theatrical280, egotistical, insincere, indeed I do not like him save with that instinctive281 material sympathy that is the fruit of incessant282 intimacy283. Because he was myself I may be able to feel and write understandingly about motives284 that will put him out of sympathy with nearly every reader, but why should I palliate or defend his quality?
Always, I say, I did the talking, and it would have amazed me beyond measure if any one had told me that mine was not the greater intelligence in these wordy encounters. Parload was a quiet youth, and stiff and restrained in all things, while I had that supreme285 gift for young men and democracies, the gift of copious286 expression. Parload I diagnosed in my secret heart as a trifle dull; he posed as pregnant quiet, I thought, and was obsessed287 by the congenial notion of “scientific caution.” I did not remark that while my hands were chiefly useful for gesticulation or holding a pen Parload’s hands could do all sorts of things, and I did not think therefore that fibers288 must run from those fingers to something in his brain. Nor, though I bragged289 perpetually of my shorthand, of my literature, of my indispensable share in Rawdon’s business, did Parload lay stress on the conics and calculus290 he “mugged” in the organized science school. Parload is a famous man now, a great figure in a great time, his work upon intersecting radiations has broadened the intellectual horizon of mankind for ever, and I, who am at best a hewer of intellectual wood, a drawer of living water, can smile, and he can smile, to think how I patronized and posed and jabbered291 over him in the darkness of those early days.
That night I was shrill292 and eloquent293 beyond measure. Rawdon was, of course, the hub upon which I went round — Rawdon and the Rawdonesque employer and the injustice of “wages slavery” and all the immediate294 conditions of that industrial blind alley220 up which it seemed our lives were thrust. But ever and again I glanced at other things. Nettie was always there in the background of my mind, regarding me enigmatically. It was part of my pose to Parload that I had a romantic love-affair somewhere away beyond the sphere of our intercourse295, and that note gave a Byronic resonance296 to many of the nonsensical things I produced for his astonishment297.
I will not weary you with too detailed298 an account of the talk of a foolish youth who was also distressed299 and unhappy, and whose voice was balm for the humiliations that smarted in his eyes. Indeed, now in many particulars I cannot disentangle this harangue300 of which I tell from many of the things I may have said in other talks to Parload. For example, I forget if it was then or before or afterwards that, as it were by accident, I let out what might be taken as an admission that I was addicted301 to drugs.
“You shouldn’t do that,” said Parload, suddenly. “It won’t do to poison your brains with that.”
My brains, my eloquence302, were to be very important assets to our party in the coming revolution . . . .
But one thing does clearly belong to this particular conversation I am recalling. When I started out it was quite settled in the back of my mind that I must not leave Rawdon’s. I simply wanted to abuse my employer to Parload. But I talked myself quite out of touch with all the cogent303 reasons there were for sticking to my place, and I got home that night irrevocably committed to a spirited — not to say a defiant — policy with my employer.
“I can’t stand Rawdon’s much longer,” I said to Parload by way of a flourish.
“There’s hard times coming,” said Parload.
“Next winter.”
“Sooner. The Americans have been overproducing, and they mean to dump. The iron trade is going to have convulsions.”
“I don’t care. Pot-banks are steady.”
“With a corner in borax? No. I’ve heard —”
“What have you heard?”
“Office secrets. But it’s no secret there’s trouble coming to potters. There’s been borrowing and speculation304. The masters don’t stick to one business as they used to do. I can tell that much. Half the valley may be ‘playing’ before two months are out.” Parload delivered himself of this unusually long speech in his most pithy305 and weighty manner.
“Playing” was our local euphemism306 for a time when there was no work and no money for a man, a time of stagnation307 and dreary308 hungry loafing day after day. Such interludes seemed in those days a necessary consequence of industrial organization.
“You’d better stick to Rawdon’s,” said Parload.
“Ugh,” said I, affecting a noble disgust.
“There’ll be trouble,” said Parload.
“Who cares?” said I. “Let there be trouble — the more the better. This system has got to end, sooner or later. These capitalists with their speculation and corners and trusts make things go from bad to worse. Why should I cower309 in Rawdon’s office, like a frightened dog, while hunger walks the streets? Hunger is the master revolutionary. When he comes we ought to turn out and salute310 him. Anyway, I’M going to do so now.”
“That’s all very well,” began Parload.
