But after detached brown years in boarding-houses, Vida was hungry for housework, for the most pottering detail of it. She had no maid, nor wanted one. She cooked, baked, swept, washed supper-cloths, with the triumph of a chemist in a new laboratory. To her the hearth3 was veritably the altar. When she went shopping she hugged the cans of soup, and she bought a mop or a side of bacon as though she were preparing for a reception. She knelt beside a bean sprout4 and crooned, “I raised this with my own hands — I brought this new life into the world.”
“I love her for being so happy,” Carol brooded. “I ought to be that way. I worship the baby, but the housework —— Oh, I suppose I’m fortunate; so much better off than farm- women on a new clearing, or people in a slum.”
It has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very large or permanent contentment from meditation5 upon the fact that he is better off than others.
In Carol’s own twenty-four hours a day she got up, dressed the baby, had breakfast, talked to Oscarina about the day’s shopping, put the baby on the porch to play, went. to the butcher’s to choose between steak and pork chops, bathed the baby, nailed up a shelf, had dinner, put the baby to bed for a nap, paid the iceman, read for an hour, took the baby out for a walk, called on Vida, had supper, put the baby to bed, darned socks, listened to Kennicott’s yawning comment on what a fool Dr. McGanum was to try to use that cheap X-ray outfit6 of his on an epithelioma, repaired a frock, drowsily7 heard Kennicott stoke the furnace, tried to read a page of Thorstein Veblen — and the day was gone.
Except when Hugh was vigorously naughty, or whiney, or laughing, or saying “I like my chair” with thrilling maturity8, she was always enfeebled by loneliness. She no longer felt superior about that misfortune. She would gladly have been converted to Vida’s satisfaction in Gopher Prairie and mopping the floor.
II
Carol drove through an astonishing number of books from the public library and from city shops. Kennicott was at first uncomfortable over her disconcerting habit of buying them. A book was a book, and if you had several thousand of them right here in the library, free, why the dickens should you spend your good money? After worrying about it for two or three years, he decided9 that this was one of the Funny Ideas which she had caught as a librarian and from which she would never entirely10 recover.
The authors whom she read were most of them frightfully annoyed by the Vida Sherwins. They were young American sociologists, young English realists, Russian horrorists; Anatole France, Rolland, Nexo, Wells, Shaw, Key, Edgar Lee Masters, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Henry Mencken, and all the other subversive11 philosophers and artists whom women were consulting everywhere, in batik-curtained studios in New York, in Kansas farmhouses12, San Francisco drawing- rooms, Alabama schools for negroes. From them she got the same confused desire which the million other women felt; the same determination to be class-conscious without discovering the class of which she was to be conscious.
Certainly her reading precipitated13 her observations of Main Street, of Gopher Prairie and of the several adjacent Gopher Prairies which she had seen on drives with Kennicott. In her fluid thought certain convictions appeared, jaggedly, a fragment of an impression at a time, while she was going to sleep, or manicuring her nails, or waiting for Kennicott.
These convictions she presented to Vida Sherwin — Vida Wutherspoon — beside a radiator14, over a bowl of not very good walnuts15 and pecans from Uncle Whittier’s grocery, on an evening when both Kennicott and Raymie had gone out of town with the other officers of the Ancient and Affiliated16 Order of Spartans17, to inaugurate a new chapter at Wakamin. Vida had come to the house for the night. She helped in putting Hugh to bed, sputtering18 the while about his soft skin. Then they talked till midnight.
What Carol said that evening, what she was passionately19 thinking, was also emerging in the minds of women in ten thousand Gopher Prairies. Her formulations were not pat solutions but visions of a tragic20 futility21. She did not utter them so compactly that they can be given in her words; they were roughened with “Well, you see” and “if you get what I mean” and “I don’t know that I’m making myself clear.” But they were definite enough, and indignant enough.
III
In reading popular stories and seeing plays, asserted Carol, she had found only two traditions of the American small town. The first tradition, repeated in scores of magazines every month, is that the American village remains22 the one sure abode23 of friendship, honesty, and clean sweet marriageable girls. Therefore all men who succeed in painting in Paris or in finance in New York at last become weary of smart women, return to their native towns, assert that cities are vicious, marry their childhood sweethearts and, presumably, joyously24 abide26 in those towns until death.
The other tradition is that the significant features of all villages are whiskers, iron dogs upon lawns, gold bricks, checkers, jars of gilded27 cat-tails, and shrewd comic old men who are known as “hicks” and who ejaculate “Waal I swan.” This altogether admirable tradition rules the vaudeville28 stage, facetious29 illustrators, and syndicated newspaper humor, but out of actual life it passed forty years ago. Carol’s small town thinks not in hoss-swapping but in cheap motor cars, telephones, ready-made clothes, silos, alfalfa, kodaks, phonographs, leather-upholstered Morris chairs, bridge-prizes, oil- stocks, motion-pictures, land-deals, unread sets of Mark Twain, and a chaste30 version of national politics.
With such a small-town life a Kennicott or a Champ Perry is content, but there are also hundreds of thousands, par- ticularly women and young men, who are not at all content. The more intelligent young people (and the fortunate widows!) flee to the cities with agility31 and, despite the fictional32 tradition, resolutely33 stay there, seldom returning even for holidays. The most protesting patriots34 of the towns leave them in old age, if they can afford it, and go to live in California or in the cities.
The reason, Carol insisted, is not a whiskered rusticity36. It is nothing so amusing!
It is an unimaginatively standardized37 background, a sluggishness38 of speech and manners, a rigid39 ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment . . . the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is negation40 canonized as the one positive virtue41. It is the prohibition42 of happiness. It is slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God.
A savorless people, gulping43 tasteless food, and sitting afterward44, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane45 decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence46 of Ford35 automobiles47, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world.
IV
She had inquired as to the effect of this dominating dullness upon foreigners. She remembered the feeble exotic quality to be found in the first-generation Scandinavians; she recalled the Norwegian Fair at the Lutheran Church, to which Bea had taken her. There, in the bondestue, the replica48 of a Norse farm kitchen, pale women in scarlet49 jackets embroidered50 with gold thread and colored beads51, in black skirts with a line of blue, green-striped aprons52, and ridged caps very pretty to set off a fresh face, had served rommegrod og lefse — sweet cakes and sour milk pudding spiced with cinnamon. For the first time in Gopher Prairie Carol had found novelty. She had reveled in the mild foreignness of it.
But she saw these Scandinavian women zealously53 exchanging their spiced puddings and red jackets for fried pork chops and congealed54 white blouses, trading the ancient Christmas hymns55 of the fjords for “She’s My Jazzland Cutie,” being Americanized into uniformity, and in less than a generation losing in the grayness whatever pleasant new customs they might have added to the life of the town. Their sons finished the process. In ready-made clothes and ready-made high- school phrases they sank into propriety56, and the sound American customs had absorbed without one trace of pollution another alien invasion.
And along with these foreigners, she felt herself being ironed into glossy57 mediocrity, and she rebelled, in fear.
The respectability of the Gopher Prairies, said Carol, is reinforced by vows58 of poverty and chastity in the matter of knowledge. Except for half a dozen in each town the citizens are proud of that achievement of ignorance which it is so easy to come by. To be “intellectual” or “artistic” or, in their own word, to be “highbrow,” is to be priggish and of dubious59 virtue.
Large experiments in politics and in co-operative distribution, ventures requiring knowledge, courage, and imagination, do originate in the West and Middlewest, but they are not of the towns, they are of the farmers. If these heresies61 are supported by the townsmen it is only by occasional teachers doctors, lawyers, the labor2 unions, and workmen like Miles Bjornstam, who are punished by being mocked as “cranks,” as “half-baked parlor62 socialists63.” The editor and the rector preach at them. The cloud of serene64 ignorance submerges them in unhappiness and futility.
V
Here Vida observed, “Yes — well —— Do you know, I’ve always thought that Ray would have made a wonderful rector. He has what I call an essentially65 religious soul. My! He’d have read the service beautifully! I suppose it’s too late now, but as I tell him, he can also serve the world by selling shoes and —— I wonder if we oughtn’t to have family-prayers?”
VI
Doubtless all small towns, in all countries, in all ages, Carol admitted, have a tendency to be not only dull but mean, bitter, infested66 with curiosity. In France or Tibet quite as much as in Wyoming or Indiana these timidities are inherent in isolation67.
But a village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether standardized and pure, which aspires68 to succeed Victorian England as the chief mediocrity of the world, is no longer merely provincial69, no longer downy and restful in its leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking to dominate the earth, to drain the hills and sea of color, to set Dante at boosting Gopher Prairie, and to dress the high gods in Klassy Kollege Klothes. Sure of itself, it bullies70 other civilizations, as a traveling salesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks71 advertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicate to the sayings of Confucius.
Such a society functions admirably in the large production of cheap automobiles, dollar watches, and safety razors. But it is not satisfied until the entire world also admits that the end and joyous25 purpose of living is to ride in flivvers, to make advertising-pictures of dollar watches, and in the twilight72 to sit talking not of love and courage but of the convenience of safety razors.
And such a society, such a nation, is determined73 by the Gopher Prairies. The greatest manufacturer is but a busier Sam Clark, and all the rotund senators and presidents are village lawyers and bankers grown nine feet tall.
Though a Gopher Prairie regards itself as a part of the Great World, compares itself to Rome and Vienna, it will not acquire the scientific spirit, the international mind, which would make it great. It picks at information which will visibly procure74 money or social distinction. Its conception of a community ideal is not the grand manner, the noble aspiration75, the fine aristocratic pride, but cheap labor for the kitchen and rapid increase in the price of land. It plays at cards on greasy76 oil- cloth in a shanty77, and does not know that prophets are walking and talking on the terrace.
If all the provincials78 were as kindly79 as Champ Perry and Sam Clark there would be no reason for desiring the town to seek great traditions. It is the Harry80 Haydocks, the Dave Dyers, the Jackson Elders, small busy men crushingly powerful in their common purpose, viewing themselves as men of the world but keeping themselves men of the cash-register and the comic film, who make the town a sterile81 oligarchy82.
VII
She had sought to be definite in analyzing83 the surface ugliness of the Gopher Prairies. She asserted that it is a matter of universal similarity; of flimsiness of construction, so that the towns resemble frontier camps; of neglect of natural advantages, so that the hills are covered with brush, the lakes shut off by railroads, and the creeks84 lined with dumping- grounds; of depressing sobriety of color; rectangularity of buildings; and excessive breadth and straightness of the gashed85 streets, so that there is no escape from gales86 and from sight of the grim sweep of land, nor any windings87 to coax88 the loiterer along, while the breadth which would be majestic89 in an avenue of palaces makes the low shabby shops creeping down the typical Main Street the more mean by comparison.
The universal similarity — that is the physical expression of the philosophy of dull safety. Nine-tenths of the American towns are so alike that it is the completest boredom90 to wander from one to another. Always, west of Pittsburg, and often, east of it, there is the same lumber91 yard, the same railroad station, the same Ford garage, the same creamery, the same box-like houses and two-story shops. The new, more conscious houses are alike in their very attempts at diversity: the same bungalows92, the same square houses of stucco or tapestry93 brick. The shops show the same standardized, nationally advertised wares94; the newspapers of sections three thousand miles apart have the same “syndicated features”; the boy in Arkansas displays just such a flamboyant95 ready-made suit as is found on just such a boy in Delaware, both of them iterate the same slang phrases from the same sporting-pages, and if one of them is in college and the other is a barber, no one may surmise96 which is which.
If Kennicott were snatched from Gopher Prairie and instantly conveyed to a town leagues away, he would not realize it. He would go down apparently97 the same Main Street (almost certainly it would be called Main Street); in the same drug store he would see the same young man serving the same ice-cream soda98 to the same young woman with the same magazines and phonograph records under her arm. Not till he had climbed to his office and found another sign on the door, another Dr. Kennicott inside, would he understand that something curious had presumably happened.
Finally, behind all her comments, Carol saw the fact that the prairie towns no more exist to serve the farmers who are their reason of existence than do the great capitals; they exist to fatten99 on the farmers, to provide for the townsmen large motors and social preferment; and, unlike the capitals, they do not give to the district in return for usury100 a stately and permanent center, but only this ragged101 camp. It is a “parasitic Greek civilization”— minus the civilization.
“There we are then,” said Carol. “The remedy? Is there any? Criticism, perhaps, for the beginning of the beginning. Oh, there’s nothing that attacks the Tribal102 God Mediocrity that doesn’t help a little. . .and probably there’s nothing that helps very much. Perhaps some day the farmers will build and own their market-towns. (Think of the club they could have!) But I’m afraid I haven’t any ‘reform program.’ Not any more! The trouble is spiritual, and no League or Party can enact103 a preference for gardens rather than dumping-grounds. . . . There’s my confession104. WELL?”
“In other words, all you want is perfection?”
“Yes! Why not?”
“How you hate this place! How can you expect to do anything with it if you haven’t any sympathy?”
