It was so still in the dim book-lined room that had the late Miss Lorburn reappeared upon the scene she might have mistaken for a kindred ghost the young man in possession of her library.
Vance, for the last few days, had been going over the books at the Willows1, wiping them with a soft towel and carefully putting one after another back in its proper place. Halo Spear, in one of her spasmodic bursts of energy, had swooped2 down from Eaglewood the first morning to show him how to do it; for in the reverent3 and orderly treatment of books (handling them, Mrs. Weston might have put it, as gingerly as if they were “the best china”!) Vance was totally untaught. Miss Spear, with those swift and confident hands of hers, had given him one of her hurried demonstrations4, accompanied by a running commentary of explanation. “Don’t SHAKE the books as if they were carpets, Vance; they’re not. At least they’re only magic carpets, some of them, to carry one to the other side of the moon. But they won’t stand banging and beating. You see, books have souls, like people: that is, like a few people. . . . No, I wouldn’t ask the Tracys to help; they don’t know much about books. You and I will manage it by ourselves. Look: wipe the edges gently, like this, and then flutter the pages ever so lightly — as if you were a bee trying to shake open a flower — just to get the dust out. . . . Ah, but how lovely this is! Listen:
“‘Ah, what avails the sceptred race,
And what the form divine?
What every virtue5, every grace?
Rose Aylmer, all were thine . . .’”
And then, in the midst of her dusting and reading (the former frequently interrupted by the latter), she had glanced abruptly6 at her wristwatch, exclaiming: “Oh, Lord, there’s Lewis waiting — I’d forgotten!” and had dashed out of the house, crying back advice, instructions and adieux.
Vance scarcely noticed her departure. It was exciting — almost too exciting — to have her there; but he did not want more excitement just then. What he wanted was in some way to be kept outside of time and space till his fury of intellectual hunger was, not indeed sated, but at least calmed. The mere7 sense of all those books about him, silent witnesses of an unknown and unsuspected past, was almost more agitating8 than he could bear. From every side their influences streamed toward him, drawing him this way and that as if he had been in the centre of a magnetic circle. To continue the work he was there to do soon became manifestly impossible. Why, even Miss Spear had broken off every few minutes to read and admire, often dropping the book in her hand while she darted9 on to another, oblivious10, in her hummingbird11 greed, of the principles of order she was inculcating. And yet to her these volumes, or the greater number of them, were old friends. She must long since have surmounted12 the shock of surprises with which Vance was tingling13; while to him nearly all the books were new and unknown, and the rest bore names just familiar enough to sharpen his hunger. How could he attempt to remember from which shelf he had taken one book or the other, once it had opened its golden vistas14 to him?
He did not try for long. He already had a fairly definite sense of values, and could not delude15 himself with the idea that dusting a dead woman’s books was, for him or anybody else, a more vital and necessary act than reading them. This was his chance, and he was going to take it.
If only he had known better how to! The pressure of this weight of wisdom on his ignorance was suffocating16: he felt like a girl Miss Spear had told him about, the girl who was so greedy for gold that she betrayed Rome, and the fellows she betrayed it to despised her so that they crushed her under their golden shields. These books were crushing Vance like that. If only there were some way of climbing the slippery trunk of the Tree which dangled17 its fruit so far above him!
He turned to the corner from which Miss Spear had taken the books, and his hand lit on a shabby volume: Specimens18 of English Dramatic Poets contemporary with Shakespeare. He settled himself in Miss Lorburn’s Gothic armchair and read:
“Is this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?”
My God! Who wrote it? Who could have? Not any of the big fellows he knew about . . . this was another note: he knew it instinctively19. And the man’s name? Marlowe . . . and he’d lived, why, ever so long ago, two or three hundred years before this old house of Miss Lorburn’s was built, or the funny old mouldy Half Hours book published — and the English language, in this Marlowe’s hands, was already a flower and a flame. . . . Vance rambled20 on from glory to glory, slowly, amazedly, and then, out of sheer gluttony, pushed the book under his chair, like a dog hiding a bone, and wandered back to the magic shelves for more.
“When she moves, you see
Like water from a crystal overflowed21,
Fresh beauty tremble out of her, and lave
Her fair sides to the ground . . .”
