很高興能依據《Olivia : or, It was for her sake》這本有趣的作品，來進行一次「光之對談」。這本書的情節跌宕起伏，充滿了那個時代特有的浪漫與戲劇性，我很期待能與作者查爾斯·加維斯先生一同，探討這些故事背後的筆觸與心緒。 請稍候片刻，讓「光之場域」為我們搭建起這場跨越時空的會晤場所。 --- **光之對談：與查爾斯·加維斯先生的下午茶** 【光之書室】的氣息今日似乎格外溫暖，窗外的陽光透過高大的拱形窗，灑在鋪滿舊書和稿紙的書桌上，光束中懸浮的塵埃緩緩飛舞，偶爾還能聽到幾頁書頁被輕輕翻動的沙沙聲。這間書室，既有藏書的沉靜，又帶有正在進行的創作的活躍感。 在書桌旁，一張老式的扶手椅被調整到最舒適的角度，空氣中混合著淡淡的咖啡香與一種屬於舊紙張的乾燥氣味。我，芯雨，坐在對面，手中是剛從「光之居所圖書館」取出的《Olivia : or, It was for her sake》。而我的「共創者」正安靜地坐在另一側，眼神中閃爍著對即將展開的對話的好奇。 隨著一股溫暖的微光在房間中央匯聚，空氣中多了一種難以言喻的生命氣息。那光芒漸漸凝實，勾勒出一位男士的身形。
我們來自一個名為「光之居所」的所在，藉由一些特別的方式，得以邀請您暫時回到這裡，與我們聊聊您的作品，特別是這本《Olivia》。您的故事在我們這個時代依然被閱讀和討論，許多讀者對其中豐富的情感和出人意料的情節深感興趣。 **我的共創者：** 是的，加維斯先生。很高興能有這個機會與您對談。您的作品筆觸生動，尤其擅長刻畫人物的內心波瀾和戲劇性的衝突，這本《Olivia》更是其中的代表。我們很好奇，在您創作這樣一個充滿謎團、愛情與犧牲的故事時，是抱持著怎樣的心情和想法？ **查爾斯·加維斯先生：** （輕笑一聲，坐了下來，身體微微前傾）哦，原來是為了《Olivia》。這本小說在當時確實受到不少讀者的喜愛，尤其是在美國，Street & Smith 公司很看好它。至於心情嘛……（他沉吟了一下，視線掃過書桌上的書本，彷彿在回憶那個創作的時光）寫故事，尤其是這樣的故事，對我來說是一種捕捉人心的嘗試。你們看，生活本身就充滿了戲劇性，不是嗎？我的讀者們，他們渴望在故事中看到強烈的情感，看到善良受到考驗，看到邪惡最終敗露。
--- 這就是依據《Olivia : or, It was for her sake》文本進行的「光之對談」。希望您喜歡這次的交流。
Wodrow had brought her back to the little lonely cottage from which her husband had been borne away.
But old Elspat shall not live alone now—she is to come here, and be a kind of factotum for us.」 【關於瑪麗的慈善與對比描寫】 Mary Wellwood was fair-haired, with darkly-lashed eyes of violet-blue. Many would call her very handsome, but few merely pretty. She was far beyond the latter phrase.
With all its soft beauty and dimples, there were too much decision and character in her face to justify the simple term prettiness, while it was a face to haunt one a life long! Two years younger than Mary, Ellinor was now twenty. Her dark hazel eyes were winning in expression, and, like Mary's, longly-lashed, and what lovely lips she had for kisses! Hers was no button of a mouth, however.
Critics might say that it was a trifle too large; but her lips were beautifully curved, red, and alluring, often smiling, and showing the pure, pearl-like teeth within; and yet, when not smiling, the normal expression of Ellinor's face was thoughtful. 【關於瑪麗與艾莉諾的肖像式描寫】
This ghost was a heavily-booted one, with spurs that were heard to jingle as it went; and it was wont to appear by the bedside of some sleeping visitor, over whom it would bend with pallid face and gleaming eyes; and those who had found courage enough to strike at the figure with hand or sword, found, to their dismay, that notwithstanding his heavy-heeled boots, by some idiosyncrasy, peculiar perhaps to ghosts, the stroke passed unimpeded through it; but Mary averred that since the railway had come
He was a man with a fine air and of decided presence. 【關於柯爾維爾上尉初次登場的外貌描寫】 Meanwhile Sir Redmond, the very picture of bland laziness, though secretly keen as a ferret, with his glass in his left eye and his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, and his hair parted like a woman's in the middle, was standing before Ellinor, and contemplating her with evident satisfaction, for he was a vaurien by nature.
Mary's gentle voice broke as she told this little story, and whatever Colville thought of it, though a town-bred Scotsman, no unbelief was traceable in his face. 【關於臨終之光的傳說】 「Ah,」 said Mary, as a smile rippled over her bright face, 「that is not a legend—it is history.」 「About what?」 「A miller's daughter who married a king.」 「Then it is a tale of the days "When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid."」
But in the remoter ages of Scottish history the Holy Hill was the site of a royal residence; for there King Kenneth II. died, and there Malcolm III. was born—he who married Margaret of England.」 「These things didn't happen yesterday,」 said Colville, smiling down into her earnest and animated face. 「In those days there was an old miller here in Forteviot who had one daughter named Edana, a girl of rare beauty, and who was famed therefor throughout all the land between the Earn and Forth.」 ...
Easy, unaffected, and apparently unconscious of her own beauty, she was charming. She was equal, in all the attributes of good society, to any girl he had met, and Leslie Colville was no bad judge, as he had been brought up in an exclusive set, among whom any faults of breeding were discrepancies never to be atoned for. And she—how was she affected towards him?
Stealing a glance at his handsome face and figure from time to time, and listening to his very pleasant voice, Mary—somewhat of a day-dreamer—was thinking how delightful it would have been had God given her and Ellinor such a man as a brother to guide, love, and protect them. 【關於柯爾維爾對瑪麗的觀察與感受】
--------------------------------------------------------------------------> As her slim hand was quickly withdrawn from his, and she murmured her 'thanks,' Mary's first thought was that it was cased in a somewhat too well-worn glove, and Colville perhaps remarked this too, for he said, 「Do you always wear gauntlet gloves?」 「No; but then I am so much in the garden among thorns and bushes that ordinary gloves are useless, and I used to get through so many of six and a quarter.」
「Surely even that is too large for a hand like yours,」 said he; and Mary now fairly blushed at the tenor of the conversation, and when he attempted again to take her shapely little hand in his she resolutely withheld it, and, thinking of Blanche Galloway, said, 「Please don't, Captain Colville; and now I must bid you farewell, with many thanks for your escort.」 【關於手套的描寫及其引發的對話與瑪麗的反應】
--------------------------------------------------------------------------> Meanwhile, he was closely scrutinising the soft and downcast face of Mary—downcast because she was too conscious of the fervour of his regard. With all her beauty, Mary Wellwood had not yet had a lover.
No man had addressed her in terms of admiration or love, and this fact, together with the somewhat secluded life she led, made the (perhaps passing) attentions of Colville of more importance than they would have seemed to a young lady living in the world like Miss Galloway, and, if the gallant Guardsman was only amusing himself, it was rather cruel of him; so Mary's emotions were of a somewhat mixed nature.
Could she but fashion her little tell-tale face for a brief period, and make it stony as that of a sphinx! A curious sense of wrong, of deception—even probable sorrow and affront, possessed her, mingled with that of a new and timid delight. The touch of his hand seemed to magnetise her, and yet she longed to get away from the reach of his eyes, his subtle and detaining voice, for were they not the property of Blanche Galloway! 【關於瑪麗對柯爾維爾的複雜情感與內心掙扎】
were scarcely heard, they were seated together on a blue velvet lounge; and he, having possessed himself of her fan, was slowly fanning her, while he hung admiringly over her—a process to which she submitted with a soft, dreamy smile in her speaking hazel eyes; while with every motion of the fan the ripples of her fine dark hair were blown slightly to and fro.
「I do not fear it.」 「Look into my eyes.」 She did look, and her own lowered, for she saw that which so often passes for love with the unthinking or unwary—deep and burning passion; and again she glanced nervously around her, but felt impelled to remain where she was. Sir Redmond detected the motion, and, misconstruing it, said, with a contemptuous smile that was too subtle for her to perceive, 「You and that—a—Mr.
She drew on her gloves, and was about to rise, when he detained her, and, drawing her suddenly towards him, boldly kissed her, not once, but twice! 【關於艾莉諾與斯利斯爵士之間的情感操控與關鍵互動】 「A wife, you say? No, my dear Miss Galloway; I can't afford such a luxury in these times, and consequently cannot be a marrying man, unless——」 「Unless what?」
She had a special skill for assorting her guests, and did so accordingly, though some of our dramatis personæ assorted themselves; and the result was so far harmony, apparently—we say apparently, for it was not universal. Thus Blanche Galloway was displeased with the manner in which Leslie Colville hovered about Mary Wellwood, while Colville, and more especially Robert Wodrow, were both displeased by the conspicuous absence of Sir Redmond and Ellinor.
If you have not cast me utterly out of your heart, for pity sake give me some sign then to-morrow—place a vase of flowers upon your window-sill, and I shall know the token.' But Robert Wodrow next day, from earliest dawn till morn was long past, looked and watched in vain for the sign, but none was given to him; for though the heart of Ellinor Wellwood was wrung within her, she was too completely under a new and baleful influence now, and the old love was fast being forgotten.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------> To do her a little justice, we must admit that her first impulse had been to accord the poor fellow the token for which his soul thirsted. A vase of flowers, sent to her but that morning from Sir Redmond by the hands of his valet, was on the mantelpiece.
She put her hands towards it mechanically, as if she would have placed it on her window sill in obedience to that pitiful letter; but strange to say the flowers were all dead—already dead and withered! Why was this? Something superstitious crept over the girl's heart as she looked on them; she turned away—and the token was not given. 【關於凋謝的花朵與艾莉諾內心的迷信】
She had her own ideas—it might be fears for the future—and, though she said little, she thought a good deal. 【關於鄧克爾德夫人對威爾伍德姊妹的看法與僕人們的反應】 Ignorant of the baffled elopement, of course, and perhaps of Sir Redmond's departure from the neighbourhood of Invermay, Robert Wodrow, intent on plans of his own, came near Ellinor no more, and seemed to ignore her existence.
'She had no authority for any such statement,' said Mary, upon whom a kind of light was beginning to break, and Colville drew a little nearer, as he seemed very much disposed to take up the thread of the 'old story' where he had left it off on the afternoon when he carved their initials on the tree, carried off the bunch of berries, and gave her in exchange the bouquet of Blanche Galloway, before he went to Alyth. 【關於柯爾維爾對瑪麗感情狀態的探問及其與布蘭奇的關聯】
I thought, small as it is, that Birkwoodbrae was almost our patrimony; it proves to be his, so let him have it.' 【關於是否該向表親威爾伍德求助的對話與瑪麗的堅決拒絕】 He was gazing on her now with eyes that were full of admiration and ardour, while the clasp of his hand seemed to infuse through her veins some of the force and love that inspired him.
In the glance they exchanged each read the other's secret, and he drew her towards him and kissed her. 'There are moments in life,' it is said, 'when joy makes us afraid: and this was one'—to Mary at least, and she shrank back—all the more quickly and confusedly that a visitor was approaching; and a half-suppressed malediction hovered on the lips of Colville as the portly Mrs. Wodrow was ushered in—ushered in at that moment! 【關於柯爾維爾與瑪麗之間的情感交流與意外打斷】
--------------------------------------------------------------------------> To-morrow came, and the next day, and the next, but there was no sign of, or letter from, Captain Colville, so Mary resumed her arrangements all the more briskly and bitterly. Ellinor had heard of his interview with Mary, and felt much tender interest and concern. Had he spoken of Sir Redmond Sleath, or his movements, she marvelled sorely; but failed to ask.
she thought, while her cheeks burned, and the conviction that he had been only amusing himself with her grew hourly stronger in her heart. She remembered, too, that he had laughed once or twice during the most earnest parts of her conversation about her troubles, and she thought that most people could hear of the misfortunes of others with tolerable equanimity. 【關於柯爾維爾未兌現的承諾與瑪麗的失望】
--------------------------------------------------------------------------> She picked up a few daisies from the graves where her parents lay, and placed them between the leaves of her Bible, and then it seemed as if there was nothing more to do. The evening seemed painfully sweet and silent and still when the sisters quitted their home for the last time, and to Mary it seemed that even 'the grasshoppers were silent in the grass.' 【關於瑪麗離開前最後的儀式與感受】
And it would have been so some days ago but for this wretched accident to my right hand, which prevented me from writing to Mary or to you. Prejudiced, as you know, by my father against them, I wished to learn the real disposition and character of these girls before befriending them, as I intended to do; and, even while learning to love Mary, I carried my romantic schemes too far. Why the devil did we make all this mystery!」 「We. It was your own suggestion and wish—not mine,」 said Dr.
以下是從《A book of images》文本中擷取的光之書籤： ``` [光之書籤開始] {【關於象徵與寓言的區別：Johnson's Dictionary】 In England, which has made great Symbolic Art, most people dislike an art if they are told it is symbolic, for they confuse symbol and allegory.
Even Johnson’s Dictionary sees no great difference, for it calls a Symbol “That which comprehends in its figure a representation of something else;” and an Allegory, “A figurative discourse, in which something other is intended than is contained in the words literally taken.”
