Viewing the large building from any favorable point in the valley, it looked like a huge white bird sitting with outstretched wings on the gray rock far up against the tender blue sky. All around it the forests were thick and green, the ravines deep and gloomy and the rocks tumbled into fantastic heaps. When you reached it, which was after a whole day of hard zig-zag climbing, you found it a rather plain three-story house, whose broad verandas5 were worried with a mass of jig-saw fancies and whose windows glared at you between wide open green Venetian shutters6. Everything look new, almost raw, from the stumps7 of fresh-cut trees on the lawn and the rope swings and long benches, upon which the paint was scarcely dry, to the resonant8 floor of the spacious9 halls and the cedar-fragrant hand-rail of the stairway.
There were springs among the rocks. Here the water trickled10 out with a red gleam of iron oxide11, there it sparkled with an excess of carbonic acid, and yonder it bubbled up all the more limpid12 and clear on account of the offensive sulphuretted hydrogen it was bringing forth13. Masses of fern, great cushions of cool moss14 and tangles15 of blooming shrubs16 and vines fringed the sides of the little ravines down which the spring-streams sang their way to the silver thread of a river in the valley.
It was altogether a dizzy perch17, a strange, inconvenient18, out-of-the-way spot for a summer hotel. You reached it all out of breath, confused as to the points of the compass and disappointed, in every sense of the word, with what at first glance struck you as a colossal19 pretense20, empty, raw, vulgar, loud—a great trap into which you had been inveigled21 by an eloquent22 hand-bill! Hotel Helicon, as a name for the place, was considered a happy one. It had come to the proprietor23, as if in a dream, one day as he sat smoking. He slapped his thigh24 with his hand and sprang to his feet. The word that went so smoothly25 with hotel, as he fancied, had no special meaning in his mind, for the gas man had never been guilty of classical lore-study, but it furnished a taking alliteration26.
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1 promontory | |
n.海角;岬 | |
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2 jutted | |
v.(使)突出( jut的过去式和过去分词 );伸出;(从…)突出;高出 | |
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3 eddies | |
(水、烟等的)漩涡,涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
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4 speculations | |
n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 );思考;投机活动;推断 | |
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5 verandas | |
阳台,走廊( veranda的名词复数 ) | |
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6 shutters | |
百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 ); (照相机的)快门 | |
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7 stumps | |
(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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8 resonant | |
adj.(声音)洪亮的,共鸣的 | |
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9 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
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10 trickled | |
v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 );淌;使)慢慢走;缓慢移动 | |
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11 oxide | |
n.氧化物 | |
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12 limpid | |
adj.清澈的,透明的 | |
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13 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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14 moss | |
n.苔,藓,地衣 | |
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15 tangles | |
(使)缠结, (使)乱作一团( tangle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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16 shrubs | |
灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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17 perch | |
n.栖木,高位,杆;v.栖息,就位,位于 | |
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18 inconvenient | |
adj.不方便的,令人感到麻烦的 | |
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19 colossal | |
adj.异常的,庞大的 | |
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20 pretense | |
n.矫饰,做作,借口 | |
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21 inveigled | |
v.诱骗,引诱( inveigle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22 eloquent | |
adj.雄辩的,口才流利的;明白显示出的 | |
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23 proprietor | |
n.所有人;业主;经营者 | |
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24 thigh | |
n.大腿;股骨 | |
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25 smoothly | |
adv.平滑地,顺利地,流利地,流畅地 | |
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26 alliteration | |
n.(诗歌的)头韵 | |
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