Vance dropped the little volume, and pressing his hands against his eyes let the frail22 music filter through him. This poetry had another quality of newness quite its own — something elusive23 as the shy beauty of a cold spring evening. Beddoes . . . that was the name. Another unknown! Was he a contemporary of those others, Marlowe and Ford24, who lived so long before the Willows was built, almost before the Hudson River had a name? Or was he not, rather with an exquisite25 new note, trying to lure26 back the earlier music? How could a boy from Euphoria hope to find his way through this boundless27 forest of English poetry, called hither and thither28 by all these wild-winged birds pouring down their music on him?
As he stood groping and gazing, in the litter and confusion of the ravaged29 shelves, his eyes fell on a title which seemed to hold out help. Half Hours with the Best Authors — stoutish30 volumes in worn black cloth, with queer pinnacled31 gilt32 lettering. Well, at least they would tell him who were supposed to be the best authors when the book was written — put him wise on that, anyhow. He reached for a volume, and settled himself down again.
The book was not, as Vance had expected, a series of “half hour” essays on the best authors. Charles Knight33 (that was the man’s name) had simply ranged through a library like Miss Lorburn’s, about eighty years ago, gathered this bloom and that, and bound them together with the fewest words. Vance, accustomed to short~cuts to culture, had expected an early version of the “five-foot shelf”; he found, instead, the leisurely34 selections of an anthologist to whom it had obviously not occurred that he might have readers too hurried to dwell on the more recondite35 beauties of English literature. The choice of the poetry did not greatly interest Vance, after Lamb’s Specimens and the Beddoes volume; but as his eye travelled on he found himself receiving for the first time — except when he had first read his Bible as literature — the mighty36 shock of English prose.
For the moment it affected37 him almost more powerfully than the poetry, such a sense it gave of endlessly subtle intricacies of rhythm and movement, such a great tidal pressure as he could feel only, and not define. “Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant38 nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible39 locks; methinks I see her as an eagle nursing her mighty youth, and kindling40 her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam; purging41 and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance . . . .” “The light of the world in the turning of the creation was spread abroad like a curtain, and dwelt nowhere, but filled the expansum with a dissemination42 great as the unfoldings of the air’s looser garment, or the wilder fringes of the fire, without knots, or order, or combination; but God gathered the beams in his hand, and united them into a globe of fire, and all the light of the world became the body of the sun.”
What a fellow could say, if he had the chance, and the habit of words and sentences like that!
Vance shut the volume and sat gazing ahead of him. The blood was beating in his temples. The walls of dark musty books seemed to sway and dissolve, letting him into that new world of theirs — a world of which he must somehow acquire the freedom. “I must find out — I must find out.” He repeated the words chantingly, unmeaningly, as if they had been an incantation. Then slowly his mind began to clear, to become again able to follow its own movements. What he needed, no doubt, to enter that world, was EDUCATION— the very thing he thought he already had!
It was not only the books into which he had been dipping that told him of his need. Every word, every allusion43 caught at the Eaglewood lunch table had opened new vistas of conjecture44. Of course each human agglomeration45, down to the smallest village, had its local idioms, its own range of allusions46, its stock of jokes and forms of irony47. At the Tracys’, for instance, you heard the Paul’s Landing vernacular48, as you heard that of Euphoria at Vance’s family table; but all that was different. Vance had known instantly that the language, the intonations49, the allusions of Eaglewood did not belong peculiarly to Paul’s Landing, were indeed hardly concerned with it, but embraced, though so lightly flitting, great areas extending not only to New York and beyond, but backward through this mysterious past which was so much newer to Vance than any present. These easy affable people could talk — did talk — about everything! Everything, that is, but the exclusively local matters which had formed the staple51 of the only conversation Vance had ever heard. What they talked of was simply ALL THE REST; and he could see that they did it without the least intention of showing-off, the least consciousness that their scope was wider than other people’s — did it naturally, carelessly, just as his mother talked about electric cookers, his father about local real estate, Mrs. Tracy about Laura Lou’s school picnics and Upton’s job at the nursery. The inference was, not that the Spears and their friends were an isolated52 group, parading their superior attainments54 before each other, but that they belonged to a class, a society, a type of people, who naturally breathed this larger air, possessed55 this privilege of moving freely backward and forward in time and space, and were so used to it all that they took the same faculty56 for granted in others — even in a boy like Vance Weston.
