In a few days Mr. Barnstaple had recovered strength of body and mind. He no longer lay in bed in a loggia, filled with self-pity and the beauty of a world subdued1; he went about freely and was soon walking long distances over the Utopian countryside, seeking acquaintances and learning more and more of this wonderland of accomplished2 human desires.
For that is how it most impressed him. Nearly all the greater evils of human life had been conquered; war, pestilence3 and malaise, famine and poverty had been swept out of human experience. The dreams of artists, of perfected and lovely bodies and of a world transfigured to harmony and beauty had been realized; the spirits of order and organization ruled triumphant4. Every aspect of human life had been changed by these achievements.
The climate of this Valley of Rest was bland5 and sunny like the climate of South Europe, but nearly everything characteristic of the Italian or Spanish scene had gone. Here were no bent6 and aged7 crones carrying burthens, no chattering8 pursuit by beggars, no ragged9 workers lowering by the wayside. The puny10 terracing, the distressing12 accumulations of hand cultivation13, the gnarled olives, hacked14 vines, the little patches of grain or fruit, and the grudged15 litigious irrigation of those primitive16 conditions, gave place to sweeping17 schemes of conservation, to a broad and subtle handling of slope and soil and sunshine. No meagre goats nor sheep, child-tended, cropped among the stones, no tethered cattle ate their apportioned18 circles of herbage and no more. There were no hovels by the wayside, no shrines19 with tortured, blood-oozing images, no slinking mis-begotten curs nor beaten beasts sweating and panting between their overloaded20 paniers at the steeper places of rutted, rock-strewn and dung-strewn roads. Instead the great smooth indestructible ways swept in easy gradients through the land, leaping gorges21 and crossing valleys upon wide-arched viaducts, piercing cathedral-like aisles22 through the hillsides, throwing off bastions to command some special splendour of the land. Here were resting places and shelters, stairways clambering to pleasant arbours and summer-houses where friends might talk and lovers shelter and rejoice. Here were groves23 and avenues of such trees as he had never seen before. For on earth as yet there is scarcely such a thing as an altogether healthy fully24 grown tree, nearly all our trees are bored and consumed by parasites25, rotten and tumorous26 with fungi27, more gnarled and crippled and disease-twisted even than mankind.
The landscape had absorbed the patient design of five-and-twenty centuries. In one place Mr. Barnstaple found great works in progress; a bridge was being replaced, not because it was outworn, but because someone had produced a bolder, more delightful28 design.
For a time he did not observe the absence of telephonic or telegraphic communication; the posts and wires that mark a modern countryside had disappeared. The reasons for that difference he was to learn later. Nor did he at first miss the railway, the railway station and the wayside inn. He perceived that the frequent buildings must have specific functions, that people came and went from them with an appearance of interest and preoccupation, that from some of them seemed to come a hum and whir of activity; work of many sorts was certainly in progress; but his ideas of the mechanical organization of this new world were too vague and tentative as yet for him to attempt to fix any significance to this sort of place or that. He walked agape like a savage30 in a garden.
He never came to nor saw any towns. The reason for any such close accumulations of human beings had largely disappeared. In certain places, he learnt, there were gatherings31 of people for studies, mutual32 stimulation33, or other convenient exchanges, in great series of communicating buildings; but he never visited any of these centres.
And about this world went the tall people of Utopia, fair and wonderful, smiling or making some friendly gesture as they passed him but giving him little chance for questions or intercourse34. They travelled swiftly in machines upon the high road or walked, and ever and again the shadow of a silent soaring aeroplane would pass over him. He went a little in awe35 of these people and felt himself a queer creature when he met their eyes. For like the gods of Greece and Rome theirs was a cleansed36 and perfected humanity, and it seemed to him that they were gods. Even the great tame beasts that walked freely about this world had a certain divinity that checked the expression of Mr. Barnstaple’s friendliness37.
Section 2
Presently he found a companion for his rambles38, a boy of thirteen, a cousin of Lychnis, named Crystal. He was a curly-headed youngster, brown-eyed as she was; and he was reading history in a holiday stage of his education.
So far as Mr. Barnstaple could gather the more serious part of his intellectual training was in mathematical work interrelated to physical and chemical science, but all that was beyond an Earthling’s range of ideas. Much of this work seemed to be done in co-operation with other boys, and to be what we should call research on earth. Nor could Mr. Barnstaple master the nature of some other sort of study which seemed to turn upon refinements39 of expression. But the history brought them together. The boy was just learning about the growth of the Utopian social system out of the efforts and experiences of the Ages of Confusion. His imagination was alive with the tragic40 struggles upon which the present order of Utopia was founded, he had a hundred questions for Mr. Barnstaple, and he was full of explicit41 information which was destined42 presently to sink down and become part of the foundations of his adult mind. Mr. Barnstaple was as good as a book to him, and he was as good as a guide to Mr. Barnstaple. They went about together talking upon a footing of the completest equality, this rather exceptionally intelligent Earthling and this Utopian stripling, who topped him by perhaps an inch when they stood side by side.
The boy had the broad facts of Utopian history at his fingers’ ends. He could explain and find an interest in explaining how artificial and upheld the peace and beauty of Utopia still were. Utopians were in essence, he said, very much what their ancestors had been in the beginnings of the newer stone-age, fifteen thousand or twenty thousand years ago. They were still very much what Earthlings had been in the corresponding period. Since then there had been only six hundred or seven hundred generations and no time for any very fundamental changes in the race. There had not been even a general admixture of races. On Utopia as on earth there had been dusky and brown peoples, and they remained distinct. The various races mingled43 socially but did not interbreed very much; rather they purified and intensified44 their racial gifts and beauties. There was often very passionate45 love between people of contrasted race, but rarely did such love come to procreation. There had been a certain deliberate elimination46 of ugly, malignant47, narrow, stupid and gloomy types during the past dozen centuries or so; but except for the fuller realization48 of his latent possibilities, the common man in Utopia was very little different from the ordinary energetic and able people of a later stone-age or early bronze-age community. They were infinitely50 better nourished, trained and educated, and mentally and physically51 their condition was clean and fit, but they were the same flesh and nature as we are.