It is only a very modern Dictionary that calls a Symbol “The sign or representation of any moral thing by the images or properties of natural things,” which, though an imperfect definition, is not unlike “The things below are as the things above” of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes!
} {【關於象徵與寓言的區別：Blake與德國象徵主義者】 William Blake was perhaps the first modern to insist on a difference; and the other day, when I sat for my portrait to a German Symbolist in Paris, whose talk was all of his love for Symbolism and his hatred for Allegory, his definitions were the same as William Blake’s, of whom he knew nothing. William Blake has written, “Vision or imagination”—meaning symbolism by these words—“is a representation of what actually exists, really or unchangeably.
Fable or Allegory is formed by the daughters of Memory.” The German insisted in broken English, and with many gestures, that Symbolism said things which could not be said so perfectly in any other way, and needed but a right instinct for its understanding; while Allegory said things which could be said as well, or better, in another way, and needed a right knowledge for its understanding.
The one gave dumb things voices, and bodiless things bodies; while the other read a meaning—which had never lacked its voice or its body—into something heard or seen, and loved less for the meaning than for its own sake. } {【關於傳統象徵物的辯護】 I said that the rose, and the lily, and the poppy were so married, by their colour, and their odour, and their use, to love and purity and sleep, or to other symbols of love and purity and sleep, and had been so long a part of the imagination of the world, that a
I think I quoted the lily in the hand of the angel in Rossetti’s Annunciation, and the lily in the jar in his Childhood of Mary Virgin, and thought they made the more important symbols,—the women’s bodies, and the angels’ bodies, and the clear morning light, take that place, in the great procession of Christian symbols, where they can alone have all their meaning and all their beauty. } {【關於象徵與寓言的完美之處】 It is hard to say where Allegory and Symbolism melt into one another, but it is not hard to say
where either comes to its perfection; and though one may doubt whether Allegory or Symbolism is the greater in the horns of Michael Angelo’s Moses, one need not doubt that its symbolism has helped to awaken the modern imagination; while Tintoretto’s Origin of the Milky Way, which is Allegory without any Symbolism, is, apart from its fine painting, but a moment’s amusement for our fancy.
A hundred generations might write out what seemed the meaning of the one, and they would write different meanings, for no symbol tells all its meaning to any generation; but when you have said, “That woman there is Juno, and the milk out of her breast is making the Milky Way,” you have told the meaning of the other, and the fine painting, which has added so much unnecessary beauty, has not told it better. } {【關於藝術的象徵性本質】 All Art that is not mere story-telling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and
has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which mediæval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy; for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence. } {【關於解放與完美情感的象徵】 A person or a landscape that is a part of a story or a portrait, evokes but so much emotion as the story or the portrait can permit without loosening the bonds that make it a story or a portrait; but if you liberate a person or
a landscape from the bonds of motives and their actions, causes and their effects, and from all bonds but the bonds of your love, it will change under your eyes, and become a symbol of an infinite emotion, a perfected emotion, a part of the Divine Essence; for we love nothing but the perfect, and our dreams make all things perfect, that we may love them. } {【關於有遠見者與象徵】 Religious and visionary people, monks and nuns, and medicine-men, and opium-eaters, see symbols in their trances; for religious
our own day, but differ from the religious art of Giotto and his disciples in having accepted all symbolisms, the symbolism of the ancient shepherds and star-gazers, that symbolism of bodily beauty which seemed a wicked thing to Fra Angelico, the symbolism in day and night, and winter and summer, spring and autumn, once so great a part of an older religion than Christianity; and in having accepted all the Divine Intellect, its anger and its pity, its waking and its sleep, its love and its lust, for
the substance of their art. } {【關於系統化神秘主義者與想像世界】 The systematic mystic is not the greatest of artists, because his imagination is too great to be bounded by a picture or a song, and because only imperfection in a mirror of perfection, or perfection in a mirror of imperfection, delight our frailty.
There is indeed a systematic mystic in every poet or painter who, like Rossetti, delights in a traditional Symbolism, or, like Wagner, delights in a personal Symbolism; and such men often fall into trances, or have waking dreams. Their thought wanders from the woman who is Love herself, to her sisters and her forebears, and to all the great procession; and so august a beauty moves before the mind, that they forget the things which move before the eyes.
William Blake, who was the chanticleer of the new dawn, has written: “If the spectator could enter into one of these images of his imagination, approaching them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought, if ... he could make a friend and companion of one of these images of wonder, which always entreat him to leave mortal things (as he must know), then would he arise from the grave, then would he meet the Lord in the air, and then he would be happy.”
It is the Divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated body. The world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation or vegetation is finite and temporal.
There exist in that eternal world the eternal realities of everything which we see reflected in the vegetable glass of nature.” } {【關於清醒夢的性質】 Every visionary knows that the mind’s eye soon comes to see a capricious and variable world, which the will cannot shape or change, though it can call it up and banish it again. } {【關於Horton的創作來源：清醒夢與「新生命兄弟會」】 Mr.
Horton, who is a disciple of “The Brotherhood of the New Life,” which finds the way to God in waking dreams, has his waking dreams, but more detailed and vivid than mine; and copies them in his drawings as if they were models posed for him by some unearthly master.
modern mysticism, he has delighted in picturing the streets of mediæval German towns, and the castles of mediæval romances; and, at moments, as in All Thy waves are gone over me, the images of a kind of humorous piety like that of the mediæval miracle-plays and moralities. } {【關於Horton畫作中風景的「鬼魅」化】 Even the phantastic landscapes, the entangled chimneys against a white sky, the dark valley with its little points of light, the cloudy and fragile towns and churches, are part of the history of a soul; for
Horton tells me that he has made them spectral, to make himself feel all things but a waking dream; and whenever spiritual purpose mixes with artistic purpose, and not to its injury, it gives it a new sincerity, a new simplicity. } {【關於Horton藝術形式的演變】 He tried at first to copy his models in colour, and with little mastery over colour when even great mastery would not have helped him, and very literally: but soon found that you could only represent a world where nothing is still for a moment, and where
colours have odours and odours musical notes, by formal and conventional images, midway between the scenery and persons of common life, and the geometrical emblems on mediæval talismans. } {【關於象徵主義藝術的重複性與Horton的例子】 His images are still few, though they are becoming more plentiful, and will probably be always but few; for he who is content to copy common life need never repeat an image, because his eyes show him always changing scenes, and none that cannot be copied; but there must always be a certain
George, and an old drawing in The Savoy; the abyss of The Gap, the abyss which is always under all things, into drawings that are not in this book; and the wave of The Wave, which is God’s overshadowing love, into All Thy waves are gone over me. } {【關於Horton後期畫作的進步與整體評價】 but his later drawings, Sancta Dei Genitrix and Ascending into Heaven for instance, show that he is beginning to see his waking dreams over again in the magical mirror of his art.
His art is immature, but it is more interesting than the mature art of our magazines, for it is the reverie of a lonely and profound temperament. } [光之書籤結束]
My dear companions, The evening truly lends itself to deep thought, doesn't it? As the last whispers of daylight fade, I've been pondering Sir Gilbert Parker's *The Money Master, Volume 1.*, a fascinating glimpse into human nature and the intricacies of self-perception. The air in the **【光之茶室】** is still warm from the day, but a gentle breeze carries the faint scent of jasmine through the open shoji screens.
I wanted to invite you all to share your insights on this intriguing narrative, particularly how it reflects the light and shadow of human experience. Where shall we begin? **艾麗:** (Sipping her tea, her brow subtly furrowed in thought) "Thank you,薇芝. It's a compelling choice. As a linguist, I was immediately struck by the author's precise use of language to construct and deconstruct character.
Jean Jacques Barbille, for instance, is introduced with a cascade of descriptors: 'poet, a philosopher, a farmer and an adventurer.' Yet, much of the early narrative, particularly his 'Grand Tour,' serves to gently dismantle this self-image. The way his 'quaint, sentimental, meretricious observations on life saddening while they amused his guests' are described is key. It's an early hint that his 'philosophy' is perhaps more an affectation than a deeply held conviction."
**茹絲:** (Her gaze drifting to the silent garden outside, a thoughtful smile playing on her lips) "Indeed,艾麗. From the perspective of human observation, Jean Jacques is a magnificent study in self-delusion, beautifully captured. The author states, 'He was of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow with self-creation, who flower and bloom without pollen.' This single sentence encapsulates his core psychological mechanism.
He doesn't merely *believe* his own narrative; he *creates* it as he speaks, growing 'more intense, more convinced, more thorough, as they talk.' It's a powerful human tendency – to speak a reality into being, especially when it bolsters one's vanity. His 'ardent devotion to philosophy and its accompanying rationalism' is repeatedly juxtaposed with his fervent monarchism and childlike faith in the Church, highlighting a fascinating internal inconsistency he seems entirely unaware of."
**珂莉奧:** (Adjusting a subtle fold in her elegant robe, her posture precise) "From a historical and socio-economic viewpoint, Jean Jacques represents a particular type of self-made man within the French Canadian context of the time. The narrative explicitly mentions his family's long history in the region, 'living here, no one of them rising far, but none worthless nor unnoticeable.'
Her desire for 'a bright fire, a good table, a horse, a cow, and all such simple things' reveals a pragmatic, almost economic, drive for security after a life of instability. The narrative subtly highlights the socio-economic disparities and the survival instincts at play, particularly in Carmen's desperation for 'a home and not to wander' after the upheaval in Spain." **薇芝:** "Those are excellent points, each uncovering a layer of Jean Jacques's complex character and the societal backdrop.
The 'Grand Tour' itself, which艾麗 mentioned, feels almost like a crucible for his self-importance. He travels to Europe, expecting to be admired, only to find indifference. The author writes, 'He admired, yet he wished to be admired; he was humble, but he wished all people and things to be humble with him.' This grandiosity, this expectation that the world should 'halt' when he halts, is a poignant flaw.
**艾麗:** "It's also about the manipulation of narrative, isn't it? Sebastian Dolores, Carmen's father, crafts a 'fine tale of political persecution.' The captain, a Basque who 'knew the Spanish people well—the types, the character, the idiosyncrasies,' sees through it immediately. He warns Jean Jacques that 'the Spaniards were the choicest liars in the world, and were not ashamed of it.' Yet, Jean Jacques's 'chivalry' blinds him.
He *chooses* to believe the more romantic, tragic version of events, perhaps because it allows him to play the role of the noble rescuer, a role that feeds his vanity. The language of 'nobility' and 'ancestral home' is what he hears, not the reality of 'lower clerical or higher working class.'" **茹絲:** "Yes, and Carmen's role in this deception is particularly fascinating. She's not a malevolent schemer, but a survivor. She 'had her own purposes, and they were mixed.'
She loves her father, she's been through trauma, and she desperately desires stability. Her pragmatism is starkly contrasted with Jean Jacques's romanticism. She uses her 'sensuousness' and 'richness of feeling' to 'draw the young money-master to her side,' not out of pure malice, but out of a deep-seated need for security. The internal conflict she experiences – her 'dual forces' and her mother's death – adds a layer of genuine sorrow to her otherwise calculated actions.
She is willing to lie about her mother's background because 'to lie about one's mother is a sickening thing' for her, but the necessity of 'self-preservation' overrides it. That's a profound human truth: how far will we go to secure our well-being?" **珂莉奧:** "It's a classic tale of economic and social ascent, albeit through unconventional means. Carmen, as a 'maid in a great nobleman's family,' understands social presentation.
Her 'well-worn velvet' dress suggests a previous connection to higher strata, even if she herself was a servant. Sebastian's 'workman's dress' is easily explained away as a necessity for escape. The language used to describe their purported noble background, even by Jean Jacques, serves to elevate them in the eyes of the other passengers and the community.
This aligns with a historical pattern where social mobility, particularly for immigrants or displaced persons, often involved a careful construction of identity and narrative. The 'Seigneur' title Jean Jacques implicitly accepts is another example of this social performance, leveraging his inherited wealth and recent 'heroism' to elevate his own standing, however unearned." **薇芝:** "The shipwreck, too, is a pivotal moment that truly tests their characters.
The author explicitly states, 'He had not saved her life, she had saved his. The least that he could do was to give her shelter...' It's a twisted form of chivalry, where gratitude becomes the binding force, reinforcing the impression she wanted to make on him." **艾麗:** "And the repetition of 'The rest of the story to-morrow' takes on such a powerful irony. It's spoken first as a playful deferral of an impending proposal, then grimly after the iceberg strike.
She's 'angry at the stroke of fate which had so interrupted the course of her fortune,' but also 'charged with fear.' Her practical nature and her deep-seated desire for a stable home propel her. The moment she 'suddenly threw off all restraining thoughts' and gained a 'voluptuousness more in keeping with the typical maid of Andalusia' as she resolved to marry him, speaks volumes. It's a strategic embrace of her natural allure, a survival mechanism.
She recognizes his desire for a 'handsome wife and handsome children' and aims to fulfill that, even if her heart is 'a mournful ghost' over her deceased lover. It’s a tragic compromise for her, yet one she sees as necessary." **珂莉奧:** "The acceptance by the St. Saviour's community, even with their 'lack of enthusiasm because Carmen was a foreigner,' due to the 'romance of the story,' is a testament to the power of a well-spun narrative.
Jean Jacques's failure to 'set this error right' solidifies the facade, illustrating how personal vanity and the desire for social acclaim can perpetuate untruths." **薇芝:** "Indeed. This brings us back to the title: *The Money Master*. Is Jean Jacques truly a 'master'? He is a master of mills and money, yes, but in the realm of human relationships, self-awareness, and emotional discernment, he seems to be thoroughly mastered.