Well, there was no reason why a boy like Vance Weston shouldn’t, some day or other, acquire a like faculty. He had been brought up in the creed57 that there was nothing a fellow from Euphoria, the cradle of all the Advantages, couldn’t attain53 to. Only — how? It seemed to him that the gulf58 was untraversable. If only he could have been left alone in that library, left there for half a year, perhaps. . . . But even so, he felt that he needed some kind of tuition to prepare him for the library. The Past was too big, too complicated, too aloof59, to surrender its secrets so lightly.
College again? College meant to him sports and more sports, secret societies, class scraps60 and fraternity rushing, with restricted intervals61 of mechanical cramming62, and the glib63 unmeaning recital64 of formulas — his courses provided a formula for everything! But all that had nothing to do with all THIS . . . .
Besides, thinking about college was a waste of time. Even had he been willing to submit again to the same routine, he hadn’t the means to re-educate himself, and he could not ask his father to pay his expenses twice over. Mr. Weston, Vance knew, regarded him as an investment which ought already to be bringing in something. After the boy’s illness his father had recognized the necessity of his taking a holiday; and being a man who always did things handsomely when his doing so was visible to others, he had agreed, besides paying the trip to New York and back, and Vance’s board at the Tracys’, to allow him a hundred dollars a month for four months. Vance had received half the sum before starting, with a warning to be careful and not make a fool of himself; and his father’s gesture, which became generally known on Mapledale Avenue, was thought very liberal, and worthy65 of Lorin Weston.
But Vance, at the same time, was given to understand that as soon as his summer’s rest was over he was to “make good.” His father, having reluctantly come round to the idea of his going into journalism66 instead of real estate, had obtained the promise of a job for him on the Free Speaker, and was already swaggering at club meetings about the nuisance of having a literary fellow in the family. “Problem most of you fellows aren’t up against, I guess? Fact is, Mrs. Weston has a way-back culture complex in her family, and it’s a microbe you can’t seem to eradicate67.” This was all very well — and nobody liked swaggering better than the silent Lorin Weston; but Vance knew that he liked to have his swagger justified68 with the least possible delay.
The only hope lay in returning as often as he could to this silent room, and trying to hack69 a way through the dense70 jungle of the past. But he was not sure it would be possible. He was aware that Mrs. Tracy, though she made no comment, wondered at his meetings with Miss Spear at the Willows, and at the permission given him to range among the books. He had spent two whole days there since his lunch at Eaglewood, and on this second day no one had come down from the “big house,” as Mrs. Tracy called it, to let him in, and he had been obliged to go back to Paul’s Landing and ask her for the keys. “I don’t know as I ought to,” Mrs. Tracy had said as she handed them over; and then: “Oh, well, I suppose it’s all right if THEY say so.” She referred to the Spears as “they,” with a certain tartness71, since she had learned of Vance’s having lunched at Eaglewood. “Well, I never! Mebbe some time they’ll remember that Upton and Laura Lou are related to them too.” Vance felt that in asking for the keys he had vaguely72 offended her, and he was sorry; but he could not give up the books.
New York had completely vanished from his thoughts. He had the sense to understand that, to a boy like himself, New York could offer no opportunity comparable to this. He must learn something first — then try his luck there. When he had found himself, at the Eaglewood lunch table, seated next to the literary critic whose name, in his confusion, he had not caught, he had acted at once on the deep instinct which always made him seize on what was meant for his own nourishment73, in however new and unfamiliar74 surroundings. Here, at least, he said to himself, was an editor — a journalist! He had no idea if The Hour were a daily (as its name seemed to imply), or some kind of highbrow review (as he feared); but whatever it was, it might give him his chance — and here he was sitting next to the very man who had the power to open its columns to him.