“But,” said Mr. Barnstaple, and struggled with that idea for a time. “Do you mean to tell me that half the babies born on earth today might grow to be such gods as these people I meet?”
“Given our air, given our atmosphere.”
“Given your heritage.”
“Given our freedom.”
In the past of Utopia, in the Age of Confusion, Mr. Barnstaple had to remember, everyone had grown up with a crippled or a thwarted52 will, hampered53 by vain restrictions54 or misled by plausible55 delusions56. Utopia still bore it in mind that human nature was fundamentally animal and savage and had to be adapted to social needs, but Utopia had learnt the better methods of adaptation — after endless failures of compulsion, cruelty and deception57. “On earth we tame our animals with hot irons and our fellow men by violence and fraud,” said Mr. Barnstaple, and described the schools and books, newspapers and public discussions of the early twentieth century to his incredulous companion. “You cannot imagine how beaten and fearful even decent people are upon earth. You learn of the Age of Confusion in your histories but you do not know what the realities of a bad mental atmosphere, an atmosphere of feeble laws, hates and superstitions58, are. As night goes round the earth always there are hundreds of thousands of people who should be sleeping, lying awake, fearing a bully59, fearing a cruel competition, dreading60 lest they cannot make good, ill of some illness they cannot comprehend, distressed61 by some irrational62 quarrel, maddened by some thwarted instinct or some suppressed and perverted63 desire.” . . .
Crystal admitted that it was hard to think now of the Age of Confusion in terms of misery64. Much of the every-day misery of earth was now inconceivable. Very slowly Utopia had evolved its present harmony of law and custom and education. Man was no longer crippled and compelled; it was recognized that he was fundamentally an animal and that his daily life must follow the round of appetites satisfied and instincts released. The daily texture65 of Utopian life was woven of various and interesting foods and drinks, of free and entertaining exercise and work, of sweet sleep and of the interest and happiness of fearless and spiteless love-making. Inhibition was at a minimum. But where the power of Utopian education began was after the animal had been satisfied and disposed of. The jewel on the reptile’s head that had brought Utopia out of the confusions of human life, was curiosity, the play impulse, prolonged and expanded in adult life into an insatiable appetite for knowledge and an habitual66 creative urgency. All Utopians had become as little children, learners and makers68.
It was strange to hear this boy speaking so plainly and clearly of the educational process to which he was being subjected, and particularly to find he could talk so frankly69 of love.
An earthly bashfulness almost prevented Mr. Barnstaple from asking, “But you — You do not make love?”
“I have had curiosities,” said the boy, evidently saying what he had been taught to say. “But it is not necessary nor becoming to make love too early in life nor to let desire take hold of one. It weakens youth to become too early possessed70 by desire — which often will not leave one again. It spoils and cripples the imagination. I want to do good work as my father has done before me.”
Mr. Barnstaple glanced at the beautiful young profile at his side and was suddenly troubled by memories of a certain study number four at school, and of some ugly phases of his adolescence71, the stuffy72, secret room, the hot and ugly fact. He felt a beastlier Earthling than ever. “Heigho!” he sighed. “But this world of yours is as clean as starlight and as sweet as cold water on a dusty day.”
“Many people I love,” said the boy, “but not with passion. Some day that will come. But one must not be too eager and anxious to meet passionate love or one might make-believe and give or snatch at a sham73. . . . There is no hurry. No one will prevent me when my time comes. All good things come to one in this world in their own good time.”
But work one does not wait for; one’s work, since it concerns one’s own self only, one goes to meet. Crystal thought very much about the work that he might do. It seemed to Mr. Barnstaple that work, in the sense of uncongenial toil74, had almost disappeared from Utopia. Yet all Utopia was working. Everyone was doing work that fitted natural aptitudes75 and appealed to the imagination of the worker. Everyone worked happily and eagerly — as those people we call geniuses do on our earth.
For suddenly Mr. Barnstaple found himself telling Crystal of the happiness of the true artist, of the true scientific worker, of the original man even on earth as it is today. They, too, like the Utopians, do work that concerns themselves and is in their own nature for great ends. Of all Earthlings they are the most enviable.
“If such men are not happy on earth,” said Mr. Barnstaple, “it is because they are touched with vulgarity and still heed76 the soiled successes and honours and satisfactions of vulgar men, still feel neglect and limitation that should concern them no more. But to him who has seen the sun shine in Utopia surely the utmost honour and glory of earth can signify no more and be no more desirable than the complimentary77 spittle of the chieftain and a string of barbaric beads78.”
Section 3
Crystal was still of an age to be proud of his savoir faire. He showed Mr. Barnstaple his books and told him of his tutors and exercises.
Utopia still made use of printed books; books were still the simplest, clearest way of bringing statement before a tranquil79 mind. Crystal’s books were very beautifully bound in flexible leather that his mother had tooled for him very prettily80, and they were made of hand-made paper. The lettering was some fluent phonetic81 script that Mr. Barnstaple could not understand. It reminded him of Arabic; and frequent sketches83, outline maps and diagrams were interpolated. Crystal was advised in his holiday reading by a tutor for whom he prepared a sort of exercise report, and he supplemented his reading by visits to museums; but there was no educational museum convenient in the Valley of Peace for Mr. Barnstaple to visit.
