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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
9.Mark Twain ---Mirror of America
Noel Grove
Most Americans remember Mark Twain as the father of Huck Finn's idyllic cruise through eternal boyhood and Tom Sawyer's endless summer of freedom and adventure. In-deed, this nation's best-loved author was every bit as ad-venturous, patriotic, romantic, and humorous as anyone has ever imagined. I found another Twain as well – one who grew cynical, bitter, saddened by the profound personal tragedies life dealt him, a man who became obsessed with the frailties of the human race, who saw clearly ahead a black wall of night.
Tramp printer, river pilot , Confederate guerrilla, prospector, starry-eyed optimist, acid-tongued cynic: The man who became Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens and he ranged across the nation for more than a third of his life, digesting the new American experience before sharing it with the world as writer and lecturer. He adopted his pen name from the cry heard in his steamboat days, signaling two fathoms (12 feet) of water -- a navigable depth. His popularity is attested by the fact that more than a score of his books remain in print, and translations are still read around the world.
The geographic core, in Twain's early years, was the great valley of the Mississippi River, main artery of transportation in the young nation's heart. Keelboats , flatboats , and large rafts carried the first major commerce. Lumber, corn, tobacco, wheat, and furs moved downstream to the delta country; sugar, molasses , cotton, and whiskey traveled north. In the 1850's, before the climax of westward expansion, the vast basin drained three-quarters of the settled United States.
Young Mark Twain entered that world in 1857 as a cub pilot on a steamboat. The cast of characters set before him in his new profession was rich and varied a cosmos . He participated abundantly in this life, listening to pilothouse talk of feuds , piracies, lynchings ,medicine shows, and savage waterside slums. All would resurface in his books, together with the colorful language that he soaked up with a memory that seemed phonographic
Steamboat decks teemed not only with the main current of pioneering humanity, but its flotsam of hustlers, gamblers, and thugs as well. From them all Mark Twain gained a keen perception of the human race, of the difference between what people claim to be and what they really are. His four and a half year s in the steamboat trade marked the real beginning of his education, and the most lasting part of it. In later life Twain acknowledged that the river had acquainted him with every possible type of human nature. Those acquaintanceships strengthened all his writing, but he never wrote better than when he wrote of the people a-long the great stream.
When railroads began drying up the demand for steam-boat pilots and the Civil War halted commerce, Mark Twain left the river country. He tried soldiering for two weeks with a motleyband of Confederate guerrillas who diligently avoided contact with the enemy. Twain quit after deciding, "... I knew more about retreating than the man that invented retreating. "
He went west by stagecoach and succumbed to the epidemic of gold and silver fever in Nevada's Washoe region. For eight months he flirted with the colossal wealth available to the lucky and the persistent, and was rebuffed . Broke and discouraged, he accepted a job as reporter with the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, to literature's enduring gratitude.
From the discouragement of his mining failures, Mark Twain began digging his way to regional fame as a newspaper reporter and humorist. The instant riches of a mining strike would not be his in the reporting trade, but for making money, his pen would prove mightier than his pickax. In the spring of 1864, less than two years after joining the Territorial Enterprise, he boarded the stagecoach for San Francisco, then and now a hotbed of hopeful young writers.
Mark Twain honed and experimented with his new writing muscles, but he had to leave the city for a while because of some scathing columns he wrote. Attacks on the city government, concerning such issues as mistreatment of Chinese, so angered officials that he fled to the goldfields in the Sacramento Valley. His descriptions of the rough-country settlers there ring familiarly in modern world accustomed to trend setting on the West Coast. "It was a splendid population – for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained slothsstayed at home... It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day – and when she projects a new surprise, the grave world smiles as usual, and says 'Well, that is California all over. '"
In the dreary winter of 1864-65 in Angels Camp, he kept a notebook. Scattered among notationsabout the weather and the tedious mining-camp meals lies an entry noting a story he had heard that day – an entry that would determine his course forever: "Coleman with his jumping frog – bet stranger $50 – stranger had no frog, and C. got him one – in the meantime stranger filled C. 's frog full of shot and he couldn't jump. The stranger's frog won." Retold with his descriptive genius, the story was printed in newspapers across the United States and became known as "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." Mark Twain's national reputation was now well established as "the wild humorist of the Pacific slope."