But he found it less easy than he had imagined. The great man (whom they all addressed simply as “George” or “Frenny”) was evidently trying to be friendly, in his dry sardonic75 way; but he paid no heed76 to Mrs. Spear’s allusions to “our young poet,” and his remarks to Vance were merely perfunctory questions as to his life in the West, and his present sojourn77 at the Tracys’. Once indeed he asked, blinking absently at the boy through his glasses: “And what’s the next move to be?” but on Vance’s answering: “I want to get onto a newspaper,” his interest seemed to flag. “Oh, of course,” he merely said, as who should imply; “What’s the use of expecting anything different in a world of sameness?” and the blood which had rushed to Vance’s face ebbed78 back to his heart. A few hours earlier, as he talked of his poetry with Halo Spear by the mountain pool, everything had seemed possible; now he thought bitterly: “When it comes down to hardpan girls don’t know anything anyhow.” And it gave him a grim satisfaction to class his mountain nymph in the common category.
But when she reminded him of his promise to help her with the books his feeling veered79 to adoration80, and her appearance at the Willows, vivid and inspiring, instantly lifted him to the brow of Thundertop. “She carries that pool everywhere with her,” he thought, and was seized by the desire to embody81 the fancy in a new poem; and when she, broke off in her dusting and sorting to say: “I gave your poetry to George Frenside to read last night,” he was too much agitated82 to thank her, or to put a question. A moment later, she seemed to forget what she had said, carried away by a dip into Andrew Marvell (What — he didn’t know “The Coy Mistress”? Oh, but he must just listen to this!); and finally, after whirling him on from one book to another for an hour or so, she vanished as suddenly as she had come to join the mysterious “Lewis,” the fellow she was going to marry, Vance supposed.
She came back the next day, and the next. On the fourth she promised to leave her keys with him and to meet him again at the Willows the next morning; but she carried the keys off with her, and he had to get the hired man, who scrutinized83 him sulkily, to lock up. And the fifth day there had been no sign of her . . . and now twilight84 would soon be falling, and it was time to go.
Show his poetry to George Frenside (if that was the man’s name)? Much chance he’d ever hear of that again . . . likely as not she’d never even done it; just meant to, and forgotten. For if she had, wouldn’t she have had something to report — even if unfavourable? It wasn’t likely she’d stick at telling him a few more home truths, after the stiff dose she’d already administered! Perhaps on second thoughts she’d decided85 the stuff wasn’t worth showing. And yet, hadn’t she told him in so many words that she HAD shown it? No, what she had said, literally86, was: “I gave Frenside your poetry to read.” Well, the great critic probably hadn’t taken advantage of his opportunity — perhaps she’d put him off in advance with her comments. “Urge” not a noun! And that nonsense about “dawn” and “lorn” not being good rhymes! God, to see a tone-deaf woman laying down the law — and all Eaglewood kowtowing! Well, he had to laugh at the thought of those stuffed oracles87 sitting up there and telling each other what was what. . . . What the hell’d he care for their opinion, anyhow — of his poetry, or of himself? Lot of self-opiniated amateurs . . . he had to laugh. . . . Well, he’d go to New York the next day, and look round on his own, and see what the professionals thought about him. . . . After all, he could describe himself as being on the staff of the Free Speaker.
Suddenly a shadow cut off the western sunlight slanting88 on his book, and he saw one of the young men from Eaglewood leaning on the window and looking in at him — not the fair dissatisfied-looking one they called “Lewis,” but the other: Halo’s brother Lorburn. Lorburn Spear put his hand on the sill, said “Hullo — still at it?” and vaulted89 into the room. In the middle of the floor he paused, his hands in his pockets, and gazed about with an amused smile and ironically lifted brows. He was slim and dark, like Halo, with the same carefully drawn90 features as his father, but more height and less majesty91 than Mr. Spear. An easy accessible sort of fellow; a fellow Vance felt he could have taken a liking92 to if only — if what? Perhaps it was that his eyes were too close together. Grandma Scrimser always used to say: “Don’t you ever trust a man whose eyes are near enough to be always whispering to each other.” And then she went and trusted everybody — even Grandpa! Fact was, Grandma liked axioms the way you like olives; it never occurred to her they were meant for anything but to roll under your tongue . . . .