Crystal had passed out of the opening stage of education which was carried on, he said, upon large educational estates given up wholly to the lives of children. Education up to eleven or twelve seemed to be much more carefully watched and guarded and taken care of in Utopia than upon earth. Shocks to the imagination, fear and evil suggestions were warded84 off as carefully as were infection and physical disaster; by eight or nine the foundations of a Utopian character were surely laid, habits of cleanliness, truth, candour and helpfulness, confidence in the world, fearlessness and a sense of belonging to the great purpose of the race.
Only after nine or ten did the child go outside the garden of its early growth and begin to see the ordinary ways of the world. Until that age the care of the children was largely in the hands of nurses and teachers, but after that time the parents became more of a factor than they had been in a youngster’s life. It was always a custom for the parents of a child to be near and to see that child in its nursery days, but just when earthly parents tended to separate from their children as they went away to school or went into business, Utopian parentage grew to be something closer. There was an idea in Utopia that between parent and child there was a necessary temperamental sympathy; children looked forward to the friendship and company of their parents, and parents looked forward to the interest of their children’s adolescence, and though a parent had practically no power over a son or daughter, he or she took naturally the position of advocate, adviser86 and sympathetic friend. The friendship was all the franker and closer because of that lack of power, and all the easier because age for age the Utopians were so much younger and fresher-minded than Earthlings. Crystal it seemed had a very great passion for his mother. He was very proud of his father, who was a wonderful painter and designer; but it was his mother who possessed the boy’s heart.
On his second walk with Mr. Barnstaple he said he was going to hear from his mother, and Mr. Barnstaple was shown the equivalent of correspondence in Utopia. Crystal carried a little bundle of wires and light rods; and presently coming to a place where a pillar stood in the midst of a lawn he spread this affair out like a long cat’s cradle and tapped a little stud in the pillar with a key that he carried on a light gold chain about his neck. Then he took up a receiver attached to his apparatus87, and spoke88 aloud and listened and presently heard a voice.
It was a very pleasant woman’s voice; it talked to Crystal for a time without interruption, and then Crystal talked back, and afterwards there were other voices, some of which Crystal answered and some which he heard without replying. Then he gathered up his apparatus again.
This Mr. Barnstaple learnt was the Utopian equivalent of letter and telephone. For in Utopia, except by previous arrangement, people do not talk together on the telephone. A message is sent to the station of the district in which the recipient89 is known to be, and there it waits until he chooses to tap his accumulated messages. And any that one wishes to repeat can be repeated. Then he talks back to the senders and dispatches any other messages he wishes. The transmission is wireless90. The little pillars supply electric power for transmission or for any other purpose the Utopians require. For example, the gardeners resort to them to run their mowers and diggers and rakes and rollers.
Far away across the valley Crystal pointed91 out the district station at which this correspondence gathered and was dispersed92. Only a few people were on duty there; almost all the connexions were automatic. The messages came and went from any part of the planet.
This set Mr. Barnstaple going upon a long string of questions.
He discovered for the first time that the message organization of Utopia had a complete knowledge of the whereabouts of every soul upon the planet. It had a record of every living person and it knew in what message district he was. Everyone was indexed and noted93.
To Mr. Barnstaple, accustomed to the crudities and dishonesties of earthly governments, this was an almost terrifying discovery. “On earth that would be the means of unending blackmail94 and tyranny,” he said. “Everyone would lie open to espionage95. We had a fellow at Scotland Yard. If he had been in your communication department would have made life in Utopia intolerable in week. You cannot imagine the nuisance he was.” . . .
Mr. Barnstaple had to explain to Crystal what blackmail meant. It was like that in Utopia to begin with, Crystal said. Just as on earth so in Utopia there was the same natural disposition96 to use knowledge and power to the disadvantage of one’s fellows, and the same jealousy97 of having one’s personal facts known. In the stone-age in Utopia men kept their true names secret and could only be spoken of by nicknames. They feared magic abuses. “Some savages98 still do that on earth,” said Mr. Barnstaple. It was only very slowly that Utopians came to trust doctors and dentists and only very slowly that doctors and dentists became trustworthy. It was a matter of scores of centuries before the chief abuses of the confidences and trusts necessary to a modern social organization could be effectively corrected.
Every young Utopian had to learn the Five Principles of Liberty, without which civilization is impossible. The first was the Principle of Privacy. This is that all individual personal facts are private between the citizen and the public organization to which he entrusts99 them, and can be used only for his convenience and with his sanction. Of course all such facts are available for statistical100 uses, but not as individual personal facts. And the second principle is the Principle of Free Movement. A citizen, subject to the due discharge of his public obligations, may go without permission or explanation to any part of the Utopian planet. All the means of transport are freely at his service. Every Utopian may change his surroundings, his climate and his social atmosphere as he will. The third principle is the Principle of Unlimited101 Knowledge. All that is known in Utopia, except individual personal facts about living people, is on record and as easily available as a perfected series of indices, libraries, museums and inquiry102 offices can make it. Whatever the Utopian desires to know he may know with the utmost clearness, exactness and facility so far as his powers of knowing and his industry go. Nothing is kept from him and nothing is misrepresented to him. And that brought Mr. Barnstaple to the fourth Principle of Liberty, which was that Lying is the Blackest Crime.
Crystal’s definition of Lying was a sweeping one; the inexact statement of facts, even the suppression of a material fact, was lying.
“Where there are lies there cannot be freedom.”
