A story is told of a Scotchman who, loving a lassie, desired her for his wife. But he possessed2 the prudence3 of his race. He had noticed in his circle many an otherwise promising4 union result in disappointment and dismay, purely5 in consequence of the false estimate formed by bride or bridegroom concerning the imagined perfectability of the other. He determined6 that in his own case no collapsed7 ideal should be possible. Therefore, it was that his proposal took the following form:
“I’m but a puir lad, Jennie; I hae nae siller to offer ye, and nae land.”
“Ah, but ye hae yoursel’, Davie!”
“Na, na; there’s mony a lad mair ill-looking than yoursel’, Davie.”
“I hae na seen him, lass, and I’m just a-thinkin’ I shouldna’ care to.”
“Better a plain man, Davie, that ye can depend a’ than ane that would be a speirin’ at the lassies, a-bringin’ trouble into the hame wi’ his flouting9 ways.”
“Dinna ye reckon on that, Jennie; it’s nae the bonniest Bubbly Jock that mak’s the most feathers to fly in the kailyard. I was ever a lad to run after the petticoats, as is weel kent; an’ it’s a weary handfu’ I’ll be to ye, I’m thinkin’.”
“Ah, but ye hae a kind heart, Davie! an’ ye love me weel. I’m sure on’t.”
“I like ye weel enoo’, Jennie, though I canna say how long the feeling may bide11 wi’ me; an’ I’m kind enoo’ when I hae my ain way, an’ naethin’ happens to put me oot. But I hae the deevil’s ain temper, as my mither call tell ye, an’ like my puir fayther, I’m a-thinkin’, I’ll grow nae better as I grow mair auld12.”
“Ay, but ye’re sair hard upon yersel’, Davie. Ye’re an honest lad. I ken10 ye better than ye ken yersel’, an’ ye’ll mak a guid hame for me.”
“Maybe, Jennie! But I hae my doots. It’s a sair thing for wife an’ bairns when the guid man canna keep awa’ frae the glass; an’ when the scent13 of the whusky comes to me it’s just as though I hae’d the throat o’ a Loch Tay salmon14; it just gaes doon an’ doon, an’ there’s nae filling o’ me.”
“Ay, but ye’re a guid man when ye’re sober, Davie.”
“Maybe I’ll be that, Jennie, if I’m nae disturbed.”
“An’ ye’ll bide wi’ me, Davie, an’ work for me?”
“I see nae reason why I shouldna bide wi’ yet Jennie; but dinna ye clack aboot work to me, for I just canna bear the thoct o’t.”
“Anyhow, ye’ll do your best, Davie? As the minister says, nae man can do mair than that.”
“An’ it’s a puir best that mine’ll be, Jennie, and I’m nae sae sure ye’ll hae ower muckle even o’ that. We’re a’ weak, sinfu’ creatures, Jennie, an’ ye’d hae some deefficulty to find a man weaker or mair sinfu’ than mysel’.”
“Weel, weel, ye hae a truthfu’ tongue, Davie. Mony a lad will mak fine promises to a puir lassie, only to break ’em an’ her heart wi’ ’em. Ye speak me fair, Davie, and I’m thinkin’ I’ll just tak ye, an’ see what comes o’t.”
Concerning what did come of it, the story is silent, but one feels that under no circumstances had the lady any right to complain of her bargain. Whether she ever did or did not—for women do not invariably order their tongues according to logic15, nor men either for the matter of that—Davie, himself, must have had the satisfaction of reflecting that all reproaches were undeserved.
I wish to be equally frank with the reader of this book. I wish here conscientiously16 to let forth17 its shortcomings. I wish no one to read this book under a misapprehension.
There will be no useful information in this book.
Anyone who should think that with the aid of this book he would be able to make a tour through Germany and the Black Forest would probably lose himself before he got to the Nore. That, at all events, would be the best thing that could happen to him. The farther away from home he got, the greater only would be his difficulties.
I do not regard the conveyance18 of useful information as my forte19. This belief was not inborn20 with me; it has been driven home upon me by experience.
