Pa is tall and lean and lank4 and brown as is the ribbed sea sand, and he is fond of poetry. Byron is a favourite with him. He can quote Byron by the page.
This makes the madmen who have made men mad
By their contagion5; conquerors6 and kings,
Founders7 of sects8 and systems, to whom add
Sophists, bards9, statesmen, all unquiet things.
* * *
He who surpasses or subdues10 mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Such lines roll splendidly from him. Ma says a man betrays himself by what he extols11. I asked if that also applies to women, but Ma says not nearly so accurately12, as women have to pretend to like so many things to humour men.
Ma extols Dr. Watts13. He is prosaic14 compared with Byron.
Not more than others I deserve,
Yet God has given me more
For I have food while others starve,
Or beg from door to door.
Which suggests mean favouritism on the part of God, and a priggish self-satisfaction on the part of one who has petty deserts.
Satan finds some mischief15 still for idle hands to do, has often driven me exasperated16 and frustrated17 from meditation18 when a thought was filling out like a sail catching19 a breeze.
Dr. Watts was the lighter20 side of Ma. She was also a whale on Shakespeare. I enjoyed him too, but Milton was too much of a good thing. Ma insisted that I should learn long slices of Milton as discipline and to elevate thoughts.
Where joy for ever dwells; hail, horrors; hail,
Infernal world; and thou, profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
“Bust” was the most ferocious21 expletive ever heard from women in Ma’s family. It was considered the height of vulgarity and not allowed at all, really, but in the depths of some overpowering exasperation22 even Great-aunt Jane has been overheard expleting it. “Bust Milton’.” I said many times to myself. “Paradise is lost surely enough while you have to be learning this stuff by heart.”
The most interesting line in the book was, “Witness, William Yopp, Ann Yopp”. They were a funny note in the stiff gilt-edged volume. Why had they a name like that? They were attached to the information that Mrs. Milton had got eight pounds for the twelve books of P.L. Poetry didn’t seem to be a lucrative23 business, but of course that was over three hundred years ago, and to-day was different.
Ma said as I wasn’t in a position to tackle professional training I must help Pa on the place. He could not afford to hire men. This brought me back to my idea of a career at the top where there was plenty of room above the tame-fowl openings, which were all that lay before one so poor and isolated24. Ma said I should take stock of my possibilities and banish25 all silly delusions26. Ma assisted in this stock-taking. She dwelt upon my lack of special gifts and said we should not shrink from unpleasant facts about ourselves, we must face them and grow strong. We must accept God’s will without whining27. It must be dreadful to have a daughter as disappointing as I am to Ma, and it is just as hard for such a fiasco of a girl to have a superb mother. I did not know which of the two trials was the heavier, but Ma did. Hers was the trial and mine the failure to take advantage of my heredity in her. However, life went on.
At that date there was a parliamentary election. FREE-TRADE or PROTECTION became a war cry. Pa was called upon to support the Member for our electorate28.
‘Possum Gully livened up. We had meetings at our house and I accompanied Pa on the rounds. There were young men everywhere all eager to argue politics with me. How I chafed29 that women were classed with idiots and children! Of course I should have had to wait until I was twenty-one to vote, but I longed to stand for Parliament then just as I was with my hair in a plat and my skirts above my ankles. I hankered to tackle the job of Premier30 for a start. The young men all said they would vote for me when I put up. Our Member was one of those who advocated extending the franchise31 to women, so I adored him and we were great friends. He said I was one of his best canvassers.
Scorning tame-hen accomplishments32 and lacking special gifts of God, which lift a person from obscurity to fame through an art, a sport, or an invention, I returned to the thought of general greatness. Pa was very proud when old campaigners said I was a chip of the old block. He was strenuously33 in favour of woman suffrage34. Ma expostulated with him for taking me about. She said we soon would not have even a poor roof to cover us. My Grandma got to hear of me and wrote letters blaming Ma. When Great-aunt Jane next stayed with us she did her best to save me.
“You’ll grow into one of those dreadful female agitators—eccentric women that men hate. You’ll get the name of a man-hater if you don’t take care.”
“This men-hating business seems to be as lop-sided as God’s will for women. You condemn35 a woman if she doesn’t worship men. She is the one in the wrong to hate the darling creatures, though they’re pretty hatable by all accounts. Then if a girl is fond of men that also disgraces her. I do like logic36 and fair play.”
“So do I,” interposed Ma, “but you’ll have to resign yourself to it all being on the other side.”
“It’s all silly nonsense. The men don’t act as if they hated me. The old ones as well as the boys all are friendly wherever I go.”
“Men will always blather to a forward woman while she is young; but they won’t respect her or marry her,” said Aunt Jane.
“She couldn’t marry more than one at a time, however willing she is,” said Pa. “She has plenty of time yet.”
When Pa and I were driving around the electorate together he talked about LIFE and said that my idea of being Premier was not fantastic. The political enfranchisement37 of women was inevitable38, and women free could do what they liked with the world.
Votes for women was a magic talisman39 by which all evils and abuses were to be righted. Women no longer would have to pander40 to men through sexual attraction and pretend to be what they weren’t. They would burgeon41 as themselves. Those were splendid days. Pa said I must educate myself in readiness as by the time I should be of age I could stand for Parliament and discover if I had ability as a statesman. As a beginning he suggested that I should study history and the lives of great people to learn how they conducted the business. To this end the poor dear once again postponed42 a new suit, which Ma truly said he needed to prevent his being mistaken for a scarecrow, and brought me home an armful of books, including some autobiographies43.
That’s how the trouble began.
The histories I left for later consumption, as the people in them are always so long dead and are nearly all kings and queens and military or political murderers who have no relation to the ordinary kind of people like those I know in Australia. The biographies of real people nearer our own day, and especially the autobiographies, where people told about themselves, filled me with excitement.
Judging by the way Ma always misunderstands my deeds and purposes and intentions, and by what she and Aunt Jane tell me that other people do think or will think of me, it seemed that an autobiography44 was a device for disseminating45 personal facts straight from the horse’s mouth.
I read ardently46, nay47, furiously would better express the way that one tackles the things one wants to do. Grace Darling, Charlotte Bront?, Joan of Arc and Mrs. Fry passed in review, evidently by dull old professors. These were a long time dead. Lives nearer to my own day had more appeal—until I read them. What I absorbed from autobiographies was not how to be great so much as the littleness of the great. Every one of those productions, whether the fiction that passes for reality or the decorated reality that is termed fiction was marred48 by the same thing—the false pose of the autobiographer49.
Now, we are always warned against egotism as something more unforgivable, more unpopularising than vulgar sin. Yet everyone is a mass of egotism. They must be if they are to remain perpendicular50. Henry Beauchamp later explained this to me. He says that little Jimmy Dripping is a much more important person to little Jimmy Dripping than the Prince of Wales is. If this were not so he says that the end of little Jimmy Dripping would soon be mud; that each fellow’s self-importance is the only thing that keeps him going. Well then, why make such an unholy fuss about egotism?
Ma despised egotism because she had none herself and happened by an accident to be perfect. Pa and I seemed to have whips and whips, but of the wrong kind. The best kind, the most profitable is like the hippo’s epidermis51. Another word for it is hide—HIDE. It works so that you think your own performance of sin or stupidity is quite all right, and only the other fellow’s all quite wrong. Pa said that that kind of egotism was a magnificent battering52 ram53 for worldly success, but to have it you must be born without a sense of humour and without the ability to see yourself as others see you. I was beginning to suspect that a sense of humour was more profitable to the other fellow than to the owner.