“Well,” said Lorry Spear pleasantly, “this is luck, finding you still in the mausoleum. I suppose Halo set you the job and then chucked you? Thought so. She promised to pick me up by and by, but will she? Have you made any amusing finds? Cigarette? No?” He drew out his own, lit one, and dropped into the chair nearest Vance’s. “There ought to be things here, you know,” he went on sending his eyes sharply about him while his attention still seemed to be centred on Vance.
“Things?” Vance echoed excitedly: “I should say so! See here — do you know this?” He pushed across the table the volume of Half Hours, open at Beddoes. Lorry Spear stared, took the book up, glanced at the title page and threw it down. “Well — I don’t believe there’d be any bids for that unless it took the ragpicker’s fancy.”
“The ragpicker —?”
The young men stared at each other, and Lorry laughed.
“Oh, I see: you’re a reader. Halo told me. It’s a conceivable branch of the business, of course.”
“Business —?”
“Business of book-collecting. That’s what books are for, isn’t it? Even people who read ’em have to collect them. But personally I’ve never thought they were meant to be read. You can get all the talk you want — and too much — from live people; I never could see the point of dragging in the dead. The beauty of books is their makeup93: like a woman’s. What’s a woman without clothes and paint? Next to nothing, believe me, after you’ve worn off the first surprise. . . . And a book without the right paper, the right type, the right binding94, the right date on the title page; well, it’s a blank to me, that’s all.” He got up again, cigarette in hand, and lounged across the room. “Don’t suppose there’s much here, anyhow. I’ve always meant to take a look, and never had time. . . . There might be some Americana — never can tell. The best thing about these ancestors was that they never threw anything away. Didn’t value things; didn’t know about them; but just hung on to them. I shouldn’t wonder — Oh, see here! HULLO!” He stretched his long arm toward an upper shelf, reached down a volume, and stood absorbed.
Vance watched him curiously95. He had never seen anyone so easy, self-assured, and yet careless as this brother of Miss Spear’s. “Thought you didn’t care about reading,” he remarked at length, amused at his visitor’s absorption. Young Spear gave a start, and laid the book down. “Oh, I was turning out paradoxes96 — they madden my family, but amuse me. Trouble about reading at Eaglewood is that whatever you get hold of everybody’s been there before you. No discoveries to be made. But YOU don’t read, do you — you write? You’ll find nobody can do both. What’s your line? Poetry?”
Vance was trembling with excitement, as he always did when anyone touched on his vocation97. But his recent experiences had caused a sort of protective skin to grow over his secret sensibilities — or was it that really the eyes of this good-looking young man were too close together? Vance could imagine having all kinds of a good time with him, but not talking to him of anything that lay under that skin. “Oh, I guess there’ll be time for me to choose a line later,” he said. “I’m in the reading stage still. And this old house interests me. Where I come from everything’s bran’ new — houses and books and everything. We throw ’em out when they get shabby. And I like looking at all these things that folks have kept right along — hung onto, as you say.”
Lorburn Spear looked at him with interest, with sympathy even, Vance thought. For a second his smile had the fugitive98 radiance of his sister’s. “Why, yes, I see your point: what you might call the novelty of permanence. And this place certainly has character, though old Tom Lorburn is too stupid to see it. And our Cousin Elinor had character too! Good head, eh?” He glanced up at the portrait, still with that odd air of keeping hold of Vance while he looked away from him. “You know she did a good deal to the house when she inherited it. This room expresses one side of her; her maturity99, her acceptance. But when she did the drawing rooms she was frivolous100, she still dreamed of dancing — she’d read Byron on the waltz, poor girl! What an appetizer101 it must have been to those women to have so many things forbidden! Seen the rest of the rooms? No? Oh, but they’re worth it. Come along before it gets too dark.”
Gaily102, with his long free step, he led the way across the patterned parquet103, and Vance followed, captivated by the image of a young Miss Lorburn who still dreamed of dancing, and to whom so many things were sweet because forbidden. “Yet she ended in her library . . . .” he thought.
Lorry Spear was a stimulating104 guide. His quick touches woke the dumb rooms to life, lit the dusky wax candles in chandeliers and wall brackets, drew a Weber waltz from the slumbering105 piano, peopled the floor with gaily circling couples, even made Vance see the dotted muslins and billowy tarlatans looped with camellias of the young women with their ringlets and sandalled feet. He found the cleverest words, made it all visible and almost tangible106, knew even what flowers there would have been in the ornate porcelain107 vases: mignonette and pinks, with heavy pink roses, he decided: “Yes — I ought to have been a theatrical108 decorator; would be, if only the boss would put up the cash. But to do that they’d have to sell Eaglewood — or marry Halo to a millionaire,” he added with an impatient laugh.