In my early journalistic days, I served upon a paper, the forerunner21 of many very popular periodicals of the present day. Our boast was that we combined instruction with amusement; as to what should be regarded as affording amusement and what instruction, the reader judged for himself. We gave advice to people about to marry—long, earnest advice that would, had they followed it, have made our circle of readers the envy of the whole married world. We told our subscribers how to make fortunes by keeping rabbits, giving facts and figures. The thing that must have surprised them was that we ourselves did not give up journalism22 and start rabbit-farming. Often and often have I proved conclusively23 from authoritative24 sources how a man starting a rabbit farm with twelve selected rabbits and a little judgment25 must, at the end of three years, be in receipt of an income of two thousand a year, rising rapidly; he simply could not help himself. He might not want the money. He might not know what to do with it when he had it. But there it was for him. I have never met a rabbit farmer myself worth two thousand a year, though I have known many start with the twelve necessary, assorted26 rabbits. Something has always gone wrong somewhere; maybe the continued atmosphere of a rabbit farm saps the judgment.
We told our readers how many bald-headed men there were in Iceland, and for all we knew our figures may have been correct; how many red herrings placed tail to mouth it would take to reach from London to Rome, which must have been useful to anyone desirous of laying down a line of red herrings from London to Rome, enabling him to order in the right quantity at the beginning; how many words the average woman spoke27 in a day; and other such like items of information calculated to make them wise and great beyond the readers of other journals.
We told them how to cure fits in cats. Personally I do not believe, and I did not believe then, that you can cure fits in cats. If I had a cat subject to fits I should advertise it for sale, or even give it away. But our duty was to supply information when asked for. Some fool wrote, clamouring to know; and I spent the best part of a morning seeking knowledge on the subject. I found what I wanted at length at the end of an old cookery book. What it was doing there I have never been able to understand. It had nothing to do with the proper subject of the book whatever; there was no suggestion that you could make anything savoury out of a cat, even when you had cured it of its fits. The authoress had just thrown in this paragraph out of pure generosity28. I can only say that I wish she had left it out; it was the cause of a deal of angry correspondence and of the loss of four subscribers to the paper, if not more. The man said the result of following our advice had been two pounds worth of damage to his kitchen crockery, to say nothing of a broken window and probable blood poisoning to himself; added to which the cat’s fits were worse than before. And yet it was a simple enough recipe. You held the cat between your legs, gently, so as not to hurt it, and with a pair of scissors made a sharp, clean cut in its tail. You did not cut off any part of the tail; you were to be careful not to do that; you only made an incision29.
As we explained to the man, the garden or the coal cellar would have been the proper place for the operation; no one but an idiot would have attempted to perform it in a kitchen, and without help.
We gave them hints on etiquette30. We told them how to address peers and bishops31; also how to eat soup. We instructed shy young men how to acquire easy grace in drawing-rooms. We taught dancing to both sexes by the aid of diagrams. We solved their religious doubts for them, and supplied them with a code of morals that would have done credit to a stained-glass window.
The paper was not a financial success, it was some years before its time, and the consequence was that our staff was limited. My own apartment, I remember, included “Advice to Mothers”—I wrote that with the assistance of my landlady32, who, having divorced one husband and buried four children, was, I considered, a reliable authority on all domestic matters; “Hints on Furnishing and Household Decorations—with Designs” a column of “Literary Counsel to Beginners”—I sincerely hope my guidance was of better service to them than it has ever proved to myself; and our weekly article, “Straight Talks to Young Men,” signed “Uncle Henry.” A kindly33, genial34 old fellow was “Uncle Henry,” with wide and varied35 experience, and a sympathetic attitude towards the rising generation. He had been through trouble himself in his far back youth, and knew most things. Even to this day I read of “Uncle Henry’s” advice, and, though I say it who should not, it still seems to me good, sound advice. I often think that had I followed “Uncle Henry’s” counsel closer I would have been wiser, made fewer mistakes, felt better satisfied with myself than is now the case.
A quiet, weary little woman, who lived in a bed-sitting room off the Tottenham Court Road, and who had a husband in a lunatic asylum36, did our “Cooking Column,” “Hints on Education”—we were full of hints,—and a page and a half of “Fashionable Intelligence,” written in the pertly personal style which even yet has not altogether disappeared, so I am informed, from modern journalism: “I must tell you about the divine frock I wore at ‘Glorious Goodwood’ last week. Prince C.—but there, I really must not repeat all the things the silly fellow says; he is too foolish—and the dear Countess, I fancy, was just the weeish bit jealous”—and so on.