The business of egotism needs to be regulated by give-and-take in real life or there would be general obstruction54 of all conversation and social intercourse55, but that does not apply to an autobiography, at least not in conjunction with logic. The fact of an autobiography is in itself an egotism. People perpetrate autobiographies for the sole purpose of airing their own exploits. If they go off the track of displaying the writer they likewise cease to be autobiographies. Such documents are usually mawkishly56 egotistical instead of frankly57 so because they attempt the scientific impossibility of being unegotistical. Too, in autobiographies, the hero of the narrative58 tries to deprecate his goodness, while at the same time he often endeavours to depict59 himself as a saint worthy60 of wings. If he has a penny-dreadful parent he nevertheless paints himself as adoring him (or her) and by honouring one or both is a contestant61 for the doubtful prize of long life, which the bible promises people for enduring their immediate62 progenitors63 in any circumstances. (And I never could see in strict logic how that works.)
I have examined all available autobiographies since then but not one have I found by woman or man, scientist or simpleton, which did not assume the same pose. So little greatness did I find in the lives of the great as related by themselves that for a time I was diverted from the idea of becoming great myself by the notion of constructing a fictitious64 autobiography to make hay of the pious65 affectations of printed autobiographies as I know them.
Who has not read an autobiography beginning thus: “At the risk of being egotistical I must admit,” etc. I determined66 to flout67 these pretences68 with an imitation autobiography that would wade69 in without apology or fear, biffing convention on the nose.
The days were goldenly long and warm, I was rabid for mental and physical action, and there was none in that state of discontent in which it had pleased God to place me. It makes me question His amiability70 in placing His victims. In addition to riding I swam in our weedy water-holes among leeches71 and turtles where there was also an occasional snake, but of mental pabulum there was no crumb72 to be found, except in books. I was a voracious73 reader, but after all, books pall74 on one when that one is throbbing75 to be doing something exciting. From ‘Possum Gully to Spring Hill and round about to Wallaroo Plains there wasn’t a real companion of my own age, nor any other age. The dissatisfaction of other girls stopped short at wondering why life should be so much less satisfactory to them than to their brothers, but they accepted it as the will of God. None of them was consumed with the idea of changing the world.
The idea of writing a book to make fun of the other books grew with cossetting. Ma said she had sufficient experience of my ideas to be chary76 of them. EXPERIENCE seems to stand by Ma like a religion.
Pa rubbed the top of his head contemplatively and said, “If you are man enough to write a book, I’ll get you some paper.”
“How could an untried girl write a book?” demanded Ma. “Why not start with a little story for the ‘Children’s Corner’? You can’t run before you learn to walk.”
“Satan finds some mischief still”
A ream of paper is a large quantity to one who has never written a book nor met anyone who has done so—480 sheets all to myself.
“That’ll hold you for a bit,” said Pa.
“What a waste!” said Ma.
The pleasure of good penmanship on all that lovely white paper edged me on to begin upon my spontaneous career of slinging77 ink, of which this volume is to be the petite finale.
Ma admired classical features. Pa had them. Perhaps that is what misled her into a poor match, and why, no matter how often my looks are praised as lovely, she will not rank me as a beauty. She says such talk is to make a fool of me. So to be done with the uncertainty78, I accept Ma’s dictum that beauty lies in actions, and as my actions are all wrong, where could be my beauty? Nevertheless, bang went another convention. Men cared only for prettiness in girls, yet our house was a rendezvous79 for young men from all over the electorate and beyond it, who did not honestly come to talk politics with Pa, though they pretended that they did. I wasn’t in danger of being embittered80 by a lack of admirers, nor of platonic81 men friends, as I was simple enough to think they were at the start. They teased me about dropping the Premiership and taking to writing.
Ma said there was no sight more nauseating82 than lovesick men all cackling and he-hawing and pretending they were angels who wouldn’t let her pick up her thimble; while by-and-bye if I should marry one of them, most likely he would leave me to chop the wood and would turn her out of his house.
Pa said there was no use in quarrelling with NATURE or taking a jaundiced view.
Ma rejoined that EXPERIENCE had shown her that common sense was very rare.
