The Spenders
It is obvious that in a community that has disavowed aristocracy or rule and subordination or service, which has granted unparalleled freedoms to property and despised and distrusted the state, the chief business of life will consist in getting or attempting to get. But the chief aspect of American life that impinges first upon the European is not this, but the behavior of a certain overflow1 at the top, of people who have largely and triumphantly2 got, and with hand, pockets, safe-deposit vaults4 full of dollars, are proceeding5 to realize victory. Before I came to America it was in his capacity of spender that I chiefly knew the American; as a person who had demoralized Regent Street and the Rue6 de Rivoli, who had taught the London cabman to demand "arf a dollar" for a shilling fare, who bought old books and old castles, and had driven the prices of old furniture to incredible altitudes, and was slowly transferring our incubus7 of artistic8 achieve[Pg 89]ment to American soil. One of my friends in London is Mr. X, who owns those two houses full of fine "pieces" near the British Museum and keeps his honor unsullied in the most deleterious of trades. "They come to me," he said, "and ask me to buy for them. It's just buying. One of them wants to beat the silver of another, doesn't care what he pays. Another clamors for tapestry9. They trust me as they trust a doctor. There's no understanding—no feeling. It's hard to treat them well."
And there is the story of Y, who is wise about pictures. "If you want a Botticelli that size, Mr. Record, I can't find it," he said; "you'll have to have it made for you."
These American spenders have got the whole world "beat" at the foolish game of collecting, and in all the peculiar10 delights of shopping they excel. And they are the crown and glory of hotel managers throughout the world. There is something na?ve, something childishly expectant and acquisitive, about this aspect of American riches. There appears no aristocracy in their tradition, no sense of permanence and great responsibility, there appears no sense of subordination and service; from the individualistic business struggle they have emerged triumphant3, and what is there to do now but spend and have a good time?
They swarm11 in the pleasant places of the Riviera, they pervade12 Paris and Rome, they occupy Scotch[Pg 90] castles and English estates, their motor-cars are terrible and wonderful. And the London Savoy Hotel still flaunts13 its memory of one splendid American night. The court-yard was flooded with water tinted14 an artistic blue—to the great discomfort15 of the practically inevitable16 gold-fish, and on this floated a dream of a gondola17. And in the gondola the table was spread and served by the Savoy staff, mysteriously disguised in appropriate fancy costume. The whole thing—there's only two words for it—was "perfectly18 lovely." "The illusion"—whatever that was—we are assured, was complete. It wasn't a nursery treat, you know. The guests, I am told, were important grown-up people.
This sort of childishness, of course, has nothing distinctively19 American in it. Any people of sluggish20 and uneducated imagination who find themselves profusely21 wealthy, and are too stupid to understand the huge moral burden, the burden of splendid possibilities it carries, may do things of this sort. It was not Americans but a party of South-African millionaires who achieved the kindred triumph of the shirt-and-belt dinner under a tent in a London hotel dining-room. The glittering procession of carriages and motor-carriages which I watched driving down Fifth Avenue, New York, apparently22 for the pleasure of driving up again, is to be paralleled on the Pincio, in Naples, in Paris, and anywhere where irresponsible pleasure-seekers gather together. After the na?ve joy of buying[Pg 91] things comes the joy of wearing them publicly, the simple pleasure of the promenade23. These things are universals. But nowhere has this spending struck me as being so solid and substantial, so nearly twenty-two carats fine, as here. The shops have an air of solid worth, are in the key of butlers, bishops24, opera-boxes, high-class florists25, powdered footmen, Roman beadles, motor-broughams, to an extent that altogether outshines either Paris or London.
girls
PLUMP AND PRETTY PUPILS OF EXTRAVAGANCE
And in such great hotels as the Waldorf-Astoria, one finds the new arrivals, the wives and daughters from the West and the South, in new, bright hats, and splendors26 of costume, clubbed together, under the discreetest management, for this and that, learning how to spend collectively, reaching out to assemblies, to dinners. From an observant tea-table beneath the fronds27 of a palm, I surveyed a fine array of these plump and pretty pupils of extravagance. They were for the most part quite brilliantly as well as newly dressed, and with an artless and pleasing unconsciousness of the living from inside. Smart innocents! I found all that gathering28 most contagiously29 interested and happy and fresh.