Mr. Barnstaple was mightily103 taken by this idea. It seemed at once quite fresh to him and one that he had always unconsciously entertained. Half the difference between Utopia and our world he asserted lay in this, that our atmosphere was dense104 and poisonous with lies and shams105.888
“When one comes to think of it,” said Mr. Barnstaple, and began to expatiate106 to Crystal upon all the falsehoods of human life. The fundamental assumptions of earthly associations were still largely lies, false assumptions of necessary and unavoidable differences in flags and nationality, pretences107 of function and power in monarchy108; impostures of organized learning, religious and moral dogmas and shams. And one must live in it; one is a part of it. You are restrained, taxed, distressed and killed by these insane unrealities. “Lying the Primary Crime! How simple that is! how true and necessary it is! That dogma is the fundamental distinction of the scientific world-state from all preceding states.” And going on from that Mr. Barnstaple launched out into a long and loud tirade109 against the suppression and falsifications of earthly newspapers.
It was a question very near his heart. The London newspapers had ceased to be impartial110 vehicles of news; they omitted, they mutilated, they misstated. They were no better than propaganda rags. Rags! Nature, within its field, was shiningly accurate and full, but that was a purely111 scientific paper; it did not touch the every-day news. The Press, he held, was the only possible salt of contemporary life, and if the salt had lost its savour —!
The poor man found himself orating as though he was back at his Sydenham breakfast-table after a bad morning’s paper.
“Once upon a time Utopia was in just such a tangle,” said Crystal consolingly. “But there is a proverb, ‘Truth comes back where once she has visited.’ You need not trouble so much as you do. Some day even your press may grow clear.”
“How do you manage about newspapers and criticism?” said Mr. Barnstaple.
Crystal explained that there was a complete distinction between news and discussion in Utopia. There were houses — one was in sight — which were used as reading-rooms. One went to these places to learn the news. Thither112 went the reports of all the things that were happening on the planet, things found, things discovered, things done. The reports were made as they were needed; there were no advertisement contracts to demand the same bulk of news every day. For some time Crystal said the reports had been very full and amusing about the Earthlings, but he had not been reading the paper for many days because of the interest in history the Earthling affair had aroused in him. There was always news of fresh scientific discoveries that stirred the imagination. One frequent item of public interest and excitement was the laying out of some wide scheme of research. The new spatial113 work that Arden and Greenlake had died for was producing much news. And when people died in Utopia it was the custom to tell the story of their lives. Crystal promised to take Mr. Barnstaple to a news place and entertain him by reading him some of the Utopian descriptions of earthly life which had been derived114 from the Earthlings, and Mr. Barnstaple asked that when this was done he might also hear about Arden and Greenlake, who had been not only great discoverers, but great lovers, and of Serpentine115 and Cedar116, for whom he had conceived an intense admiration117. Utopian news lacked of course the high spice of an earthly newspaper; the intriguing118 murders and amusing misbehaviours, the entertaining and exciting consequences of sexual ignorance and sexual blunderings, the libel cases and detected swindles, the great processional movements of Royalty119 across the general traffic, and the romantic fluctuations120 of the stock exchange and sport. But where the news of Utopia lacked liveliness, the liveliness of discussion made up for it. For the Fifth Principle of Liberty in Utopia was Free Discussion and Criticism.
Any Utopian was free to criticize and discuss anything in the whole universe provided he told no lies about it directly or indirectly121; he could be as respectful or disrespectful as he pleased; he could propose anything however subversive122. He could break into poetry or fiction as he chose. He could express himself in any literary form he liked or by sketch82 or caricature as the mood took him. Only he must refrain from lying; that was the one rigid123 rule of controversy124. He could get what he had to say printed and distributed to the news rooms. There it was read or neglected as the visitors chanced to approve of it or not. Often if they liked what they read they would carry off a copy with them. Crystal had some new fantastic fiction about the exploration of space among his books; imaginative stories that boys were reading very eagerly; they were pamphlets of thirty or forty pages printed on a beautiful paper that he said was made directly from flax and certain reeds. The librarians noted what books and papers were read and taken away, and these they replaced with fresh copies. The piles that went unread were presently reduced to one or two copies and the rest went back to the pulping125 mills. But many of the poets and philosophers, and story-tellers whose imaginations found no wide popularity were nevertheless treasured and their memories kept alive by a few devoted126 admirers.
Section 4
“I am not at all clear in my mind about one thing,” said Mr. Barnstaple. “I have seen no coins and nothing like money passing in this world. By all outward appearance this might be a Communism such as was figured in a book we used to value on earth, a book called News from Nowhere by an Earthling named William Morris. It was a graceful127 impossible book. In that dream everyone worked for the joy of working and took what he needed. But I have never believed in Communism because I recognize, as here in Utopia you seem to recognize, the natural fierceness and greediness of the untutored man. There is joy in creation for others to use, but no natural joy in unrequited service. The sense of justice to himself is greater in man than the sense of service. Somehow here you must balance the work anyone does for Utopia against what he destroys or consumes. How do you do it?”
Crystal considered. “There were Communists in Utopia in the Last Age of Confusion. In some parts of our planet they tried to abolish money suddenly and violently and brought about great economic confusion and want and misery. To step straight to communism failed — very tragically128. And yet Utopia today is practically a communism, and except by way of curiosity I have never had a coin in my hand in all my life.”
