She had gone down to Liverpool, intending to persuade her father to leave the control of the works to Arthur, and to come and live with her in London; but had left without broaching2 the subject. There were nights when she would trapse the streets till she would almost fall exhausted3, rather than face the solitude4 awaiting her in her own rooms. But so also there were moods when, like some stricken animal, her instinct was to shun5 all living things. At such times his presence, for all his loving patience, would have been as a knife in her wound. Besides, he would always be there, when escape from herself for a while became an absolute necessity. More and more she had come to regard him as her comforter. Not from anything he ever said or did. Rather, it seemed to her, because that with him she felt no need of words.
The works, since Arthur had shared the management, had gradually been regaining6 their position; and he had urged her to let him increase her allowance.
“It will give you greater freedom,” he had suggested with fine assumption of propounding7 a mere8 business proposition; “enabling you to choose your work entirely9 for its own sake. I have always wanted to take a hand in helping10 things on. It will come to just the same, your doing it for me.”
She had suppressed a smile, and had accepted. “Thanks, Dad,” she had answered. “It will be nice, having you as my backer.”
Her admiration11 of the independent woman had undergone some modification12 since she had come in contact with her. Woman was intended to be dependent upon man. It was the part appointed to him in the social scheme. Woman had hers, no less important. Earning her own living did not improve her. It was one of the drawbacks of civilization that so many had to do it of necessity. It developed her on the wrong lines—against her nature. This cry of the unsexed: that woman must always be the paid servant instead of the helper of man—paid for being mother, paid for being wife! Why not carry it to its logical conclusion, and insist that she should be paid for her embraces? That she should share in man’s labour, in his hopes, that was the true comradeship. What mattered it, who held the purse-strings!
Her room was always kept ready for her. Often she would lie there, watching the moonlight creep across the floor; and a curious feeling would come to her of being something wandering, incomplete. She would see as through a mist the passionate14, restless child with the rebellious15 eyes to whom the room had once belonged; and later the strangely self-possessed girl with that impalpable veil of mystery around her who would stand with folded hands, there by the window, seeming always to be listening. And she, too, had passed away. The tears would come into her eyes, and she would stretch out yearning16 arms towards their shadowy forms. But they would only turn upon her eyes that saw not, and would fade away.
In the day-time, when Arthur and her father were at the works, she would move through the high, square, stiffly-furnished rooms, or about the great formal garden, with its ordered walks and level lawns. And as with knowledge we come to love some old, stern face our childish eyes had thought forbidding, and would not have it changed, there came to her with the years a growing fondness for the old, plain brick-built house. Generations of Allways had lived and died there: men and women somewhat narrow, unsympathetic, a little hard of understanding; but at least earnest, sincere, seeking to do their duty in their solid, unimaginative way. Perhaps there were other ways besides those of speech and pen. Perhaps one did better, keeping to one’s own people; the very qualities that separated us from them being intended for their need. What mattered the colours, so that one followed the flag? Somewhere, all roads would meet.
Arthur had to be in London generally once or twice a month, and it came to be accepted that he should always call upon her and “take her out.” She had lost the self-sufficiency that had made roaming about London by herself a pleasurable adventure; and a newly-born fear of what people were saying and thinking about her made her shy even of the few friends she still clung to, so that his visits grew to be of the nature of childish treats to which she found herself looking forward—counting the days. Also, she came to be dependent upon him for the keeping alight within her of that little kindly18 fire of self-conceit at which we warm our hands in wintry days. It is not good that a young woman should remain for long a stranger to her mirror—above her frocks, indifferent to the angle of her hat. She had met the women superior to feminine vanities. Handsome enough, some of them must once have been; now sunk in slovenliness19, uncleanliness, in disrespect to womanhood. It would not be fair to him. The worshipper has his rights. The goddess must remember always that she is a goddess—must pull herself together and behave as such, appearing upon her pedestal becomingly attired20; seeing to it that in all things she is at her best; not allowing private grief to render her neglectful of this duty.
She had not told him of the Phillips episode. But she felt instinctively21 that he knew. It was always a little mysterious to her, his perception in matters pertaining22 to herself.