“I’m tired of it,” I said. “I want to come to grips with all these Rawdons. I think perhaps if I was hungry and savage I could talk to hungry men —”
“There’s your mother,” said Parload, in his slow judicial311 way.
That WAS a difficulty.
I got over it by a rhetorical turn. “Why should one sacrifice the future of the world — why should one even sacrifice one’s own future — because one’s mother is totally destitute312 of imagination?”
Section 5
It was late when I parted from Parload and came back to my own home.
Our house stood in a highly respectable little square near the Clayton parish church. Mr. Gabbitas, the curate of all work, lodged313 on our ground floor, and upstairs there was an old lady, Miss Holroyd, who painted flowers on china and maintained her blind sister in an adjacent room; my mother and I lived in the basement and slept in the attics314. The front of the house was veiled by a Virginian creeper that defied the Clayton air and clustered in untidy dependant315 masses over the wooden porch.
As I came up the steps I had a glimpse of Mr. Gabbitas printing photographs by candle light in his room. It was the chief delight of his little life to spend his holiday abroad in the company of a queer little snap-shot camera, and to return with a great multitude of foggy and sinister negatives that he had made in beautiful and interesting places. These the camera company would develop for him on advantageous316 terms, and he would spend his evenings the year through in printing from them in order to inflict317 copies upon his undeserving friends. There was a long frameful of his work in the Clayton National School, for example, inscribed318 in old English lettering, “Italian Travel Pictures, by the Rev11. E. B. Gabbitas.” For this it seemed he lived and traveled and had his being. It was his only real joy. By his shaded light I could see his sharp little nose, his little pale eyes behind his glasses, his mouth pursed up with the endeavor of his employment.
“Hireling Liar,” I muttered, for was not he also part of the system, part of the scheme of robbery that made wages serfs of Parload and me?— though his share in the proceedings319 was certainly small.
“Hireling Liar,” said I, standing169 in the darkness, outside even his faint glow of traveled culture. . .
My mother let me in.
She looked at me, mutely, because she knew there was something wrong and that it was no use for her to ask what.
“Good night, mummy,” said I, and kissed her a little roughly, and lit and took my candle and went off at once up the staircase to bed, not looking back at her.
“I’ve kept some supper for you, dear.”
“Don’t want any supper.”
“But, dearie ———”
“Good night, mother,” and I went up and slammed my door upon her, blew out my candle, and lay down at once upon my bed, lay there a long time before I got up to undress.
There were times when that dumb beseeching320 of my mother’s face irritated me unspeakably. It did so that night. I felt I had to struggle against it, that I could not exist if I gave way to its pleadings, and it hurt me and divided me to resist it, almost beyond endurance. It was clear to me that I had to think out for myself religious problems, social problems, questions of conduct, questions of expediency321, that her poor dear simple beliefs could not help me at all — and she did not understand! Hers was the accepted religion, her only social ideas were blind submissions322 to the accepted order — to laws, to doctors, to clergymen, lawyers, masters, and all respectable persons in authority over us, and with her to believe was to fear. She knew from a thousand little signs — though still at times I went to church with her — that I was passing out of touch of all these things that ruled her life, into some terrible unknown. From things I said she could infer such clumsy concealments as I made. She felt my socialism, felt my spirit in revolt against the accepted order, felt the impotent resentments324 that filled me with bitterness against all she held sacred. Yet, you know, it was not her dear gods she sought to defend so much as me! She seemed always to be wanting to say to me, “Dear, I know it’s hard — but revolt is harder. Don’t make war on it, dear — don’t! Don’t do anything to offend it. I’m sure it will hurt you if you do — it will hurt you if you do.”
She had been cowed into submission323, as so many women of that time had been, by the sheer brutality325 of the accepted thing. The existing order dominated her into a worship of abject326 observances. It had bent327 her, aged53 her, robbed her of eyesight so that at fifty-five she peered through cheap spectacles at my face, and saw it only dimly, filled her with a habit of anxiety, made her hands ——— Her poor dear hands! Not in the whole world now could you find a woman with hands so grimy, so needle-worn, so misshapen by toil56, so chapped and coarsened, so evilly entreated328. . . . At any rate, there is this I can say for myself, that my bitterness against the world and fortune was for her sake as well as for my own.
Yet that night I pushed by her harshly. I answered her curtly329, left her concerned and perplexed in the passage, and slammed my door upon her.
