-
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
It Can't Happen Here
by Sinclair Lewis
Chapter 13
And when I get ready to retire I'm going to build me an up-to-date bungalow1 in some lovely resort, not in Como or any other of the proverbial Grecian isles3 you may be sure, but in somewheres like Florida, California, Santa Fe, & etc., and devote myself just to reading the classics, like Longfellow, James Whitcomb Riley, Lord Macaulay, Henry Van Dyke4, Elbert Hubbard, Plato, Hiawatha, & etc. Some of my friends laugh at me for it, but I have always cultivated a taste for the finest in literature. I got it from my Mother as I did everything that some people have been so good as to admire in me.
Zero Hour, Berzelius Windrip.
Certain though Doremus had been of Windrip's election, the event was like the long-dreaded passing of a friend.
"All right. Hell with this country, if it's like that. All these years I've worked--and I never did want to be on all these committees and boards and charity drives!--and don't they look silly now! What I always wanted to do was to sneak5 off to an ivory tower--or anyway, celluloid, imitation ivory--and read everything I've been too busy to read."
Thus Doremus, in late November.
And he did actually attempt it, and for a few days reveled in it, avoiding everyone save his family and Lorinda, Buck6 Titus, and Father Perefixe. Mostly, though, he found that he did not relish7 the "classics" he had so far missed, but those familiar to his youth: Ivanhoe, Huckleberry Finn, Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, L'Allegro, The Way of All Flesh (not quite so youthful, there), Moby Dick, The Earthly Paradise, St. Agnes' Eve, The Idylls of the King, most of Swinburne, Pride and Prejudice, Religio Medici, Vanity Fair.
Probably he was not so very different from President-Elect Windrip in his rather uncritical reverence9 toward any book he had heard of before he was thirty. . . . No American whose fathers have lived in the country for over two generations is so utterly12 different from any other American.
In one thing, Doremus's literary escapism failed him thoroughly13. He tried to relearn Latin, but he could not now, uncajoled by a master, believe that "Mensa, mensae, mensae, mensam, mensa"--all that idiotic14 A table, of a table, to a table, toward a table, at in by or on a table--could bear him again as once it had to the honey-sweet tranquillity15 of Vergil and the Sabine Farm.
Then he saw that in everything his quest failed him.
The reading was good enough, toothsome, satisfying, except that he felt guilty at having sneaked16 away to an Ivory Tower at all. Too many years he had made a habit of social duty. He wanted to be "in" things, and he was daily more irritable17 as Windrip began, even before his inauguration18, to dictate19 to the country.
Buzz's party, with the desertions to the Jeffersonians, had less than a majority in Congress. "Inside dope" came to Doremus from Washington that Windrip was trying to buy, to flatter, to blackmail20 opposing Congressmen. A President-Elect has unhallowed power, if he so wishes, and Windrip--no doubt with promises of abnormal favors in the way of patronage--won over a few. Five Jeffersonian Congressmen had their elections challenged. One sensationally21 disappeared, and smoking after his galloping22 heels there was a devilish fume23 of embezzlements. And with each such triumph of Windrip, all the well-meaning, cloistered24 Doremuses of the country were the more anxious.
All through the "Depression," ever since 1929, Doremus had felt the insecurity, the confusion, the sense of futility25 in trying to do anything more permanent than shaving or eating breakfast, that was general to the country. He could no longer plan, for himself or for his dependants26, as the citizens of this once unsettled country had planned since 1620.
Why, their whole lives had been predicated on the privilege of planning. Depressions had been only cyclic storms, certain to end in sunshine; Capitalism27 and parliamentary government were eternal, and eternally being improved by the honest votes of Good Citizens.
Doremus's grandfather, Calvin, Civil War veteran and ill-paid, illiberal28 Congregational minister, had yet planned, "My son, Loren, shall have a theological education, and I think we shall be able to build a fine new house in fifteen or twenty years." That had given him a reason for working, and a goal.
His father, Loren, had vowed29, "Even if I have to economize30 on books a little, and perhaps give up this extravagance of eating meat four times a week--very bad for the digestion31, anyway--my son, Doremus, shall have a college education, and when, as he desires, he becomes a publicist, I think perhaps I shall be able to help him for a year or two. And then I hope--oh, in a mere32 five or six years more--to buy that complete Dickens with all the illustrations--oh, an extravagance, but a thing to leave to my grandchildren to treasure forever!"
But Doremus Jessup could not plan, "I'll have Sissy go to Smith before she studies architecture," or "If Julian Falck and Sissy get married and stick here in the Fort, I'll give 'em the southwest lot and some day, maybe fifteen years from now, the whole place will be filled with nice kids again!" No. Fifteen years from now, he sighed, Sissy might be hustling33 hash for the sort of workers who called the waiter's art "hustling hash"; and Julian might be in a concentration camp--Fascist or Communist!
The Horatio Alger tradition, from rags to Rockefellers, was clean gone out of the America it had dominated.
It seemed faintly silly to hope, to try to prophesy34, to give up sleep on a good mattress35 for toil36 on a typewriter, and as for saving money--idiotic!
And for a newspaper editor--for one who must know, at least as well as the Encyclopædia, everything about local and foreign history, geography, economics, politics, literature, and methods of playing football--it was maddening that it seemed impossible now to know anything surely.
"He don't know what it's all about" had in a year or two changed from a colloquial37 sneer38 to a sound general statement regarding almost any economist39. Once, modestly enough, Doremus had assumed that he had a decent knowledge of finance, taxation40, the gold standard, agricultural exports, and he had smilingly pontificated everywhere that Liberal Capitalism would pastorally lead into State Socialism, with governmental ownership of mines and railroads and water-power so settling all inequalities of income that every lion of a structural41 steel worker would be willing to lie down with any lamb of a contractor42, and all the jails and tuberculosis43 sanatoria would be clean empty.
Now he knew that he knew nothing fundamental and, like a lone44 monk45 stricken with a conviction of sin, he mourned, "If I only knew more! . . . Yes, and if I could only remember statistics!"
The coming and the going of the N.R.A., the F.E.R.A., the P.W.A., and all the rest, had convinced Doremus that there were four sets of people who did not clearly understand anything whatever about how the government must be conducted: all the authorities in Washington; all of the citizenry who talked or wrote profusely46 about politics; the bewildered untouchables who said nothing; and Doremus Jessup.
"But," said he, "now, after Buzz's inauguration, everything is going to be completely simple and comprehensible again--the country is going to be run as his private domain47!"
Julian Falck, now sophomore48 in Amherst, had come home for Christmas vacation, and he dropped in at the Informer office to beg from Doremus a ride home before dinner.
He called Doremus "sir" and did not seem to think he was a comic fossil. Doremus liked it.
On the way they stopped for gasoline at the garage of John Pollikop, the seething49 Social Democrat50, and were waited upon by Karl Pascal--sometime donkey-engine-man at Tasbrough's quarry51, sometime strike leader, sometime political prisoner in the county jail on a thin charge of inciting52 to riot, and ever since then, a model of Communistic piety53.
Pascal was a thin man, but sinewy54; his gaunt and humorous face of a good mechanic was so grease-darkened that the skin above and below his eyes seemed white as a fish-belly, and, in turn, that pallid55 rim56 made his eyes, alert dark gipsy eyes, seem the larger. . . . A panther chained to a coal cart.
"Well, what you going to do after this election?" said Doremus. "Oh! That's a fool question! I guess none of us chronic57 kickers want to say much about what we plan to do after January, when Buzz gets his hands on us. Lie low, eh?"
"I'm going to lie the lowest lie that I ever did. You bet! But maybe there'll be a few Communist cells around here now, when Fascism begins to get into people's hair. Never did have much success with my propaganda before, but now, you watch!" exulted58 Pascal.
"You don't seem so depressed59 by the election," marveled Doremus, while Julian offered, "No--you seem quite cheerful about it!"
"Depressed? Why good Lord, Mr. Jessup, I thought you knew your revolutionary tactics better than that, way you supported us in the quarry strike--even if you are the perfect type of small capitalist bourgeois60! Depressed? Why, can't you see, if the Communists had paid for it they couldn't have had anything more elegant for our purposes than the election of a pro-plutocrat, itching62 militarist dictator like Buzz Windrip! Look! He'll get everybody plenty dissatisfied. But they can't do anything, barehanded against the armed troops. Then he'll whoop63 it up for a war, and so millions of people will have arms and food rations11 in their hands--all ready for the revolution! Hurray for Buzz and John Prang the Baptist!"
"Karl, it's funny about you. I honestly believe you believe in Communism!" marveled young Julian. "Don't you?"
"But you seem to like America, and you don't seem so fanatical, Karl. I remember when I was a kid of about ten and you--I suppose you were about twenty-five or -six then--you used to slide with us and whoop like hell, and you made me a ski-stick."
"Sure I like America. Came here when I was two years old--I was born in Germany--my folks weren't Heinies, though--my dad was French and my mother a Hunkie from Serbia. (Guess that makes me a hundred per cent American, all right!) I think we've got the Old Country beat, lots of ways. Why, say, Julian, over there I'd have to call you 'Mein Herr' or 'Your Excellency,' or some fool thing, and you'd call me, 'I say-uh, Pascal!' and Mr. Jessup here, my Lord, he'd be 'Commendatore' or 'Herr Doktor'! No, I like it here. There's symptoms of possible future democracy. But--but--what burns me up--it isn't that old soap-boxer's chestnut65 about how one tenth of 1 per cent of the population at the top have an aggregate66 income equal to 42 per cent at the bottom. Figures like that are too astronomical67. Don't mean a thing in the world to a fellow with his eyes--and nose--down in a transmission box--fellow that doesn't see the stars except after 9 P.M. on odd Wednesdays. But what burns me up is the fact that even before this Depression, in what you folks called prosperous times, 7 per cent of all the families in the country earned $500 a year or less--remember, those weren't the unemployed68, on relief; those were the guys that had the honor of still doing honest labor69.
"Five hundred dollars a year is ten dollars a week--and that means one dirty little room for a family of four people! It means $5.00 a week for all their food--eighteen cents per day per person for food!--and even the lousiest prisons allow more than that. And the magnificent remainder of $2.50 a week, that means nine cents per day per person for clothes, insurance, carfares, doctors' bills, dentists' bills, and for God's sake, amusements--amusements!--and all the rest of the nine cents a day they can fritter away on their Fords and autogiros and, when they feel fagged, skipping across the pond on the Normandie! Seven per cent of all the fortunate American families where the old man has got a job!"
Julian was silent; then whispered, "You know--fellow gets discussing economics in college--theoretically sympathetic--but to see your own kids living on eighteen cents a day for grub--I guess that would make a man pretty extremist!"
Doremus fretted70, "But what percentage of forced labor in your Russian lumber71 camps and Siberian prison mines are getting more than that?"
"Haaa! That's all baloney! That's the old standard come-back at every Communist--just like once, twenty years ago, the muttonheads used to think they'd crushed any Socialist72 when they snickered 'If all the money was divided up, inside five years the hustlers would have all of it again.' Prob'ly there's some standard coup73 de grace like that in Russia, to crush anybody that defends America. Besides!" Karl Pascal glowed with nationalistic fervor74. "We Americans aren't like those dumb Russki peasants! We'll do a whole lot better when we get Communism!"
And on that, his employer, the expansive John Pollikop, a woolly Scotch75 terrier of a man, returned to the garage. John was an excellent friend of Doremus; had, indeed, been his bootlegger all through Prohibition76, personally running in his whisky from Canada. He had been known, even in that singularly scrupulous77 profession, as one of its most trustworthy practitioners79. Now he flowered into mid-European dialectics:
"Evenin', Mist' Jessup, evenin', Julian! Karl fill up y' tank for you? You want t' watch that guy--he's likely to hold out a gallon on you. He's one of these crazy dogs of Communists--they all believe in Violence instead of Evolution and Legality. Them--why say, if they hadn't been so crooked80, if they'd joined me and Norman Thomas and the other intelligent Socialists81 in a United Front with Roosevelt and the Jeffersonians, why say, we'd of licked the pants off Buzzard Windrip! Windrip and his plans!"
("Buzzard" Windrip. That was good, Doremus reflected. He'd be able to use it in the Informer!)
Pascal protested, "Not that Buzzard's personal plans and ambitions have got much to do with it. Altogether too easy to explain everything just blaming it on Windrip. Why don't you read your Marx, John, instead of always gassing about him? Why, Windrip's just something nasty that's been vomited82 up. Plenty others still left fermenting83 in the stomach--quack economists84 with every sort of economic ptomain! No, Buzz isn't important--it's the sickness that made us throw him up that we've got to attend to--the sickness of more than 30 per cent permanently85 unemployed, and growing larger. Got to cure it!"
"Can you crazy Tovarishes cure it?" snapped Pollikop, and, "Do you think Communism will cure it?" skeptically wondered Doremus, and, more politely, "Do you really think Karl Marx had the dope?" worried Julian, all three at once.
"You bet your life we can!" said Pascal vaingloriously.
As Doremus, driving away, looked back at them, Pascal and Pollikop were removing a flat tire together and quarreling bitterly, quite happily.
Doremus's attic86 study had been to him a refuge from the tender solicitudes87 of Emma and Mrs. Candy and his daughters, and all the impulsive88 hand-shaking strangers who wanted the local editor to start off their campaigns for the sale of life insurance or gas-saving carburetors, for the Salvation89 Army or the Red Cross or the Orphans90' Home or the Anti-cancer Crusade, or the assorted91 magazines which would enable to go through college young men who at all cost should be kept out of college.
It was a refuge now from the considerably92 less tender solicitudes of supporters of the President-Elect. On the pretense93 of work, Doremus took to sneaking94 up there in mid-evening; and he sat not in an easy chair but stiffly, at his desk, making crosses and five-pointed95 stars and six-pointed stars and fancy delete signs on sheets of yellow copy paper, while he sorely meditated96.
Thus, this evening, after the demands of Karl Pascal and John Pollikop:
"'The Revolt against Civilization!'
"But there's the worst trouble of this whole cursed business of analysis. When I get to defending Democracy against Communism and Fascism and what-not, I sound just like the Lothrop Stoddards--why, I sound almost like a Hearst editorial on how some college has got to kick out a Dangerous Red instructor97 in order to preserve our Democracy for the ideals of Jefferson and Washington! Yet somehow, singing the same words, I have a notion my tune98 is entirely99 different from Hearst's. I don't think we've done very well with all the plowland and forest and minerals and husky human stock we've had. What makes me sick about Hearst and the D.A.R. is that if they are against Communism, I have to be for it, and I don't want to be!
"Wastage of resources, so they're about gone--that's been the American share in the revolt against Civilization.
"We can go back to the Dark Ages! The crust of learning and good manners and tolerance100 is so thin! It would just take a few thousand big shells and gas bombs to wipe out all the eager young men, and all the libraries and historical archives and patent offices, all the laboratories and art galleries, all the castles and Periclean temples and Gothic cathedrals, all the cooperative stores and motor factories--every storehouse of learning. No inherent reason why Sissy's grandchildren--if anybody's grandchildren will survive at all--shouldn't be living in caves and heaving rocks at catamounts.
"And what's the solution of preventing this debacle? Plenty of 'em! The Communists have a patent Solution they know will work. So have the Fascists101, and the rigid102 American Constitutionalists--who call themselves advocates of Democracy, without any notion what the word ought to mean; and the Monarchists--who are certain that if we could just resurrect the Kaiser and the Czar and King Alfonso, everybody would be loyal and happy again, and the banks would simply force credit on small businessmen at 2 per cent. And all the preachers--they tell you that they alone have the inspired Solution.
"Well, gentlemen, I have listened to all your Solutions, and I now inform you that I, and I alone, except perhaps for Walt Trowbridge and the ghost of Pareto, have the perfect, the inevitable103, the only Solution, and that is: There is no Solution! There will never be a state of society anything like perfect!
"There never will be a time when there won't be a large proportion of people who feel poor no matter how much they have, and envy their neighbors who know how to wear cheap clothes showily, and envy neighbors who can dance or make love or digest better."
Doremus suspected that, with the most scientific state, it would be impossible for iron deposits always to find themselves at exactly the rate decided104 upon two years before by the National Technocratic105 Minerals Commission, no matter how elevated and fraternal and Utopian the principles of the commissioners106.
His Solution, Doremus pointed out, was the only one that did not flee before the thought that a thousand years from now human beings would probably continue to die of cancer and earthquake and such clownish mishaps107 as slipping in bathtubs. It presumed that mankind would continue to be burdened with eyes that grow weak, feet that grow tired, noses that itch61, intestines108 vulnerable to bacilli, and generative organs that are nervous until the age of virtue109 and senility. It seemed to him unidealistically probable, for all the "contemporary furniture" of the 1930's, that most people would continue, at least for a few hundred years, to sit in chairs, eat from dishes upon tables, read books--no matter how many cunning phonographic substitutes might be invented, wear shoes or sandals, sleep in beds, write with some sort of pens, and in general spend twenty or twenty-two hours a day much as they had spent them in 1930, in 1630. He suspected that tornadoes110, floods, droughts, lightning, and mosquitoes would remain, along with the homicidal tendency known in the best of citizens when their sweethearts go dancing off with other men.
And, most fatally and abysmally111, his Solution guessed that men of superior cunning, of slyer foxiness, whether they might be called Comrades, Brethren, Commissars, Kings, Patriots112, Little Brothers of the Poor, or any other rosy113 name, would continue to have more influence than slower-witted men, however worthy78.
All the warring Solutions--except his, Doremus chuckled--were ferociously114 propagated by the Fanatics115, the "Nuts."
He recalled an article in which Neil Carothers asserted that the "rabble-rousers" of America in the mid-'thirties had a long and dishonorable ancestry116 of prophets who had felt called upon to stir up the masses to save the world, and save it in the prophets' own way, and do it right now, and most violently: Peter the Hermit117, the ragged118, mad, and stinking119 monk who, to rescue the (unidentified) tomb of the Savior from undefined "outrages120 by the pagans," led out on the Crusades some hundreds of thousands of European peasants, to die on the way of starvation, after burning, raping121, and murdering fellow peasants in foreign villages all along the road.
There was John Ball who "in 1381 was a share-the-wealth advocate; he preached equality of wealth, the abolition122 of class distinctions, and what would now be called communism," and whose follower123, Wat Tyler, looted London, with the final gratifying result that afterward124 Labor was by the frightened government more oppressed than ever. And nearly three hundred years later, Cromwell's methods of expounding125 the sweet winsomeness126 of Purity and Liberty were shooting, slashing127, clubbing, starving, and burning people, and after him the workers paid for the spree of bloody128 righteousness with blood.
Brooding about it, fishing in the muddy slew129 of recollection which most Americans have in place of a clear pool of history, Doremus was able to add other names of well-meaning rabble-rousers:
Murat and Danton and Robespierre, who helped shift the control of France from the moldy130 aristocrats131 to the stuffy132, centime-pinching shopkeepers. Lenin and Trotzky who gave to the illiterate133 Russian peasants the privileges of punching a time clock and of being as learned, gay, and dignified135 as the factory hands in Detroit; and Lenin's man, Borodin, who extended this boon136 to China. And that William Randolph Hearst who in 1898 was the Lenin of Cuba and switched the mastery of the golden isle2 from the cruel Spaniards to the peaceful, unarmed, brotherly-loving Cuban politicians of today.
The American Moses, Dowie, and his theocracy137 at Zion City, Illinois, where the only results of the direct leadership of God--as directed and encouraged by Mr. Dowie and by his even more spirited successor, Mr. Voliva--were that the holy denizens138 were deprived of oysters139 and cigarettes and cursing, and died without the aid of doctors instead of with it, and that the stretch of road through Zion City incessantly140 caused the breakage of springs on the cars of citizens from Evanston, Wilmette, and Winnetka, which may or not have been a desirable Good Deed.
Cecil Rhodes, his vision of making South Africa a British paradise, and the actuality of making it a graveyard141 for British soldiers.
All the Utopias--Brook Farm, Robert Owen's sanctuary142 of chatter143, Upton Sinclair's Helicon Hall--and their regulation end in scandal, feuds144, poverty, griminess, disillusion145.
All the leaders of Prohibition, so certain that their cause was world-regenerating that for it they were willing to shoot down violators.
It seemed to Doremus that the only rabble-rouser to build permanently had been Brigham Young, with his bearded Mormon captains, who not only turned the Utah desert into an Eden but made it pay and kept it up.
Pondered Doremus: Blessed be they who are not Patriots and Idealists, and who do not feel they must dash right in and Do Something About It, something so immediately important that all doubters must be liquidated--tortured--slaughtered! Good old murder, that since the slaying146 of Abel by Cain has always been the new device by which all oligarchies147 and dictators have, for all future ages to come, removed opposition148!
In this acid mood Doremus doubted the efficacy of all revolutions; dared even a little to doubt our two American revolutions--against England in 1776, and the Civil War.
For a New England editor to contemplate149 even the smallest criticism of these wars was what it would have been for a Southern Baptist fundamentalist preacher to question Immortality150, the Inspiration of the Bible, and the ethical151 value of shouting Hallelujah. Yet had it, Doremus queried152 nervously153, been necessary to have four years of inconceivably murderous Civil War, followed by twenty years of commercial oppression of the South, in order to preserve the Union, free the slaves, and establish the equality of Industry with Agriculture? Had it been just to the Negroes themselves to throw them so suddenly, with so little preparation, into full citizenship154, that the Southern states, in what they considered self-defense, disqualified them at the polls and lynched them and lashed155 them? Could they not, as Lincoln at first desired and planned, have been freed without the vote, then gradually and competently educated, under federal guardianship156, so that by 1890 they might, without too much enmity, have been able to enter fully157 into all the activities of the land?
A generation and a half (Doremus meditated) of the sturdiest and most gallant158 killed or crippled in the Civil War or, perhaps worst of all, becoming garrulous159 professional heroes and satellites of the politicians who in return for their solid vote made all lazy jobs safe for the G.A.R. The most valorous, it was they who suffered the most, for while the John D. Rockefellers, the J. P. Morgans, the Vanderbilts, Astors, Goulds, and all their nimble financial comrades of the South, did not enlist160, but stayed in the warm, dry counting-house, drawing the fortune of the country into their webs, it was Jeb Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Nathaniel Lyon, Pat Cleburne, and the knightly161 James B. McPherson who were killed . . . and with them Abraham Lincoln.
So, with the hundreds of thousands who should have been the progenitors162 of new American generations drained away, we could show the world, which from 1780 to 1860 had so admired men like Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton, the Adamses, Webster, only such salvages163 as McKinley, Benjamin Harrison, William Jennings Bryan, Harding . . . and Senator Berzelius Windrip and his rivals.
Slavery had been a cancer, and in that day was known no remedy save bloody cutting. There had been no X-rays of wisdom and tolerance. Yet to sentimentalize this cutting, to justify164 and rejoice in it, was an altogether evil thing, a national superstition165 that was later to lead to other Unavoidable Wars--wars to free Cubans, to free Filipinos who didn't want our brand of freedom, to End All Wars.
Let us, thought Doremus, not throb166 again to the bugles167 of the Civil War, nor find diverting the gallantry of Sherman's dashing Yankee boys in burning the houses of lone women, nor particularly admire the calmness of General Lee as he watched thousands writhe168 in the mud.
He even wondered if, necessarily, it had been such a desirable thing for the Thirteen Colonies to have cut themselves off from Great Britain. Had the United States remained in the British Empire, possibly there would have evolved a confederation that could have enforced World Peace, instead of talking about it. Boys and girls from Western ranches169 and Southern plantations170 and Northern maple171 groves172 might have added Oxford173 and York Minster and Devonshire villages to their own domain. Englishmen, and even virtuous174 Englishwomen, might have learned that persons who lack the accent of a Kentish rectory or of a Yorkshire textile village may yet in many ways be literate134; and that astonishing numbers of persons in the world cannot be persuaded that their chief aim in life ought to be to increase British exports on behalf of the stock-holdings of the Better Classes.
It is commonly asserted, Doremus remembered, that without complete political independence the United States could not have developed its own peculiar175 virtues176. Yet it was not apparent to him that America was any more individual than Canada or Australia; that Pittsburgh and Kansas City were to be preferred before Montreal and Melbourne, Sydney and Vancouver.
No questioning of the eventual177 wisdom of the "radicals178" who had first advocated these two American revolutions, Doremus warned himself, should be allowed to give any comfort to that eternal enemy: the conservative manipulators of privilege who damn as "dangerous agitators179" any man who menaces their fortunes; who jump in their chairs at the sting of a gnat180 like Debs, and blandly181 swallow a camel like Windrip.
Between the rabble-rousers--chiefly to be detected by desire for their own personal power and notoriety--and the un-self-seeking fighters against tyranny, between William Walker or Danton, and John Howard or William Lloyd Garrison182, Doremus saw, there was the difference between a noisy gang of thieves and an honest man noisily defending himself against thieves. He had been brought up to revere8 the Abolitionists: Lovejoy, Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Beecher Stowe--though his father had considered John Brown insane and a menace, and had thrown sly mud at the marble statues of Henry Ward10 Beecher, the apostle in the fancy vest. And Doremus could not do otherwise than revere the Abolitionists now, though he wondered a little if Stephen Douglas and Thaddeus Stephens and Lincoln, more cautious and less romantic men, might not have done the job better.
"Is it just possible," he sighed, "that the most vigorous and boldest idealists have been the worst enemies of human progress instead of its greatest creators? Possible that plain men with the humble183 trait of minding their own business will rank higher in the heavenly hierarchy184 than all the plumed185 souls who have shoved their way in among the masses and insisted on saving them?"
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
bungalow
|
|
| n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
isle
|
|
| n.小岛，岛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
isles
|
|
| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
dyke
|
|
| n.堤，水坝，排水沟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
sneak
|
|
| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
buck
|
|
| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
relish
|
|
| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
revere
|
|
| vt.尊崇，崇敬，敬畏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
reverence
|
|
| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
ward
|
|
| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
rations
|
|
| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
thoroughly
|
|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
idiotic
|
|
| adj.白痴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
tranquillity
|
|
| n. 平静, 安静 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
sneaked
|
|
| v.潜行( sneak的过去式和过去分词 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
irritable
|
|
| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
inauguration
|
|
| n.开幕、就职典礼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
dictate
|
|
| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
blackmail
|
|
| n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
sensationally
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
galloping
|
|
| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
fume
|
|
| n.(usu pl.)(浓烈或难闻的)烟，气，汽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
cloistered
|
|
| adj.隐居的，躲开尘世纷争的v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
futility
|
|
| n.无用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
dependants
|
|
| 受赡养者，受扶养的家属( dependant的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
capitalism
|
|
| n.资本主义 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
illiberal
|
|
| adj.气量狭小的，吝啬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
vowed
|
|
| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
economize
|
|
| v.节约，节省 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
digestion
|
|
| n.消化，吸收 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
hustling
|
|
| 催促（hustle的现在分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
prophesy
|
|
| v.预言；预示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
mattress
|
|
| n.床垫，床褥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
toil
|
|
| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
colloquial
|
|
| adj.口语的，会话的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
sneer
|
|
| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
economist
|
|
| n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
taxation
|
|
| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
structural
|
|
| adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
contractor
|
|
| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
tuberculosis
|
|
| n.结核病，肺结核 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
lone
|
|
| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
monk
|
|
| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
profusely
|
|
| ad.abundantly | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
domain
|
|
| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
sophomore
|
|
| n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
seething
|
|
| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
democrat
|
|
| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
quarry
|
|
| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
inciting
|
|
| 刺激的，煽动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
piety
|
|
| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
sinewy
|
|
| adj.多腱的，强壮有力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
pallid
|
|
| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
rim
|
|
| n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
chronic
|
|
| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
exulted
|
|
| 狂喜，欢跃( exult的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
depressed
|
|
| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
bourgeois
|
|
| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
itch
|
|
| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
itching
|
|
| adj.贪得的，痒的，渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
whoop
|
|
| n.大叫，呐喊，喘息声；v.叫喊，喘息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
virgin
|
|
| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
chestnut
|
|
| n.栗树，栗子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
aggregate
|
|
| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
astronomical
|
|
| adj.天文学的，（数字）极大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
unemployed
|
|
| adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
labor
|
|
| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
fretted
|
|
| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
lumber
|
|
| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
socialist
|
|
| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
coup
|
|
| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
fervor
|
|
| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
scotch
|
|
| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
prohibition
|
|
| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
scrupulous
|
|
| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
practitioners
|
|
| n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
crooked
|
|
| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
socialists
|
|
| 社会主义者( socialist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
vomited
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
fermenting
|
|
| v.（使）发酵( ferment的现在分词 )；（使）激动；骚动；骚扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
economists
|
|
| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
permanently
|
|
| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
attic
|
|
| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
solicitudes
|
|
| n.关心，挂念，渴望( solicitude的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
impulsive
|
|
| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
salvation
|
|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
orphans
|
|
| 孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
assorted
|
|
| adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
considerably
|
|
| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
pretense
|
|
| n.矫饰，做作，借口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
sneaking
|
|
| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
meditated
|
|
| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
instructor
|
|
| n.指导者，教员，教练 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
tune
|
|
| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
tolerance
|
|
| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
fascists
|
|
| n.法西斯主义的支持者( fascist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
rigid
|
|
| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
technocratic
|
|
| adj.由技术专家官员组成的；受技术官僚影响的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
commissioners
|
|
| n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 )；长官；委员；政府部门的长官 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
mishaps
|
|
| n.轻微的事故，小的意外( mishap的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
intestines
|
|
| n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
tornadoes
|
|
| n.龙卷风，旋风( tornado的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
abysmally
|
|
| adv.极糟地；可怕地；完全地；极端地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
patriots
|
|
| 爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
rosy
|
|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
ferociously
|
|
| 野蛮地，残忍地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
fanatics
|
|
| 狂热者，入迷者( fanatic的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
ancestry
|
|
| n.祖先，家世 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
hermit
|
|
| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
ragged
|
|
| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
stinking
|
|
| adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
outrages
|
|
| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
raping
|
|
| v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的现在分词 )；强奸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
abolition
|
|
| n.废除，取消 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
follower
|
|
| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
afterward
|
|
| adv.后来；以后 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
expounding
|
|
| 论述，详细讲解( expound的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
winsomeness
|
|
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
127
slashing
|
|
| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
bloody
|
|
| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
slew
|
|
| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
moldy
|
|
| adj.发霉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
aristocrats
|
|
| n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
stuffy
|
|
| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
illiterate
|
|
| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
literate
|
|
| n.学者；adj.精通文学的，受过教育的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
dignified
|
|
| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
boon
|
|
| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
theocracy
|
|
| n.神权政治；僧侣政治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
denizens
|
|
| n.居民，住户( denizen的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
oysters
|
|
| 牡蛎( oyster的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
incessantly
|
|
| ad.不停地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
graveyard
|
|
| n.坟场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
sanctuary
|
|
| n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
chatter
|
|
| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
feuds
|
|
| n.长期不和，世仇( feud的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
disillusion
|
|
| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
slaying
|
|
| 杀戮。 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
oligarchies
|
|
| n.寡头统治的政府( oligarchy的名词复数 )；寡头政治的执政集团；寡头统治的国家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
contemplate
|
|
| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
immortality
|
|
| n.不死，不朽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
ethical
|
|
| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
queried
|
|
| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
nervously
|
|
| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
citizenship
|
|
| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
lashed
|
|
| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
guardianship
|
|
| n. 监护, 保护, 守护 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
gallant
|
|
| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
garrulous
|
|
| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
enlist
|
|
| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
knightly
|
|
| adj. 骑士般的 adv. 骑士般地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
progenitors
|
|
| n.祖先( progenitor的名词复数 )；先驱；前辈；原本 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
salvages
|
|
| 海上营救( salvage的名词复数 )； 抢救出的财产； 救援费； 经加工后重新利用的废物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
justify
|
|
| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
superstition
|
|
| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
throb
|
|
| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
bugles
|
|
| 妙脆角，一种类似薯片但做成尖角或喇叭状的零食； 号角( bugle的名词复数 )； 喇叭； 匍匐筋骨草； （装饰女服用的）柱状玻璃（或塑料）小珠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
writhe
|
|
| vt.挣扎，痛苦地扭曲；vi.扭曲，翻腾，受苦；n.翻腾，苦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
ranches
|
|
| 大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
plantations
|
|
| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
maple
|
|
| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
groves
|
|
| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
Oxford
|
|
| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
virtuous
|
|
| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
virtues
|
|
| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
eventual
|
|
| adj.最后的，结局的，最终的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
radicals
|
|
| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
agitators
|
|
| n.（尤指政治变革的）鼓动者( agitator的名词复数 )；煽动者；搅拌器；搅拌机 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
gnat
|
|
| v.对小事斤斤计较，琐事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
blandly
|
|
| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
garrison
|
|
| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
hierarchy
|
|
| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
185
plumed
|
|
| 饰有羽毛的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
购买
在百度中搜索