Poor little woman! I see her now in the shabby grey alpaca, with the inkstains on it. Perhaps a day at “Glorious Goodwood,” or anywhere else in the fresh air, might have put some colour into her cheeks.
Our proprietor—one of the most unashamedly ignorant men I ever met—I remember his gravely informing a correspondent once that Ben Jonson had written Rabelais to pay for his mother’s funeral, and only laughing good-naturedly when his mistakes were pointed37 out to him—wrote with the aid of a cheap encyclopedia38 the pages devoted39 to “General Information,” and did them on the whole remarkably40 well; while our office boy, with an excellent pair of scissors for his assistant, was responsible for our supply of “Wit and Humour.”
It was hard work, and the pay was poor, what sustained us was the consciousness that we were instructing and improving our fellow men and women. Of all games in the world, the one most universally and eternally popular is the game of school. You collect six children, and put them on a doorstep, while you walk up and down with the book and cane41. We play it when babies, we play it when boys and girls, we play it when men and women, we play it as, lean and slippered42, we totter43 towards the grave. It never palls44 upon, it never wearies us. Only one thing mars it: the tendency of one and all of the other six children to clamour for their turn with the book and the cane. The reason, I am sure, that journalism is so popular a calling, in spite of its many drawbacks, is this: each journalist feels he is the boy walking up and down with the cane. The Government, the Classes, and the Masses, Society, Art, and Literature, are the other children sitting on the doorstep. He instructs and improves them.
But I digress. It was to excuse my present permanent disinclination to be the vehicle of useful information that I recalled these matters. Let us now return.
Somebody, signing himself “Balloonist,” had written to ask concerning the manufacture of hydrogen gas. It is an easy thing to manufacture—at least, so I gathered after reading up the subject at the British Museum; yet I did warn “Balloonist,” whoever he might be, to take all necessary precaution against accident. What more could I have done? Ten days afterwards a florid-faced lady called at the office, leading by the hand what, she explained, was her son, aged45 twelve. The boy’s face was unimpressive to a degree positively46 remarkable47. His mother pushed him forward and took off his hat, and then I perceived the reason for this. He had no eyebrows48 whatever, and of his hair nothing remained but a scrubby dust, giving to his head the appearance of a hard-boiled egg, skinned and sprinkled with black pepper.
“That was a handsome lad this time last week, with naturally curly hair,” remarked the lady. She spoke with a rising inflection, suggestive of the beginning of things.
“What has happened to him?” asked our chief.
“This is what’s happened to him,” retorted the lady. She drew from her muff a copy of our last week’s issue, with my article on hydrogen gas scored in pencil, and flung it before his eyes. Our chief took it and read it through.
“He was ‘Balloonist,’” admitted the lady, “the poor innocent child, and now look at him!”
“Maybe it’ll grow again,” suggested our chief.
“Maybe it will,” retorted the lady, her key continuing to rise, “and maybe it won’t. What I want to know is what you are going to do for him.”
Our chief suggested a hair wash. I thought at first she was going to fly at him; but for the moment she confined herself to words. It appears she was not thinking of a hair wash, but of compensation. She also made observations on the general character of our paper, its utility, its claim to public support, the sense and wisdom of its contributors.
“I really don’t see that it is our fault,” urged the chief—he was a mild-mannered man; “he asked for information, and he got it.”
“Don’t you try to be funny about it,” said the lady (he had not meant to be funny, I am sure; levity50 was not his failing) “or you’ll get something that you haven’t asked for. Why, for two pins,” said the lady, with a suddenness that sent us both flying like scuttled51 chickens behind our respective chairs, “I’d come round and make your head like it!” I take it, she meant like the boy’s. She also added observations upon our chief’s personal appearance, that were distinctly in bad taste. She was not a nice woman by any means.
Myself, I am of opinion that had she brought the action she threatened, she would have had no case; but our chief was a man who had had experience of the law, and his principle was always to avoid it. I have heard him say:
“If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel I should, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If, on the other hand, he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it by means of an action in any court of law, I should take it out of my pocket and hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply.”
He squared the matter with the florid-faced lady for a five-pound note, which must have represented a month’s profits on the paper; and she departed, taking her damaged offspring with her. After she was gone, our chief spoke kindly to me. He said:
“Don’t think I am blaming you in the least; it is not your fault, it is Fate. Keep to moral advice and criticism—there you are distinctly good; but don’t try your hand any more on ‘Useful Information.’ As I have said, it is not your fault. Your information is correct enough—there is nothing to be said against that; it simply is that you are not lucky with it.”
I would that I had followed his advice always; I would have saved myself and other people much disaster. I see no reason why it should be, but so it is. If I instruct a man as to the best route between London and Rome, he loses his luggage in Switzerland, or is nearly shipwrecked off Dover. If I counsel him in the purchase of a camera, he gets run in by the German police for photographing fortresses52. I once took a deal of trouble to explain to a man how to marry his deceased wife’s sister at Stockholm. I found out for him the time the boat left Hull53 and the best hotels to stop at. There was not a single mistake from beginning to end in the information with which I supplied him; no hitch54 occurred anywhere; yet now he never speaks to me.
Therefore it is that I have come to restrain my passion for the giving of information; therefore it is that nothing in the nature of practical instruction will be found, if I can help it, within these pages.
There will be no description of towns, no historical reminiscences, no architecture, no morals.
I once asked an intelligent foreigner what he thought of London.
He said: “It is a very big town.”
I said: “What struck you most about it?”
He replied: “The people.”
I said: “Compared with other towns—Paris, Rome, Berlin,—what did you think of it?”
One anthill is very much like another. So many avenues, wide or narrow, where the little creatures swarm56 in strange confusion; these bustling57 by, important; these halting to pow-wow with one another. These struggling with big burdens; those but basking58 in the sun. So many granaries stored with food; so many cells where the little things sleep, and eat, and love; the corner where lie their little white bones. This hive is larger, the next smaller. This nest lies on the sand, and another under the stones. This was built but yesterday, while that was fashioned ages ago, some say even before the swallows came; who knows?
Nor will there be found herein folk-lore or story.
Every valley where lie homesteads has its song. I will tell you the plot; you can turn it into verse and set it to music of your own.
There lived a lass, and there came a lad, who loved and rode away.
It is a monotonous59 song, written in many languages; for the young man seems to have been a mighty60 traveller. Here in sentimental61 Germany they remember him well. So also the dwellers62 of the Blue Alsatian Mountains remember his coming among them; while, if my memory serves me truly, he likewise visited the Banks of Allan Water. A veritable Wandering Jew is he; for still the foolish girls listen, so they say, to the dying away of his hoof-beats.
In this land of many ruins, that long while ago were voice-filled homes, linger many legends; and here again, giving you the essentials, I leave you to cook the dish for yourself. Take a human heart or two, assorted; a bundle of human passions—there are not many of them, half a dozen at the most; season with a mixture of good and evil; flavour the whole with the sauce of death, and serve up where and when you will. “The Saint’s Cell,” “The Haunted Keep,” “The Dungeon63 Grave,” “The Lover’s Leap”—call it what you will, the stew’s the same.
Lastly, in this book there will be no scenery. This is not laziness on my part; it is self-control. Nothing is easier to write than scenery; nothing more difficult and unnecessary to read. When Gibbon had to trust to travellers’ tales for a description of the Hellespont, and the Rhine was chiefly familiar to English students through the medium of Caesar’s Commentaries, it behoved every globe-trotter, for whatever distance, to describe to the best of his ability the things that he had seen. Dr. Johnson, familiar with little else than the view down Fleet Street, could read the description of a Yorkshire moor64 with pleasure and with profit. To a cockney who had never seen higher ground than the Hog’s Back in Surrey, an account of Snowdon must have appeared exciting. But we, or rather the steam-engine and the camera for us, have changed all that. The man who plays tennis every year at the foot of the Matterhorn, and billiards65 on the summit of the Rigi, does not thank you for an elaborate and painstaking66 description of the Grampian Hills. To the average man, who has seen a dozen oil paintings, a hundred photographs, a thousand pictures in the illustrated67 journals, and a couple of panoramas68 of Niagara, the word-painting of a waterfall is tedious.