Two year s later the opportunity came for him to take a distinctly American look at the Old World. In New York City the steamship Quaker City prepared to sail on a pleasure cruise to Europe and the Holy Land. For the first time, a sizablegroup of United States citizens planned to journey as tourists -- a milestone , of sorts, in a country's development. Twain was assigned to accompany them, as correspondent 工for a California newspaper. If readers expected the usual glowing travelogue , they were sorely surprised.
Unimpressed by the Sultan of Turkey, for example, he reported, “... one could set a trap anywhere and catch a dozen abler men in a night.” Casually he debunked revered artists and art treasures, and took unholy verbalshots at the Holy Land. Back home, more newspapers began printing his articles. America laughed with him. Upon his return to the States the book version of his travels, The Innocents Abroad, became an instant best-seller.
At the age of 36 Twain settled in Hartford, Connecticut. His best books were published while he lived there.
As early as 1870 Twain had experimented with a story about the boyhood adventures of a lad he named Billy Rogers. Two years later, he changed the name to Tom, and began shaping his adventures into a stage play. Not until 1874 did the story begin developing in ear nest. After publication in 1876, Tom Sawyer quickly became a classic tale of American boyhood. Tom's mischievousdaring, ingenuity , and the sweet innocence of his affection for Becky Thatcher are almost as sure to be studied in American schools to-day as is the Declaration of Independence.
Mark Twain's own declaration of independence came from another character. Six chapters into Tom Sawyer, he drags in "the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard." Fleeing a respectable life with the puritanical Widow Douglas, Huck protests to his friend, Tom Sawyer: "I've tried it, and it don't work; it don't work, Tom. It ain't for me ... The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell – everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."
Nine years after Tom Sawyer swept the nation, Huck was given a life of his own, in a book often consider ed the best ever written about Americans. His raft flight down the Mississippi with a runaway slave presents a moving panorama for exploration of American society.
On the river, and especially with Huck Finn, Twain found the ultimate expression of escape from the pace he lived by and often deplored, from life's regularities and the energy-sapping clamorfor success.
Mark Twain suggested that an ingredient was missing in the American ambition when he said: "What a robustpeople, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges."
Personal tragedy haunted his entire life, in the deaths of loved ones: his father, dying of pneumonia when Sam was 12; his brother Henry, killed by a steamboat explosion; the death of his son, Langdon, at 19 months. His eldest daughter, Susy, died of spinal meningitis , Mrs. Clemens succumbed to a heart attack in Florence, and youngest daughter., Jean, an epileptic, drowned in an upstairs bathtub .
Bitterness fed on the man who had made the world laugh. The moralizing of his earlier writing had been well padded with humor. Now the gloves came off with biting satire. He pretended to praise the U. S. military for the massacre of 600 Philippine Moros in the bowl of a volcanic, crater . In The Mysterious Stranger, he insisted that man drop his religious illusions and depend upon himself, not Providence, to make a better world.
The last of his own illusions seemed to have crumbled near the end. Dictating his autobiography late in life, he commented with a crushing sense of despair on men's final release from earthly struggles: "... they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence; where they achieved nothing; where they were a mistake and a failure and a foolishness; where they have left no sign that they had existed – a world which will lament them a day and for-get them forever.”
(from National Geographic, Sept., 1975)
第九课
马克o吐温--美国的一面镜子
(节选)
诺埃尔o格罗夫
在大多数美国人的心目中,马克o吐温是位伟大作家,他描写了哈克o费恩永恒的童年时代中充满诗情画意的旅程和汤姆o索亚在漫长的夏日里自由自在历险探奇的故事。的确,这位美国最受人喜爱的作家的探索精神、爱国热情、浪漫气质及幽默笔调都达到了登峰造极的程度。但我发现还有另一个不同的马克o吐温--一个由于深受人生悲剧的打击而变得愤世嫉俗、尖酸刻薄的马克o吐温,一个为人类品质上的弱点而忧心忡忡、明显地看到前途是一片黑暗的人。
印刷工、领航员、邦联游击队员、淘金者、耽于幻想的乐天派、语言尖刻的讽刺家:马克o吐温原名塞缪尔o朗赫恩o克莱门斯,他一生之中有超过三分之一的时间浪迹美国各地,体验着美国的新生活,尔后便以作家和演说家的身分将他所感受到的这一切介绍给全世界。他的笔名取自他在蒸汽船上做工时听到的报告水深为两口寻(12英尺)--意即可以通航的信号语。他的作品中有二十几部至今仍在印行,其外文译本仍在世界各地拥有读者,由此可见他的享誉程度。
在马克o吐温青年时代,美国的地理中心是密西西比河流域,而密西西比河是这个年轻国家中部的交通大动脉。龙骨船、平底船和大木筏载运着最重要的商品。木材、玉米、烟草、小麦和皮货通过这些运载工具顺流而下,运送到河口三角洲地区,而砂糖、糖浆、棉花和威士忌酒等货物则被运送到北方。在19世纪50年代,西部领土开发高潮到来之前,辽阔的密西西比河流域占美国已开发领土的四分之三。
1857年,少年马克o吐温作为蒸汽船上的一名小领航员踏人了这片天地。在这个新的工作岗位上,他接触到的是各式各样的人物,看到的是一个多姿多彩的大干世界。他完全地投身到这种生活之中,经常在操舵室里听着人们谈论民间争斗、海盗抢劫、私刑案件、游医卖药以及河边的一些化外民居的故事。所有这一切,连同他那像留声机般准确可靠的记忆所吸收的丰富多彩的语言,后来都有机会在他的作品中得以再现。
蒸汽船的甲板上不仅挤满了富有开拓精神的人们,而且也载着一些娼妓、赌棍和歹徒等社会渣滓。从所有这些形形色色的人身上,马克o吐温敏锐地认识了人类,认识了人们的言与行之间的差距。他在蒸汽船上工作的四年半时间是他真正接受教育的开端,而且也是最具有深远意义的教育。到了晚年,马克o吐温还声言是密西西比河使他了解了各种各样的人的本性。这种生活体验对他的全部创作都起了促进作用,然而他描写得最为成功的还是那些密西西比河上的人物。
随着铁路运输的发展,社会上对汽船领航员的需求日渐减少,而内战的爆发又阻碍了商业贸易的发展。这时,马克o吐温便离开了密西西比河流域。他在南方邦联游击队的一支杂牌队伍里当了两个星期的兵。那支队伍想方设法避免与敌军交战。在确信"我比发明撤退的人更精通撤退"之后,马克o吐温离开了那支队伍。
他乘驿站马车来到西部,在内华达州的华苏地区受到当时正流行的淘金热的诱惑。同那只有既幸运而又锲而不舍的追求者才能取得的巨大财富三心二意地打了八个月交道之后,他遭到了失败。在破产和灰心之余,他接受了为弗吉尼亚市《领土开发报》当记者的工作,这一行动将获得文学界永久的感激。
自从他因淘金失败而感到心灰意冷之后,马克o吐温便开始努力博取作为一名报社记者和幽默作家的地区性声望。从事新闻报道工作当然不能使他像淘金成功者一样立成巨富,但在挣钱方面他的笔杆却比他的锄镐要有效得多。1864年春季,在他加盟《领土开发报》还不足两年之时,他又乘驿站马车前往旧金山,那儿在当时和现在都是有前途的年轻作家成长的摇篮。
马克o吐温磨炼并试验了他的新笔力,但他却因写了一些尖锐的评论文章而被迫暂时离开这座城市。他围绕着虐待华人等一类问题对市政府提出的尖锐批评惹得一些官员大为恼火,因之他只好逃到萨克拉门托山谷的金矿区暂避风头。他对那儿的拓荒者们的描写使西海岸地区富有创新精神的现代人倍感亲切。"这儿的人们真是了不起--因为那些笨手笨脚、无精打彩、呆头呆脑的懒汉都呆在家里……正是那些人们为加利福尼亚赢得了这样的声誉:当他们着手进行一项宏伟的事业时,他们会不计代价或风险而以一种豪迈的气概和闯劲勇往直前,一千到底。加利福尼亚人至今仍保持着这样的声誉,因而,每当他们发起一项新的惊天动地的壮举时,那些素来稳重的人便会像往常一样微笑着说:'看吧,这完全是加利福尼亚的风格'。"
1864年与1865年之交的那个冬天,马克o吐温是在安吉尔斯矿区度过的。在这段沉闷的日子里,他记了一本笔记。在杂乱无章的有关天气情况和乏味无趣的有关矿区饭食情况的记录条目中夹着一条叙述当天听到的一则故事的记录--这条记录决定了他一生事业的发展方向:"科尔曼用他的跳蛙--与陌生人赌50美元--陌生人没有跳蛙,科尔曼去给他弄来一只--陌生人利用这段时间将科的跳蛙肚子塞满铅弹,这样,科的跳蛙跳不起来,陌生人的跳蛙便得以获胜。"
经过马克o吐温的生花妙笔改写之后,这个故事登在美国各地的报纸上,成了家喻户晓的"卡拉韦拉斯县有名的跳蛙"。至此,马克o吐温作为"太平洋海岸狂放的幽默大师"的声望已在全国范围内牢固地确立起来了。
两年之后,他得到了一个以美国人特有的眼光去观察欧洲旧大陆的机会。在纽约市,"费城号"蒸汽船准备进行一次到欧洲和圣地的观光航行。这是美国人第一次组织较大规模的团体观光旅行--也可以看作是一个国家发展史上的某种里程碑。马克o吐温作为加利福尼亚一家报纸的记者被委派随同观光团采访。如果读者们期望能读到有关这次旅行见闻的神采飞扬的描写的话,那他们是要倍感意外的。
举例来说,他对于那没有给他留下什么好印象的土耳其君主苏丹是这样报道的,"人们可以任意选择一个地方设一个陷阱,一夜之间准可捕捉到十几个更有能耐的人。"他信口开河地对一些受人景仰的艺术家和艺术珍品加以鄙薄,甚至对宗教圣地也敢于以亵渎性的言辞加以侮蔑。回国以后,越来越多的报纸开始刊登他的文章,整个美国都同他一齐欢笑。他一回到美国,他的旅行杂记《傻子出国旅行记》立即成为畅销书。
三十六岁时,马克o吐温开始定居于康涅狄格州哈特福德镇,他的最优秀的作品全是在那段时间里问世的。
早在1870年,马克o吐温就试着写了一篇关于一个他名之为比利o罗杰斯的男孩子的童年历险故事。两年后,他又将主人公的名字改为汤姆,并着手将故事改编成剧本。直到1874年他才开始认真地扩展故事情节。《汤姆o索亚》于1876年出版后,很快成为美国儿童故事的经典之作。这部描写汤姆的顽皮、勇敢、机智以及他对贝琪o莎切尔的天真纯洁的感情的故事几乎像《独立宣言》一样成了今天美国学校里的必读书本。
马克o吐温本人的独立宣言却是由另一个人物表达出来的。在《汤姆o索亚》第六章里,他引出了"村里的流浪少年,镇上酒鬼的儿子哈克贝利o费恩"。哈克不愿在清教徒道格拉斯寡妇家过上等人的体面生活,从那里逃出来后对他的朋友汤姆o索亚发牢骚说:"我试过了,还是不行;不行啊,汤姆。那不是我过的日子……那寡妇家吃饭要听钟声,睡觉要听钟声,起床也要听钟声,什么事情都得规规矩矩,简直叫人受不了。"
《汤姆o索亚》风靡美国九年之后,哈克被赋予独立的生命,成为一本被许多人认为是最成功的描写美国人的作品的书中的主人公。他同一个逃跑出来的奴隶一起乘坐木筏沿着密西西比河顺流而下的漂流航程展现了一幅幅揭示美国社会生活全貌的生动画面。 通过对密西西比河,尤其是对哈克o费恩这一人物的描写,马克o吐温将自己想从那束缚着自己并常常令自己苦恼的生活步调中摆脱出来,从生活中的各种清规戒律以及为了事业成功而进行的艰苦挣扎中解放出来的愿望表达得淋漓尽致。
马克o吐温认为,美国人的理想中缺少了一种成分。他说:"我们只消偶尔地躺下来好好放松休息一下,保持锋棱利角,我们将有可能成为一个多么朝气蓬勃的民族,一个多么富有思想的民族啊!"
马克o吐温的一生都笼罩在悲剧的阴影之中,自己的亲人一个接一个地去世:他的父亲在他十二岁那年死于肺炎,他的兄弟亨利在一次汽船爆炸事故中遇难;他的儿子朗顿才满十九个月即离开人世。他的大女儿苏茜死于脊膜炎;克莱门斯夫人在佛罗伦萨死于心脏病;而他的小女儿也因癫痫病的发作淹死在楼上的浴盆里。
这位曾令全世界欢笑的人自己却饱尝了人世的辛酸。他早期作品中的道德说教厚厚地包着一层幽默的外衣,现在幽默换成了辛辣的讽刺。对于美国军队在一个火山口上屠杀六百名菲律宾摩洛人的行为,他没有直接进行抨击,而是假装为之高唱赞歌。在《神秘的陌生人》中,他指出人类应该抛弃宗教幻想,依靠自己而不是上帝的力量去创造一个更加美好的世界。
他自己的最后一个幻想到后来似乎也破灭了。在晚年口述自传的时候,他以极端绝望的心情谈到人从尘世的苦难中的最终解脱:"……他们从世界上消失了,在这个世界上他们无足轻重,无所成就;甚至他们的存在本身就是个错误,是个失败,是种愚蠢。这个世界上也没有留下丝毫能表明他们存在过的痕迹。这个世界赠给他们的只是一日的哀伤和永久的遗忘。"
(摘自《国家地理》,1975年9月)
词汇(Vocabulary)
idyllic ( adj. ) :pastoral or picturesque;pleasing and simple 田园诗的;田园风光的;生动逼真的;质朴宜人的
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cynical ( adj.) :believing that people are notivated in all their actions only by selfishness;denying the sincerity of people's motives and actions,or the value of living玩世不恭的;愤世嫉俗的
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obsess (v.) :haunt or trouble in mind,esp. to an abnormal degree;preoccupy greatly使分心;使心神困扰(尤指精神反常、着迷)
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frailty ( n.) :the quality or condition of being frail;weakness(esp. moral weakness)脆弱性;虚弱性(尤指意志薄弱)
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tramp ( n.) :the act of tramping;a journey on foot;hike步行;徒步旅行
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prospector ( n.) :a person who prospects for valuable ores,oil,etc.(矿藏等的)勘探者;探矿者
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starry-eyed ( adj.) :with the eyes sparkling in a glow of wonder,romance,visionary dreams,etc.过于理想的;不切实际的;盲目乐观的
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acid-tongued ( adj.) :sharp,sarcastic in speech说话尖刻的
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cynic ( n.) :a cynical person玩世不恭的人;好挖苦人的人;愤世嫉俗的人
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navigable ( n.) :wide and deep enough,or free enough from obstructions,to be traveled on by vessels可行船的;可通航的;可航行的
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attest ( n.) :serve as proof of;demonstrate;make clear作为……的证据,为……作证;论证;表明
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artery ( n.) :a main road or channel干线,干道,大路;干渠
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keelboat ( n.) :a large,shallow freight boat with a keel,formerly used on the Mississippi,Missouri,etc.(旧时密西西比河、密苏西河等用的)龙骨船
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flatboat ( n.) :a boat with a flat bottom,for carrying freight in shallow waters or on rivers平底船
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molasses ( n.) :a thick,usually dark brown syrup produced during/he refining of sugar,or from sorghum,etc.糖蜜,糖浆
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cub ( n.) :an inexperienced,awkward youth阅历浅的年轻人
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cosmos ( n.) :the universe considered as a harmonious and orderly system宇宙
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feud ( n.) :a bitter,long-continued,and deadly quarrel,esp. between clans of families(尤指部落或家族间的)世仇,累世宿仇,夙怨,长期不和
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lynch (v.) :[Am.]murder(an accused person)by mob action and without lawful trial,as by hanging[美]私刑处死
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phonographic ( adj.) :[Am.]of a phonograph or the sounds made by sb. [美]留声机的,唱机的
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teem ( v.) :be full,as though ready to bring forth young;abound;swarm充满;富于;大量地出现;涌现
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flotsam ( n.) :transient,unemployed people;vagrants流离失所者,流浪者,游民;失业者;被毁掉的人
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hustler ( n.) :[Am.slang]a prostitute[美俚]妓女
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thug ( n.) :a rough,brutal hoodlum,gangster,robber,etc.恶棍;暴徒;强盗
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motley ( adj. ) :having or composed of many different or clashing elements;heterogeneous混乱的;杂乱的
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succumb ( v.) :①give way(to);yield;submit ②die ①屈服,屈从(常与to连用)②死
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epidemic ( n.) :the rapid,widespread occurrence of a fad,fashion,etc.(风尚、风气、爱好等的)一时流行,风行
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flirt ( v.) :trifle or toy(with)玩弄,戏耍;做着玩;不认真地对待,不认真地考虑(常与with连用)
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colossal ( adj.) :1ike a colossus in size;huge;gigantic;enormous巨大的,庞大的
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rebuff ( v.) :check or repulse挫败;阻止
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broke (adj.) :[colloq.]having little or no money;bankrupt[口]无钱的,身无分文的;破了产的
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hone (v.) :sharpen with or as with a hone把……放在磨石上磨
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scathing ( adj. ) : searing;withering;injurious;harsh or caustic严厉的,尖刻的
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sluggish ( adj. ) :slow or slow-moving;not active;dull(行动)缓慢的;迟钝的
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sloth ( n.) :a lazy person懒汉
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astound ( v.) :bewilder with sudden surprise;astonish greatly;amaze使震惊,使惊愕,使大吃一惊
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tedious ( adj.) :long or verbose and vearisome;triesome;boring冗长乏味的;使人厌倦的;沉闷的
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travelogue ( n.) :a lecture on travels, usually accompanied by the showing of pictures旅行见闻讲座
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Sultan ( n.) :a Moslem ruler苏丹(一些伊斯兰教国家统治者的称号)
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debunk ( v.) :[Am.colloq.]expose the false or exaggerated claims,pretensions,glamour,etc.[美口]揭露,揭发,揭穿
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revere ( v.) :regard with deep respect,love,and awe;venerate尊敬,崇敬;敬畏
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ingenuity ( n.) :the quality of being ingenious;cleverness,originality,skill,etc.机灵,机智,足智多谋;独创性,创造力;熟练,巧妙
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juvenile ( adj.) :young and youthful年轻的;青年的
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pariah ( n.) :any person despised or rejected by others;outcast为社会所遗弃者;流浪者
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puritanical ( adj.) :extremely or excessively strict in matters of morals and religion宗教(或道德)上极端拘谨的
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panorama ( n.) :an unlimited view in all directions全景;全图
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deplore ( v.) :be regretful or sorry about懊悔,悔恨,对……深感遗憾
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sap ( v.) :undermine in any way;weaken;exhaust削弱;耗竭
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clamor ( n.) :a loud outcry;uproar大声呼喊,喧嚷,喧嚣,吵闹
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robust ( adj. ) :strong and healthy;full of vigor;hardy健壮的;精力充沛的
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haunt ( v.) :appear or recur repeatedly to,often to the point of obsession(思想、回忆等)萦绕;(疾病等)缠住
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pneumonia ( n.) :inflammation or infection of the alveoli of the lungs of varying degrees of severity and caused by any of a number of agents,such as bacteria or viruses肺炎.
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meningitis ( n.) :inflammation of the meninges.esp. as the result of infection by bacteria or viruses脑脊膜炎
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epileptic ( n.) :a person who has epilepsy癫痫患者
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pad ( v.) :stuff,cover,or line with a pad or padding填塞;衬填
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crater ( n.) :a bowl-shaped cavity,as at the mouth of a volcano or on the surface of the moon碗形洞(如火山口、环形山、月亮表面的坑状地方)
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crumble ( v. ) :fall to pieces;disintegrate;decay破碎,破裂;使溃散,使瓦解,消灭
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lament ( v.) :feel or express deep sorrow for;mourn or grieve for为……而悲痛;哀悼;为……而伤心
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短语 (Expressions)
every bit: (infml)equalIy;entirely完全,同样地
例: He is every bit as mean as she is.他与她同样平庸。
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in print: (of a book)available for sale from the publisher;(of a person's work)printed in a book,efc.(指书)可买到,已出版
例: It was the first time he had seen his work in print.这是他第一次看见自己的作品出版。
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soak up: to receive and absorb stll.接受并吸收
例: That child soaks up new facts like a sponge!那孩子吸收新知识像海绵似的!
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succumb to: stop resisting;yield to,submit to屈服,屈从
例: Several children have measles,and the others are bound to SUCcumb to it.有几个孩子患了麻疹,其他孩子也必然会被传染。
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flirt with: to deal playfully or superficiMly with不认真考虑、对待
例: I am flirting with the idea of getting a job.我胡思乱想着要去找份工作。
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of sorts: (derogative)of a poor or inferior type(贬义)差劲的,劣等
例: It was a meal of sorts,but nobody enjoyed it.这勉强算是一顿饭,谁都没有吃好。
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au over: what one would expect 0f the person specified正像所说的人一样
例: That sounds like my sister all over.听起来跟我姐姐一模一样。
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in earnest: seriously,not jokingly严肃地,认真地
例: Both sides are deeply in earnest,with passions that approximate those of civil war。双方都很坚决认真,像是鼓足劲要打一场内战似的。