In Utopia just as upon earth, he explained, money came as a great discovery; as a method of freedom. Hitherto, before the invention of money, all service between man and man had been done through bondage129 or barter130. Life was a thing of slavery and narrow choice. But money opened up the possibility of giving a worker a free choice in his reward. It took Utopia three thousand years and more to realize that possibility. The idea of money abounded131 in pitfalls132 and was easily corruptible133; Utopia floundered its way to economic lucidity134 through long centuries of credit and debt, false and debased money; extravagant135 usury136 and every possibility of speculative137 abuse. In the matter of money more than in any other human concern, human cunning has set itself most vilely138 and treacherously139 to prey140 upon human necessity. Utopia once carried, as earth carries now, a load of parasitic141 souls, speculators, forestallers, gamblers and bargain-pressing Shylocks, exacting142 every conceivable advantage out of the weaknesses of the monetary143 system; she had needed centuries of economic sanitation144. It was only when Utopia had got to the beginnings of world-wide political unity49 and when there were sufficiently145 full statistics of world resources and world production, that human society could at last give the individual worker the assurance of a coin of steadfast146 significance, a coin that would mean for him today or tomorrow or at any time the certainty of a set quantity of elemental values. And with peace throughout the planet and increasing social stability, interest, which is the measure of danger and uncertainty148, dwindled149 at last to nothing. Banking150 became a public service perforce, because it no longer offered profit to the individual banker. “Rentier classes,” Crystal conveyed, “are not a permanent element in any community. They mark a phase of transition between a period of insecurity and high interest and a period of complete security and no interest. They are a dawn phenomenon.”
Mr. Barnstaple digested this statement after an interval151 of incredulity. He satisfied himself by a few questions that young Utopia really had some idea of what a rentier class was, what its moral and imaginative limitations were likely to be and the role it may have played in the intellectual development of the world by providing a class of independent minds.
“Life is intolerant of all independent classes,” said Crystal, evidently repeating an axiom. “Either you must earn or you must rob. . . . We have got rid of robbing.”
The youngster still speaking by his book went on to explain how the gradual disuse of money came about. It was an outcome of the general progressive organization of the economic system, the substitution of collective enterprises for competitive enterprises and of wholesale152 for retail153 dealing154. There had been a time in Utopia when money changed hands at each little transaction and service. One paid money if one wanted a newspaper or a match or a bunch of flowers or a ride on a street conveyance155. Everybody went about the world with pockets full of small coins paying on every slight occasion. Then as economic science became more stable and exact the methods of the club and the covering subscription156 extended. People were able to buy passes that carried them by all the available means of transport for a year or for ten years or for life. The State learnt from clubs and hotels provide matches, newspapers, stationery157 and transport for a fixed158 annual charge. The same inclusive system spread from small and incidental things great and essential matters, to housing and food and even clothing. The State postal159 system knew where every Utopian citizen was, was presently able in conjunction with the public banking system to guarantee his credit in any part of the world. People ceased to draw coin for their work; the various departments of service, and of economic, educational and scientific activity would credit the individual with his earnings160 in the public bank an debit161 him with his customary charges for all the normal services of life.
“Something of this sort is going on on earth even now,” said Mr. Barnstaple. “We use money in the last resort, but a vast volume of our business is already a matter of book-keeping.”
Centuries of unity and energy had given Utopia very complete control of many fountains of natural energy upon the planet, and this was the heritage of every child born therein. He was credited at his birth with a sum sufficient to educate and maintain him up to four — or five-and-twenty, and then he was expected to choose some occupation to replenish162 his account.
“But if he doesn’t?” said Mr. Barnstaple.
“Everyone does.”
“But if he didn’t?”
“He’d be miserable163 and uncomfortable. I’ve never heard of such a case. I suppose he’d be discussed. Psychologists might examine him. . . . But one must do something.”
“But suppose Utopia had no work for him to do?”
Crystal could not imagine that. “There is always something to be done.”
“But in Utopia once, in the old times, you had unemployment?”
“That was part of the Confusion. There was a sort of hypertrophy of debt; it had become paralysis164. Why, when they had unemployment at that same time there was neither enough houses nor food nor clothing. They had unemployment and shortage at one and the same time. It is incredible.”
“Does everyone earn about the same amount of pay?”
“Energetic and creative people are often given big grants if they seem to need the help of others or a command of natural resources. . . . And artists sometimes grow rich if their work is much desired.”
“Such a gold chain as yours you had to buy?”
“From the maker67 in his shop. My mother bought it.”
“Then there are shops?”
“You shall see some. Places where people go to see new and delightful things.”
“And if an artist grows rich, what can he do with his money?”
“Take time and material to make some surpassingly beautiful thing to leave the world. Or collect and help with the work of other artists. Or do whatever else he pleases to teach and fine the common sense of beauty in Utopia. Or just do nothing. . . . Utopia can afford it — if he can.”
Section 5
“Cedar and Lion,” said Mr. Barnstaple, “explained to the rest of us how it is that your government is as it were broken up and dispersed among the people who have special knowledge of the matters involved. The balance between interests, we gathered, was maintained by those who studied the general psychology165 and the educational organization of Utopia. At first it was very strange to our earthly minds that there should be nowhere a pretended omniscience166 and a practical omnipotence167, that is to say a sovereign thing, a person or an assembly whose fiat168 was final. Mr. Burleigh and Mr. Catskill thought that such a thing was absolutely necessary, and so, less surely, did I. ‘Who will decide?’ was their riddle169. They expected to be taken to see the President or the Supreme170 Council of Utopia. I suppose it seems to you the most natural of things that there should be nothing of the sort, and that a question should go simply and naturally to the man who knows best about it.”
“Subject to free criticism,” said Crystal.
“Subject to the same process that has made him eminent171 and responsible. But don’t people thrust themselves forward even here — out of vanity? And don’t people get thrust forward in front of the best — out of spite?”
“There is plenty of spite and vanity in every Utopian soul,” said Crystal. “But people speak very plainly and criticism is very searching and free. So that we learn to search our motives172 before we praise or question.”
“What you say and do shows up here plainly at its true value,” said Mr. Barnstaple. “You cannot throw mud in the noise and darkness unchallenged or get a false claim acknowledged in the disorder173.”
“Some years ago there was a man, an artist, who made a great trouble about the work of my father. Often artistic174 criticism is very bitter here, but he was bitter beyond measure. He caricatured my father and abused him incessantly175. He followed him from place to place. He tried to prevent the allocation of material to him. He was quite ineffective. Some people answered him, but for the most part he was disregarded. . . . ”
The boy stopped short.
“Well?”
“He killed himself. He could not escape from his own foolishness. Everyone knew what he had said and done. . . . ”
“But in the past there were kings and councils and conferences in Utopia,” said Mr. Barnstaple, returning to the main point.
“My books teach me that our state could have grown up in no other way. We had to have these general dealers176 in human relationship, politicians and lawyers, as a necessary stage in political and social development. Just as we had to have soldiers and policemen to save people from mutual violence. It was only very slowly that politicians and lawyers came to admit the need for special knowledge in the things they had to do. Politicians would draw boundaries without any proper knowledge of ethnology or economic geography, and lawyers decide about will and purpose with the crudest knowledge of psychology. They produced the most preposterous177 and unworkable arrangements in the gravest fashion.”
“Like Tristram Shandy’s parish bull — which set about begetting178 the peace of the world at Versailles,” said Mr. Barnstaple.
Crystal looked puzzled.
“A complicated allusion179 to a purely earthly matter,” said Mr. Barnstaple. “This complete diffusion180 of the business of politics and law among the people with knowledge, is one of the most interesting things of all to me in this world. Such a diffusion is beginning upon earth. The people who understand world-health for instance are dead against political and legal methods, and so are many of our best economists181. And most people never go into a law court, and wouldn’t dream of doing so upon business of their own, from their cradles to their graves. What became of your politicians and lawyers? Was there a struggle?”
“As light grew and intelligence spread they became more and more evidently unnecessary. They met at last only to appoint men of knowledge as assessors and so forth182, and after a time even these appointments became foregone conclusions. Their activities melted into the general body of criticism and discussion. In places there are still old buildings that used to be council chambers183 and law courts. The last politician to be elected to a legislative184 assembly died in Utopia about a thousand years ago. He was an eccentric and garrulous185 old gentleman; he was the only candidate and one man voted for him, and he insisted upon assembling in solitary186 state and having all his speeches and proceedings187 taken down in shorthand. Boys and girls who were learning stenography188 used to go to report him. Finally he was dealt with as a mental case.”
“And the last judge?”
“I have not learnt about the last judge,” said Crystal. “I must ask my tutor. I suppose there was one, but I suppose nobody asked him to judge anything. So he probably got something more respectable to do.”
Section 6
“I begin to apprehend189 the daily life of this world,” said Mr. Barnstaple. “It is a life of demi-gods, very free, strongly individualized, each following an individual bent, each contributing to great racial ends. It is not only cleanly naked and sweet and lovely but full of personal dignity. It is, I see, a practical communism, planned and led up to through long centuries of education and discipline and collectivist preparation. I had never thought before that socialism could exalt190 and ennoble the individual and individualism degrade him, but now I see plainly that here the thing is proved. In this fortunate world — it is indeed the crown of all its health and happiness — there is no Crowd. The old world, the world to which I belong, was and in my universe alas191 still is, the world of the Crowd, the world of that detestable crawling mass of unfeatured, infected human beings.
“You have never seen a Crowd, Crystal; and in all your happy life you never will. You have never seen a Crowd going to a football match or a race meeting or a bull-fight or a public execution or the like crowd joy; you have never watched a Crowd wedge and stick in a narrow place or hoot192 or howl in a crisis. You have never watched it stream sluggishly193 along the streets to gape29 at a King, or yell for a war, or yell quite equally for a peace. And you have never seen the Crowd, struck by some Panic breeze, change from Crowd proper to Mob and begin to smash and hunt. All the Crowd celebrations have gone out of this world; all the Crowd’s gods, there is no Turf here, no Sport, no war demonstrations194, no Coronations and Public Funerals, no great shows, but only your little theatres. . . . Happy Crystal! who will never see a Crowd!”
“But I have seen Crowds,” said Crystal.
“Where?”
“I have seen cinematograph films of Crowds, photographed thirty centuries ago and more. They are shown in our history museums. I have seen Crowds streaming over downs after a great race meeting, photographed from an aeroplane, and Crowds rioting in some public square and being dispersed by the police. Thousands and thousands of swarming195 people. But it is true what you say. There are no more Crowds in Utopia. Crowds and the crowd-mind have gone for ever.”
Section 7
When after some days Crystal had to return to his mathematical studies, his departure left Mr. Barnstaple very lonely. He found no other companion. Lychnis seemed always near him and ready to be with him, but her want of active intellectual interests, so remarkable196 in this world of vast intellectual activities, estranged197 him from her. Other Utopians came and went, friendly, amused, polite, but intent upon their own business. They would question him curiously198, attend perhaps to a question or so of his own, and depart with an air of being called away.
Lychnis, he began to realize, was one of Utopia’s failures. She was a lingering romantic type and she cherished a great sorrow in her heart. She had had two children whom she had loved passionately199. They were adorably fearless, and out of foolish pride she had urged them to swim out to sea and they had been taken by a current and drowned. Their father had been drowned in attempting their rescue and Lychnis had very nearly shared their fate. She had been rescued. But her emotional life had stopped short at that point, had, as it were, struck an attitude and remained in it. Tragedy possessed her. She turned her back on laughter and gladness and looked for distress11. She had rediscovered the lost passion of pity, first pity for herself and then a desire to pity others. She took no interest any more in vigorous and complete people, but her mind concentrated upon the consolation200 to be found in consoling pain and distress in others. She sought her healing in healing them. She did not want to talk to Mr. Barnstaple of the brightness of Utopia; she wanted him to talk to her of the miseries201 of earth and of his own miseries. That she might sympathize. But he would not tell her of his own miseries because indeed, such was his temperament85, he had none; he had only exasperations and regrets.
She dreamt, he perceived, of being able to come to earth and give her beauty and tenderness to the sick and poor. Her heart went out to the spectacle of human suffering and weakness. It went out to these things hungrily and desirously. . . .
Before he detected the drift of her mind he told her many things about human sickness and poverty. But he spoke of these matters not with pity but indignation, as things that ought not to be. And when he perceived how she feasted on these things he spoke of them hardly and cheerfully as things that would presently be swept away. “But they will still have suffered,” she said. . . .
Since she was always close at hand, she filled for him perhaps more than her legitimate202 space in the Utopian spectacle. She lay across it like a shadow. He thought very frequently about her and about the pity and resentment203 against life and vigour204 that she embodied205. In a world of fear, weakness, infection, darkness and confusion, pity, the act of charity, the alms and the refuge, the deed of stark206 devotion, might show indeed like sweet and gracious presences; but in this world of health and brave enterprises, pity betrayed itself a vicious desire. Crystal, Utopian youth, was as hard as his name. When he had slipped one day on some rocks and twisted and torn his ankle, he had limped but he had laughed. When Mr. Barnstaple was winded on a steep staircase Crystal was polite rather than sympathetic. So Lychnis had found no confederate in the dedication207 of her life to sorrow; even from Mr. Barnstaple she could win no sympathy. He perceived that indeed so far as temperament went he was a better Utopian than she was. To him as to Utopia it seemed rather an occasion for gladness than sorrow that her man and her children had met death fearlessly. They were dead; a brave stark death; the waters still glittered and the sun still shone. But her loss had revealed some underlying208 racial taint147 in her, something very ancient in the species, something that Utopia was still breeding out only very slowly, the dark sacrificial disposition that bows and responds to the shadow. It was strange and yet perhaps it was inevitable209 that Mr. Barnstaple should meet again in Utopia that spirit which earth knows so well, the spirit that turns from the Kingdom of Heaven to worship the thorns and the nails, which delights to represent its God not as the Resurrection and the Life but as a woeful and defeated cadaver210.
She would talk to him of his sons as if she envied him because of the loss of her own, but all she said reminded him of the educational disadvantages and narrow prospects211 of his boys and how much stouter212 and finer and happier their lives would have been in Utopia. He would have risked drowning them a dozen times to have saved them from being clerks and employees of other men. Even by earthly standards he felt now that he had not done his best by them; he had let many things drift in their lives and in the lives of himself and his wife that he now felt he ought to have controlled. Could he have his time over again he felt that he would see to it that his sons took a livelier interest in politics and science and were not so completely engulfed213 in the trivialities of suburban214 life, in tennis playing, amateur theatricals215, inane216 flirtations and the like. They were good boys in substance he felt, but he had left them to their mother; and he had left their mother too much to herself instead of battling with her for the sake of his own ideas. They were living trivially in the shadow of one great catastrophe217 and with no security against another; they were living in a world of weak waste and shabby insufficiency. And is own life also had been — weak waste.
His life at Sydenham began to haunt him. “I criticized everything but I altered nothing,” he said. “I was as bad as Peeve218. Was I any more use in that world than I am in this? But on earth we are all wasters. . . . ”
He avoided Lychnis for a day or so and wandered about the valley alone. He went into a great reading-room and fingered books he could not read; he was suffered to stand in a workshop, and he watched an artist make a naked girl of gold more lovely than any earthly statuette and melt her again dissatisfied; here he came upon men building, and here was work upon the fields, here was a great shaft219 in the hillside and something deep in the hill that flashed and scintillated220 strangely; they would not let him go in to it; he saw a thousand things he could not understand. He began to feel as perhaps a very intelligent dog must sometimes feel in the world of men, only that he had no master and no instincts that could find a consolation in canine221 abjection222. The Utopians went about their business in the day-time, they passed him smiling and they filled him with intolerable envy. They knew what to do. They belonged. They went by in twos and threes in the evening, communing together and sometimes singing together. Lovers would pass him, their sweetly smiling faces close together, and his loneliness became an agony of hopeless desires.
Because, though he fought hard to keep it below the threshold of his consciousness, Mr. Barnstaple desired greatly to love and be loved in Utopia. The realization that no one of these people could ever conceive of any such intimacy223 of body or spirit with him was a humiliation224 more fundamental even than his uselessness. The loveliness of the Utopian girls and women who glanced at him curiously or passed him with a serene225 indifference226, crushed down his self-respect and made the Utopian world altogether intolerable to him. Mutely, unconsciously, these Utopian goddesses concentrated upon him the uttermost abasement227 of caste and race inferiority. He could not keep his thoughts from love where everyone it seemed had a lover, and in this Utopian world love for him was a thing grotesque228 and inconceivable. . . .
Then one night as he lay awake distressed beyond measure by the thought of such things, an idea came to him whereby it seemed to him he might restore his self-respect and win a sort of citizenship229 in Utopia.
So that they might even speak of him and remember him with interest and sympathy.
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1
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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pestilence
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| n.瘟疫 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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puny
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| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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hacked
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| 生气 | |
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grudged
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| 怀恨（grudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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apportioned
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| vt.分摊，分配（apportion的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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shrines
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| 圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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overloaded
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| a.超载的，超负荷的 | |
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gorges
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| n.山峡，峡谷( gorge的名词复数 )；咽喉v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 )；作呕 | |
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aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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tumorous
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| 肿胀的； 肿瘤性的； 浮华的； 浮夸的 | |
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fungi
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| n.真菌，霉菌 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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gape
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| v.张口，打呵欠，目瞪口呆地凝视 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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stimulation
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| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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cleansed
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| 弄干净，清洗( cleanse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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rambles
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的第三人称单数 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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refinements
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| n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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mingled
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| 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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intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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passionate
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| 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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elimination
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| n.排除，消除，消灭 | |
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malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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52
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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delusions
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| n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 )；谬见；错觉；妄想 | |
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deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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adolescence
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| n.青春期，青少年 | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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aptitudes
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| （学习方面的）才能，资质，天资( aptitude的名词复数 ) | |
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heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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complimentary
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| adj.赠送的，免费的，赞美的，恭维的 | |
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beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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phonetic
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| adj.语言的，语言上的，表示语音的 | |
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82
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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83
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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84
warded
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| 有锁孔的，有钥匙榫槽的 | |
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85
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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86
adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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87
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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88
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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89
recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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90
wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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91
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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92
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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93
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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94
blackmail
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| n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓 | |
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95
espionage
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| n.间谍行为，谍报活动 | |
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96
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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97
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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98
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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99
entrusts
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的第三人称单数 ) | |
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100
statistical
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| adj.统计的，统计学的 | |
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101
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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102
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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103
mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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104
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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105
shams
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| 假象( sham的名词复数 )； 假货； 虚假的行为（或感情、言语等）； 假装…的人 | |
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106
expatiate
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| v.细说，详述 | |
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107
pretences
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| n.假装( pretence的名词复数 )；作假；自命；自称 | |
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108
monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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109
tirade
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| n.冗长的攻击性演说 | |
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110
impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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111
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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112
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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113
spatial
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| adj.空间的，占据空间的 | |
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114
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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115
serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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116
cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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117
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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118
intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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119
royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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120
fluctuations
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| 波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 ) | |
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121
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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122
subversive
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| adj.颠覆性的，破坏性的；n.破坏份子，危险份子 | |
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123
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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124
controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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125
pulping
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| 水果的肉质部分( pulp的现在分词 )； 果肉； 纸浆； 低级书刊 | |
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126
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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127
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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128
tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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129
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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130
barter
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| n.物物交换，以货易货，实物交易 | |
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131
abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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132
pitfalls
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| （捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误 | |
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133
corruptible
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| 易腐败的，可以贿赂的 | |
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134
lucidity
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| n.明朗，清晰，透明 | |
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135
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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136
usury
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| n.高利贷 | |
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137
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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138
vilely
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| adv.讨厌地，卑劣地 | |
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139
treacherously
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| 背信弃义地； 背叛地； 靠不住地； 危险地 | |
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140
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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141
parasitic
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| adj.寄生的 | |
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142
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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143
monetary
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| adj.货币的，钱的；通货的；金融的；财政的 | |
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144
sanitation
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| n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备 | |
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145
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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146
steadfast
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| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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147
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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148
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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149
dwindled
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| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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150
banking
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| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
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151
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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152
wholesale
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| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
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153
retail
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| v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格 | |
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154
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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155
conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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156
subscription
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| n.预订，预订费，亲笔签名，调配法，下标（处方） | |
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157
stationery
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| n.文具；(配套的)信笺信封 | |
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158
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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159
postal
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| adj.邮政的，邮局的 | |
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160
earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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161
debit
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| n.借方，借项，记人借方的款项 | |
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162
replenish
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| vt.补充；(把…)装满；(再)填满 | |
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163
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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164
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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165
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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166
omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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167
omnipotence
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| n.全能，万能，无限威力 | |
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168
fiat
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| n.命令，法令，批准；vt.批准，颁布 | |
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169
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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170
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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171
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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172
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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173
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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174
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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175
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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176
dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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177
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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178
begetting
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| v.为…之生父( beget的现在分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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179
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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180
diffusion
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| n.流布；普及；散漫 | |
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181
economists
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| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
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182
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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183
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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184
legislative
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| n.立法机构，立法权；adj.立法的，有立法权的 | |
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185
garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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186
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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187
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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188
stenography
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| n.速记，速记法 | |
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189
apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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190
exalt
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| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
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191
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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192
hoot
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| n.鸟叫声，汽车的喇叭声； v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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193
sluggishly
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| adv.懒惰地；缓慢地 | |
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194
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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195
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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196
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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197
estranged
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| adj.疏远的，分离的 | |
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198
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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199
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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200
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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201
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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202
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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203
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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204
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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205
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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206
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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207
dedication
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| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
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208
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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209
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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210
cadaver
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| n.尸体 | |
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211
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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212
stouter
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| 粗壮的( stout的比较级 )； 结实的； 坚固的； 坚定的 | |
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engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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theatricals
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| n.（业余性的）戏剧演出，舞台表演艺术；职业演员；戏剧的( theatrical的名词复数 )；剧场的；炫耀的；戏剧性的 | |
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inane
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| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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peeve
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| v.气恼，怨恨；n.麻烦的事物，怨恨 | |
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shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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scintillated
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| v.（言谈举止中）焕发才智( scintillate的过去式和过去分词 )；谈笑洒脱；闪耀；闪烁 | |
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canine
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| adj.犬的，犬科的 | |
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abjection
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| n. 卑鄙, 落魄 | |
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223
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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abasement
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| n.滥用 | |
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grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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