And for a long time I lay raging at the hardship and evil of life, at the contempt of Rawdon, and the loveless coolness of Nettie’s letter, at my weakness and insignificance330, at the things I found intolerable, and the things I could not mend. Over and over went my poor little brain, tired out and unable to stop on my treadmill331 of troubles. Nettie. Rawdon. My mother. Gabbitas. Nettie. . .
Suddenly I came upon emotional exhaustion332. Some clock was striking midnight. After all, I was young; I had these quick transitions. I remember quite distinctly, I stood up abruptly333, undressed very quickly in the dark, and had hardly touched my pillow again before I was asleep.
But how my mother slept that night I do not know.
Oddly enough, I do not blame myself for behaving like this to my mother, though my conscience blames me acutely for my arrogance334 to Parload. I regret my behavior to my mother before the days of the Change, it is a scar among my memories that will always be a little painful to the end of my days, but I do not see how something of the sort was to be escaped under those former conditions. In that time of muddle and obscurity people were overtaken by needs and toil and hot passions before they had the chance of even a year or so of clear thinking; they settled down to an intense and strenuous335 application to some partial but immediate duty, and the growth of thought ceased in them. They set and hardened into narrow ways. Few women remained capable of a new idea after five and twenty, few men after thirty-one or two. Discontent with the thing that existed was regarded as immoral336, it was certainly an annoyance81, and the only protest against it, the only effort against that universal tendency in all human institutions to thicken and clog337, to work loosely and badly, to rust39 and weaken towards catastrophes338, came from the young — the crude unmerciful young. It seemed in those days to thoughtful men the harsh law of being — that either we must submit to our elders and be stifled, or disregard them, disobey them, thrust them aside, and make our little step of progress before we too ossified339 and became obstructive in our turn.
My pushing past my mother, my irresponsive departure to my own silent meditations340, was, I now perceive, a figure of the whole hard relationship between parents and son in those days. There appeared no other way; that perpetually recurring341 tragedy was, it seemed, part of the very nature of the progress of the world. We did not think then that minds might grow ripe without growing rigid342, or children honor their parents and still think for themselves. We were angry and hasty because we stifled in the darkness, in a poisoned and vitiated air. That deliberate animation343 of the intelligence which is now the universal quality, that vigor with consideration, that judgment with confident enterprise which shine through all our world, were things disintegrated344 and unknown in the corrupting345 atmosphere of our former state.
(So the first fascicle ended. I put it aside and looked for the second.
“Well?” said the man who wrote.
“This is fiction?”
“It’s my story.”
“But you — Amidst this beauty — You are not this ill-conditioned, squalidly bred lad of whom I have been reading?”
He smiled. “There intervenes a certain Change,” he said. “Have I not hinted at that?”
I hesitated upon a question, then saw the second fascicle at hand, and picked it up.)
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affected
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scribble
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| v.潦草地书写，乱写，滥写；n.潦草的写法，潦草写成的东西，杂文 | |
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scrap
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partially
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retrospect
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unreasonable
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moor
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dismal
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outskirts
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crouched
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rev
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narratives
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gust
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nucleus
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interval
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starry
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penetrating
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lighting
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olfactory
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aroma
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peculiar
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pungency
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bulging
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percolation
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oblique
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reiteration
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crimson
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ostrich
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feat
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dingy
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frayed
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planks
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enamel
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fixed
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vindictive
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vindictiveness
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rust
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monotonous
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versatile
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motif
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translucent
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prominence
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smeared
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| 弄脏； 玷污； 涂抹； 擦上 | |
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exterior
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generosity
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uneven
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hue
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hearth
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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53
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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54
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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55
patchwork
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| n.混杂物；拼缝物 | |
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56
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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57
joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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58
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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59
varnish
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| n.清漆；v.上清漆；粉饰 | |
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60
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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61
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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62
scorched
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
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63
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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64
defiled
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| v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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65
conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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66
attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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67
jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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68
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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69
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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70
pegs
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| n.衣夹( peg的名词复数 )；挂钉；系帐篷的桩；弦钮v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的第三人称单数 )；使固定在某水平 | |
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71
inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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72
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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73
inadequately
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| ad.不够地；不够好地 | |
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74
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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75
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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76
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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77
manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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78
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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79
feverish
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|
| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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80
annoyances
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|
| n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 )；烦恼；打扰；使人烦恼的事 | |
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81
annoyance
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|
| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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82
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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83
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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84
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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85
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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86
specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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87
solicitor
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| n.初级律师，事务律师 | |
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88
Christian
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|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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89
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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90
insidious
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|
| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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91
moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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92
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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93
catered
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| 提供饮食及服务( cater的过去式和过去分词 )； 满足需要，适合 | |
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94
obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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95
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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96
perplexed
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|
| adj.不知所措的 | |
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97
unprecedented
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|
| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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98
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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99
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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100
esteemed
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|
| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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101
kindly
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|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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102
retinue
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| n.侍从；随员 | |
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103
converged
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|
| v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的过去式 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集 | |
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104
vow
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|
| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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105
nay
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|
| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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106
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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107
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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108
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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109
raptures
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| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
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110
judgment
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|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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111
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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112
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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113
thickets
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| n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 )；丛状物 | |