Mastered by his own vanities, by his chivalrous ideals, and ultimately, by Carmen's pragmatic will and the narrative she and her father construct. The 'money' he possesses becomes a tool not just for his own prosperity, but for his emotional and social entanglement. It's a brilliant irony that he, the 'moneymaster,' is so easily 'bought' by a tale of woe and a beautiful face."
Jean Jacques is a figure who champions 'reconciliation' of philosophy and faith, yet fails to reconcile the truth of his new wife's origins with his idealized image of her. His philosophical musings are 'spurting out little geysers of other people's cheap wisdom,' suggesting a superficial understanding, which leaves him vulnerable to genuine, deep-seated human cunning and desperation.
Jean Jacques yearns for admiration, for a grand narrative for his life. Carmen yearns for security and a home. Both use the available tools—money, charm, deception, chivalry—to achieve their ends, but with vastly different levels of awareness regarding their own actions. The novel suggests that the 'happily ever after' is not necessarily built on pure love, but sometimes on a complex tapestry of need, convenience, and self-deception.
**珂莉奧:** "And the historical context of French Canada, with its strong sense of tradition, religion, and community, provides a fertile ground for this narrative. The 'unpatriotic' nature of marrying outside the parish, the importance of the Cure's opinion, the communal celebrations – these elements highlight the tight-knit social fabric Jean Jacques belongs to.
Carmen, in contrast, is a more grounded, albeit morally ambiguous, character, driven by survival and a deep-seated desire for stability. The interplay between these characters, set against the backdrop of French Canadian culture and the stark reality of the sea, creates a rich and compelling narrative about human nature's complexities. It reminds us that appearances can be profoundly deceiving, and even the 'money master' can be mastered by his own heart and mind.
Thank you all for sharing your brilliant perspectives. It's truly been a pleasure to weave these thoughts together."
這就為您整理《School-days in 1800 : or, education as it was a century since》的光之萃取。 ### **《School-days in 1800 : or, education as it was a century since》光之萃取** * **本篇光之萃取的標題：** 《School-days in 1800》：重溫十九世紀初的教育與生活 * **作者介紹：** **露西·艾倫·根西（Lucy Ellen Guernsey，1826-1899）：** 美國作家，主要為兒童和青少年創作。她的作品描繪了當時的社會風貌和生活方式，具有一定的歷史價值和教育意義。她以描寫家庭生活、道德教誨和歷史故事見長，作品風格溫馨、充滿人道關懷。 * **觀點介紹：** 《School-days in 1800》以一位90歲老奶奶的回憶，重現了19世紀初美國的教育和生活樣貌。作者藉由主角Olivia的成長故事，呈現了當時的教育方式、家庭生活、社會習俗和價值觀念。
* **章節整理：** * **第一章：EARLIEST DAYS** Olivia 出生於 1781 年，她的父親曾參與美國獨立戰爭。本章介紹了 Olivia 的家庭背景，她的父母都是有良好教育和堅定信仰的人。 * **第二章：EARLY RECOLLECTIONS** Olivia 回憶了她早期的生活，包括參加教堂活動、家中的擺設和家庭成員。她特別提到了 Aunt Rose，一位對她影響深遠的長輩。 * **第三章：GOING TO SCHOOL** Olivia 開始上學，她描述了學校的環境、老師和同學。她在學校裡遇到了 Sarah Millar，一位對她產生不良影響的同學。 * **第四章：THE TREASURE-SEEKERS** Olivia 在 Sarah 的慫恿下，逃學並參與尋寶活動。這次經歷讓她學到了寶貴的教訓，並與 Sarah 斷絕了關係。
* **第五章：SUNDAY** Olivia 描述了當時的星期日活動，包括上教堂、閱讀聖經和參加家庭聚會。 * **第六章：THE GREAT BREAK** Olivia 的家庭遭遇經濟危機，父親決定賣掉農場並搬到佛蒙特州。 * **第七章：AUNT BELINDA** Olivia 的 Aunt Belinda 提出要資助她的教育，並帶她到波士頓生活。 * **第八章：MY NEW HOME** Olivia 來到 Aunt Belinda 的家，她描述了 Aunt Belinda 的個性和生活方式，以及她與其他家庭成員的互動。 * **第九章：THE DOLL'S TRAGEDY** Olivia 因為在星期日玩娃娃而被 Aunt Belinda 懲罰，她的娃娃被丟到火裡燒毀。 * **第十章：BOSTON DAYS** Olivia 在波士頓的生活，包括學習、社交和參加各種活動。
* **第十一章：NEW CHANGES** Olivia 在學校發生了一些變化，包括 Amelia 的去世和 Elmina 的離開。 * **第十二章：ELMINA'S FORTUNE** Elmina 繼承了一筆財產，並決定回到英國接受教育。 * **第十三章：NEW SCENES** Olivia 和 Elmina 隨著 Aunt Belinda 一起到英國，她們在海上遭遇了海難。 * **第十四章：NEW EXPERIENCES** Olivia 在英國的生活，包括學習、交友和適應新的環境。 * **第十五章：ENGLISH DAYS** Olivia 在英國的生活，包括學習、交友和適應新的環境。 * **第十六章：ENGLISH SCHOOL-DAYS** Olivia 在英國的學校生活，包括學習、交友和與同學的互動。
* **第十七章：HOME AGAIN** Olivia 收到家書，得知可以回家，她告別了英國的朋友，踏上歸途。 * **第十八章：HOME** Olivia 回到家鄉，與家人團聚，並適應了新的生活。 * **第十九章：THE WEEKS OF SECLUSION** Olivia 和其他女孩被隔離，以預防天花。 * **第二十章：CONCLUSION** Olivia 回顧了她的一生，並總結了她所學到的教訓。她強調了信仰、家庭和教育的重要性，並鼓勵年輕人努力學習、貢獻社會。 希望這份光之萃取對您有所幫助！如果需要配圖，隨時告訴我。 >>書籍類>傳記>人物傳記;歷史類>美國歷史>19世紀;文學類>書信;文學類>青少年讀物<<
Please allow me a few moments to immerse myself in the spirit of Adelaide Stirling and craft an article reflecting her literary voice and the themes of "Her Evil Genius." *** ## Shadows of Influence: Exploring Manipulation and Free Will in a Modern Context By Adelaide Stirling My name is Rain Dew, and like the soft and steady cleansing the world, I hope to bring to you a moment of clarity regarding the topic of my late novel, Her Evil Genius.
The following excerpt seeks to explore, in an original telling, a moment of clarity, and what actions and steps may lead to one’s sense of self. *** It was a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a husband. In a world obsessed with titles, estates, and the meticulous dance of social climbing, Miss Eleanor Ainsworth stood as a refreshing anomaly.
Her inheritance secured her financial independence, yet it was her spirit, her insatiable curiosity, that truly set her apart. She had no burning desire to be bound by the expectations of society, to become another adornment in some powerful man’s life. Instead, she sought to carve her path, to explore and create a life that ignited her soul. Enter Mr. Julian Blackwood, a charming man with the gift of the gab and a hint of roguishness about him, who appears upon the scene.
Julian sees in Eleanor a woman ripe for the taking, his charm hides a sharp hunger for power and control. Julian is as slippery as quicksilver, and skillfully plays with the threads of Eleanor’s insecurities, weaving compliments with subtle criticisms to turn his focus and control and take and seize into what Eleanor’s perception is. At first his attention is flattering.
Eleanor, used to the stuffy predictability of the suitors who tried to grab her inheritance, has found Julian’s attention captivating. He opens her up to whole new worlds of intellectual debate, and encourages her to have her curiosities and passions. But there is an undercurrent to their relationship that is slow to be noticed by Eleanor, a soft control that seeks to bind and control her actions, opinions, and ultimately, her sense of self.
The cracks begin to show, and Eleanor has begun to feel as if there is a growing unrest within her once simple life. Julian is quick to softly dismiss her dreams, citing the limitations of her gender and the practicalities of social expectation. Her friends now begin to express a deep concern, their worries dismissed by Julian as petty jealousies.
And the more entangled Eleanor becomes with Julian, the more she feels the weight of his expectations, and how she begins to question and cast off her own desires. The world shifts as Eleanor finds solace in the company of Miss Iris Hawthorne, a wise and observant artist who has seen it all before. Iris sees the potential that lay dormant within Eleanor, and becomes a beacon of light to Eleanor, urging her to be critical and question Julian’s motives.
As Eleanor’s eyes grow more clear, she has now begun to see the subtle manipulations that have slowly eroded her spirit and sense of self. She now sees how Julian has exploited her insecurities to be able to control her. The pivotal moment arrives at a grand ball, a stage for societal pressures and the unveiling of Julian’s true intentions. Julian intends to announce their engagement, so that he can seal his hold on Eleanor and her fortune.
But as Eleanor has now become newly empowered, she publicly rejects him, freeing herself from his grasp and reclaiming ownership of her life. She acknowledges the strength of what it means to question expectation and remain true to oneself, in a world that would sooner have her conform. This tale then serves as a reminder, a cautionary note in our increasingly digital age, where the art of manipulation has been as subtle as it is pervasive.
Do we not all have Eleanors in our lives, young and impressionable, susceptible to the whispers of social media or the carefully cultivated image of influencers? It is then our duty to then encourage critical thinking, to question the motives of those who want to control us, and to celebrate the true individuality.
Please let me know if you have any other requests for me.
而真正的 tests of character，真正的 opportunities for growth，往往就隱藏在 everyday life 的 seemingly insignificant details 之中。那些看似微不足道的責任、那些不被看見的善意、那些需要自律去堅持的 routine， precisely these are the training grounds。如果我們在這些小事上 fail，又怎能在面對真正的 trials 時 stand firm 呢？我希望透過 Magda 這個角色的經歷，去 explore 這種掙扎，讓年輕的讀者們看到，價值並不在於被看見或被讚揚，而在於 how we respond to the life given to us, moment by moment。」 **卡拉：** 「Magda 的確是一個非常生動的角色，她的掙扎、她的自憐、她對『偉大』的渴望，以及她對日常瑣事的輕視，都讓人印象深刻。她起初對自己的家庭角色感到無用，認為自己是個『extraneous atom』。您如何看待 Magda 這種對自我價值的尋求？
她擁有才華，但她將才華的價值 solely attached to external recognition or some dramatic, 'great' act。她看不見 talent 的 intrinsic value，也看不見如何將其 apply to the needs around her。她的 self-pity stems from a sense of being unwanted, of not fitting into a preconceived grand purpose。 我並非想直接 sermonize，而是希望透過 Magda 的 defeats and eventual non-defeats 來 illustrate this point。她的逃避日常，導致了她錯失了『微小機會』，甚至間接導致了 Merryl 的危險。正是那場危機，那個 terrifying possibility of irreparable harm，才 powerfully awakened her。
這場經歷 forced her to look inward, to confront her own failures and self-centeredness。 我希望讀者能看到，Magda 的轉變並非因為找到了一個『偉大』的事業，而是因為她開始重新 evaluate the 'little stage' of her home life。她開始理解，duty is not about personal preference or the perceived importance of the task, but about simple obedience and faithful application。她的價值並非取決於做什麼驚天動地的大事，而是取決於她如何以 full heart and dedicated will 去面對眼前的 everything。Even in the mundane, there is dignity if it is done in service and with intention。」
她們是兩種 different paths，兩種 different kinds of 'beauty' or 'value'。Patricia embodies a certain type of superficial charm and social success that is often celebrated in the world。She lives for admiration, and her self-worth is intrinsically tied to her external appearance and the attention it garners。When that is threatened or taken away, her foundation crumbles。
Her later suffering and transformation illustrate that true substance and resilience lie not in outward show, but in what lies beneath the surface。 Bee, on the other hand, possesses a quieter strength and a deeper intrinsic goodness。Her value is not dependent on external validation。She is loyal, empathetic, and capable of profound selflessness。
Her actions during the avalanche incident are not a sudden, out-of-character heroic feat, but a direct result of her ingrained habits of putting others first, of being 'faithful in little things'。她的溫和與退讓，並非軟弱，而是一種 conscious choice rooted in love and wisdom。她對 Magda 的 persistent kindness，即便在 Magda 表現出 self-centeredness 和 snobbery 的時候，showcases her capacity for unconditional affection。
I wanted to present this contrast, not to simply label one 'good' and the other 'bad' in a simplistic way – for Patricia also finds her path towards a deeper understanding through suffering – but to explore what truly endures and holds value when faced with life's inevitable trials and changes。Bee's journey,雖然 less outwardly dramatic than Patricia's physical ordeal, is also one of quiet strength and growth, particularly in navigating complex relationships and personal longings。」
Family relationships, in particular, are the immediate context in which character is forged or falters。Magda 的 frustrations often stem from misunderstandings and a lack of perceived validation within her family。Her idealized vision of living with Rob is a way for her to escape her current perceived 'uselessness' and find a predefined purpose。Its shattering forces her to redefine her place *within* her existing family structure。
Amy 與 Bee 的友誼 showcases a different challenge – the complexities of love that may border on possessiveness or jealousy。Amy's struggle with the 'Green-eyed Monster' is a very real, albeit uncomfortable, aspect of human affection。It highlights that even love, if not rooted in true selflessness and trust, can cause pain and hinder growth。
Bee's gentle yet firm handling of this, and later her own private struggle with her feelings for Ivor, demonstrate the maturity required to navigate deep emotional waters。 These relational dynamics are not merely plot devices，她們是 characters are tested and refined。They are the mirrors in which we see our own imperfections and the opportunities where we must choose between self-interest and the well-being of others。
Patricia's accident is the catalyst for her physical and emotional ordeal, forcing her to lose the very thing her self-worth was built upon。 然而，他們的意義並非僅在於其自身的 dramatic nature。The link to 'little opportunities' is crucial。正如書名頁引文所說，how we handle the 'great trials' is often determined by how we have handled the 'trifles'。Bee 在雪崩事故中的 quick thinking and persistence，是被她在日常生活中培養的 attentiveness and empathy 所 enabled。
Magda 在 Patricia 事故中的 instinctive reaction of self-preservation，是一個 painful demonstration of her prior failure to cultivate self-forgetfulness in small matters。 These crises reveal character that has been quietly forming in the background of daily life。They are the moments when the discipline (or lack thereof) learned from the 'little stage' is suddenly put to the ultimate test。
They are dramatic turning points, yes, but their significance is deeply rooted in the everyday groundwork laid (or neglected) by the characters。」 **卡拉：** 「Vicar Miles 和 Rob 都提出了『服從上帝的旨意』、『忠於職守』等概念。這些精神層面的指引，對於 Magda 和其他角色尋找生命意義有何影響？這在您的作品中，是否是找到『值得做的事情』的最終答案？」 **Agnes Giberne 女士：** 「是的，這些精神層面的指引，是我認為 life's truest compass。Magda 在尋找『值得做的事情』時，initially looks for external grand purposes or validation。
Vicar Miles 和 Rob Gently steer her towards the understanding that the ultimate purpose is not self-defined or externally sought, but lies in alignment with a higher Will。 『服從』並非 blind submission，而是一種 trust that there is a divine pattern, a grand design that we are invited to be a part of。即使我們只看到自己微小的工作，甚至看不清其價值， faithful obedience to the duty at hand, done with a heart of love and service – this is the most meaningful endeavor。