And I watched spending, too, as one sees it in the various incompatible30 houses of upper Fifth Avenue and along the border of Central Park. That, too, suggests a shop, a shop where country houses are sold and stored; there is the Tiffany[Pg 92] house, a most expensive-looking article, on the shelf, and the Carnegie house. There had been no pretence31 on the part of the architects that any house belonged in any sense to any other, that any sort of community held them together. The link is just spending. You come to New York and spend; you go away again. To some of these palaces people came and went; others had their blinds down and conveyed a curious effect of a sunlit child excursionist in a train who falls asleep and droops32 against his neighbor. One of the Vanderbilt houses was frankly33 and brutally34 boarded up. Newport, I am told, takes up and carries on the same note of magnificent irresponsibility, and there one admires the richest forms of simplicity35, triumphs of villa36 architecture in thatch37, and bathing bungalows38 in marble....
There exists already, of these irresponsible American rich, a splendid group of portraits, done without extenuation39 and without malice40, in the later work of that great master of English fiction, Mr. Henry James. There one sees them at their best, their refinement41, their large wealthiness, their incredible unreality. I think of The Ambassadors and that mysterious source of the income of the Newcomes, a mystery that, with infinite artistic tact42, was never explained; but more I think of The Golden Bowl, most spacious43 and serene44 of novels.
In that splendid and luminous45 bubble, the Prince Amerigo and Maggie Verver, Mr. Verver, that as[Pg 93]siduous collector, and the adventurous46 Charlotte Stant float far above a world of toil47 and anxiety, spending with a large refinement, with a perfected assurance and precision. They spend as flowers open. But this is the quintessence, the sublimation48, the idealization of the rich American. Few have the restraint for this. For the rest, when one has shopped and shopped, and collected and bought everything, and promenaded49 on foot, in motor-car and motor-brougham and motor-boat, in yacht and special train; when one has a fine house here and a fine house there, and photography and the special article have exhausted50 admiration51, there remains52 chiefly that one broader and more presumptuous53 pleasure—spending to give. American givers give most generously, and some of them, it must be admitted, give well. But they give individually, incoherently, each pursuing a personal ideal. There are unsuccessful givers....
American cities are being littered with a disorder54 of unsystematized foundations and picturesque55 legacies56, much as I find my nursery floor littered with abandoned toys and battles and buildings when the children are in bed after a long, wet day. Yet some of the gifts are very splendid things. There is, for example, the Leland Stanford Junior University in California, a vast monument of parental57 affection and Richardsonian architecture, with professors, and teaching going on in its interstices; and there is Mrs. Gardner's delightful[Pg 94] Fenway Court, a Venetian palace, brought almost bodily from Italy and full of finely gathered treasures....
All this giving is, in its aggregate58 effect, as confused as industrial Chicago. It presents no clear scheme of the future, promises no growth; it is due to the impulsive59 generosity60 of a mob of wealthy persons, with no broad common conceptions, with no collective dream, with little to hold them together but imitation and the burning possession of money; the gifts overlap61, they lie at any angle, one with another. Some are needless, some mischievous62. There are great gaps of unfulfilled need between.
And through the multitude of lesser63, though still mighty64, givers, comes that colossus of property, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the jubilee65 plunger of beneficence, that rosy66, gray-haired, nimble little figure, going to and fro between two continents, scattering67 library buildings as if he sowed wild oats, buildings that may or may not have some educational value, if presently they are reorganized and properly stocked with books. Anon he appals68 the thrifty69 burgesses of Dunfermline with vast and uncongenial responsibilities of expenditure70; anon he precipitates71 the library of the late Lord Acton upon our embarrassed Mr. Morley; anon he pauperizes the students of Scotland. He diffuses72 his monument throughout the English-speaking lands, amid circumstances of the most flagrant publicity73; the re[Pg 95]ceptive learned, the philanthropic noble, bow in expectant swaths before him. He is the American fable74 come true; nothing seems too wild to believe of him, and he fills the European imagination with an altogether erroneous conception of the self-dissipating quality in American wealth.
II
The Astor Fortune
Because, now, as a matter of fact, dissipation is by no means the characteristic quality of American getting. The good American will indeed tell you solemnly that in America it is three generations "from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves"; but this has about as much truth in it as that remarkable75 absence of any pure-bred Londoners of the third generation, dear to the British imagination.