Upstairs he took Vance over the funny bedrooms, so big and high~ceilinged, with beds of mahogany or rosewood, and the lace-looped toilet tables (like the ladies’ ball-dresses) with gilt mirror frames peeping through the festoons, and big marble-topped washstands that carried carafes109 and goblets110 of cut glass, porcelain basins and ewers111 with flower garlands. In one of the dressing112 rooms (Miss Lorburn’s) there was a specially113 ornate toilet set, with a ewer50 in the shape of a swan with curving throat and flattened114 wings, and a basin like a nest of rushes. “Poor Elinor — I supposed she dreamed of a Lohengrin before the letter, and hoped to find a baby in the bulrushes,” Lorry commented; and Vance, understanding the allusions, felt a pang115 of sympathy for the lonely woman. At the end of the passage, in one of the freakish towers, was a circular room with blue brocade curtains and tufted furniture, the walls hung with large coloured lithographs116 of peasant girls dancing to tambourines117, and young fellows in breeches and velvet118 jackets who drove oxcarts laden119 with ripe grapes. “The Italy of her day,” Lorry smiled. “She must have done this boudoir in the Lohengrin stage. And she ended in spectacles, cold and immaculate, reading Coleridge all alone. Brr!” He broke off, and turned to the window. “Hullo! Isn’t that Halo?”
The hoarse120 bark of the Eaglewood motor sounded at the gate. “Come along down,” Lorry continued. “You’d better take advantage of the lift home. Besides, it’s too dark to do much more here.”
They started down the stairs, but in the hall Vance hesitated. “I’ve left the books piled up anyhow. Guess I’d better go back and put them on the shelves.” He realized suddenly that for the last two days he had done neither dusting nor sorting, and wondered what Miss Spear would say if she saw the havoc121 he had created.
“Not on your life!” Lorry enjoined122 him. “You could hardly see a yard before your nose in the library by this time, and lighting123 up is strictly124 forbidden. Might set the old place on fire. If it was mine I’d do it, and collect the insurance; but old Tom don’t need to, curse him.” He stopped short, and clapped his hand on his waistcoat pocket. “I must have left my cigarette case in there. Yes, I remember. You wait here — ”
He spun125 down the polished floor of the drawing-rooms and disappeared. Vance waited impatiently. Although the June sky outside was still full of daylight it was dark already in the hall with its sombre panelling and heavy oak stairs. Now and then he heard the croak126 of the Eaglewood motor and he wondered how much longer Miss Spear would deign127 to wait. Between the motor calls the silence was oppressive. What could young Spear have done with his cigarette case? Once Vance thought he heard the banging of a window in the distance. Could it be that he had forgotten to close the windows in the library? But he was sure he had not; and the sound took on the ghostly resonance128 of unexplained noises. Perhaps that silly Laura Lou was right to be scared — as dusk fell it became easier to believe that the Willows might be haunted. Vance started back across the echoing parquet to the library; but halfway129 he met Lorry returning.
“Couldn’t find the damn thing,” he grumbled130. “Got the keys, eh?” Vance said he had, and they moved toward the door. On the threshold Lorry paused, and turned to him again with Halo’s smile. “You haven’t got ten dollars you don’t know what to do with? Like a fool I let Lewis and Frenside keep me up half the night playing poker131. . . . Well, that’s white of you. Thanks. Settle next week. And don’t mention it to Halo, will you? The old people are down on poker . . . and on everything else I want to do.” Vance turned the key in the front door, and the two walked through the long grass to the gate.
Vance felt grown-up and important. It put him at his ease with Lorry’s sister to have a secret between men to keep from her.