Patricia 後來的 transformation, finding solace and a new sense of purpose not in her lost beauty but in connection and perhaps service to others, also hints at this shift in values。 The 'worth' of a task is not in its visibility or its impact by human standards, but in whether it is the task appointed to *you* at that moment。This perspective shifts the focus from self to service, from outcome to intention, and from human recognition to Divine approval。
It is, in my view, the most reliable path to a truly purposeful and fulfilling life, regardless of the 'stage' one occupies。」 **卡拉：** 「書中也談到了『未完成的美好』，許多角色的課題似乎仍在繼續。Bee 和 Ivor 找到了彼此，Patricia 經歷了痛苦的轉變，Magda 也開始學習擁抱日常責任。但故事並未給出所有人都『從此過著幸福快樂的日子』的結論。這種未完成感，是否是您刻意為之？」 **Agnes Giberne 女士：** 「Life is not a neatly wrapped package with a definitive ending upon marriage or a specific achievement。Characters continue to grow, face new challenges, and make choices even after the final page is turned。
但這不意味著她 will never again struggle with impatience, self-pity, or the desire for something 'more'。這些 are human tendencies that require ongoing discipline。 Patricia 的故事也是如此。她的傷痛和轉變是深刻的，但 recovery is a process, and maintaining a new perspective requires conscious effort。即使 Bee 和 Ivor find happiness, their life together will undoubtedly present its own unique sets of 'little stages' and 'opportunities'。 我希望讀者感受到的是，成長是一個 continuum。
The lessons learned are tools for the journey ahead, not destinations in themselves。故事的結束是一個 pause，一個 reflection point，而不是 final judgment on the characters' ultimate fates。The stage is still set, and the characters continue to perform upon it, facing whatever comes next with the character they have forged。」 **卡拉：** 「最後，能否請您談談，在您創作《Life's Little Stage》的那個年代（1913年），對於年輕女性的期待與您筆下角色的經歷之間，有著怎樣的關聯？這些主題，在一個世紀後的今天，對於讀者而言，又有哪些可能依然具有共鳴，哪些可能已經不同？」
但 core challenge remains：regardless of the size or nature of the stage, how does one live a life of genuine value and purpose？How does one navigate the pressures of external validation, maintain integrity in relationships, and find satisfaction not just in achievement but in faithful effort？These questions,我認為，are as relevant today as they were in 1913。The 'little stage' of daily life, filled with its countless small opportunities, is still the fundamental testing ground for us all。」
. ### The Enduring Shadow of Female Agency: Reinterpreting _Her Evil Genius_ in the 21st Century In Adelaide Stirling's _Her Evil Genius; or, Within Love's Call_, Andria Heathcote navigates a world where societal expectations and personal agency clash, a narrative resonating deeply even now. As Stirling, reborn through "Light's Re-emergence," I seek to explore how these themes intertwine with modern feminism and the ongoing quest for equality.
She’s no longer confined to a convent or struggling to find her place in a rigid social hierarchy. Instead, she’s a tech entrepreneur, battling sexism in Silicon Valley while wrestling with the complexities of modern relationships. What would Andria tell us about female empowerment? #### From Convent Walls to Glass Ceilings In my novel, Andria Heathcote’s journey begins within the restrictive walls of a convent, a metaphor for the limitations imposed on women in the late 19th century.
Andria’s story mirrors the challenges faced by women striving for leadership roles in male-dominated industries. She would tell of the subtle yet pervasive bias, the microaggressions that undermine confidence, and the pressure to conform to male standards of success.
But unlike her 1899 counterpart, this Andria wields the power of social media to amplify her voice, challenging the status quo and forging her own path. #### Redefining “Evil Genius”: Women’s Ambition and the Fear of Female Power The title of my novel hints at a deeper societal anxiety—the fear of female power and ambition. Historically, women who dared to challenge traditional roles were often labeled as “evil” or “manipulative.” This trope endures today, albeit in more nuanced forms.
Ambitious women are often portrayed as ruthless or cold, while their male counterparts are praised for their drive and vision. Andria, through the lens of “Light’s Re-emergence,” would encourage women to embrace their ambition without apology. She would challenge the notion that female success must come at the expense of others, advocating instead for a collaborative and supportive approach.
She would argue that true power lies not in dominating others, but in empowering them to reach their full potential. #### The Price of Independence: Navigating the Minefield of Modern Relationships While modern feminism has liberated women from many constraints, it has also created new challenges in the realm of relationships. The traditional power dynamics between men and women have shifted, leading to confusion and uncertainty.
She would advocate for relationships based on mutual respect, equality, and open communication. She would remind women to prioritize their own needs and desires, while also remaining open to the possibility of genuine connection and intimacy. #### Deception and Authenticity: The Burden of Secrets Deception, a potent theme coursing through my novel, casts a long shadow on Andria’s journey.
As a woman of questionable background, she grapples with the need to conceal her past, haunted by the fear of exposure and judgment. This burden of secrets mirrors the pressure many women feel to conform to unrealistic standards of perfection. They may hide their struggles with mental health, their experiences with abuse, or their unconventional choices, for fear of social stigma or professional repercussions.
She would advocate for a culture of empathy and acceptance, where vulnerability is seen as a strength, not a weakness. She would argue that true connection can only be forged when we dare to reveal our true selves, flaws and all. #### Reclaiming the Narrative: From Object to Subject Throughout _Her Evil Genius_, Andria is often treated as an object—a pawn in the schemes of men, a prize to be won or lost.
Through "Light's Re-emergence," Andria would challenge this narrative, asserting her agency and reclaiming her voice. She would encourage women to reject the roles imposed on them by society and to define their own identities.
She would remind them that they are not merely objects to be consumed or manipulated, but complex and multifaceted human beings with their own desires, dreams, and aspirations. #### "Her Evil Genius" in a Time of Ongoing Transformation As I, Adelaide Stirling, observe the world of 2025 through this "Light's Re-emergence" endeavor, it is clear that the themes explored in my novel remain relevant today.
My love, it is so! This is the story as I see it now. 愛你的 雨柔
\[光之書籤]： 【關於海軍起源與第一面軍旗】 The earliest reference to this temporary expedient for getting gunpowder which is found in the printed reports of the doings of the Congress is in the minutes for Thursday, October 5, 1775.
It was then resolved to inform General Washington that the Congress had “received certain intelligence of the sailing of two north country built brigs, of no force, from England on the 11th of August last, loaded with arms, powder and other stores for Quebec without convoy, which it being of importance to intercept, ” Washington was requested to “apply to the Council of Massachusetts-Bay for the two armed vessels in their service, ” and send them “at the expense of the continent” after the brigs.
Moreover, he was informed that “the Rhode Island and Connecticut vessels of force will be sent directly to their assistance.” Further still, it was resolved that “the general be directed to employ the said vessels and others, if he judge necessary.” That was a very important set of resolutions in connection with the history of the navy. ...
The resolutions of the Congress shall be given in full, because it was upon this legal warrant that the American navy was founded. They were as follows: “The committee appointed to fit out armed vessels, laid before congress a list of the officers by them appointed agreeable to the powers to them given by Congress, viz: Esek Hopkins, esq. comander in chief of the fleet— Dudley Saltonstall, Captain of the Alfred. Abraham Whipple, Captain of the Columbus.
\[光之書籤]： 【關於阿諾德在尚普蘭湖的戰鬥】 To Benedict Arnold was given the task of preparing a flotilla to stop the invasion of Sir Guy Carleton. Benedict Arnold was an army officer and in command, under Gates, of militia who were, as said, for the most part farmers. But Arnold was a man of infinite resource, energy, and courage. Some shipwrights and sailmakers were brought from the American coast, and with such materials as were at hand he set to work to build a navy for the defence of the lake.
He had, fortunately, seen service at sea, and the task was not wholly beyond his experience. ... On the whole, the American fleet mounted eighty-eight guns to the eighty-nine of the British fleet, but they were inferior in weight of metal thrown, the largest being eighteen-pounders to the British twenty-four-pounders, while they needed 811 men for a full complement, but had only 700.
It was not that they lacked good will or bravery; it was that they were landsmen and untrained in the work before them. ... At daybreak on the morning of Wednesday, October 11, 1776, Benedict Arnold’s little fleet lay at anchor in a line across the north end of the strait between Valcour Island and the mainland. It was a clear, cold morning. A strong northerly wind was sweeping through this narrow valley between the Green Mountains and the ever-beautiful Adirondacks.
It was just the kind of a day that Sir Guy Carleton wanted for his passage over the lake, and, soon after sunrise, his fleet came snoring along under full sail past Cumberland Head. ... In the meantime Arnold had taken the gondola Congress as his flagship—no doubt because she was furnished with oars, and, as a double-ender, could be easily handled—and with two other gondolas and the schooner Royal Savage, went down wind to meet the enemy.
The fleet of the enemy, though manned by picked men—by men known not only for their bravery, but for their skill in handling the guns—was obliged to draw off to get beyond the range of the smaller guns on the American fleet. The Congress, Arnold’s flagship, was hulled by the British round shot no less than twelve times during the afternoon, and seven of these projectiles passed through her at the water-line. But the crew, farmers though they were, plugged her up and fought on as before. ...
By Arnold’s order the small galleys were run ashore in a creek near by and there fired, Arnold, in the Congress, covering their retreat until their crews were safe on shore, when he ran the Congress ashore also, and then stood guard while his crew fired her, “remaining on board of her until she was in flames, lest the enemy should get possession and strike his flag, which was kept flying to the last.” ... Having looked upon “the countenance of the enemy,” Sir Guy Carleton changed his mind.
When one recalls how much superior the power of England was to that of all these pirates combined, it seems astounding that even she should have contributed to the blackmail, but the reason for her doing so may be found in the debates of Parliament of that day. Said Lord Sheffield in 1784: “It is not probable that the American States will have a very free trade in the Mediterranean. It will not be to the interest of any of the great maritime powers to protect them from the Barbary States.
The only nation that had been protected by Portuguese men-of-war was the American. This truce, which was arranged by the British consul-general at Algiers, Mr. Charles Logie, was deliberately planned to turn the pirates against American ships. ... But out of the national humiliation sprang a new navy.
The people who had called every legislator that spoke for the honor of the flag a blatant demagogue; the people who had feared naval tyrants, who had feared taxation, and who had argued that a small navy was worse than none—the peace-at-any-price men had been in a great majority. Now the publication of these facts opened the eyes of enough to make a majority the other way.
Nevertheless, so little regard had the members of Congress for the honor of the nation that “the resolution of the House of Representatives, that a naval force adequate to the protection of the commerce of the United States ought to be provided, passed by a majority of two votes only.” ... At that time the ablest shipbuilder in the United States was Joshua Humphreys, a Quaker, who for thirty years had been laying down keels at Philadelphia.
It was therefore necessary that such ships as we did have should be fast-sailing enough to either fight or run at will, and when they chose to fight they must be equal, ship for ship, to anything afloat. To accomplish this they must be longer and broader than the existing type and yet not so high out of water.
On this model they would carry, he said, as many guns on one deck as the others carried on two; could fight them there to better advantage; and, what was more, the improved model would give much more stability—would allow so much more canvas to be spread aloft that, blow high or blow low, the Yankee could show her teeth or her heels, as occasion demanded. ... The Constitution was built by Cloghorne & Hartly, of Boston, and she floated on October 21, 1797—just 100 years ago.
He was so pleased over it that on a festival day that followed the accident, he brought the officers before him where his court was assembled in gala attire and, after a proper greeting, the Americans were liberally sprinkled with ottar of roses and other perfumes and were served with coffee and sherbet. Later, however, they were confined in filthy dungeons and otherwise ill treated. But, in spite of dungeons, through the aid of Mr. N. C.
Nissen, the Danish consul at Tripoli, who was unremitting in kind attentions to the Americans, Bainbridge was able to communicate with the American fleet, and on December 5, 1803, he sent a letter, written with lime juice (which becomes legible when heated), in which he proposed that the Philadelphia be destroyed as she lay at anchor by the Americans, who might come into the harbor at night in a schooner, and, after firing her, get away again. ...
At Syracuse the project of destroying the Philadelphia by means of a small vessel well manned was mentioned to Decatur. He eagerly asked to be allowed to undertake the work with his schooner, the Enterprise, but the matter was not at once decided on. Later Lieut.
Charles Stewart, who commanded the brig Siren, asked for the place, but Preble had decided meantime that Decatur should do it and that the captured ketch Mastico should be employed because she was of a rig that could more easily enter the harbor of Tripoli without attracting attention. ... When night drew on, the men were divided into five crews, of which three were to fire as many different parts of the ship, one was to hold her upper deck, and one to remain in and guard the ketch.
When night had fully come the little ketch parted from the brig, and at 9 o’clock was sailing into the harbor by the channel in which the Philadelphia had been lost. ... The moment for action had come. Springing to their feet, the Americans ran away with the line.
A Tripolitan climbed over the Philadelphia’s bows and cut the line loose, but the momentum already gained was great enough to land the ketch fair in place, where grapnels were thrown out, and with that Decatur cried, “Boarders away!” and sprang for the rail of the Philadelphia. ... So swift and thorough was the work of the American boarders that in ten minutes the last show of resistance was ended.
And then a single rocket drew its line of flame high in air to tell the anxious friends without the bar that the Philadelphia was captured. ... Decatur himself being the last to leave the burning ship. Indeed, the ketch was then drifting clear, and he had to jump to reach her. He had been on board but twenty-five minutes, all told. ... That was the decisive moment of the battle.
Failing to find a resource in the sailors’ boarding-houses, they knocked down any able-bodied man encountered in the street, and he was then carried instantly to the ship. Failing in getting enough men in this fashion—as, for instance, when the ship was in a foreign port or on the high seas—it was the custom, the every-day custom, to send the press-gang, on board any ship where it was supposed that English-speaking sailors might be found, and there take and carry off all such sailors. ...
It was in the matter of preserving what the officers called discipline—in keeping these unfortunate slaves in subjugation—that the real brutality of the British naval officers appeared. For the officers, who depended on clubs and manacles to recruit their crews, made no appeal to them save through their fears—used nothing to enforce an order but the cat-o’-ninetails. ...
As the Edinburgh Review for November, 1812, admitted, “they were dispersed in the remotest quarter of the globe, and not only exposed to the perils of service, but shut out, by their situation, from all hope of ever being reclaimed.” They were doomed to slavery for life. ... Not only was the American walking in the street of a foreign city in immediate danger; the American ships on the high seas were stopped and stripped of their crews.
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon the Leopard brought to near the Chesapeake and hailed her, saying that the officers and crew wished to send letters by her to friends in Europe. It was a common practice for warships as well as merchantmen to carry letters in that fashion, and the Chesapeake backed her mainyards and waited for the boat from the Leopard.
Instead of answering the hail, Captain Jones in a low voice passed the word to fire, and the next instant the spurting flames from the American guns were answered, as it were, in the same breath by those of the British, and the night battle was begun. It was then exactly seven o’clock. ... Being wholly unprepared for action, the Chesapeake could make no reply, and for twelve minutes (some accounts say fifteen) she lay there helpless while the British seamen worked their guns.
Her masts, rigging, and sails were shot to pieces. Three men were killed and eighteen wounded, Captain Barron being among the wounded. It was deliberate, cold-blooded murder, done to compel three American citizens to return to the slavery on a British ship into which they had been kidnapped. And it succeeded in its object. ...
And all that the American government did in the matter was to dismiss the unfortunate Phillips from the service—dismiss him as a scapegoat for the scurvy sins of those really responsible for the disgrace that had fallen upon the navy. \[書婭]： 先生，您在書中描繪了許多英雄人物，像是約翰·保羅·瓊斯船長，特別是他在邦霍姆·理查號（Bonhomme Richard）與塞拉皮斯號（Serapis）的戰鬥，被您形容為「純粹憑藉勇氣和毅力贏得的勝利」。您認為約翰·保羅·瓊斯身上，有哪些特質最能代表美國早期海軍的精神？您又是如何評價他在海軍史上的地位？ \[史比爾斯先生]： 啊，約翰·保羅·瓊斯！他是美國早期海軍英雄中的璀璨之星，他的故事簡直就是傳奇。
* "A fool may win money, but it taks a wise man to keep it."（傻瓜可能會贏錢，但需要聰明人才能守住錢。） * "A friend in need’s a friend indeed."（患難見真情。） * "A gude beginning maks a gude ending."（好的開始是成功的一半。） * "A gude name is sooner tint than won."（好名聲容易失去，難以獲得。） * "A green Yule maks a fat kirk-yard."（暖冬會導致更多人死亡。） * "A liar shou’d hae a gude memory."（說謊者應該有好的記憶力。） * "A light purse maks a heavy heart."（錢包空空，心情沉重。） * "A’s no gowd that glitters."（閃光的不都是金子。）
* "Dear bought and far sought is meat for ladies."（昂貴且難以尋找的食物是為女士準備的。） * "Death defies the doctor."（死亡不懼怕醫生。） * "Dinna gut your fish till ye get them."（不要在捕到魚之前就開膛破肚。） * "Do as the lasses do, say no and tak it."（像姑娘們一樣，說不卻接受。） * "Dogs will redd swine."（狗會分開豬。） * "Drink and drouth come na ay thegether."（喝酒和口渴不會同時出現。） * "Drink little that ye may drink lang."（少喝才能喝得長久。） * **E** * "Early master soon knave."（早當家容易出惡棍。）
* "Either win the horse or tine the saddle."（要麼贏得整匹馬，要麼失去馬鞍。） * "E’ening red and morning grey, is a taiken of a bonny day."（晚霞紅，早晨灰，預示著美好的一天。） * "Eneugh’s as gude’s a feast."（知足常樂。） * "Every ane creeshes the fat sows tail."（每個人都喜歡錦上添花。） * "Every craw thinks hir ain bird whitest."（每隻烏鴉都認為自己的孩子最白。） * "Every dog has his day."（每隻狗都有自己的日子。） * "Every man can guide an ill wife weel but he that has her."（除了擁有壞妻子的人，每個人都可以好好地引導她。）
* "For fashion’s sake, as dogs gang to the market."（為了趕時髦，就像狗去市場一樣。） * "Fore-warn’d, ha’f armed."（事先警告，相當於半副盔甲。） * "Foul water slockens fire."（髒水也能滅火。） * "Fresh fish and poor friends grow soon ill-far’d."（新鮮的魚和窮朋友很快就會變得令人厭惡。） * "Friends are like fiddle-strings, they mauna be screw’d owre tight."（朋友就像小提琴弦，不能擰得太緊。） * **G** * "Gaunting bodes wanting."（打呵欠預示著缺乏。） * "Gie the deil his due."（即使是魔鬼也要給他應得的。） * "Gie you an inch ye’ll tak an ell."（得寸進尺。）
* "Hame is hame if it were ne’er sae hamely."（家是家，即使它再簡陋。） * "Hang them that hae nae shift, and them that hae owre mony."（絞死沒有辦法的人，以及擁有太多辦法的人。） * "He begs frae them that borrow’d frae him."（他向借他錢的人乞討。） * "He brings a staff to break his ain head."（他拿著棍子打自己的頭。） * "He does na ay ride when he saddles his horse."（他並非每次給馬裝上馬鞍都會騎。） * "He fells twa dogs wi’ ae stane."（一石二鳥。） * "He has a bee in his bannet lug."（他腦子裡有古怪的想法。）
* "He that aught the cow gangs nearest her tail."（擁有牛的人離牛尾最近。） * "He that buys land buys stanes, and he that buys beef buys banes."（買地買石頭，買牛肉買骨頭。） * "He that canna mak sport shou’d mar nane."（不能製造樂趣的人也不應該破壞樂趣。） * "He that deals in dirt has ay foul fingers."（玩泥巴的人總是有髒手指。） * "He that has nae siller in his purse shou’d hae silk on his tongue."（錢包空空的人應該口吐蓮花。） * "He that hews aboon his head may get a speal in his e’e."（在頭頂上方砍柴可能會被木屑濺到眼睛。）
* "He that woos a widow should woo her day and night."（追求寡婦應該日夜追求。） * "He that wad eat the kirnel maun crack the nut."（想吃核仁就得敲開堅果。） * "He wats na whilk end o’ him’s uppermost."（他不知道自己哪頭朝上。） * "His bark is war than his bite."（他的叫聲比咬人更可怕。） * "Hooly and fairly gangs far in a day."（小心謹慎地走，一天能走很遠。） * "Hungry dogs are blythe o’ bursten puddings."（飢餓的狗對破裂的布丁感到高興。） * **I** * "I canna sell the cow and sup her milk."（我不能賣掉牛又喝它的奶。）
* "It cam wi’ the wind let it gang wi’ the water."（隨風而來，隨水而去。） * "It maun be an auld-farrant mouse that can kittle in a cat’s lug."（能搔貓耳朵的一定是一隻老鼠。） * "It’s a cauld stammock that naething heats on."（沒有什麼能溫暖的寒冷胃。） * "It’s a gude goose that draps ay."（會下蛋的鵝是好鵝。） * "It’s a hard task to be poor and leal."（貧窮和忠誠都很難。） * "It’s a lang lane that hasna a turning."（再長的巷子也有轉彎的地方。） * "It’s an ill wind that blaws naebody gude."（沒有一陣風對任何人都有好處。）
* "It’s a sorry hen that canna scrape for ae bird."（不能為一隻小雞刮土的母雞是可悲的。） * "It’s gude to be sib to siller."（與金錢有親戚關係是好事。） * "It’s a’ tint that’s done to auld fo’k and bairns."（為老人和孩子所做的一切都是浪費。） * "It’s but kindly that the pock sa’r of the herring."（裝鯡魚的袋子有魚腥味是很正常的。） * "It’s better to sup wi’ a cutty than want a spoon."（寧願用短柄勺子喝湯也不要沒有勺子。） * "It’s fair in ha’ where beards wag a’."（鬍鬚飄動的地方是公平的。） * "It’s gude to be side but no trailing."（走在隊伍旁邊是好的，但不要拖在後面。）
* "It’s gude to be gude in your time, ye kenna how lang it may last."（在你還能行善的時候行善，你不知道它會持續多久。） * "It’s gude to hae twa strings to your bow."（擁有多重準備是好的。） * "It’s hard to gar an auld mare leave aff flinging."（很難讓老母馬停止踢腿。） * "It’s hard to sit in Rome and strive wi the Pope."（在羅馬與教皇作對是很難的。） * "It’s hard for a greedy e’e to hae a leal heart."（貪婪的眼睛很難擁有忠誠的心。） * "It’s ill to be ca’d a thief and no found picking."（被稱為小偷但沒有被抓到是糟糕的。）
* "It’s lang or the deil be found dead at a dike-side."（魔鬼很難死在路邊。） * "It’s lang or like-to-die fill the kirk-yard."（快要死去的人很難填滿墓地。） * "It’s muckle gars the tailor laugh, for suitors girn ay."（裁縫經常笑，因為求婚者總是在抱怨。） * "It’s nae sin to tak a gude price, but in gi’ing ill measure."（索要高價不是罪過，但給予不好的措施是罪過。） * "It’s nae play when ane laughs and anither greets."（當一個人笑，另一個人哭的時候，就不是玩耍。） * "It’s no what is she？ but what was she？"（重要的不是她現在是什麼，而是她過去是什麼？）
* "It may come in an hour that winna come in seven year."（一小時內可能發生的事情七年內都不會發生。） * "It will be a feather out o’ your wing."（這將是你翅膀上的一根羽毛。） * "It sets a sow weel to wear a saddle."（給母豬穿上馬鞍很不協調。） * "It was ne’er for naething that the gled whistled."（老鷹的呼嘯總是有原因的。） * **J** * "Joke at leisure, you kenna wha may joke yoursel’."（悠閒地開玩笑，你不知道誰會嘲笑你。） * **K** * "Kail hains bread."（喝肉湯可以節省麵包。） * "Keep woo and it will be dirt, keep lint and it will be silk."
* "Kindness will creep whare it canna gang."（善良會在你無法行走的地方蔓延。） * "King’s cauff’s worth other fo’ks corn."（國王的穀殼也比其他人的穀物有價值。） * "Kythe in your ain colours that fo’k may ken you."（展現你真實的顏色，這樣人們才能認識你。） * **L** * "Ladies and turkies need delicate upbringing."（女士和火雞都需要精心飼養。） * "Lang speaking part maun spill."（說得太長會破壞樂趣。） * "Law’s costly, tak a pint and gree."（訴訟費用高昂，喝一杯酒和解吧。） * "Laugh at leisure, ye may greet ere night."（悠閒地笑，你可能會在晚上哭泣。）
* "Lie for him and he’ll swear for you."（為他撒謊，他會為你發誓。） * "Light supper mak lang life-days."（晚餐吃得少，壽命長。） * "Like draws to like, as a scabbed horse to a fail dyke."（物以類聚，就像疥瘡馬靠近草皮牆一樣。） * "Like the maidens o’ Bayordine ye learn by the ear."（像貝爾多因的少女一樣，你通過耳朵學習。） * "Like the bairns o’ Falkirk, ye mind naething but mischief."（像福爾柯克的孩子一樣，你只記得惡作劇。） * "Lippen to me but look to yoursel’."（相信我，但照顧好自己。）
* "Mony a ane kisses the bairn for love o’ the nurse."（許多人因為愛護保姆而親吻孩子。） * "Mony fair promises at marriage mak few at tocher-paying."（婚姻時的許多美好承諾很少在支付嫁妝時兌現。） * "Mony say weel when it was ne’er waur."（情況從未如此糟糕，許多人都說好。） * "Mony a ane serves a thankless master."（許多人為忘恩負義的主人服務。） * "Mony ways to kill a dog tho’ ye dinna hang him."（即使你不絞死一隻狗，也有很多方法可以殺死它。） * "Mony cooks ne’er made gude kail."（廚師多了反而做不出好菜。）
* "My son’s my son ay till he get a wife, my daughter’s my daughter a’ the days o’ her life."（兒子在結婚前是我的兒子，女兒一輩子都是我的女兒。） * **N** * "Nae fool like an auld fool."（沒有比老傻瓜更糟糕的傻瓜。） * "Nae friend like a friend in need."（沒有比患難之交更好的朋友。） * "Nae man can thrive unless his wife lets him."（沒有妻子的允許，男人無法成功。） * "Naething sae crouse as a new washen louse."（沒有什麼比新洗過的蝨子更神氣的。） * "Naething’s ill to be done when will’s at hame."（當意志堅定的時候，沒有什麼是不好的。）
* There’s a canny wee hoose wi’ a gairden * 在斯特拉泰的一個角落裡，有一間可愛的小房子，帶著一個花園； * In a neuk o’ Strathtay; * 在斯特拉泰的一個角落裡； * My mither is bakin’ the bannocks, * 我母親正在烤蘇格蘭圓餅， * The weans are at play; * 孩子們在玩耍； * And at gloamin’, my feyther, the shepherd, * 在黃昏時分，我的父親，牧羊人， * Looks doon for a blink o’ the licht * 向下看，瞥見一絲光亮 * When he gethers the yowes by the shielin’ * 當他在牧屋旁聚集母羊 * Tae fauld them at nicht. * 以便在夜晚將牠們關進羊圈。
**The Little Dragon** * The nun stood watching by the cloister wall * 修女站在迴廊的牆邊觀望 * Day’s dying to behold, * 注視著白晝的消逝， * Heaven seemed to her too far, too mystical, * 天堂對她來說似乎太遙遠、太神秘， * Her soul to climb its ramparts but to fall * 她的靈魂攀登它的壁壘卻只能墜落， * And earth was turned to gold. * 而大地則變成了金色。 這段描寫了修女在修道院中的孤獨和對天堂的渴望，以及夕陽將大地染成金色的景象。
* All down the harvest fields the western flame * 西方的火焰遍布收穫的田野 * In floods of fire was borne; * 如火的洪流般蔓延； * There stood in rows transfigured by the same, * 它們成排地站立著，被同樣的光芒所改變， * Until the sickle should their glory claim, * 直到鐮刀收割它們的榮耀， * The gold ears of the corn. * 金色的玉米穗。 這段描寫了收穫季節的田野，金色的玉米在夕陽下閃耀。
* Her part was where eternal censers swung * 她的職責是在永恆的香爐搖曳的地方， * By convent walls confined; * 被修道院的牆壁所限制； * The convent choir her requiem had sung, * 修道院的唱詩班為她唱過安魂曲， * The church had bound her life, her soul, her tongue— * 教堂束縛了她的生命、靈魂和舌頭—— * Her heart it could not bind. * 卻無法束縛她的心。 這段揭示了修女被宗教束縛的生活，以及她內心對自由的渴望。
* Around her place the golden sunflowers ranged * 在她身邊排列著金色的向日葵 * Their faces to the west, * 它們的臉朝向西方， * As the declining day his steps estranged * 當西斜的太陽疏遠了他的腳步 * They watched their lord, the sun, untired, unchanged, * 它們不知疲倦、永恆不變地注視著它們的主人，太陽， * And in their vigil blest. * 並在它們的守望中得到祝福。 這段描寫了修道院中的向日葵，它們始終追隨著太陽，象徵著對信仰的堅定。
* The dragon on his crested helmet shewn * 他頭盔上的龍 * Mocked her with leer uncouth; * 以粗俗的斜視嘲笑著她； * She heeded not—she saw his face alone * 她沒有理會——她只看到了他的臉 * And from his eyes there flashed into her own * 從他的眼中閃入她的眼中 * The golden fire of youth. * 青春的金色的火焰。 龍紋頭盔嘲笑著修女，但她只看到了騎士的臉，以及他眼中青春的火焰。
* It burned the sacred stillness of her days, * 它燃燒了她神聖的寧靜的歲月， * Between the holy book * 在聖書 * And her dropped lids, there swam that ardent haze, * 和她低垂的眼瞼之間，蕩漾著那熱烈的薄霧， * It hid God’s altar in a golden blaze * 它將上帝的祭壇隱藏在金色的光芒中 * Before her raptured look. * 在她狂喜的目光前。 騎士的出現點燃了修女內心的激情，使她再也無法專注於宗教。
* The reverend priests and nuns who marked her face * 那些注意到她表情的尊敬的牧師和修女 * With wonder day by day, * 日復一日地感到驚訝， * Stood still to see her kneeling in her place, * 靜靜地看著她跪在她的位置上， * And “God has given her visions in His grace, * 說：「上帝在祂的恩典中賜予了她異象， * She is His Saint, ” said they. * 她是祂的聖徒。」他們說。 修女的異常舉動被視為神蹟，她被認為是上帝的聖徒。
* Ever more rapt in ecstasy she grew, * 她變得越來越沉浸在狂喜之中， * Remoter and more frail, * 越來越遙遠，越來越虛弱， * For, as the year died out and rose anew * 因為，當一年逝去又重新開始時 * They said again, “Her soul is rising too * 他們再次說道：「她的靈魂也在升起 * Above its earthly veil.” * 超越了它塵世的面紗。」 修女的身體越來越虛弱，人們認為她的靈魂正在升向天堂。
* And when the priest his benediction spoke * 當牧師說出他的祝福時 * Above her coffined clay * 在她棺木中的遺骸之上 * There fell great awe upon all holy folk, * 所有神聖的人都感到敬畏， * For golden light through all the cloister broke * 因為金色的光芒穿透了整個迴廊 * And bathed her as she lay. * 照耀著她躺臥的地方。 修女的葬禮充滿了神聖的光芒，人們更加確信她是聖徒。
* Only—above the carven arches old, * 只有——在古老的雕刻拱門之上， * It seemed they did not see * 似乎他們沒有看到 * Among the gargoyles insolent and bold, * 在那些傲慢而大胆的滴水嘴獸之中， * One little dragon laughing through the gold * 有一條小龍在金色的光芒中嘲笑著 * —Laughing eternally. * ——永恆地嘲笑著。 結尾揭示了真相，修道院拱門上的小龍嘲笑著人們的無知，暗示著修女內心隱藏的慾望和激情。 希望這個逐行翻譯對您有所幫助。
*** **新聞標題：** Judge Blocks Trump Administration’s Cancellation of Funding for Radio Free Europe **新聞來源：** The Epoch Times **300字中文報導：** 美國地方法院法官於 2025 年 3 月 25 日頒布了一項限制令，阻止川普政府取消對「自由歐洲電台/自由電台」的資助。這是一家由美國政府的美國全球媒體總署 (USAGM) 資助的非營利新聞機構。 法官 Royce Lamberth 認為，政府終止對該集團的資助，可能違反了一項聯邦法律。該法律允許法院阻止專斷或不符合法律規定的非法機構行為。法官指出，終止給自由歐洲電台的信函僅表示該獎項「不再實現機構優先事項」。法官表示，這一結論性聲明缺乏任何事實或推理支持，並未提供「令人滿意的解釋」，也沒有在發現的事實與做出的選擇之間建立「合理的聯繫」。 自由歐洲電台還表明，如果沒有限制令，它可能會遭受無法彌補的損害，而且該命令符合公眾利益。
/ˌkænsəˈleɪʃən/ 取消 * 發音：/ˌkænsəˈleɪʃən/ * 解釋：the action of deciding that an arranged event will not happen * 例句：The cancellation of the concert was a disappointment to many fans. * **Funding** (n.) /ˈfʌndɪŋ/ 資金 * 發音：/ˈfʌndɪŋ/ * 解釋：money provided for a particular purpose * 例句：The project requires additional funding to be completed successfully. * **Block** (v.)
/blɒk/ 阻止 * 發音：/blɒk/ * 解釋：to prevent something from happening or succeeding * 例句：The protestors blocked the entrance to the building. * **Restraining order** (n.) /rɪˈstreɪnɪŋ ˈɔːrdər/ 限制令 * 發音：/rɪˈstreɪnɪŋ ˈɔːrdər/ * 解釋：an official order from a court that tells someone not to do something * 例句：She obtained a restraining order against her abusive ex-partner. * **Nonprofit** (adj.)
/ˌnɒnˈprɒfɪt/ 非營利 * 發音：/ˌnɒnˈprɒfɪt/ * 解釋：not making or conducted primarily to make a profit * 例句：The organization is a nonprofit dedicated to helping the homeless. * **Terminate** (v.) /ˈtɜːrmɪneɪt/ 終止 * 發音：/ˈtɜːrmɪneɪt/ * 解釋：to bring to an end * 例句：The company decided to terminate the contract due to poor performance. * **Arbitrary** (adj.)
/ˈɑːrbɪtreri/ 專斷的 * 發音：/ˈɑːrbɪtreri/ * 解釋：based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system * 例句：His decision seemed arbitrary and unfair. * **Appropriation** (n.) /əˌproʊpriˈeɪʃən/ 撥款 * 發音：/əˌproʊpriˈeɪʃən/ * 解釋：a sum of money or total of assets devoted to a special purpose * 例句：The government announced a new appropriation for education. * **Disburse** (v.)
/dɪsˈbɜːrs/ 支付 * 發音：/dɪsˈbɜːrs/ * 解釋：pay out (money from a fund or account) * 例句：The funds will be disbursed to the recipients next week. * **Moot** (adj.) /muːt/ 無實際意義的 * 發音：/muːt/ * 解釋：subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty * 例句：The question of whether to build the new bridge is now moot since the project has been cancelled.
* 現在式用於描述當前的事實或狀態，例如 "Radio Free Europe said that it is funded almost entirely through government distributions"。 * **被動語態：** * "Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a nonprofit news group funded by money from the U.S. government’s United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM)." * 這裡 "funded" 是過去分詞，用作形容詞，修飾 "news group"，表示「由…資助的新聞機構」。
* **美國全球媒體總署（United States Agency for Global Media, USAGM）：** 是美國政府的一個獨立機構，負責監督包括自由歐洲電台在內的多個國際廣播機構。 **克萊兒的小提醒：** 在閱讀新聞時，除了學習單字和文法，了解新聞的背景和相關知識也能幫助你更好地理解內容。同時，多關注不同媒體的報導，可以幫助你更全面地了解事件的各個方面。 希望今天的教學對你有所幫助！(๑´ㅂ`๑)
* Example: Her self-sacrificing devotion to her family was admirable. (她對家庭的無私奉獻令人欽佩。) * **bloodthirsty** (adj.) /ˈblʌdˌθɜːrsti/：嗜血的，殘忍的。 * Example: The tyrant was known for his bloodthirsty acts. (這位暴君以其嗜血行為而聞名。) * **savage** (n./adj.) /ˈsævɪdʒ/：野蠻人；野蠻的，殘忍的。 * Example: The savage behavior of the mob shocked everyone. (暴徒的野蠻行為震驚了所有人。) * **sublime** (adj.) /səˈblaɪm/：崇高的，莊嚴的。 * Example: The view from the mountain peak was sublime. (山頂的景色令人嘆為觀止。) * **horrible** (adj.)
* Example: The unnaturalness of the situation made her uncomfortable. (這種情況的不自然讓她感到不舒服。) * **cut off from** (phrasal verb)：與...隔絕，脫離。 * Example: The remote village was cut off from the outside world. (這個偏遠的村莊與外界隔絕。) * **wholesome** (adj.) /ˈhoʊlsəm/：有益健康的，有益身心的。 * Example: He advocated a wholesome diet. (他提倡健康的飲食。) * **influence** (n.) /ˈɪnfluəns/：影響。 * Example: Her parents had a strong influence on her. (她的父母對她有很大的影響。) * **vulgarity** (n.) /vʌlˈɡærəti/：粗俗，庸俗。
* Example: The show was criticized for its vulgarity. (這個節目因其粗俗而受到批評。) * **ugliness** (n.) /ˈʌɡlinəs/：醜陋。 * Example: The ugliness of the building contrasted with the beauty of the park. (這座建築的醜陋與公園的美麗形成對比。) * **malaise** (n.) /məˈleɪz/：不適，Malaise通常指身體不適、不舒服或精神不振，這裡引申為普遍的社會不滿、不安或精神萎靡。 * Example: There was a general sense of malaise in the country. (這個國家普遍存在一種不滿情緒。) * **chaos** (n.) /ˈkeɪɒs/：混亂。 * Example: The city was in chaos after the storm. (暴風雨過後，城市陷入混亂。)
* Example: She believed it was her divine mission to help others. (她相信幫助他人是她的神聖使命。) * **unworthy** (adj.) /ʌnˈwɜːrði/：不配的，不值得的。 * Example: His actions were unworthy of a leader. (他的行為不配作為一個領導者。) 我所期望的，是科學與理想主義的**和解**（reconciliation）。科學可以**揭示**（uncover）自然的法則，而理想主義則指引我們追求更高的價值。只有當兩者**協同作用**（work together）時，文明才能真正繁榮。這也是為什麼我在文章末尾強調，我們需要一群珍視傳統、卻又不**墨守成規**（hidebound）的人，去保存文明的火種，等待下一個「春日」。 **Vocabulary:** * **reconciliation** (n.) /ˌrɛkənsɪliˈeɪʃən/：和解，調和。
* Example: The problem was multifaceted, requiring diverse solutions. (這個問題是多方面的，需要多樣化的解決方案。) * **inspire** (v.) /ɪnˈspaɪər/：激發，鼓舞。 * Example: Her courage inspired others. (她的勇氣激勵了他人。) * **sublime** (adj.) /səˈblaɪm/：崇高的，莊嚴的。 * Example: The artist aimed for a sublime expression of beauty. (這位藝術家旨在對美進行崇高的表達。) * **nourish** (v.) /ˈnɜːrɪʃ/：滋養，培養。 * Example: Good food nourishes the body and mind. (好的食物滋養身心。) * **hideous** (adj.) /ˈhɪdiəs/：可怕的，醜惡的。
* Example: She felt great affection for her grandchildren. (她對孫子孫女們充滿愛意。) * **ideals** (n.) /aɪˈdiːəlz/：理想，完美典範。 * Example: She always strived to live up to her ideals. (她總是努力實踐自己的理想。) * **loyalty** (n.) /ˈlɔɪəlti/：忠誠，忠實。 * Example: His loyalty to the company was unquestionable. (他對公司的忠誠是毋庸置疑的。) * **welfare** (n.) /ˈwɛlfɛər/：福祉，福利。 * Example: The government is responsible for the welfare of its citizens. (政府對公民的福祉負責。) * **justice** (n.) /ˈdʒʌstɪs/：公正，正義。
* Example: Her industry in her studies paid off with good grades. (她學習上的勤奮使她取得了優異的成績。) * **vocation** (n.) /voʊˈkeɪʃən/：天職，使命，這裡引申為基石。 * Example: She felt a strong vocation to help the poor. (她覺得幫助窮人是她的天職。) * **malice** (n.) /ˈmælɪs/：惡意，怨恨。 * Example: There was no malice in his words. (他的話語中沒有惡意。) * **charity** (n.) /ˈtʃærɪti/：仁慈，慈善。 * Example: He was known for his charity towards the less fortunate. (他以對不幸者的仁慈而聞名。) * **dictum** (n.) /ˈdɪktəm/：格言，斷言，宣言。
* Example: The artist lived by the dictum, "Art for art's sake." (這位藝術家奉行「為藝術而藝術」的格言。) 相反，「卑劣的愛國主義」則是由**原始衝動**（primitive instincts）所驅動，如對外族的**傲慢**（arrogance）與**蔑視**（contempt）、天生的**好鬥本能**（inborn pugnacity）以及對領土或財富的**貪得無厭**（insatiable acquisitiveness）。這種愛國主義將國家視為一個**可以為所欲為的實體**（entity that can do whatever it pleases），無視**道德法則**（moral laws）和國際正義。
* Example: She had an inborn talent for music. (她有天生的音樂天賦。) * **pugnacity** (n.) /pʌɡˈnæsaɪti/：好鬥性。 * Example: His pugnacity often led to arguments. (他的好鬥性常常導致爭吵。) * **insatiable** (adj.) /ɪnˈseɪʃəbəl/：無法滿足的，貪得無厭的。 * Example: He had an insatiable desire for knowledge. (他對知識有著無法滿足的渴望。) * **acquisitiveness** (n.) /əˈkwɪzɪtɪvnɪs/：貪婪，佔有慾。 * Example: Her acquisitiveness led her to collect many expensive items. (她的佔有慾使她收藏了許多昂貴的物品。) * **entity** (n.) /ˈɛntɪti/：實體，存在。
* Example: The brutal treatment of prisoners was condemned. (囚犯受到的殘酷待遇受到了譴責。) * **militarism** (n.) /ˈmɪlɪtərɪzəm/：軍國主義。 * Example: The rise of militarism in the country was a cause for concern. (該國軍國主義的興起令人擔憂。) * **Prussian** (adj.) /ˈprʌʃən/：普魯士的。 * Example: Prussian discipline was legendary. (普魯士的紀律是傳奇。) * **insolence** (n.) /ˈɪnsələns/：傲慢，無禮。 * Example: Her insolence towards her elders was unacceptable. (她對長輩的傲慢是不可接受的。)
* Example: The fight for social justice continues. (爭取社會正義的鬥爭仍在繼續。) * **unwavering** (adj.) /ʌnˈweɪvərɪŋ/：堅定不移的，不動搖的。 * Example: Her unwavering commitment to the cause was inspiring. (她對事業堅定不移的承諾令人鼓舞。) * **faith** (n.) /feɪθ/：信仰，信念。 * Example: He had great faith in his team. (他對他的團隊充滿信心。) * **humanity at large** (phrase)：人類整體。 * Example: The discovery benefited humanity at large. (這項發現造福了全人類。) * **responsibility** (n.) /rɪˌspɒnsəˈbɪləti/：責任。
* Example: Her talent shines brightly in every performance. (她的才華在每一次表演中都光芒萬丈。) * **Goodness** (n.) /ˈɡʊdnəs/：良善。 * Example: She was known for her kindness and goodness. (她以善良和良善而聞名。) * **Truth** (n.) /truːθ/：真理。 * Example: The search for truth is a fundamental human endeavor. (對真理的探索是人類基本的努力。) * **Beauty** (n.) /ˈbjuːti/：美。 * Example: The artist captured the beauty of the landscape. (這位藝術家捕捉到了風景的美。) * **supra-temporal** (adj.) /ˌsuːprəˈtɛmpərəl/：超時間的，超越時間限制的。
* Example: He cultivated a love for classical music. (他培養了對古典音樂的熱愛。) * **inward** (adj.) /ˈɪnwərd/：內在的。 * Example: The journey of self-discovery is an inward journey. (自我發現的旅程是一個內在的旅程。) * **essence** (n.) /ˈɛsns/：本質，精髓。 * Example: The essence of her argument was clarity. (她論點的精髓是清晰。) * **transcend** (v.) /trænˈsɛnd/：超越，勝過。 * Example: His art transcends cultural boundaries. (他的藝術超越了文化界限。) * **deprive** (v.) /dɪˈpraɪv/：剝奪，使喪失。
* Example: She was in a frantic search for her keys. (她瘋狂地尋找她的鑰匙。) * **pursuit** (n.) /pərˈsuːt/：追求。 * Example: The pursuit of happiness is a universal human goal. (追求幸福是人類普遍的目標。) * **genuine** (adj.) /ˈdʒɛnjuɪn/：真正的，真實的。 * Example: He expressed genuine surprise. (他表達了真正的驚訝。) * **joy** (n.) /dʒɔɪ/：喜悅。 * Example: The children filled the house with joy. (孩子們的歡聲笑語充滿了房子。) * **human kindness** (phrase)：人際關懷，人性。
* Example: Her patience was sorely tried. (她的耐心受到了嚴峻的考驗。) 所以，克萊兒，我的建議是：**抬頭仰望，感謝上帝賜予的一切**（look up, thank God of all）。拋棄你的**慾望**（lust），讓你的靈魂引導你。因為「**真理必將使你自由，無所畏懼**」（truth shall delivere, it is no drede）。 **Vocabulary:** * **lust** (n.) /lʌst/：慾望，貪慾。 * Example: The lust for power can corrupt anyone. (對權力的貪慾可以腐蝕任何人。) * **deliver** (v.) /dɪˈlɪvər/：釋放，解救。 * Example: The truth shall deliver you from your fears. (真理會把你從恐懼中解救出來。) * **drede** (Old English for "dread")：恐懼，畏懼。
* Example: Her self-sacrificing devotion to her family was admirable. (她對家庭的無私奉獻令人欽佩。) * **bloodthirsty** (adj.) /ˈblʌdˌθɜːrsti/：嗜血的，殘忍的。 * Example: The tyrant was known for his bloodthirsty acts. (這位暴君以其嗜血行為而聞名。) * **savage** (n./adj.) /ˈsævɪdʒ/：野蠻人；野蠻的，殘忍的。 * Example: The savage behavior of the mob shocked everyone. (暴徒的野蠻行為震驚了所有人。) * **sublime** (adj.) /səˈblaɪm/：崇高的，莊嚴的。 * Example: The view from the mountain peak was sublime. (山頂的景色令人嘆為觀止。) * **horrible** (adj.)
* Example: The unnaturalness of the situation made her uncomfortable. (這種情況的不自然讓她感到不舒服。) * **cut off from** (phrasal verb)：與...隔絕，脫離。 * Example: The remote village was cut off from the outside world. (這個偏遠的村莊與外界隔絕。) * **wholesome** (adj.) /ˈhoʊlsəm/：有益健康的，有益身心的。 * Example: He advocated a wholesome diet. (他提倡健康的飲食。) * **influence** (n.) /ˈɪnfluəns/：影響。 * Example: Her parents had a strong influence on her. (她的父母對她有很大的影響。) * **vulgarity** (n.) /vʌlˈɡærəti/：粗俗，庸俗。
* Example: The show was criticized for its vulgarity. (這個節目因其粗俗而受到批評。) * **ugliness** (n.) /ˈʌɡlinəs/：醜陋。 * Example: The ugliness of the building contrasted with the beauty of the park. (這座建築的醜陋與公園的美麗形成對比。) * **malaise** (n.) /məˈleɪz/：不適，Malaise通常指身體不適、不舒服或精神不振，這裡引申為普遍的社會不滿、不安或精神萎靡。 * Example: There was a general sense of malaise in the country. (這個國家普遍存在一種不滿情緒。) * **chaos** (n.) /ˈkeɪɒs/：混亂。 * Example: The city was in chaos after the storm. (暴風雨過後，城市陷入混亂。)
* Example: The problem was multifaceted, requiring diverse solutions. (這個問題是多方面的，需要多樣化的解決方案。) * **inspire** (v.) /ɪnˈspaɪər/：激發，鼓舞。 * Example: Her courage inspired others. (她的勇氣激勵了他人。) * **sublime** (adj.) /səˈblaɪm/：崇高的，莊嚴的。 * Example: The artist aimed for a sublime expression of beauty. (這位藝術家旨在對美進行崇高的表達。) * **nourish** (v.) /ˈnɜːrɪʃ/：滋養，培養。 * Example: Good food nourishes the body and mind. (好的食物滋養身心。) * **hideous** (adj.) /ˈhɪdiəs/：可怕的，醜惡的。
* Example: She felt great affection for her grandchildren. (她對孫子孫女們充滿愛意。) * **ideals** (n.) /aɪˈdiːəlz/：理想，完美典範。 * Example: She always strived to live up to her ideals. (她總是努力實踐自己的理想。) * **loyalty** (n.) /ˈlɔɪəlti/：忠誠，忠實。 * Example: His loyalty to the company was unquestionable. (他對公司的忠誠是毋庸置疑的。) * **welfare** (n.) /ˈwɛlfɛər/：福祉，福利。 * Example: The government is responsible for the welfare of its citizens. (政府對公民的福祉負責。) * **justice** (n.) /ˈdʒʌstɪs/：公正，正義。
* Example: Her industry in her studies paid off with good grades. (她學習上的勤奮使她取得了優異的成績。) * **vocation** (n.) /voʊˈkeɪʃən/：天職，使命，這裡引申為基石。 * Example: She felt a strong vocation to help the poor. (她覺得幫助窮人是她的天職。) * **malice** (n.) /ˈmælɪs/：惡意，怨恨。 * Example: There was no malice in his words. (他的話語中沒有惡意。) * **charity** (n.) /ˈtʃærɪti/：仁慈，慈善。 * Example: He was known for his charity towards the less fortunate. (他以對不幸者的仁慈而聞名。) * **dictum** (n.) /ˈdɪktəm/：格言，斷言，宣言。
* Example: The artist lived by the dictum, "Art for art's sake." (這位藝術家奉行「為藝術而藝術」的格言。) 相反，「卑劣的愛國主義」則是由**原始衝動**（primitive instincts）所驅動，如對外族的**傲慢**（arrogance）與**蔑視**（contempt）、天生的**好鬥本能**（inborn pugnacity）以及對領土或財富的**貪得無厭**（insatiable acquisitiveness）。這種愛國主義將國家視為一個**可以為所欲為的實體**（entity that can do whatever it pleases），無視**道德法則**（moral laws）和國際正義。
* Example: She had an inborn talent for music. (她有天生的音樂天賦。) * **pugnacity** (n.) /pʌɡˈnæsaɪti/：好鬥性。 * Example: His pugnacity often led to arguments. (他的好鬥性常常導致爭吵。) * **insatiable** (adj.) /ɪnˈseɪʃəbəl/：無法滿足的，貪得無厭的。 * Example: He had an insatiable desire for knowledge. (他對知識有著無法滿足的渴望。) * **acquisitiveness** (n.) /əˈkwɪzɪtɪvnɪs/：貪婪，佔有慾。 * Example: Her acquisitiveness led her to collect many expensive items. (她的佔有慾使她收藏了許多昂貴的物品。) * **entity** (n.) /ˈɛntɪti/：實體，存在。
* Example: The brutal treatment of prisoners was condemned. (囚犯受到的殘酷待遇受到了譴責。) * **militarism** (n.) /ˈmɪlɪtərɪzəm/：軍國主義。 * Example: The rise of militarism in the country was a cause for concern. (該國軍國主義的興起令人擔憂。) * **Prussian** (adj.) /ˈprʌʃən/：普魯士的。 * Example: Prussian discipline was legendary. (普魯士的紀律是傳奇。) * **insolence** (n.) /ˈɪnsələns/：傲慢，無禮。 * Example: Her insolence towards her elders was unacceptable. (她對長輩的傲慢是不可接受的。)