It was a spring without a spring. The breezes had a strong dash of summer, but the cloudless skies looked down with an excess of that pitilessness which the Persian poet has advised us not to call upon. Not a speck83 the size of a man’s hand came up for weeks to give even false hope, and the half-opened leaves withered84 on the rose bushes and orchard85 trees. The starving stock lacked strength to bring their young to birth, and the moan of dying creatures throughout that country side was a reproach to whatever power had placed them there. The earth was as dry as ashes. Isolated shrubs86 and plants, that had been the pride of settlers’ drudging wives and daughters, died in spite of efforts to keep them alive with the slop water collected after household use. The wattle trees, however, because they were natives, were putting forth87 an unstinted meed of bloom with an optimism rivalling “God’s in His Heaven, all’s right with the world”. Masses of lovely yellow fluff swayed to waves in the breeze and wafted88 perfume too chaste89 for the seventh heaven of oriental belief. This loveliness lacked competition in the grim landscape. I culled90 sprays to press between the leaves of some old book, and wondered would there ever come a day when I should be as homesick for a bower91 of wattle bloom set in a frame of gumtrees as I was now wild to escape to other lands of castles and chateaux and Gothic cathedrals.
The drought made work in the garden superfluous92. I had leisure to utilise that ream of paper. The burlesque93 autobiography grew apace. My idea of ridicule94 speedily enlarged as a reticule into which anything could be packed. I could express my longing95 to escape to other lands and far great cities across the sheening ocean to strange ports above and below the Line, where big ships and little go for their cargoes96. It was an opportunity to crystallise rebellion and to use up some of the words which pressed upon me like a flock of birds fluttering to be let out of their cages. There is artistic97 satisfaction in liberating98 words: and they entered into me and flew from me like fairies.
It was absorbing to allot99 parts to characters. Uncertainty when to interpolate “Odds fish, ma’am,” or “Gad Zooks,” put me off a historical track, though I had started in an ancient castle on an English moor100. I was also in a quandary101 about style, but at that time dear old Mr. Harris came to spend a few days with us prior to leaving the district. I let him into the secret. He was sympathetic in one way and discouraging in another. He said that the pursuit of literature was a precarious102 staff of life, but an engrossing103 hobby, if one had the leisure and the means. He asked me where the scene was set, a question I did not understand. He said if I would trust him to see the first chapter he could probably tell me.
We walked among the wattle blossom in the gully beyond the vegetable garden till we reached the top, where there were some rocks. We sat down, and he said, “My dear Sybylla, I have read your beginning. Though immature104 it has promise.”
I nearly stifled105 in agonised expectation of his condemnation106. My whole feeling had come to the surface as sensitive as the nerve of a tooth. I knew he would never be mean enough to tell Ma the full depth of my foolishness.
“Why do you write about a castle in England that you have never seen?” he asked gently.
Without waiting for my reply he continued, “I’ll tell you, my dear little girl. The castle in England is a castle in Spain, and ‘tho’ ’twas never built,’ imagination makes it more enthralling107 than things near at hand. Why not try reality?”
I asked breathlessly what he meant.
“Well, instead of the roses on that castle wall, why not this fragrant108 bower of wattle? Instead of the wind moaning across the moor, why not the pitiless sun beating down on the cracked dusty earth?”
“But that couldn’t be put in a book—not in a story!”
“Why not, child?”
“Everyone knows that, and it is so tame and ugly.”
“It would be most novel and informing to those who are as familiar with the castle or a slum street as you are with the wattles and the baked paddocks. Australia is crying out to be done: England is done to death.”
This was an expanding idea, like opening a window and letting me look into a place I had not known before.
“You see, you know everyone in the Australian bush. You could picture them with a vigor109 and conviction that would be refreshing110: and my dear, if you could project yourself upon the canvas it would be most successful.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that!” I shrank from this. “Besides, I have never done anything like the heroines in novels. I am not sweetly good, and though Ma thinks I am possessed111 of a devil, I have never done anything really unrespectable. For example, I could never have been so unkind as to throw that dictionary back at the teacher like Becky Sharp did, though I wish I could do that kind of thing. It must be splendid.”
“If you could draw portraits of all the characters that furnish your life it would be a good beginning.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t put in real people. They would not like to see themselves except as white-washed saints—like the yarns113 on the tombstones. I’d have to imagine people to make them interesting.”