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114
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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115
secrecy
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|
| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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116
attachment
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|
| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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117
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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118
estrangement
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| n.疏远，失和，不和 | |
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119
sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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120
obsolete
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|
| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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121
tortuous
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|
| adj.弯弯曲曲的，蜿蜒的 | |
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122
subterfuges
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| n.（用说谎或欺骗以逃脱责备、困难等的）花招，遁词( subterfuge的名词复数 ) | |
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123
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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124
fouled
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| v.使污秽( foul的过去式和过去分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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125
quaint
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|
| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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126
relevance
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| n.中肯，适当，关联，相关性 | |
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127
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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128
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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129
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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130
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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131
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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132
lusts
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| 贪求（lust的第三人称单数形式） | |
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133
atone
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| v.赎罪，补偿 | |
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134
muddle
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| n.困惑，混浊状态；vt.使混乱，使糊涂，使惊呆；vi.胡乱应付，混乱 | |
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135
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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136
torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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137
mellowed
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| （使）成熟( mellow的过去式和过去分词 )； 使色彩更加柔和，使酒更加醇香 | |
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138
lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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139
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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140
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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141
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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142
atmospheric
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|
| adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的 | |
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143
blatant
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| adj.厚颜无耻的；显眼的；炫耀的 | |
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144
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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145
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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146
clarion
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| n.尖音小号声；尖音小号 | |
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147
contagion
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| n.(通过接触的疾病)传染；蔓延 | |
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148
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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149
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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150
accomplished
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|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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151
abates
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| 减少( abate的第三人称单数 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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152
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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153
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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154
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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155
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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156
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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157
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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158
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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159
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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160
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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161
cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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162
inexplicably
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| adv.无法说明地，难以理解地，令人难以理解的是 | |
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163
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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164
posturing
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| 做出某种姿势( posture的现在分词 ) | |
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165
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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166
memorably
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| 难忘的 | |
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167
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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168
fluctuations
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| 波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 ) | |
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169
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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170
offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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171
penitent
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|
| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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172
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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173
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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174
fermenting
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| v.（使）发酵( ferment的现在分词 )；（使）激动；骚动；骚扰 | |
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175
apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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176
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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177
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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178
repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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179
effacement
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| n.抹消，抹杀 | |
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180
accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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181
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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182
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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183
humdrum
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| adj.单调的，乏味的 | |
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184
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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185
diffusely
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| 广泛地 | |
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186
meandering
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| 蜿蜒的河流，漫步，聊天 | |
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187
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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188
preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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189
tumults
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| 吵闹( tumult的名词复数 )； 喧哗； 激动的吵闹声； 心烦意乱 | |
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190
jealousies
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| n.妒忌( jealousy的名词复数 )；妒羡 | |
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191
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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192
irrelevantly
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| adv.不恰当地，不合适地；不相关地 | |
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193
discoursing
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| 演说（discourse的现在分词形式） | |
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194
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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195
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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196
checkered
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| adj.有方格图案的 | |
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197
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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198
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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199
rascal
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| n.流氓；不诚实的人 | |
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200
vomiting
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| 吐 | |
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201
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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202
brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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203
flares
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| n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开 | |
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204
hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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205
itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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206
hoarding
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| n.贮藏；积蓄；临时围墙；囤积v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的现在分词 ) | |
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207
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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208
chromatic
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| adj.色彩的，颜色的 | |
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209
discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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210
vendors
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| n.摊贩( vendor的名词复数 )；小贩；（房屋等的）卖主；卖方 | |
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211
pickles
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| n.腌菜( pickle的名词复数 )；处于困境；遇到麻烦；菜酱 | |
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212
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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213
visualized
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| 直观的，直视的 | |
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214
cinder
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| n.余烬，矿渣 | |
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215
cinders
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| n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 )；炭渣；煤渣路；煤渣跑道 | |
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216
puddles
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| n.水坑， （尤指道路上的）雨水坑( puddle的名词复数 ) | |
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217
heeding
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| v.听某人的劝告，听从( heed的现在分词 ) | |
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218
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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219
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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220
alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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221
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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222
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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223
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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224
rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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225
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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226
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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227
slag
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| n.熔渣，铁屑，矿渣；v.使变成熔渣，变熔渣 | |