Amid the vast yeasty tumult76 of American business, of the getting and losing which are the main life of this community, nothing could be clearer than the steady accumulation of great masses of property that show no signs of disintegrating77 again. The very rich people display an indisposition to divide their estates; the Marshall Field estate in Chicago, for example, accumulates; the Jay Gould inheritance survives great strains. And when first I heard that "shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves" proverb, Which is so fortifying78 a consolation79 to the older[Pg 96] school of Americans, my mind flew back to the Thames Embankment, as one sees it from the steamboat on the river. There, just eastward80 of the tall red Education offices of the London County Council, stands a quite graceful81 and decorative82 little building of gray stone, that jars not at all with the fine traditions of the adjacent Temple, but catches the eye, nevertheless, with its very big, very gilded83 vane in the form of a ship. This is the handsome strong-box to which New York pays gigantic yearly tribute, the office in which Mr. W.W. Astor conducts his affairs. They are not his private and individual affairs, but the affairs of the estate of the late J.J. Astor—still undivided, and still growing year by year.
Mr. Astor seems to me to be a much more representative figure of American wealth than any of the conspicuous84 spenders who strike so vividly85 upon the European imagination. His is the most retiring of personalities86. In this picturesque stone casket he works; his staff works under his cognizance, and administers, I know not to what ends nor to what extent, revenues that exceed those of many sovereign states. He himself is impressed by it, and, without arrogance87, he makes a visit to his offices, with a view of its storage vaults, its halls of disciplined clerks, a novel and characteristic form of entertainment. For the rest, Mr. Astor leads a life of modest affluence88, and recreates himself with the genealogy89 of his family, short stories about[Pg 97] treasure lost and found, and such like literary work.
Now here you have wealth with, as it were, the minimum of ownership, as indeed owning its possessor. Nobody seems to be spending that huge income the crowded enormity of New York squeezes out. The "Estate of the late J.J. Astor" must be accumulating more wealth and still more; under careful and systematic90 management must be rolling up like a golden snowball under that golden weather-vane. In the most accidental relation to its undistinguished, harmless, arithmetical proprietor91!
Your anarchist92 orator93 or your crude socialist94 is always talking of the rich as blood-suckers, robbers, robber-barons, grafters and so on. It really is nonsense to talk like that. In the presence of Mr. W.W. Astor these preposterous95 accusations96 answer themselves. The thing is a logical outcome of the assumptions about private property on which our contemporary civilization is based, and Mr. Astor, for all that he draws gold from New York as effectually as a ferret draws blood from a rabbit, is indeed the most innocent of men. He finds himself in a certain position, and he sits down very congenially and adds and adds and adds, and relieves the tedium97 of his leisure in literary composition. Had he been born at the level of a dry-goods clerk he would probably have done the same sort of thing on a smaller scale, and it would have been[Pg 98] the little Poddlecombe literary society, and not the Pall98 Mall Magazine, that would have been the richer for his compositions. It is just the scale of the circumstances that differs....
III
The Chief Getters
The lavish99 spending of Fifth Avenue and Paris and Rome and Mayfair is but the flower, the often brilliant, the sometimes gaudy100 flower of the American economic process; and such slow and patient accumulators as Mr. Astor the rounding and ripening101 fruit. One need be only a little while in America to realize this, and to discern the branch and leaf, and at last even the aggressive insatiable spreading root of aggregating102 property, that was liberated103 so effectually when America declared herself free.
The group of people that attracts the largest amount of attention in press and talk, that most obsesses104 the American imagination, and that is indeed the most significant at the present time, is the little group—a few score men perhaps altogether—who are emerging distinctly as winners in that great struggle to get, into which this commercial industrialism has naturally resolved itself. Central among them are the men of the Standard Oil group, the "octopus105" which spreads its ramifying tentacles106 through the whole system of American[Pg 99] business, absorbing and absorbing, grasping and growing. The extraordinarily107 able investigations108 of such writers as Miss Tarbell and Ray Stannard Baker109, the rhetorical exposures of Mr. T.W. Lawson, have brought out the methods and quality of this group of persons with a particularity that has been reserved heretofore for great statesmen and crowned heads, and with an unflattering lucidity110 altogether unprecedented111. Not only is every hair on their heads numbered, but the number is published. They are known to their pettiest weaknesses and to their most accidental associations. And in this astonishing blaze of illumination they continue steadfastly113 to get.