收听单词发音 |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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swooped
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| 俯冲，猛冲( swoop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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agitating
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| 搅动( agitate的现在分词 )； 激怒； 使焦虑不安； （尤指为法律、社会状况的改变而）激烈争论 | |
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darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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oblivious
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| adj.易忘的，遗忘的，忘却的，健忘的 | |
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hummingbird
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| n.蜂鸟 | |
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surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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vistas
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| 长条形景色( vista的名词复数 )； 回顾； 展望； （未来可能发生的）一系列情景 | |
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delude
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| vt.欺骗；哄骗 | |
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suffocating
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| a.使人窒息的 | |
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17
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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18
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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19
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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20
rambled
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的过去式和过去分词 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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21
overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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22
frail
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| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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24
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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27
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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28
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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29
ravaged
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| 毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
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30
stoutish
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| 略胖的 | |
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31
pinnacled
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| 小尖塔般耸立的，顶处的 | |
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32
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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33
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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34
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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35
recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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36
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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37
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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38
puissant
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| adj.强有力的 | |
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39
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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40
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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41
purging
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| 清洗； 清除； 净化； 洗炉 | |
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42
dissemination
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| 传播,宣传,传染(病毒) | |
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43
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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44
conjecture
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| n./v.推测，猜测 | |
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45
agglomeration
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| n.结聚，一堆 | |
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46
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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47
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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48
vernacular
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| adj.地方的，用地方语写成的；n.白话；行话；本国语；动植物的俗名 | |
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49
intonations
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| n.语调，说话的抑扬顿挫( intonation的名词复数 )；（演奏或唱歌中的）音准 | |
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50
ewer
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| n.大口水罐 | |
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51
staple
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| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
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52
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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53
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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54
attainments
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| 成就，造诣； 获得( attainment的名词复数 )； 达到； 造诣； 成就 | |
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55
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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56
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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57
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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58
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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59
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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60
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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61
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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62
cramming
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| n.塞满，填鸭式的用功v.塞入( cram的现在分词 )；填塞；塞满；（为考试而）死记硬背功课 | |
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63
glib
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| adj.圆滑的，油嘴滑舌的 | |
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64
recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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65
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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66
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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67
eradicate
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| v.根除，消灭，杜绝 | |
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68
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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69
hack
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| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
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70
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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71
tartness
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| n.酸，锋利 | |
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72
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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73
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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74
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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75
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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76
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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77
sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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78
ebbed
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的过去式和过去分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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79
veered
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| v.（尤指交通工具）改变方向或路线( veer的过去式和过去分词 )；（指谈话内容、人的行为或观点）突然改变；（指风） （在北半球按顺时针方向、在南半球按逆时针方向）逐渐转向；风向顺时针转 | |
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80
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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81
embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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82
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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83
scrutinized
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| v.仔细检查，详审( scrutinize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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84
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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85
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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86
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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87
oracles
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| 神示所( oracle的名词复数 )； 神谕； 圣贤； 哲人 | |
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88
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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89
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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90
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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91
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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92
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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93
makeup
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| n.组织；性格；化装品 | |
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94
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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95
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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96
paradoxes
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| n.似非而是的隽语，看似矛盾而实际却可能正确的说法( paradox的名词复数 )；用于语言文学中的上述隽语；有矛盾特点的人[事物，情况] | |
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97
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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98
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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99
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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100
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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101
appetizer
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| n.小吃，开胃品 | |
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102
gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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103
parquet
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| n.镶木地板 | |
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104
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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105
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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106
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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107
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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108
theatrical
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| adj.剧场的，演戏的；做戏似的，做作的 | |
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109
carafes
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| n.玻璃水瓶（或酒瓶）( carafe的名词复数 ) | |
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110
goblets
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| n.高脚酒杯( goblet的名词复数 ) | |
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111
ewers
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| n.大口水壶，水罐( ewer的名词复数 ) | |
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112
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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113
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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114
flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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115
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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116
lithographs
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| n.平版印刷品( lithograph的名词复数 ) | |
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117
tambourines
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| n.铃鼓，手鼓( tambourine的名词复数 )；（鸣声似铃鼓的）白胸森鸠 | |
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118
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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119
laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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120
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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121
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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122
enjoined
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| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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123
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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124
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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125
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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126
croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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127
deign
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| v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
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128
resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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129
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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130
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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131
poker
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| n.扑克；vt.烙制 | |
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