“Um!” said he, and then with a chuckle114, “you go ahead. I shouldn’t be surprised if they turn out to be more real that way. But there is one thing, my dear, be Australian. It is the highest form of culture and craftmanship in art to use local materials. That way you stand a chance of adding to culture. The other way you are in danger of merely imitating it, and though imitation is a form of flattery to the imitated, it is a form of weakness or snobbery116 in the perpetrator. You must find your own way and your own level. The material is in you: all that is required is industry in cultivation117.”
I could hardly wait till the end of his visit to plaster the ideas he had put into my head upon the original burlesque. Ma said that Mr. Harris was right to a certain extent, that to pretend to be what one was not was the height of vulgarity, but she couldn’t see that an interesting book could be made of reality: it was dreary118 enough to live in the bush in drought time: no one could possibly find any pleasure in reading about such misfortune.
Ma always brings up EXPERIENCE. She has often routed Pa from the field of philosophy with the records of EXPERIENCE, and she now inquired what was the sense in wasting time and paper in this way? Why not do something practical? Pa though, is always willing to believe that the latest venture must be better than the preceding.
I set out to do the equivalent of taking two photographs on the one plate. I was to burlesque autobiography and create the girl of my admiration119, and fill in with a lot of lifelike people as a protest against over-virtuous lay figures. One thing I have always envied in girls is the ability to fly into a towering rage. At school there were two bad-tempered120 dunces and they enjoyed my brain effort. I lived in terror of their temper and did their sums with alacrity121. Poor Old Harris was careful not to stir them up, and they did pretty well what they liked. So my heroine was to be the antithesis122 of conventional heroines. All my people were to be created in the image of reality—none of them bad enough to be tarred and feathered, none good enough to be canonised. But people are never what they think themselves, and by the results which accrued123 it would seem that it is equally difficult to present a character as you intend.
Up to that date I do not remember being so fully124 interested in anything. I had a secret delight. I ceased to talk about it even to Pa. He and I had quite opposite tastes in stories. He liked adventure: Mayne Reed, Fenimore Cooper, Captain Marryat, Gil Blas, Rider Haggard, but I had one or two of George Gissing’s books, Vanity Fair, Colonel Newcome and Esther Waters, and enjoyed that style. No, I could not write dashingly enough to interest Pa. Ma was reading an annotated125 edition of Shakespeare, and that took her above my sphere of effort.
Bewitchment shadowed the paper as I progressed, I could not do what I liked with the people. I often found them as troublesome as Ma found me, and I think in the end they made rather a pie of my theme, though I did not know it at the time. The book was a companion as well as an entertainment, a confidant and a twin soul. You know how a piece of lace that you have made yourself has a charm lacking in a much better piece made by someone else? So with that book. I used to climb on the hay in the shed behind the stables on Sunday afternoons and read it over—like doing all the parts in a play myself, though at the time I had not seen a play. I must have had a lot of ingrowing egotism, and it came out in this way as the pimples126 or boils that are common to boys.
I was sardonically127 amused to depict that reality suggested by Mr. Harris.
Our home was of wood and of the usual pattern and situation in a particularly ugly portion of the bush. We were dished in a basin of low scrubby ranges which are familiar to the poorer settlers where the fertile patches are land-locked in a few big holdings by hard-headed fellows who got in early with capital and grants and convicts.
Instead of hedges we had dog-leg and brush fences, and stumps128 in the cultivation paddocks. There were fowl-houses covered with tin to render them safe against sharp-snouted spotted129 marsupial130 cats; the mess-mate roosting trees also had wide rings of tin around the trunks to save the turkeys by night. Cowsheds were roofed with stringy-bark. Fields of briars and rugged131 ranges were all around; a weedy water hole in the middle; the not-yet-bleached bones of beasts were a common decoration. No roofs but our own were within sight. It was a raw contrast to the English scenery on which I doted, with its thatched cottages, trailing roses, gabled farm houses, towered ancestral halls with Tudor chimneys amid oaks and elms and cawing rooks and moors132 and downs, wolds, woods, spinneys and brooks133. Such reality as mine would look mighty134 queer in a book, something like a swaggie at a Government House party, but it was as easy to describe as falling off a log.
The people belonging to this scenery were so ordinary and respectable and decent that a yarn112 about them could not possibly attract the attention of a reader. The probability of readers must have popped up somewhere along the track. I had had no thought of them when I started. I’m sure nothing but genius could make the ‘Possum Gully kind of reality interesting, and as I am only a jokist I had to bring out the paintpot of embellishment to heighten or lower the flat colorless effect.
There are times when our own case is so blinding that we are unable to feel or to see outside it. We are shut within ourselves. Sometimes these moods are merry and sometimes sad, but always self-sealed. If merry, so all-sufficient is our hilarity135 that grey skies or black nights have no power to damp our inward fire. But let us be sad, and the brilliance136 of the sun seems callous137. We cannot reach outside ourselves. When young we demand so much that is beyond us that the first lessons in EXPERIENCE are the hoeing of the chastening row of disappointment.
I had a fever which fed upon itself like the green-eyed monster, and it was a great relief to be shedding it like a snake-skin. A desire to have someone to read the result came upon me towards the end. I don’t know whether this was gregariousness138 or mere115 egotism, like my cat’s when she brings home a kitten and dumps it for us to see. I was more selective than the cat. She doesn’t pick her appreciators. She drops her kitten among us regardless of passing boots, and also regardless, of who may be in the boots. I adore her and indulge her and so have been surprised that she did not bring me her kitten.
I was more demanding. I wanted someone who would understand. Who better than our greatest Australian author? I quite understood him since ever I was old enough to lisp a line of his ballads139, what more sequential than his understanding of me? In the innocence140 of my heart, or it may have been the heartlessness of my innocence, I confidently sent him the manuscript. Having worshipped at his shrine141 with a whole-heartedness which we can enjoy but once in life, I felt sure of welcome within the gates of his interest.
In those days so entire was my unsophistication that I did not suspect that an author, even the AUSTRALIAN GREATEST, may not have earned thousands by his pen, and may be pestered142 by so many literary duds that he sees each fresh one draw near with weariness and terror.
To escape making a short story long, my idol143 welcomed my attempt with cheers for its ORIGINALITY144, and asked would I trust him with the manuscript?
WOULD I!!!!!
I’d have given him any or all of my treasures, even my black-dappled-grey filly, a doll, a book of girls’ stories or a little box covered with velvet145 and sea shells. When I come to think of it, these were my only treasures, and he could not take the filly with him to London whither he was going. I was excited by his acceptance of the manuscript. I once gave Ma a little story for her birthday. She thanked me, but did not look as if it were an enjoyable present, and never said whether she read it before burning it under the copper146. I hoped the great Australian writer would read my offering before burning it, as I had taken pains to write it nicely—no blots147 or scratchings-out.
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stultifying
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| v.使成为徒劳，使变得无用( stultify的现在分词 ) | |
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parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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lank
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| adj.瘦削的；稀疏的 | |
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contagion
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| n.(通过接触的疾病)传染；蔓延 | |
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conquerors
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| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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bards
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| n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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subdues
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| 征服( subdue的第三人称单数 )； 克制； 制服 | |
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extols
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| v.赞颂，赞扬，赞美( extol的第三人称单数 ) | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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watts
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| （电力计量单位）瓦，瓦特( watt的名词复数 ) | |
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prosaic
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| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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exasperated
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frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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exasperation
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lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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24
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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banish
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| vt.放逐，驱逐；消除，排除 | |
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26
delusions
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| n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 )；谬见；错觉；妄想 | |
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27
whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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28
electorate
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| n.全体选民；选区 | |
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29
chafed
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| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
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30
premier
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| adj.首要的；n.总理，首相 | |
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31
franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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32
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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33
strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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34
suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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35
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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36
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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37
enfranchisement
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| 选举权 | |
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38
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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39
talisman
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| n.避邪物，护身符 | |
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40
pander
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| v.迎合；n.拉皮条者，勾引者；帮人做坏事的人 | |
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41
burgeon
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| v.萌芽，发芽；迅速发展 | |
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42
postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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43
autobiographies
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| n.自传( autobiography的名词复数 )；自传文学 | |
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44
autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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45
disseminating
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| 散布，传播( disseminate的现在分词 ) | |
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46
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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47
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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48
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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49
autobiographer
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| n.自传作者 | |
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50
perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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51
epidermis
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| n.表皮 | |
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52
battering
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| n.用坏，损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 ) | |
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53
ram
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| (random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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54
obstruction
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| n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物 | |
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55
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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56
mawkishly
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| adv.mawkish（淡而无味的）的变形 | |
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57
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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58
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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59
depict
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| vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述 | |
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60
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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61
contestant
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| n.竞争者，参加竞赛者 | |
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62
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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63
progenitors
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| n.祖先( progenitor的名词复数 )；先驱；前辈；原本 | |
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64
fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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65
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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66
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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67
flout
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| v./n.嘲弄，愚弄，轻视 | |
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68
pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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69
wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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70
amiability
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| n.和蔼可亲的，亲切的，友善的 | |
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71
leeches
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| n.水蛭( leech的名词复数 )；蚂蟥；榨取他人脂膏者；医生 | |
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72
crumb
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| n.饼屑，面包屑，小量 | |
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73
voracious
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| adj.狼吞虎咽的，贪婪的 | |
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74
pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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75
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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76
chary
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| adj.谨慎的，细心的 | |
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77
slinging
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| 抛( sling的现在分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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78
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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79
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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80
embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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81
platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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82
nauseating
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| adj.令人恶心的，使人厌恶的v.使恶心，作呕( nauseate的现在分词 ) | |
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83
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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84
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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85
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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86
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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87
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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88
wafted
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| v.吹送，飘送，（使）浮动( waft的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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89
chaste
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| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
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90
culled
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| v.挑选，剔除( cull的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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91
bower
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| n.凉亭，树荫下凉快之处；闺房；v.荫蔽 | |
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92
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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93
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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94
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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95
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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96
cargoes
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| n.（船或飞机装载的）货物( cargo的名词复数 )；大量，重负 | |
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97
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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98
liberating
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| 解放，释放( liberate的现在分词 ) | |
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99
allot
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| v.分配；拨给；n.部分；小块菜地 | |
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100
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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101
quandary
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| n.困惑，进迟两难之境 | |
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102
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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103
engrossing
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| adj.使人全神贯注的，引人入胜的v.使全神贯注( engross的现在分词 ) | |
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104
immature
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| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
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105
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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106
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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107
enthralling
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| 迷人的 | |
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108
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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109
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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110
refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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111
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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112
yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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113
yarns
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| n.纱( yarn的名词复数 )；纱线；奇闻漫谈；旅行轶事 | |
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114
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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115
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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116
snobbery
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| n. 充绅士气派, 俗不可耐的性格 | |
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117
cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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118
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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119
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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120
bad-tempered
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| adj.脾气坏的 | |
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121
alacrity
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| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
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122
antithesis
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| n.对立；相对 | |
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123
accrued
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| adj.权责已发生的v.增加( accrue的过去式和过去分词 )；（通过自然增长）产生；获得；（使钱款、债务）积累 | |
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124
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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125
annotated
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| v.注解，注释( annotate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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126
pimples
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| n.丘疹，粉刺，小脓疱( pimple的名词复数 ) | |
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127
sardonically
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| adv.讽刺地，冷嘲地 | |
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128
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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129
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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130
marsupial
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| adj.有袋的，袋状的 | |
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131
rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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132
moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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133
brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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134
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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135
hilarity
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| n.欢乐；热闹 | |
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136
brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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137
callous
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| adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的 | |
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138
gregariousness
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| 集群性；簇聚性 | |
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139
ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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140
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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141
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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142
pestered
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| 使烦恼，纠缠( pester的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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143
idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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144
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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145
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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146
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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147
blots
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| 污渍( blot的名词复数 )； 墨水渍； 错事； 污点 | |
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