These men, who are creating the greatest system of correlated private properties in the world, who are wealthy beyond all precedent112, seem for the most part to be men with no ulterior dream or aim. They are not voluptuaries, they are neither artists nor any sort of creators, and they betray no high political ambitions. Had they anything of the sort they would not be what they are, they would be more than that and less. They want and they get, they are inspired by the brute114 will in their wealth to have more wealth and more, to a systematic ardor115. They are men of a competing, patient, enterprising, acquisitive enthusiasm. They have found in America the perfectly favorable environment for their temperaments116. In no other country and in no other age could they have risen to such[Pg 100] eminence117. America is still, by virtue118 of its great Puritan tradition and in the older sense of the word, an intensely moral land. Most lusts120 here are strongly curbed121, by public opinion, by training and tradition. But the lust119 of acquisition has not been curbed but glorified122....
These financial leaders are accused by the press of every sort of crime in the development of their great organizations and their fight against competitors, but I feel impelled123 myself to acquit124 them of anything so heroic as a general scheme of criminality, as a systematic organization of power. They are men with a good deal of contempt for legislation and state interference, but that is no distinction, it has unhappily been part of the training of the average American citizen, and they have no doubt exceeded the letter if not the spirit of the laws of business competition. They have played to win and not for style, and if they personally had not done so somebody else would; they fill a position which from the nature of things, somebody is bound to fill. They have, no doubt, carried sharpness to the very edge of dishonesty, but what else was to be expected from the American conditions? Only by doing so and taking risks is pre-eminent success in getting to be attained125. They have developed an enormous system of espionage126, but on his smaller scale every retail127 grocer, every employer of servants does something in that way. They have secret agents, false names, con[Pg 101]cealed bargains,—what else could one expect? People have committed suicide through their operations—but in a game which is bound to bring the losers to despair it is childish to charge the winners with murder. It's the game that is criminal. It is ridiculous, I say, to write of these men as though they were unparalleled villains128, intellectual overmen, conscienceless conquerors129 of the world. Mr. J.D. Rockefeller's mild, thin-lipped, pleasant face gives the lie to all such melodramatic nonsense.
I must confess to a sneaking130 liking131 for this much-reviled man. One thinks of Miss Tarbell's description of him, displaying his first boyish account-book, his ledger132 A, to a sympathetic gathering of the Baptist young, telling how he earned fifty dollars in the first three months of his clerking in a Chicago warehouse133, and how savingly he dealt with it. Hear his words:
"You could not get that book from me for all the modern ledgers134 in New York, nor for all that they would bring. It almost brings tears to my eyes when I read over this little book, and it fills me with a sense of gratitude135 I cannot express....
"I know some people, ... especially some young men, find it difficult to keep a little money in their pocket-book. I learned to keep money, and, as we have a way of saying, it did not burn a hole in my pocket. I was taught that it was the thing to keep the money and take care of it. Among the early[Pg 102] experiences that were helpful to me that I recollect136 with pleasure, was one of working a few days for a neighbor digging potatoes—an enterprising and thrifty farmer who could dig a great many potatoes. I was a boy perhaps thirteen or fourteen years of age, and he kept me busy from morning until night. It was a ten-hour day....
"And as I was saving these little sums, I soon learned I could get as much interest for fifty dollars loaned at seven per cent.—the legal rate in the State of New York at that time for a year—as I could earn by digging potatoes ten days. The impression was gaining ground with me that it was a good thing to let money be my slave and not make myself a slave to money. I have tried to remember that in every sense."