“I want your love,” she said to him one day. “It helps me. I used to think it was selfish of me to take it, knowing I could never return it—not that love. But I no longer feel that now. Your love seems to me a fountain from which I can drink without hurting you.”
“I should love to be with you always,” he answered, “if you wished it. You won’t forget your promise?”
She remembered it then. “No,” she answered with a smile. “I shall keep watch. Perhaps I shall be worthy23 of it by that time.”
She had lost her faith in journalism24 as a drum for the rousing of the people against wrong. Its beat had led too often to the trickster’s booth, to the cheap-jack’s rostrum. It had lost its rallying power. The popular Press had made the newspaper a byword for falsehood. Even its supporters, while reading it because it pandered25 to their passions, tickled26 their vices27, and flattered their ignorance, despised and disbelieved it. Here and there, an honest journal advocated a reform, pleaded for the sweeping28 away of an injustice29. The public shrugged31 its shoulders. Another newspaper stunt32! A bid for popularity, for notoriety: with its consequent financial kudos33.
She still continued to write for Greyson, but felt she was labouring for the doomed34. Lord Sutcliffe had died suddenly and his holding in the Evening Gazette had passed to his nephew, a gentleman more interested in big game shooting than in politics. Greyson’s support of Phillips had brought him within the net of Carleton’s operations, and negotiations35 for purchase had already been commenced. She knew that, sooner or later, Greyson would be offered the alternative of either changing his opinions or of going. And she knew that he would go. Her work for Mrs. Denton was less likely to be interfered36 with. It appealed only to the few, and aimed at informing and explaining rather than directly converting. Useful enough work in its way, no doubt; but to put heart into it seemed to require longer views than is given to the eyes of youth.
Besides, her pen was no longer able to absorb her attention, to keep her mind from wandering. The solitude of her desk gave her the feeling of a prison. Her body made perpetual claims upon her, as though it were some restless, fretful child, dragging her out into the streets without knowing where it wanted to go, discontented with everything it did: then hurrying her back to fling itself upon a chair, weary, but still dissatisfied.
If only she could do something. She was sick of thinking.
These physical activities into which women were throwing themselves! Where one used one’s body as well as one’s brain—hastened to appointments; gathered round noisy tables; met fellow human beings, argued with them, walked with them, laughing and talking; forced one’s way through crowds; cheered, shouted; stood up on platforms before a sea of faces; roused applause, filling and emptying one’s lungs; met interruptions with swift flash of wit or anger, faced opposition37, danger—felt one’s blood surging through one’s veins38, felt one’s nerves quivering with excitement; felt the delirious39 thrill of passion; felt the mad joy of the loosened animal.
She threw herself into the suffrage40 movement. It satisfied her for a while. She had the rare gift of public speaking, and enjoyed her triumphs. She was temperate41, reasonable; persuasive42 rather than aggressive; feeling her audience as she went, never losing touch with them. She had the magnetism43 that comes of sympathy. Medical students who came intending to tell her to go home and mind the baby, remained to wonder if man really was the undoubted sovereign of the world, born to look upon woman as his willing subject; to wonder whether under some unwritten whispered law it might not be the other way about. Perhaps she had the right—with or without the baby—to move about the kingdom, express her wishes for its care and management. Possibly his doubts may not have been brought about solely44 by the force and logic13 of her arguments. Possibly the voice of Nature is not altogether out of place in discussions upon Humanity’s affairs.
She wanted votes for women. But she wanted them clean—won without dishonour45. These “monkey tricks”—this apish fury and impatience46! Suppose it did hasten by a few months, more or less, the coming of the inevitable47. Suppose, by unlawful methods, one could succeed in dragging a reform a little prematurely48 from the womb of time, did not one endanger the child’s health? Of what value was woman’s influence on public affairs going to be, if she was to boast that she had won the right to exercise it by unscrupulousness and brutality49?
They were to be found at every corner: the reformers who could not reform themselves. The believers in universal brotherhood50 who hated half the people. The denouncers of tyranny demanding lamp-posts for their opponents. The bloodthirsty preachers of peace. The moralists who had persuaded themselves that every wrong was justified51 provided one were fighting for the right. The deaf shouters for justice. The excellent intentioned men and women labouring for reforms that could only be hoped for when greed and prejudice had yielded place to reason, and who sought to bring about their ends by appeals to passion and self-interest.