An American friend of mine, a cultured gentleman, who loved poetry well enough for its own sake, told me that he had obtained a more correct and more satisfying idea of the Lake district from an eighteenpenny book of photographic views than from all the works of Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth put together. I also remember his saying concerning this subject of scenery in literature, that he would thank an author as much for writing an eloquent69 description of what he had just had for dinner. But this was in reference to another argument; namely, the proper province of each art. My friend maintained that just as canvas and colour were the wrong mediums for story telling, so word-painting was, at its best, but a clumsy method of conveying impressions that could much better be received through the eye.
As regards the question, there also lingers in my memory very distinctly a hot school afternoon. The class was for English literature, and the proceedings70 commenced with the reading of a certain lengthy71, but otherwise unobjectionable, poem. The author’s name, I am ashamed to say, I have forgotten, together with the title of the poem. The reading finished, we closed our books, and the Professor, a kindly, white-haired old gentleman, suggested our giving in our own words an account of what we had just read.
“Tell me,” said the Professor, encouragingly, “what it is all about.”
“Please, sir,” said the first boy—he spoke with bowed head and evident reluctance72, as though the subject were one which, left to himself, he would never have mentioned,—“it is about a maiden.”
“Yes,” agreed the Professor; “but I want you to tell me in your own words. We do not speak of a maiden, you know; we say a girl. Yes, it is about a girl. Go on.”
“A girl,” repeated the top boy, the substitution apparently73 increasing his embarrassment74, “who lived in a wood.”
“What sort of a wood?” asked the Professor.
The first boy examined his inkpot carefully, and then looked at the ceiling.
“Come,” urged the Professor, growing impatient, “you have been reading about this wood for the last ten minutes. Surely you can tell me something concerning it.”
“The gnarly trees, their twisted branches”—recommenced the top boy.
“No, no,” interrupted the Professor; “I do not want you to repeat the poem. I want you to tell me in your own words what sort of a wood it was where the girl lived.”
The Professor tapped his foot impatiently; the top boy made a dash for it.
“Please, sir, it was the usual sort of a wood.”
“Tell him what sort of a wood,” said he, pointing to the second lad.
The second boy said it was a “green wood.” This annoyed the Professor still more; he called the second boy a blockhead, though really I cannot see why, and passed on to the third, who, for the last minute, had been sitting apparently on hot plates, with his right arm waving up and down like a distracted semaphore signal. He would have had to say it the next second, whether the Professor had asked him or not; he was red in the face, holding his knowledge in.
“A dark and gloomy wood,” shouted the third boy, with much relief to his feelings.
“A dark and gloomy wood,” repeated the Professor, with evident approval. “And why was it dark and gloomy?”
The third boy was still equal to the occasion.
“Because the sun could not get inside it.”
The Professor felt he had discovered the poet of the class.
“Because the sun could not get into it, or, better, because the sunbeams could not penetrate75. And why could not the sunbeams penetrate there?”
“Please, sir, because the leaves were too thick.”
“Very well,” said the Professor. “The girl lived in a dark and gloomy wood, through the leafy canopy76 of which the sunbeams were unable to pierce. Now, what grew in this wood?” He pointed to the fourth boy.
“Please, sir, trees, sir.”
“And what else?”
“Toadstools, sir.” This after a pause.
The Professor was not quite sure about the toadstools, but on referring to the text he found that the boy was right; toadstools had been mentioned.
“Quite right,” admitted the Professor, “toadstools grew there. And what else? What do you find underneath77 trees in a wood?”
“Please, sir, earth, sir.”
“No; no; what grows in a wood besides trees?”
“Oh, please, sir, bushes, sir.”
“Bushes; very good. Now we are getting on. In this wood there were trees and bushes. And what else?”
He pointed to a small boy near the bottom, who having decided78 that the wood was too far off to be of any annoyance79 to him, individually, was occupying his leisure playing noughts80 and crosses against himself. Vexed81 and bewildered, but feeling it necessary to add something to the inventory82, he hazarded blackberries. This was a mistake; the poet had not mentioned blackberries.
“Of course, Klobstock would think of something to eat,” commented the Professor, who prided himself on his ready wit. This raised a laugh against Klobstock, and pleased the Professor.
“You,” continued he, pointing to a boy in the middle; “what else was there in this wood besides trees and bushes?”
“Quite right; and what did the torrent do?”
“Please, sir, it gurgled.”