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228
reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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229
blues
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| n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐 | |
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230
somber
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| adj.昏暗的，阴天的，阴森的，忧郁的 | |
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231
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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232
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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233
rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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234
volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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235
feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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236
incandescent
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| adj.遇热发光的， 白炽的，感情强烈的 | |
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237
mantles
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| vt.&vi.覆盖（mantle的第三人称单数形式） | |
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238
intersections
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| n.横断( intersection的名词复数 )；交叉；交叉点；交集 | |
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239
constellations
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| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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240
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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241
mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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242
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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243
crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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244
compendiously
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| adv.扼要地；简要地；摘要地；简洁地 | |
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245
herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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246
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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247
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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248
chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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249
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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250
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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251
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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252
laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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253
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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254
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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255
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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256
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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257
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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258
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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259
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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260
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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261
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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262
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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263
barricades
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| 路障，障碍物( barricade的名词复数 ) | |
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264
hydra
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| n.水螅；难于根除的祸患 | |
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265
capitalism
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| n.资本主义 | |
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266
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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267
slaying
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| 杀戮。 | |
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268
spouted
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| adj.装有嘴的v.（指液体）喷出( spout的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地讲；喋喋不休地说；喷水 | |
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269
desolating
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| 毁坏( desolate的现在分词 )； 极大地破坏； 使沮丧； 使痛苦 | |
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270
pellucid
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| adj.透明的，简单的 | |
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271
contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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272
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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273
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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274
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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275
mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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276
recedes
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的第三人称单数 )；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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277
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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278
antidote
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| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
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279
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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280
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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281
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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282
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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283
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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284
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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285
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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286
copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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287
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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288
fibers
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| 光纤( fiber的名词复数 )； （织物的）质地； 纤维，纤维物质 | |
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289
bragged
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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290
calculus
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| n.微积分；结石 | |
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291
jabbered
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| v.急切而含混不清地说( jabber的过去式和过去分词 )；急促兴奋地说话 | |
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292
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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293
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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294
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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295
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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296
resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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297
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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298
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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299
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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300
harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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301
addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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302
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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303
cogent
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| adj.强有力的，有说服力的 | |
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304
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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305
pithy
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| adj.(讲话或文章)简练的 | |
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306
euphemism
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| n.婉言，委婉的说法 | |
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307
stagnation
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| n. 停滞 | |
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308
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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cower
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| v.畏缩，退缩，抖缩 | |
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310
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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311
judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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312
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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313
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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314
attics
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| n. 阁楼 | |
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315
dependant
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| n.依靠的，依赖的，依赖他人生活者 | |
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316
advantageous
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| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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317
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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318
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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319
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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320
beseeching
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| adj.恳求似的v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的现在分词 ) | |
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321
expediency
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| n.适宜；方便；合算；利己 | |
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322
submissions
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| n.提交( submission的名词复数 )；屈从；归顺；向法官或陪审团提出的意见或论据 | |
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323
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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324
resentments
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| （因受虐待而）愤恨，不满，怨恨( resentment的名词复数 ) | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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326
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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327
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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328
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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329
curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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330
insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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331
treadmill
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| n.踏车；单调的工作 | |
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332
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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333
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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334
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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335
strenuous
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| adj.奋发的，使劲的；紧张的；热烈的，狂热的 | |
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336
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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337
clog
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| vt.塞满，阻塞；n.[常pl.]木屐 | |
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338
catastrophes
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| n.灾祸( catastrophe的名词复数 )；灾难；不幸事件；困难 | |
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339
ossified
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| adj.已骨化[硬化]的v.骨化，硬化，使僵化( ossify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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340
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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341
recurring
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| adj.往复的，再次发生的 | |
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342
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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343
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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344
disintegrated
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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345
corrupting
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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