And the insincere, the self-seekers, the self-advertisers! Those who were in the business for even coarser profit! The lime-light lovers who would always say and do the clever, the unexpected thing rather than the useful and the helpful thing: to whom paradox52 was more than principle.
Ought there not to be a school for reformers, a training college where could be inculcated self-examination, patience, temperance, subordination to duty; with lectures on the fundamental laws, within which all progress must be accomplished53, outside which lay confusion and explosions; with lectures on history, showing how improvements had been brought about and how failure had been invited, thus avoiding much waste of reforming zeal54; with lectures on the properties and tendencies of human nature, forbidding the attempt to treat it as a sum in rule of three?
There were the others. The men and women not in the lime-light. The lone55, scattered57 men and women who saw no flag but Pity’s ragged58 skirt; who heard no drum but the world’s low cry of pain; who fought with feeble hands against the wrong around them; who with aching heart and troubled eyes laboured to make kinder the little space about them. The great army of the nameless reformers uncheered, unparagraphed, unhonoured. The unknown sowers of the seed. Would the reapers59 of the harvest remember them?
Beyond giving up her visits to the house, she had made no attempt to avoid meeting Phillips; and at public functions and at mutual60 friends they sometimes found themselves near to one another. It surprised her that she could see him, talk to him, and even be alone with him without its troubling her. He seemed to belong to a part of her that lay dead and buried—something belonging to her that she had thrust away with her own hands: that she knew would never come back to her.
She was still interested in his work and keen to help him. It was going to be a stiff fight. He himself, in spite of Carleton’s opposition, had been returned with an increased majority; but the Party as a whole had suffered loss, especially in the counties. The struggle centred round the agricultural labourer. If he could be won over the Government would go ahead with Phillips’s scheme. Otherwise there was danger of its being shelved. The difficulty was the old problem of how to get at the men of the scattered villages, the lonely cottages. The only papers that they ever saw were those, chiefly of the Carleton group, that the farmers and the gentry62 took care should come within their reach; that were handed to them at the end of their day’s work as a kindly gift; given to the school children to take home with them; supplied in ample numbers to all the little inns and public-houses. In all these, Phillips was held up as their arch enemy, his proposal explained as a device to lower their wages, decrease their chances of employment, and rob them of the produce of their gardens and allotments. No arguments were used. A daily stream of abuse, misrepresentation and deliberate lies, set forth63 under flaming headlines, served their simple purpose. The one weekly paper that had got itself established among them, that their fathers had always taken, that dimly they had come to look upon as their one friend, Carleton had at last succeeded in purchasing. When that, too, pictured Phillips’s plan as a diabolical64 intent to take from them even the little that they had, and give it to the loafing socialist65 and the bloated foreigner, no room for doubt was left to them.
He had organized volunteer cycle companies of speakers from the towns, young working-men and women and students, to go out on summer evenings and hold meetings on the village greens. They were winning their way. But it was slow work. And Carleton was countering their efforts by a hired opposition that followed them from place to place, and whose interruptions were made use of to represent the whole campaign as a fiasco.
“He’s clever,” laughed Phillips. “I’d enjoy the fight, if I’d only myself to think of, and life wasn’t so short.”
The laugh died away and a shadow fell upon his face.
“If I could get a few of the big landlords to come in on my side,” he continued, “it would make all the difference in the world. They’re sensible men, some of them; and the whole thing could be carried out without injury to any legitimate66 interest. I could make them see that, if I could only get them quietly into a corner.”
“But they’re frightened of me,” he added, with a shrug30 of his broad shoulders, “and I don’t seem to know how to tackle them.”
Those drawing-rooms? Might not something of the sort be possible? Not, perhaps, the sumptuous67 salon68 of her imagination, thronged69 with the fair and famous, suitably attired. Something, perhaps, more homely70, more immediately attainable71. Some of the women dressed, perhaps, a little dowdily72; not all of them young and beautiful. The men wise, perhaps, rather than persistently73 witty74; a few of them prosy, maybe a trifle ponderous75; but solid and influential76. Mrs. Denton’s great empty house in Gower Street? A central situation and near to the tube. Lords and ladies had once ruffled77 there; trod a measure on its spacious78 floors; filled its echoing stone hall with their greetings and their partings. The gaping79 sconces, where their link-boys had extinguished their torches, still capped its grim iron railings.
Seated in the great, sombre library, Joan hazarded the suggestion. Mrs. Denton might almost have been waiting for it. It would be quite easy. A little opening of long fastened windows; a lighting80 of chill grates; a little mending of moth-eaten curtains, a sweeping away of long-gathered dust and cobwebs.
Mrs. Denton knew just the right people. They might be induced to bring their sons and daughters—it might be their grandchildren, youth being there to welcome them. For Joan, of course, would play her part.
The lonely woman touched her lightly on the hand. There shot a pleading look from the old stern eyes.
“You will have to imagine yourself my daughter,” she said. “You are taller, but the colouring was the same. You won’t mind, will you?”
The right people did come: Mrs. Denton being a personage that a landed gentry, rendered jumpy by the perpetual explosion of new ideas under their very feet, and casting about eagerly for friends, could not afford to snub. A kindly, simple folk, quite intelligent, some of them, as Phillips had surmised81. Mrs. Denton made no mystery of why she had invited them. Why should all questions be left to the politicians and the journalists? Why should not the people interested take a hand; meet and talk over these little matters with quiet voices and attentive82 ears, amid surroundings where the unwritten law would restrain ladies and gentlemen from addressing other ladies and gentlemen as blood-suckers or anarchists83, as grinders of the faces of the poor or as oily-tongued rogues84; arguments not really conducive85 to mutual understanding and the bridging over of differences. The latest Russian dancer, the last new musical revue, the marvellous things that can happen at golf, the curious hands that one picks up at bridge, the eternal fox, the sacred bird! Excellent material for nine-tenths of our conversation. But the remaining tenth? Would it be such excruciatingly bad form for us to be intelligent, occasionally; say, on one or two Fridays during the season? Mrs. Denton wrapped it up tactfully; but that was her daring suggestion.
It took them aback at first. There were people who did this sort of thing. People of no class, who called themselves names and took up things. But for people of social standing17 to talk about serious subjects—except, perhaps, in bed to one’s wife! It sounded so un-English.
With the elders it was sense of duty that prevailed. That, at all events, was English. The country must be saved. To their sons and daughters it was the originality86, the novelty that gradually appealed. Mrs. Denton’s Fridays became a new sensation. It came to be the chic87 and proper thing to appear at them in shades of mauve or purple. A pushing little woman in Hanover Street designed the “Denton” bodice, with hanging sleeves and square-cut neck. The younger men inclined towards a coat shaped to the waist with a roll collar.
Joan sighed. It looked as if the word had been passed round to treat the whole thing as a joke. Mrs. Denton took a different view.
“Nothing better could have happened,” she was of opinion. “It means that their hearts are in it.”
The stone hall was still vibrating to the voices of the last departed guests. Joan was seated on a footstool before the fire in front of Mrs. Denton’s chair.
“It’s the thing that gives me greatest hope,” she continued. “The childishness of men and women. It means that the world is still young, still teachable.”
“But they’re so slow at their lessons,” grumbled88 Joan. “One repeats it and repeats it; and then, when one feels that surely now at least one has drummed it into their heads, one finds they have forgotten all that one has ever said.”
“Not always forgotten,” answered Mrs. Denton; “mislaid, it may be, for the moment. An Indian student, the son of an old Rajah, called on me a little while ago. He was going back to organize a system of education among his people. ‘My father heard you speak when you were over in India,’ he told me. ‘He has always been thinking about it.’ Thirty years ago it must have been, that I undertook that mission to India. I had always looked back upon it as one of my many failures.”
“But why leave it to his son,” argued Joan. “Why couldn’t the old man have set about it himself, instead of wasting thirty precious years?”
“I should have preferred it, myself,” agreed Mrs. Denton. “I remember when I was a very little girl my mother longing61 for a tree upon the lawn underneath89 which she could sit. I found an acorn90 and planted it just in the right spot. I thought I would surprise her. I happened to be in the neighbourhood last summer, and I walked over. There was such a nice old lady sitting under it, knitting stockings. So you see it wasn’t wasted.”
“I wouldn’t mind the waiting,” answered Joan, “if it were not for the sorrow and the suffering that I see all round me. I want to get rid of it right away, now. I could be patient for myself, but not for others.”
The little old lady straightened herself. There came a hardening of the thin, firm mouth.
“And those that have gone before?” she demanded. “Those that have won the ground from where we are fighting. Had they no need of patience? Was the cry never wrung91 from their lips: ‘How long, oh Lord, how long?’ Is it for us to lay aside the sword that they bequeath us because we cannot hope any more than they to see the far-off victory? Fifty years I have fought, and what, a few years hence, will my closing eyes still see but the banners of the foe92 still waving, fresh armies pouring to his standard?”
She flung back her head and the grim mouth broke into a smile.
“But I’ve won,” she said. “I’m dying further forward. I’ve helped advance the line.”
She put out her hands and drew Joan to her.
“Let me think of you,” she said, “as taking my place, pushing the outposts a little further on.”
Joan did not meet Hilda again till the child had grown into a woman—practically speaking. She had always been years older than her age. It was at a reception given in the Foreign Office. Joan’s dress had been trodden on and torn. She had struggled out of the crowd into an empty room, and was examining the damage somewhat ruefully, when she heard a voice behind her, proffering93 help. It was a hard, cold voice, that yet sounded familiar, and she turned.
There was no forgetting those deep, burning eyes, though the face had changed. The thin red lips still remained its one touch of colour; but the unhealthy whiteness of the skin had given place to a delicate pallor; and the features that had been indistinct had shaped themselves in fine, firm lines. It was a beautiful, arresting face, marred94 only by the sullen95 callousness96 of the dark, clouded eyes.
Joan was glad of the assistance. Hilda produced pins.
“I always come prepared to these scrimmages,” she explained. “I’ve got some Hazeline in my bag. They haven’t kicked you, have they?”
“No,” laughed Joan. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“They do sometimes,” answered Hilda, “if you happen to be in the way, near the feeding troughs. If they’d only put all the refreshments97 into one room, one could avoid it. But they will scatter56 them about so that one never knows for certain whether one is in the danger zone or not. I hate a mob.”
“Why do you come?” asked Joan.
“Oh, I!” answered the girl. “I go everywhere where there’s a chance of picking up a swell98 husband. They’ve got to come to these shows, they can’t help themselves. One never knows what incident may give one one’s opportunity.”
Joan shot a glance. The girl was evidently serious.
“You think it would prove a useful alliance?” she suggested.
“It would help, undoubtedly,” the girl answered. “I don’t see any other way of getting hold of them.”
Joan seated herself on one of the chairs ranged round the walls, and drew the girl down beside her. Through the closed door, the mingled99 voices of the Foreign Secretary’s guests sounded curiously100 like the buzzing of flies.
“It’s quite easy,” said Joan, “with your beauty. Especially if you’re not going to be particular. But isn’t there danger of your devotion to your father leading you too far? A marriage founded on a lie—no matter for what purpose!—mustn’t it degrade a woman—smirch her soul for all time? We have a right to give up the things that belong to ourselves, but not the things that belong to God: our truth, our sincerity101, our cleanliness of mind and body; the things that He may one day want of us. It led you into evil once before. Don’t think I’m judging you. I was no better than you. I argued just as you must have done. Something stopped me just in time. That was the only difference between us.”
The girl turned her dark eyes full upon Joan. “What did stop you?” she demanded.
“Does it matter what we call it?” answered Joan. “It was a voice.”
“It told me to do it,” answered the girl.
“Did no other voice speak to you?” asked Joan.
“Yes,” answered the girl. “The voice of weakness.”
There came a fierce anger into the dark eyes. “Why did you listen to it?” she demanded. “All would have been easy if you hadn’t.”
“You mean,” answered Joan quietly, “that if I had let your mother die and had married your father, that he and I would have loved each other to the end; that I should have helped him and encouraged him in all things, so that his success would have been certain. Is that the argument?”
“Didn’t you love him?” asked the girl, staring. “Wouldn’t you have helped him?”
“I can’t tell,” answered Joan. “I should have meant to. Many men and women have loved, and have meant to help each other all their lives; and with the years have drifted asunder102; coming even to be against one another. We change and our thoughts change; slight differences of temperament103 grow into barriers between us; unguessed antagonisms104 widen into gulfs. Accidents come into our lives. A friend was telling me the other day of a woman who practically proposed to and married a musical genius, purely105 and solely to be of use to him. She earned quite a big income, drawing fashions; and her idea was to relieve him of the necessity of doing pot-boilers for a living, so that he might devote his whole time to his real work. And a few weeks after they were married she ran the point of a lead pencil through her eye and it set up inflammation of her brain. And now all the poor fellow has to think of is how to make enough to pay for her keep at a private lunatic asylum106. I don’t mean to be flippant. It’s the very absurdity107 of it all that makes the mystery of life—that renders it so hopeless for us to attempt to find our way through it by our own judgment108. It is like the ants making all their clever, laborious109 plans, knowing nothing of chickens and the gardener’s spade. That is why we have to cling to the life we can order for ourselves—the life within us. Truth, Justice, Pity. They are the strong things, the eternal things, the things we’ve got to sacrifice ourselves for—serve with our bodies and our souls.
“Don’t think me a prig,” she pleaded. “I’m talking as if I knew all about it. I don’t really. I grope in the dark; and now and then—at least so it seems to me—I catch a glint of light. We are powerless in ourselves. It is only God working through us that enables us to be of any use. All we can do is to keep ourselves kind and clean and free from self, waiting for Him to come to us.”
The girl rose. “I must be getting back,” she said. “Dad will be wondering where I’ve got to.”
She paused with the door in her hand, and a faint smile played round the thin red lips.
“Tell me,” she said. “What is God?”
“A Labourer, together with man, according to Saint Paul,” Joan answered.
The girl turned and went. Joan watched her as she descended110 the great staircase. She moved with a curious, gliding111 motion, pausing at times for the people to make way for her.
点击收听单词发音
1 jumble | |
vt.使混乱,混杂;n.混乱;杂乱的一堆 | |
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2 broaching | |
n.拉削;推削;铰孔;扩孔v.谈起( broach的现在分词 );打开并开始用;用凿子扩大(或修光);(在桶上)钻孔取液体 | |
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3 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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4 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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5 shun | |
vt.避开,回避,避免 | |
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6 regaining | |
复得( regain的现在分词 ); 赢回; 重回; 复至某地 | |
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7 propounding | |
v.提出(问题、计划等)供考虑[讨论],提议( propound的现在分词 ) | |
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8 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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9 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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10 helping | |
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的 | |
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11 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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12 modification | |
n.修改,改进,缓和,减轻 | |
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13 logic | |
n.逻辑(学);逻辑性 | |
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14 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
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15 rebellious | |
adj.造反的,反抗的,难控制的 | |
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16 yearning | |
a.渴望的;向往的;怀念的 | |
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17 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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18 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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19 slovenliness | |
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20 attired | |
adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服,使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21 instinctively | |
adv.本能地 | |
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22 pertaining | |
与…有关系的,附属…的,为…固有的(to) | |
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23 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
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24 journalism | |
n.新闻工作,报业 | |
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25 pandered | |
v.迎合(他人的低级趣味或淫欲)( pander的过去式和过去分词 );纵容某人;迁就某事物 | |
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26 tickled | |
(使)发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)愉快,逗乐 | |
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27 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
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28 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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29 injustice | |
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利 | |
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30 shrug | |
v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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31 shrugged | |
vt.耸肩(shrug的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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32 stunt | |
n.惊人表演,绝技,特技;vt.阻碍...发育,妨碍...生长 | |
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33 kudos | |
n.荣誉,名声 | |
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34 doomed | |
命定的 | |
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35 negotiations | |
协商( negotiation的名词复数 ); 谈判; 完成(难事); 通过 | |
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36 interfered | |
v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 );调停;妨碍;干涉 | |
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37 opposition | |
n.反对,敌对 | |
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38 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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39 delirious | |
adj.不省人事的,神智昏迷的 | |
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40 suffrage | |
n.投票,选举权,参政权 | |
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41 temperate | |
adj.温和的,温带的,自我克制的,不过分的 | |
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42 persuasive | |
adj.有说服力的,能说得使人相信的 | |
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43 magnetism | |
n.磁性,吸引力,磁学 | |
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44 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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45 dishonour | |
n./vt.拒付(支票、汇票、票据等);vt.凌辱,使丢脸;n.不名誉,耻辱,不光彩 | |
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46 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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47 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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48 prematurely | |
adv.过早地,贸然地 | |
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49 brutality | |
n.野蛮的行为,残忍,野蛮 | |
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50 brotherhood | |
n.兄弟般的关系,手中情谊 | |
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51 justified | |
a.正当的,有理的 | |
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52 paradox | |
n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法;自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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53 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
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54 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
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55 lone | |
adj.孤寂的,单独的;唯一的 | |
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56 scatter | |
vt.撒,驱散,散开;散布/播;vi.分散,消散 | |
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57 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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58 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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59 reapers | |
n.收割者,收获者( reaper的名词复数 );收割机 | |
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60 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
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61 longing | |
n.(for)渴望 | |
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62 gentry | |
n.绅士阶级,上层阶级 | |
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63 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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64 diabolical | |
adj.恶魔似的,凶暴的 | |
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65 socialist | |
n.社会主义者;adj.社会主义的 | |
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66 legitimate | |
adj.合法的,合理的,合乎逻辑的;v.使合法 | |
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67 sumptuous | |
adj.豪华的,奢侈的,华丽的 | |
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68 salon | |
n.[法]沙龙;客厅;营业性的高级服务室 | |
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69 thronged | |
v.成群,挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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70 homely | |
adj.家常的,简朴的;不漂亮的 | |
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71 attainable | |
a.可达到的,可获得的 | |
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72 dowdily | |
adv.懒散地,下流地 | |
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73 persistently | |
ad.坚持地;固执地 | |
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74 witty | |
adj.机智的,风趣的 | |
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75 ponderous | |
adj.沉重的,笨重的,(文章)冗长的 | |
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76 influential | |
adj.有影响的,有权势的 | |
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77 ruffled | |
adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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78 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
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79 gaping | |
adj.口的;张口的;敞口的;多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 );张开,张大 | |
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80 lighting | |
n.照明,光线的明暗,舞台灯光 | |
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81 surmised | |
v.臆测,推断( surmise的过去式和过去分词 );揣测;猜想 | |
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82 attentive | |
adj.注意的,专心的;关心(别人)的,殷勤的 | |
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83 anarchists | |
无政府主义者( anarchist的名词复数 ) | |
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84 rogues | |
n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 );无赖;调皮捣蛋的人;离群的野兽 | |
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85 conducive | |
adj.有益的,有助的 | |
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86 originality | |
n.创造力,独创性;新颖 | |
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87 chic | |
n./adj.别致(的),时髦(的),讲究的 | |
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88 grumbled | |
抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 ); 发牢骚; 咕哝; 发哼声 | |
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89 underneath | |
adj.在...下面,在...底下;adv.在下面 | |
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90 acorn | |
n.橡实,橡子 | |
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91 wrung | |
绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 ); 握紧(尤指别人的手); 把(湿衣服)拧干; 绞掉(水) | |
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92 foe | |
n.敌人,仇敌 | |
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93 proffering | |
v.提供,贡献,提出( proffer的现在分词 ) | |
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94 marred | |
adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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95 sullen | |
adj.愠怒的,闷闷不乐的,(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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96 callousness | |
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97 refreshments | |
n.点心,便餐;(会议后的)简单茶点招 待 | |
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98 swell | |
vi.膨胀,肿胀;增长,增强 | |
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99 mingled | |
混合,混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 ); 混进,与…交往[联系] | |
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100 curiously | |
adv.有求知欲地;好问地;奇特地 | |
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101 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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102 asunder | |
adj.分离的,化为碎片 | |
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103 temperament | |
n.气质,性格,性情 | |
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104 antagonisms | |
对抗,敌对( antagonism的名词复数 ) | |
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105 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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106 asylum | |
n.避难所,庇护所,避难 | |
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107 absurdity | |
n.荒谬,愚蠢;谬论 | |
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108 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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109 laborious | |
adj.吃力的,努力的,不流畅 | |
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110 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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111 gliding | |
v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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