This is not the voice of any sort of contemptuous trampler137 of his species. This is the voice of an industrious138, acquisitive, commonplace, pious139 man, as honestly and simply proud of his acquisitiveness as a stamp-collector might be. At times, in his acquisitions, the strength of his passion may have driven him to lengths beyond the severe moral code, but the same has been true of stamp-collectors. He is a man who has taken up with great natural aptitude140 an ignoble141 tradition which links economy and earning with piety142 and honor. His teachers were to blame, that Baptist community that is now so ashamed of its son that it refuses his gifts. To a large extent he is the creature of opportunity;[Pg 103] he has been flung to the topmost pinnacle143 of human envy, partly by accident, partly by that peculiarity144 of American conditions that has subordinated, in the name of liberty, all the grave and ennobling affairs of statecraft to a middle-class freedom of commercial enterprise. Quarrel with that if you like. It is unfair and ridiculous to quarrel with him.
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overflow
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| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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vaults
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| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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incubus
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| n.负担；恶梦 | |
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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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tapestry
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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pervade
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| v.弥漫，遍及，充满，渗透，漫延 | |
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flaunts
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| v.炫耀，夸耀( flaunt的第三人称单数 )；有什么能耐就施展出来 | |
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tinted
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discomfort
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inevitable
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gondola
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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sluggish
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profusely
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apparently
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promenade
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bishops
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florists
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splendors
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fronds
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gathering
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contagiously
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incompatible
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pretence
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droops
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frankly
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brutally
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simplicity
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villa
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thatch
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bungalows
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extenuation
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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tact
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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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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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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sublimation
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| n.升华，升华物，高尚化 | |
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promenaded
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| v.兜风( promenade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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54
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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55
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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56
legacies
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| n.遗产( legacy的名词复数 )；遗留之物；遗留问题；后遗症 | |
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57
parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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58
aggregate
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| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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59
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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60
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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61
overlap
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| v.重叠，与…交叠；n.重叠 | |
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62
mischievous
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| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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63
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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64
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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65
jubilee
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| n.周年纪念；欢乐 | |
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66
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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67
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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68
appals
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appal的第三人称单数 ) | |
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69
thrifty
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| adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的 | |
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70
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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71
precipitates
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| v.（突如其来地）使发生( precipitate的第三人称单数 )；促成；猛然摔下；使沉淀 | |
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72
diffuses
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| （使光）模糊，漫射，漫散( diffuse的第三人称单数 )； （使）扩散； （使）弥漫； （使）传播 | |
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73
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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74
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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75
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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76
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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77
disintegrating
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的现在分词 ) | |
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78
fortifying
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| 筑防御工事于( fortify的现在分词 )； 筑堡于； 增强； 强化（食品） | |
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79
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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80
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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81
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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82
decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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83
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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84
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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85
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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86
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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87
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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88
affluence
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| n.充裕，富足 | |
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89
genealogy
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| n.家系，宗谱 | |
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90
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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91
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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92
anarchist
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| n.无政府主义者 | |
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93
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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94
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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95
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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96
accusations
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| n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名 | |
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97
tedium
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| n.单调；烦闷 | |
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98
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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99
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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100
gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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101
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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102
aggregating
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| 总计达…( aggregate的现在分词 )； 聚集，集合； （使）聚集 | |
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103
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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104
obsesses
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| v.时刻困扰( obsess的第三人称单数 )；缠住；使痴迷；使迷恋 | |
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105
octopus
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| n.章鱼 | |
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106
tentacles
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| n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 )；触角；触须；触毛 | |
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107
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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108
investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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109
baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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110
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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111
unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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112
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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113
steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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114
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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115
ardor
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| n.热情，狂热 | |
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116
temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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117
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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118
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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119
lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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120
lusts
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| 贪求（lust的第三人称单数形式） | |
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121
curbed
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| v.限制，克制，抑制( curb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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123
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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124
acquit
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| vt.宣判无罪；(oneself)使(自己)表现出 | |
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125
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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126
espionage
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| n.间谍行为，谍报活动 | |
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127
retail
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| v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格 | |
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128
villains
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| n.恶棍( villain的名词复数 )；罪犯；（小说、戏剧等中的）反面人物；淘气鬼 | |
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129
conquerors
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| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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130
sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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131
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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132
ledger
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| n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿 | |
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133
warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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134
ledgers
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| n.分类账( ledger的名词复数 ) | |
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135
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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136
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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137
trampler
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138
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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139
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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140
aptitude
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| n.(学习方面的)才能，资质，天资 | |
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141
ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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142
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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143
pinnacle
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| n.尖塔，尖顶，山峰；(喻)顶峰 | |
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144
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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