“No; no. Streams gurgle, torrents—?”
“Roar, sir.”
“It roared. And what made it roar?”
This was a poser. One boy—he was not our prize intellect, I admit—suggested the girl. To help us the Professor put his question in another form:
“When did it roar?”
Our third boy, again coming to the rescue, explained that it roared when it fell down among the rocks. I think some of us had a vague idea that it must have been a cowardly torrent to make such a noise about a little thing like this; a pluckier torrent, we felt, would have got up and gone on, saying nothing about it. A torrent that roared every time it fell upon a rock we deemed a poor spirited torrent; but the Professor seemed quite content with it.
“And what lived in this wood beside the girl?” was the next question.
“Please, sir, birds, sir.”
“Yes, birds lived in this wood. What else?”
“Come,” said the Professor, “what are those animals with tails, that run up trees?”
We thought for a while, then one of us suggested cats.
This was an error; the poet had said nothing about cats; squirrels was what the Professor was trying to get.
I do not recall much more about this wood in detail. I only recollect85 that the sky was introduced into it. In places where there occurred an opening among the trees you could by looking up see the sky above you; very often there were clouds in this sky, and occasionally, if I remember rightly, the girl got wet.
I have dwelt upon this incident, because it seems to me suggestive of the whole question of scenery in literature. I could not at the time, I cannot now, understand why the top boy’s summary was not sufficient. With all due deference86 to the poet, whoever he may have been, one cannot but acknowledge that his wood was, and could not be otherwise than, “the usual sort of a wood.”
I could describe the Black Forest to you at great length. I could translate to you Hebel, the poet of the Black Forest. I could write pages concerning its rocky gorges87 and its smiling valleys, its pine-clad slopes, its rock-crowned summits, its foaming88 rivulets89 (where the tidy German has not condemned90 them to flow respectably through wooden troughs or drainpipes), its white villages, its lonely farmsteads.
But I am haunted by the suspicion you might skip all this. Were you sufficiently91 conscientious—or weak-minded enough—not to do so, I should, all said and done, succeed in conveying to you only an impression much better summed up in the simple words of the unpretentious guide book:
“A picturesque92, mountainous district, bounded on the south and the west by the plain of the Rhine, towards which its spurs descend93 precipitately94. Its geological formation consists chiefly of variegated95 sandstone and granite96; its lower heights being covered with extensive pine forests. It is well watered with numerous streams, while its populous97 valleys are fertile and well cultivated. The inns are good; but the local wines should be partaken of by the stranger with discretion98.”
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1
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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loon
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| n.狂人 | |
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flouting
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| v.藐视，轻视( flout的现在分词 ) | |
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ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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bide
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| v.忍耐；等候；住 | |
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auld
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| adj.老的，旧的 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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forte
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| n.长处，擅长；adj.(音乐)强音的 | |
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inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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forerunner
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| n.前身，先驱（者），预兆，祖先 | |
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journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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conclusively
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| adv.令人信服地，确凿地 | |
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authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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assorted
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| adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的 | |
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spoke
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| 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 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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incision
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| n．切口，切开 | |
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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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bishops
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| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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encyclopedia
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| n.百科全书 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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slippered
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| 穿拖鞋的 | |
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totter
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| v.蹒跚， 摇摇欲坠；n.蹒跚的步子 | |
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palls
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| n.柩衣( pall的名词复数 )；墓衣；棺罩；深色或厚重的覆盖物v.（因过多或过久而）生厌，感到乏味，厌烦( pall的第三人称单数 ) | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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levity
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| n.轻率，轻浮，不稳定，多变 | |
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scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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fortresses
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| 堡垒，要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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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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bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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basking
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| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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dungeon
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| n.地牢，土牢 | |
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moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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painstaking
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| adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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panoramas
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| 全景画( panorama的名词复数 )； 全景照片； 一连串景象或事 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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noughts
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| 零，无，没有( nought的名词复数 ) | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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85
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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86
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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gorges
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| n.山峡，峡谷( gorge的名词复数 )；咽喉v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 )；作呕 | |
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foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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rivulets
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| n.小河，小溪( rivulet的名词复数 ) | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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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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descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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precipitately
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| adv.猛进地 | |
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variegated
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| adj.斑驳的，杂色的 | |
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granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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