“But I have! And affection. Or else I wouldn’t fume105 so. I’ve learned that Gopher Prairie isn’t just an eruption106 on the prairie, as I thought first, but as large as New York. In New York I wouldn’t know more than forty or fifty people, and I know that many here. Go on! Say what you’re thinking.”
“Well, my dear, if I DID take all your notions seriously, it would be pretty discouraging. Imagine how a person would feel, after working hard for years and helping107 to build up a nice town, to have you airily flit in and simply say ‘Rotten!’ Think that’s fair?”
“Why not? It must be just as discouraging for the Gopher Prairieite to see Venice and make comparisons.”
“It would not! I imagine gondolas108 are kind of nice to ride in, but we’ve got better bath-rooms! But —— My dear, you’re not the only person in this town who has done some thinking for herself, although (pardon my rudeness) I’m afraid you think so. I’ll admit we lack some things. Maybe our theater isn’t as good as shows in Paris. All right! I don’t want to see any foreign culture suddenly forced on us — whether it’s street-planning or table-manners or crazy communistic ideas.”
Vida sketched109 what she termed “practical things that will make a happier and prettier town, but that do belong to our life, that actually are being done.” Of the Thanatopsis Club she spoke110; of the rest-room, the fight against mosquitos, the campaign for more gardens and shade-trees and sewers111 — matters not fantastic and nebulous and distant, but immediate112 and sure.
Carol’s answer was fantastic and nebulous enough:
“Yes. . . . Yes. . . . I know. They’re good. But if I could put through all those reforms at once, I’d still want startling, exotic things. Life is comfortable and clean enough here already. And so secure. What it needs is to be less secure, more eager. The civic113 improvements which I’d like the Thanatopsis to advocate are Strindberg plays, and classic dancers — exquisite114 legs beneath tulle — and (I can see him so clearly!) a thick, black-bearded, cynical115 Frenchman who would sit about and drink and sing opera and tell bawdy116 stories and laugh at our proprieties117 and quote Rabelais and not be ashamed to kiss my hand!”
“Huh! Not sure about the rest of it but I guess that’s what you and all the other discontented young women really want: some stranger kissing your hand!” At Carol’s gasp118, the old squirrel-like Vida darted119 out and cried, “Oh, my dear, don’t take that too seriously. I just meant ——”
“I know. You just meant it. Go on. Be good for my soul. Isn’t it funny: here we all are — me trying to be good for Gopher Prairie’s soul, and Gopher Prairie trying to be good for my soul. What are my other sins?”
“Oh, there’s plenty of them. Possibly some day we shall have your fat cynical Frenchman (horrible, sneering120, tobacco- stained object, ruining his brains and his digestion122 with vile123 liquor!) but, thank heaven, for a while we’ll manage to keep busy with our lawns and pavements! You see, these things really are coming! The Thanatopsis is getting somewhere. And you ——” Her tone italicized the words —“to my great disappointment, are doing less, not more, than the people you laugh at! Sam Clark, on the school-board, is working for better school ventilation. Ella Stowbody (whose elocuting you always think is so absurd) has persuaded the railroad to share the expense of a parked space at the station, to do away with that vacant lot.
“You sneer121 so easily. I’m sorry, but I do think there’s something essentially cheap in your attitude. Especially about religion.
“If you must know, you’re not a sound reformer at all. You’re an impossibilist. And you give up too easily. You gave up on the new city hall, the anti-fly campaign, club papers, the library-board, the dramatic association — just because we didn’t graduate into Ibsen the very first thing. You want perfection all at once. Do you know what the finest thing you’ve done is — aside from bringing Hugh into the world? It was the help you gave Dr. Will during baby-welfare week. You didn’t demand that each baby be a philosopher and artist before you weighed him, as you do with the rest of us.
“And now I’m afraid perhaps I’ll hurt you. We’re going to have a new schoolbuilding in this town — in just a few years — and we’ll have it without one bit of help or interest from you!
“Professor Mott and I and some others have been dinging away at the moneyed men for years. We didn’t call on you because you would never stand the pound-pound-pounding year after year without one bit of encouragement. And we’ve won! I’ve got the promise of everybody who counts that just as soon as war-conditions permit, they’ll vote the bonds for the schoolhouse. And we’ll have a wonderful building — lovely brown brick, with big windows, and agricultural and manual-training departments. When we get it, that’ll be my answer to all your theories!”
“I’m glad. And I’m ashamed I haven’t had any part in getting it. But —— Please don’t think I’m unsympathetic if I ask one question: Will the teachers in the hygienic new building go on informing the children that Persia is a yellow spot on the map, and ‘Caesar’ the title of a book of grammatical puzzles?”
VIII
Vida was indignant; Carol was apologetic; they talked for another hour, the eternal Mary and Martha — an immoralist Mary and a reformist Martha. It was Vida who conquered.
The fact that she had been left out of the campaign for the new schoolbuilding disconcerted Carol. She laid her dreams of perfection aside. When Vida asked her to take charge of a group of Camp Fire Girls, she obeyed, and had definite pleasure out of the Indian dances and ritual and costumes. She went more regularly to the Thanatopsis. With Vida as lieutenant124 and unofficial commander she campaigned for a village nurse to attend poor families, raised the fund herself, saw to it that the nurse was young and strong and amiable125 and intelligent.
Yet all the while she beheld126 the burly cynical Frenchman and the diaphanous127 dancers as clearly as the child sees its air-born playmates; she relished128 the Camp Fire Girls not because, in Vida’s words, “this Scout129 training will help so much to make them Good Wives,” but because she hoped that the Sioux dances would bring subversive color into their dinginess130.
She helped Ella Stowbody to set out plants in the tiny triangular131 park at the railroad station; she squatted132 in the dirt, with a small curved trowel and the most decorous of gardening gauntlets; she talked to Ella about the public- spiritedness of fuchsias and cannas; and she felt that she was scrubbing a temple deserted133 by the gods and empty even of incense134 and the sound of chanting. Passengers looking from trains saw her as a village woman of fading prettiness, incorruptible virtue, and no abnormalities; the baggageman heard her say, “Oh yes, I do think it will be a good example for the children”; and all the while she saw herself running garlanded through the streets of Babylon.
Planting led her to botanizing. She never got much farther than recognizing the tiger lily and the wild rose, but she rediscovered Hugh. “What does the buttercup say, mummy?” he cried, his hand full of straggly grasses, his cheek gilded with pollen135. She knelt to embrace him; she affirmed that he made life more than full; she was altogether reconciled. . .for an hour.
But she awoke at night to hovering136 death. She crept away from the hump of bedding that was Kennicott; tiptoed into the bathroom and, by the mirror in the door of the medicine- cabinet, examined her pallid137 face.
Wasn’t she growing visibly older in ratio as Vida grew plumper and younger? Wasn’t her nose sharper? Wasn’t her neck granulated? She stared and choked. She was only thirty. But the five years since her marriage — had they not gone by as hastily and stupidly as though she had been under ether; would time not slink past till death? She pounded her fist on the cool enameled138 rim60 of the bathtub and raged mutely against the indifferent gods:
“I don’t care! I won’t endure it! They lie so — Vida and Will and Aunt Bessie — they tell me I ought to be satisfied with Hugh and a good home and planting seven nasturtiums in a station garden! I am I! When I die the world will be annihilated139, as far as I’m concerned. I am I! I’m not content to leave the sea and the ivory towers to others. I want them for me! Damn Vida! Damn all of them! Do they think they can make me believe that a display of potatoes at Howland & Gould’s is enough beauty and strangeness?”
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
contrives
|
|
| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的第三人称单数 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
labor
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
hearth
|
|
| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
sprout
|
|
| n.芽，萌芽；vt.使发芽，摘去芽；vi.长芽，抽条 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
meditation
|
|
| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
outfit
|
|
| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
drowsily
|
|
| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
maturity
|
|
| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
subversive
|
|
| adj.颠覆性的，破坏性的；n.破坏份子，危险份子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
farmhouses
|
|
| n.农舍，农场的主要住房( farmhouse的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
precipitated
|
|
| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
radiator
|
|
| n.暖气片，散热器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
walnuts
|
|
| 胡桃（树）( walnut的名词复数 )； 胡桃木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
affiliated
|
|
| adj. 附属的, 有关连的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
spartans
|
|
| n.斯巴达（spartan的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
sputtering
|
|
| n.反应溅射法；飞溅；阴极真空喷镀；喷射v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的现在分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
passionately
|
|
| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
tragic
|
|
| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
futility
|
|
| n.无用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
abode
|
|
| n.住处，住所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
joyously
|
|
| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
joyous
|
|
| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
abide
|
|
| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
gilded
|
|
| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
vaudeville
|
|
| n.歌舞杂耍表演 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
facetious
|
|
| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
chaste
|
|
| adj.贞洁的；有道德的；善良的；简朴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
agility
|
|
| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
fictional
|
|
| adj.小说的，虚构的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
resolutely
|
|
| adj.坚决地，果断地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
patriots
|
|
| 爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
Ford
|
|
| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
rusticity
|
|
| n.乡村的特点、风格或气息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
standardized
|
|
| adj.标准化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
sluggishness
|
|
| 不振，萧条，呆滞；惰性；滞性；惯性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
rigid
|
|
| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
negation
|
|
| n.否定；否认 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
prohibition
|
|
| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
gulping
|
|
| v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的现在分词 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
afterward
|
|
| adv.后来；以后 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
inane
|
|
| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
excellence
|
|
| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
automobiles
|
|
| n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
replica
|
|
| n.复制品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
scarlet
|
|
| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
embroidered
|
|
| adj．绣花的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
beads
|
|
| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
aprons
|
|
| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
zealously
|
|
| adv.热心地；热情地；积极地；狂热地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
congealed
|
|
| v.使凝结，冻结( congeal的过去式和过去分词 )；（指血）凝结 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
hymns
|
|
| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
propriety
|
|
| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
glossy
|
|
| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
vows
|
|
| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
dubious
|
|
| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
rim
|
|
| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
heresies
|
|
| n.异端邪说，异教( heresy的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
parlor
|
|
| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
socialists
|
|
| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
serene
|
|
| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
essentially
|
|
| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
infested
|
|
| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
isolation
|
|
| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
aspires
|
|
| v.渴望，追求( aspire的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
provincial
|
|
| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
bullies
|
|
| n.欺凌弱小者, 开球 vt.恐吓, 威胁, 欺负 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
tacks
|
|
| 大头钉( tack的名词复数 )； 平头钉； 航向； 方法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
twilight
|
|
| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
procure
|
|
| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
aspiration
|
|
| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
greasy
|
|
| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
shanty
|
|
| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
provincials
|
|
| n.首都以外的人，地区居民( provincial的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
harry
|
|
| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
sterile
|
|
| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
oligarchy
|
|
| n.寡头政治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
analyzing
|
|
| v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
creeks
|
|
| n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
gashed
|
|
| v.划伤，割破( gash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
gales
|
|
| 龙猫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
windings
|
|
| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
coax
|
|
| v.哄诱，劝诱，用诱哄得到，诱取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
majestic
|
|
| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
boredom
|
|
| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
lumber
|
|
| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
bungalows
|
|
| n.平房( bungalow的名词复数 )；单层小屋，多于一层的小屋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
tapestry
|
|
| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
wares
|
|
| n. 货物, 商品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
flamboyant
|
|
| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
surmise
|
|
| v./n.猜想，推测 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
soda
|
|
| n.苏打水；汽水 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
fatten
|
|
| v.使肥，变肥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
usury
|
|
| n.高利贷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
ragged
|
|
| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
tribal
|
|
| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
enact
|
|
| vt.制定(法律)；上演，扮演 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
confession
|
|
| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
fume
|
|
| n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
eruption
|
|
| n.火山爆发；（战争等）爆发；（疾病等）发作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
helping
|
|
| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
gondolas
|
|
| n.狭长小船( gondola的名词复数 )；货架（一般指商店，例如化妆品店）；吊船工作台 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
sketched
|
|
| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
sewers
|
|
| n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
civic
|
|
| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
exquisite
|
|
| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
cynical
|
|
| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
bawdy
|
|
| adj.淫猥的，下流的；n.粗话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
proprieties
|
|
| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
gasp
|
|
| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
darted
|
|
| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
sneering
|
|
| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
sneer
|
|
| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
digestion
|
|
| n.消化，吸收 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
vile
|
|
| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
lieutenant
|
|
| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
amiable
|
|
| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
beheld
|
|
| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
diaphanous
|
|
| adj.(布)精致的，半透明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
relished
|
|
| v.欣赏( relish的过去式和过去分词 )；从…获得乐趣；渴望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
scout
|
|
| n.童子军，侦察员；v.侦察，搜索 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
dinginess
|
|
| n.暗淡，肮脏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
triangular
|
|
| adj.三角（形）的，三者间的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
squatted
|
|
| 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。 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
incense
|
|
| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
pollen
|
|
| n.[植]花粉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
hovering
|
|
| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
pallid
|
|
| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
enameled
|
|
| 涂瓷釉于，给…上瓷漆，给…上彩饰( enamel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
annihilated
|
|
| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |