Between what matters and what seems to matter, how should the world we know judge wisely?
When the scheming, indomitable brain of Sigsbee Manderson was scattered1 by a shot from an unknown hand, that world lost nothing worth a single tear; it gained something memorable2 in a harsh reminder3 of the vanity of such wealth as this dead man had piled up—without making one loyal friend to mourn him, without doing an act that could help his memory to the least honor. But when the news of his end came, it seemed to those living in the great vortices of business as if the earth, too, shuddered4 under a blow.
In all the lurid6 commercial history of his country there had been no figure that had so imposed itself upon the mind of the trading world. He had a niche7 apart in its temples. Financial giants, strong to direct and augment8 the forces of capital, and taking an approved toll9 in millions for so doing, had existed before; but in the case of Manderson there had been this singularity, that a pale halo of piratical romance, a thing especially dear to the hearts of his countrymen, had remained incongruously about his head through the years when he stood in every eye as the unquestioned guardian10 of stability, the stamper-out of manipulated crises, the foe11 of the raiding chieftains that infest12 the borders of Wall Street.
The fortune left by his grandfather, who had been one of those chieftains, on the smaller scale of his day, had descended13 to him with accretion14 through his father, who during a long life had quietly continued to lend money and never had margined15 a stock. Manderson, who had at no time known what it was to be without large sums to his hand, should have been altogether of that newer American plutocracy16 which is steadied by the tradition and habit of great wealth. But it was not so. While his nurture17 and education had taught him European ideas of a rich man's proper external circumstance; while they had rooted in him an instinct for quiet magnificence, the larger costliness18 which does not shriek19 of itself with a thousand tongues; there had been handed on to him, nevertheless, much of the Forty-Niner and financial buccaneer, his forbear. During that first period of his business career which had been called his early bad manner he had been little more than a gambler of genius, his hand against every man's, an infant prodigy20 who brought to the enthralling21 pursuit of speculation22 a brain better endowed than any opposed to it. At St. Helena it was laid down that war is une belle23 occupation, and so the young Manderson had found the multitudinous and complicated dog-fight of the Stock Exchange of New York.
Then came his change. At his father's death, when Manderson was thirty years old, some new revelation of the power and the glory of the god he served seemed to have come upon him. With the sudden, elastic24 adaptability25 of his nation he turned to steady labor26 in his father's banking27 business, closing his ears to the sound of the battles of the Street. In a few years he came to control all the activity of the great firm whose unimpeached conservatism, safety and financial weight lifted it like a cliff above the angry sea of the markets. All mistrust founded on the performances of his youth had vanished. He was quite plainly a different man. How the change came about none could with authority say, but there was a story of certain last words spoken by his father, whom alone he had respected and perhaps loved.
He began to tower above the financial situation. Soon his name was current in the bourses of the world. One who spoke28 the name of Manderson called up a vision of all that was broad-based and firm in the vast wealth of the United States. He planned great combinations of capital, drew together and centralized industries of continental29 scope, financed with unerring judgment30 the large designs of state or of private enterprise. Many a time when he "took hold" to smash a strike, or to federate the ownership of some great field of labor, he sent ruin upon a multitude of tiny homes; and if miners or steel-workers or cattlemen defied him and invoked31 disorder32, he could be more lawless and ruthless than they. But this was done in the pursuit of legitimate33 business ends. Tens of thousands of the poor might curse his name, but the financier and the speculator execrated34 him no more. He stretched a hand to protect or to manipulate the power of wealth in every corner of the country. Forcible, cold and unerring, in all he did he ministered to the national lust35 for magnitude; and a grateful country surnamed him the Colossus.
But there was an aspect of Manderson in this later period that lay long unknown and unsuspected save by a few, his secretaries and lieutenants36 and certain of the associates of his bygone hurling37 time. This little circle knew that Manderson, the pillar of sound business and stability in the markets, had his hours of nostalgia38 for the lively times when the Street had trembled at his name. It was, said one of them, as if Blackbeard had settled down as a decent merchant in Bristol on the spoils of the Main. Now and then the pirate would glare suddenly out, the knife in his teeth and the sulphur matches sputtering39 in his hat-band. During such spasms40 of reversion to type a score of tempestuous41 raids upon the market had been planned on paper in the inner room of the offices of Manderson, Colefax and Company. But they were never carried out. Blackbeard would quell42 the mutiny of his old self within him and go soberly down to his counting-house—humming a stave or two of "Spanish Ladies," perhaps, under his breath. Manderson would allow himself the harmless satisfaction, as soon as the time for action had gone by, of pointing out to some Rupert of the markets how a coup43 worth a million to the depredator might have been made. "Seems to me," he would say almost wistfully, "the Street is getting to be a mighty44 dull place since I quit." By slow degrees this amiable45 weakness of the Colossus became known to the business world, which exulted46 greatly in the knowledge.
At the news of his death, panic went through the markets like a hurricane; for it came at a luckless time. Prices tottered47 and crashed like towers in an earthquake. For two days Wall Street was a clamorous48 inferno49 of pale despair. All over the United States, wherever speculation had its devotees, went a waft50 of ruin, a plague of suicide. In Europe also not a few took with their own hands lives that had become pitiably linked to the destiny of a financier whom most of them had never seen. In Paris a well-known banker walked quietly out of the Bourse and fell dead upon the broad steps among the raving51 crowd of Jews, a phial crushed in his hand. In Frankfort one leaped from the Cathedral top, leaving a redder stain where he struck the red tower. Men stabbed and shot and strangled themselves, drank death or breathed it as the air, because in a lonely corner of England the life had departed from one cold heart vowed52 to the service of greed.
The blow could not have fallen at a more disastrous53 moment. It came when Wall Street was in a condition of suppressed "scare." Suppressed: because for a week past the great interests known to act with or to be actually controlled by the Colossus had been desperately54 combating the effects of the sudden arrest of Lucas Hahn, and the exposure of his plundering55 of the Hahn banks. This bombshell, in its turn, had fallen at a time when the market had been "boosted" beyond its real strength. In the language of the place, a slump56 was due. Reports from the corn-lands had not been good, and there had been two or three railway statements which had been expected to be much better than they were. But at whatever point in the vast area of speculation the shudder5 of the threatened break had been felt, "the Manderson crowd" had stepped in and held the market up. All through the week the speculator's mind, as shallow as it is quick-witted, as sentimental57 as greedy, had seen in this the hand of the giant stretched out in protection from afar. Manderson, said the newspapers in chorus, was in hourly communication with his lieutenants in the Street. One journal was able to give, in round figures, the sum spent on cabling between New York and Marlstone in the past twenty-four hours; it told how a small staff of expert operators had been sent down by the Post Office authorities to Marlstone to deal with the flood of messages. Another revealed that Manderson, on the first news of the Hahn crash, had arranged to abandon his holiday and return home by the Lusitania; but that he soon had the situation so well in hand that he had determined58 to remain where he was.
All this was falsehood, more or less consciously elaborated by the "finance editors," consciously initiated59 and encouraged by the shrewd business men of the Manderson group, who knew that nothing could better help their plans than this illusion of hero-worship—knew also that no word had come from Manderson in answer to their messages, and that Howard B. Jeffrey, of Steel and Iron fame, was the true organizer of victory. So they fought down apprehension60 through four feverish61 days, and minds grew calmer. On Saturday, though the ground beneath the feet of Mr. Jeffrey yet rumbled62 now and then with Ætna-mutterings of disquiet63, he deemed his task almost done. The market was firm and slowly advancing. Wall Street turned to its sleep of Sunday, worn out but thankfully at peace.
In the first trading hour of Monday a hideous64 rumor65 flew round the sixty acres of the financial district. It came into being as the lightning comes, a blink that seems to begin nowhere; though it is to be suspected that it was first whispered over the telephone—together with an urgent selling order—by some employee in the cable service. In five minutes the dull noise of the curbstone market in Broad Street had leaped to a high note of frantic66 interrogation. From within the hive of the Exchange itself could be heard a droning hubbub67 of fear and men rushed hatless in and out. Was it true? asked every man; and every man replied, with trembling lips, that it was a lie put out by some unscrupulous "short" interest seeking to cover itself. In another quarter of an hour news came of a sudden and ruinous collapse68 of "Yankees" in London at the close of the Stock Exchange day. It was enough. New York had still four hours' trading in front of her. The strategy of pointing to Manderson as the savior and warden69 of the market had recoiled70 upon its authors with annihilating71 force, and Jeffrey, his ear at his private telephone, listened to the tale of disaster with a set jaw72. The new Napoleon had lost his Marengo. He saw the whole financial landscape sliding and falling into chaos73 before him. In half an hour the news of the finding of Manderson's body, with the inevitable74 rumor that it was suicide, was printing in a dozen newspaper offices; but before a copy reached Wall Street the tornado75 of the panic was in full fury, and Howard B. Jeffrey and his collaborators were whirled away like leaves before its breath.
All this sprang out of nothing.
Nothing in the texture76 of the general life had changed. The corn had not ceased to ripen77 in the sun. The rivers bore their barges78 and gave power to a myriad79 engines. The flocks fattened80 on the pastures, the herds81 were unnumbered. Men labored82 everywhere in the various servitudes to which they were born, and chafed83 not more than usual in their bonds. Bellona tossed and murmured as ever, yet still slept her uneasy sleep. To all mankind save a million or two of half-crazed gamblers, blind to all reality, the death of Manderson meant nothing; the life and work of the world went on. Weeks before he died strong hands had been in control of every wire in the huge network of commerce and industry that he had supervised. Before his corpse84 was buried his countrymen had made a strange discovery: that the existence of the potent85 engine of monopoly that went by the name of Sigsbee Manderson had not been a condition of even material prosperity. The panic blew itself out in two days, the pieces were picked up, the bankrupts withdrew out of sight; the market "recovered a normal tone."
While the brief delirium86 was yet subsiding87 there broke out a domestic scandal in England that suddenly fixed88 the attention of two continents. Next morning the Chicago Limited was wrecked89, and the same day a notable politician was shot down in cold blood by his wife's brother in the streets of New Orleans. Within a week of its arising "the Manderson story," to the trained sense of editors throughout the union, was "cold." The tide of American visitors pouring through Europe made eddies90 round the memorial or statue of many a man who had died in poverty; and never thought of their most famous plutocrat. Like the poet who died in Rome, so young and poor, a hundred years ago, he was buried far away from his own land; but for all the men and women of Manderson's people who flock round the tomb of Keats in the cemetery91 under the Monte Testaccio, there is not one, nor ever will be, to stand in reverence92 by the rich man's grave beside the little church of Marlstone.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
memorable
|
|
| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
reminder
|
|
| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
shuddered
|
|
| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
shudder
|
|
| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
lurid
|
|
| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
niche
|
|
| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
augment
|
|
| vt.(使)增大，增加，增长，扩张 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
toll
|
|
| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
guardian
|
|
| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
foe
|
|
| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
infest
|
|
| v.大批出没于；侵扰；寄生于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
accretion
|
|
| n.自然的增长，增加物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
margined
|
|
| [医]具边的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
plutocracy
|
|
| n.富豪统治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
nurture
|
|
| n.养育，照顾，教育；滋养，营养品；vt.养育，给与营养物，教养，扶持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
costliness
|
|
| 昂贵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
19
shriek
|
|
| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
prodigy
|
|
| n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
enthralling
|
|
| 迷人的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
speculation
|
|
| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
belle
|
|
| n.靓女 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
elastic
|
|
| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
adaptability
|
|
| n.适应性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
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： |
|
|
|
|
27
banking
|
|
| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
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： |
|
|
|
|
29
continental
|
|
| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
invoked
|
|
| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
disorder
|
|
| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
legitimate
|
|
| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
execrated
|
|
| v.憎恶( execrate的过去式和过去分词 )；厌恶；诅咒；咒骂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
lust
|
|
| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
lieutenants
|
|
| n.陆军中尉( lieutenant的名词复数 )；副职官员；空军；仅低于…官阶的官员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
hurling
|
|
| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
nostalgia
|
|
| n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
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： |
|
|
|
|
40
spasms
|
|
| n.痉挛( spasm的名词复数 )；抽搐；（能量、行为等的）突发；发作 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
tempestuous
|
|
| adj.狂暴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
quell
|
|
| v.压制，平息，减轻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
coup
|
|
| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
amiable
|
|
| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
exulted
|
|
| 狂喜，欢跃( exult的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
tottered
|
|
| v.走得或动得不稳( totter的过去式和过去分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
clamorous
|
|
| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
inferno
|
|
| n.火海；地狱般的场所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
waft
|
|
| v.飘浮，飘荡；n.一股；一阵微风；飘荡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
raving
|
|
| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
vowed
|
|
| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
disastrous
|
|
| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
desperately
|
|
| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
plundering
|
|
| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
slump
|
|
| n.暴跌，意气消沉，（土地）下沉；vi.猛然掉落，坍塌，大幅度下跌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
sentimental
|
|
| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
initiated
|
|
| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
apprehension
|
|
| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
feverish
|
|
| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
rumbled
|
|
| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
disquiet
|
|
| n.担心，焦虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
hideous
|
|
| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
rumor
|
|
| n.谣言，谣传，传说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
frantic
|
|
| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
hubbub
|
|
| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
collapse
|
|
| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
warden
|
|
| n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
recoiled
|
|
| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
annihilating
|
|
| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的现在分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
jaw
|
|
| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
chaos
|
|
| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
tornado
|
|
| n.飓风，龙卷风 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
texture
|
|
| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
ripen
|
|
| vt.使成熟；vi.成熟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
barges
|
|
| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
myriad
|
|
| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
fattened
|
|
| v.喂肥( fatten的过去式和过去分词 )；养肥（牲畜）；使（钱）增多；使（公司）升值 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
herds
|
|
| 兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
labored
|
|
| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
chafed
|
|
| v.擦热（尤指皮肤）( chafe的过去式 )；擦痛；发怒；惹怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
corpse
|
|
| n.尸体，死尸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
potent
|
|
| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
delirium
|
|
| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
subsiding
|
|
| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的现在分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
wrecked
|
|
| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
eddies
|
|
| （水、烟等的）漩涡，涡流( eddy的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
cemetery
|
|
| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
reverence
|
|
| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |