选择字号:【大】【中】【小】 | 关灯
护眼
|
To Caroline Grosvenor
关注小说网官方公众号(noveltingroom),原版名著免费领。
During the past year, in the intervals1 of an active life, I have amused myself with constructing this tale. It has been scribbled2 in every kind of odd place and moment—in England and abroad, during long journeys, in half-hours between graver tasks; and it bears, I fear, the mark of its gipsy begetting3. But it has amused me to write, and I shall be well repaid if it amuses you—and a few others—to read.
Let no man or woman call its events improbable. The war has driven that word from our vocabulary, and melodrama4 has become the prosiest realism. Things unimagined before happen daily to our friends by sea and land. The one chance in a thousand is habitually5 taken, and as often as not succeeds. Coincidence, like some new Briareus, stretches a hundred long arms hourly across the earth. Some day, when the full history is written—sober history with ample documents—the poor romancer will give up business and fall to reading Miss Austen in a hermitage.
The characters of the tale, if you think hard, you will recall. Sandy you know well. That great spirit was last heard of at Basra, where he occupies the post that once was Harry6 Bullivant’s. Richard Hannay is where he longed to be, commanding his battalion7 on the ugliest bit of front in the West. Mr John S. Blenkiron, full of honour and wholly cured of dyspepsia, has returned to the States, after vainly endeavouring to take Peter with him. As for Peter, he has attained8 the height of his ambition. He has shaved his beard and joined the Flying Corps9.
下一页 尾页
点击收听单词发音
1 intervals | |
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 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 scribbled | |
v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 );乱画;草草地写;匆匆记下 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 begetting | |
v.为…之生父( beget的现在分词 );产生,引起 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 melodrama | |
n.音乐剧;情节剧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 habitually | |
ad.习惯地,通常地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 harry | |
vt.掠夺,蹂躏,使苦恼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 battalion | |
n.营;部队;大队(的人) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 attained | |
(通常经过努力)实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 ); 达到; 获得; 达到(某年龄、水平、状况) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 corps | |
n.(通信等兵种的)部队;(同类作的)一组 | |
参考例句: |
|
|