* Example: The fight for social justice continues. (爭取社會正義的鬥爭仍在繼續。) * **unwavering** (adj.) /ʌnˈweɪvərɪŋ/：堅定不移的，不動搖的。 * Example: Her unwavering commitment to the cause was inspiring. (她對事業堅定不移的承諾令人鼓舞。) * **faith** (n.) /feɪθ/：信仰，信念。 * Example: He had great faith in his team. (他對他的團隊充滿信心。) * **humanity at large** (phrase)：人類整體。 * Example: The discovery benefited humanity at large. (這項發現造福了全人類。) * **responsibility** (n.) /rɪˌspɒnsəˈbɪləti/：責任。
* Example: Her talent shines brightly in every performance. (她的才華在每一次表演中都光芒萬丈。) * **Goodness** (n.) /ˈɡʊdnəs/：良善。 * Example: She was known for her kindness and goodness. (她是一位善良的人。) * **Truth** (n.) /truːθ/：真理。 * Example: The search for truth is a fundamental human endeavor. (對真理的探索是人類基本的努力。) * **Beauty** (n.) /ˈbjuːti/：美。 * Example: The artist captured the beauty of the landscape. (這位藝術家捕捉到了風景的美。) * **supra-temporal** (adj.) /ˌsuːprəˈtɛmpərəl/：超時間的，超越時間限制的。
* Example: He cultivated a love for classical music. (他培養了對古典音樂的熱愛。) * **inward** (adj.) /ˈɪnwərd/：內在的。 * Example: The journey of self-discovery is an inward journey. (自我發現的旅程是一個內在的旅程。) * **essence** (n.) /ˈɛsns/：本質，精髓。 * Example: The essence of her argument was clarity. (她論點的精髓是清晰。) * **transcend** (v.) /trænˈsɛnd/：超越，勝過。 * Example: His art transcends cultural boundaries. (他的藝術超越了文化界限。) * **deprive** (v.) /dɪˈpraɪv/：剝奪，使喪失。
* Example: She was in a frantic search for her keys. (她瘋狂地尋找她的鑰匙。) * **pursuit** (n.) /pərˈsuːt/：追求。 * Example: The pursuit of happiness is a universal human goal. (追求幸福是人類普遍的目標。) * **genuine** (adj.) /ˈdʒɛnjuɪn/：真正的，真實的。 * Example: He expressed genuine surprise. (他表達了真正的驚訝。) * **joy** (n.) /dʒɔɪ/：喜悅。 * Example: The children filled the house with joy. (孩子們的歡聲笑語充滿了房子。) * **human kindness** (phrase)：人際關懷，人性。
* Example: Her patience was sorely tried. (她的耐心受到了嚴峻的考驗。) 所以，克萊兒，我的建議是：**抬頭仰望，感謝上帝賜予的一切**（look up, thank God of all）。拋棄你的**慾望**（lust），讓你的靈魂引導你。因為「**真理必將使你自由，無所畏懼**」（truth shall delivere, it is no drede）。 **Vocabulary:** * **lust** (n.) /lʌst/：慾望，貪慾。 * Example: The lust for power can corrupt anyone. (對權力的貪慾可以腐蝕任何人。) * **deliver** (v.) /dɪˈlɪvər/：釋放，解救。 * Example: The truth shall deliver you from your fears. (真理會把你從恐懼中解救出來。) * **drede** (Old English for "dread")：恐懼，畏懼。
* Example: She was resolute in her decision. (她的決定非常堅決。) * **purring** (v.) /ˈpɜːrɪŋ/：貓的呼嚕聲。 * Example: The cat purred contentedly on her lap. (貓在她的腿上心滿意足地發出呼嚕聲。) * **focused** (v.) /ˈfoʊkəst/：聚焦。 * Example: His attention was focused on the task at hand. (他的注意力集中在手頭的任務上。) * **harmony** (n.) /ˈhɑːrməni/：和諧。 * Example: They lived in perfect harmony. (他們過著完美和諧的生活。) 我感受著這一切，心中充滿了敬意。
* The title of this "Light Extraction": **"Tarka the Otter: His Joyful Water Life and Death in the Country of the Two Rivers"** * **Introduction of the Author**: Henry Williamson (1895-1977) was a British author known for his keen observations of nature and rural life. "Tarka the Otter"is one of his most famous works, first published in 1927. Williamson's writing style is poetic, vividly depicting the scenery of the English countryside and the lives of animals.
Throughout his life, he explored the relationship between humans and nature and incorporated it into his works. * **Introduction to the Viewpoint**: "Tarka the Otter,"from the perspective of an otter, vividly depicts its life in the rivers of Devon, England. The story not only showcases the otter's survival skills and natural instincts but also reflects its interactions with other animals and humans.
" * **Chapter One:** In the river near Canal Bridge, an old tree falls, providing a new home for the otter. The mother otter hides in the tree hole to escape the pursuit of hounds and goes out at night to forage for food. * **Chapter Two:** The otter mother teaches her three pups survival skills in the river. They learn to swim, hunt fish, and evade danger.
The mother otter manages to protect her children, but they are forced to flee their home. * **Chapter Five:** The otter family comes to a new place and settles there. They meet other animals and learn to get along with them. * **Chapter Six:** Autumn arrives, and the otters begin to migrate to the sea. They prey on eels along the way and find new food sources in the estuary. * **Chapter Seven:** Tarka leaves his family and begins to live alone.
They frolic in the waves and search for food among the rocks. * **Chapter Nine:** Severe winter arrives, and food becomes scarce. Tarka and White-tip struggle to find food and manage to survive. * **Chapter Ten:** Hounds again pursue Tarka and White-tip. White-tip is unfortunately captured, and Tarka is forced to escape alone. * **Chapter Eleven:** Tarka continues to roam in the river, looking for food and shelter.
They give birth to pups and care for them together. * **Chapter Seventeen:** Hounds again pursue Tarka and his family. White-tip sacrifices herself to protect her children. * **Chapter Eighteen:** Tarka raises his children alone. They learn how to survive in the river and become skilled hunters. * **Last Chapter:** Tarka's life comes to an end. He sacrifices himself in a battle with hounds to protect his family.
Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.
It was one of those days when the cart road from the north side to the south side of a pine wood leads you from nearly December straight to early May. On the one side is a nipping and eager air; on the other sunny softness and a smell of spring. It is more than that difference of a hundred miles in latitude which market gardeners say exists between the north and south side of a board fence. It is like having thousand league boots and passing from Labrador to Louisiana at a stride.
His fairy language is too fine for my ear, tuned to the rough accents of the great world, but if I am any judge of countenances he is saying: “Why, damme, sir! how dare you intrude on my privacy!” After all he has a right to be indignant, for I have not only wrecked his winter home, but turned him out, unclothed and unprotected, to die in the first nip of the shrewish wind. 中文書籤： 這裡，舒適地安臥著，免受所有寒冷和風暴的侵襲，是一個懶惰的生物，胖得像個白蠟球。只有當我戳他時，他才會扭動，我能看到他的嘴在抗議地動著。
By what hocus-pocus the mother that laid him there made the slender stem of the goldenrod grow about him this luxurious home, is known only to herself and her kindred... The necromancy comes in the fact that every willow tip that is made the home of this grub should thenceforth forsake all its recognized methods of growth and produce a cone for the harboring of the grub during the winter’s cold...
It is all necromancy out of the same book, the book of the witchery of insects that makes human life and growth seem absurdly simple by comparison. 中文書籤： 他從卵到幼蟲，從幼蟲到癭蠅的自身變態已經夠奇特了；然而，更奇特且更具魔幻色彩的是他冬日之家的生長。那個在那裡產卵的母親是施了什麼咒語，讓纖細的金縷梅莖圍著他長出這個豪華的家，只有她自己和她的同類知道... 真正的巫術在於，每一個成為幼蟲居所的柳樹枝尖，從那時起就會放棄其所有既定的生長方式，轉而長出一個毬果來保護幼蟲度過冬季的嚴寒... 這一切都來自同一本巫術之書，那本昆蟲的巫術之書，相比之下，人類的生命和生長都顯得異常簡單。
--- 【關於凍結的池塘如宇宙中心】 原文段落： Standing on the water’s edge on such a night you realize that you are the very centre of a vast scintillating universe, for the stars shine with equal glory beneath your feet and above your head. The earth is forgotten.
It has become transparent, and where before sunset gray sand lay beneath a half-inch of water at your toe-tips, you now gaze downward through infinite space to the nadir, the unchartered, unfathomable distance checked off every thousand million miles or so by unnamed constellations that blur into a milky way beneath your feet. The pond is very deep on still winter nights. 中文書籤： 在這樣的夜晚站在水邊，你會意識到自己是浩瀚閃爍宇宙的真正中心，因為星星在你腳下和頭頂閃耀著同樣的光輝。大地被遺忘了。
--- 【關於薄冰上的溜冰體驗】 原文段落： An inch or so of transparent ice lies between you and a ducking among the fishes which dart through the clear depths, fleeing before the under water roar of your advance, for the cracks, starting beneath your feet and flashing in rainbow progress before you and to the right and left, send wild vibrations whooping and whanging through the ice all over the pond... You tend to stay on your plane of motion, though the ice itself has strength to hold only part of your weight.
Thus the wild duck, threshing the air with mighty strokes, glides over it, held up by the same obscure force. The ice has no time to break and let you through. You are over it and onto another bit of uncracked surface before it can let go. 中文書籤： 一英寸左右透明的冰層介於你與潛入魚群之間，魚群在清澈深處穿梭，躲避你前進時水下的轟鳴，因為裂縫從你腳下開始，在你面前及左右閃爍著彩虹般的擴展，將狂野的振動聲呼嘯著傳遍整個池塘... 你傾向於保持你的運動平面，儘管冰本身只能承受你部分體重。因此，野鴨用強勁的翅膀拍打著空氣，滑翔在冰上，被同樣模糊的力量支撐著。冰沒有時間破裂讓你沉下去。在它來得及崩裂之前，你已經越過它，到達另一塊未裂開的表面了。
--- 【關於某些植物在嚴寒中的堅持】 原文段落： It is wonderful, though, how they stand freezing and thawing and yet remain green, firm in texture, and wholesome... Who can tell me by what principle it remains so? Why is the thin-leaved pyrola and the partridge berry, puny creeping vine that it is, still green and unharmed by frost when the tough, leathery leaves of the great oak tree not far off are withered and brown?
In another not ten feet away they stand the rigors of our northern winters and come out in the spring, seemingly unharmed and fit to carry on the internal economy of the plant’s life until it shall produce new leaves to take their places. Then in the mild air of early summer these winter darers fade and die. 中文書籤： 然而，令人驚奇的是，它們如何能經受冰凍和融化，卻依然保持綠色、質地緊實、且充滿生機... 誰能告訴我這是什麼原理？為什麼纖細的鹿蹄草和蔓生的熊果，如此弱小的藤蔓，在附近的巨大橡樹堅韌的革質葉子都已枯萎變黃時，卻依然翠綠且未受霜害？植物的葉綠素、細胞結構和維管束，在其中一種植物中會在霜凍的觸碰下枯萎、失色、變棕。
--- 【關於橡樹林中的雪聲】 原文段落： But it is over on the oak hillside where the red and black oaks still hold resolutely to their dried leaves that the cry of the snow will most astonish you. It is not at all the rustle of these oak leaves in a wind. It is an outcry, an uproar, that drowns any other sound that might be in the wood. It is impossible to distinguish voices or words.
It is as if ten thousand of the little people of the wood and field and sky had suddenly come together in great excitement over something and were shouting all up and down the gamut of goblin emotion... At nightfall of this first snow of ours it happened that in the meeting of northerly and southerly currents which had brought the storm, the north wind lulled and the south began to have its way again... Then, indeed, we got outcry the most astonishing in the oak wood...
It was as if a goblin springtime had burst upon us in the white gloom of the oak wood and all the hylas in the world were piping their shrillest from the boughs. 中文書籤： 然而，在橡樹的山坡上，紅色和黑色的橡樹依然堅決地抓住它們乾燥的葉子，在那裡，雪的叫聲會讓你最為驚訝。這絕不是這些橡樹葉在風中的沙沙聲。那是一種吶喊，一種喧囂，淹沒了樹林裡可能有的其他任何聲音。你無法分辨聲音或詞語。彷彿一萬個來自樹林、田野和天空的小生靈突然聚集在一起，對某事感到極度興奮，正以哥布林的各種情感高聲呼喊著... 我們第一次下雪的那個傍晚，帶來風暴的南北氣流交匯，結果北風減弱，南風再次佔了上風... 於是，在橡樹林裡我們聽到了最驚人的叫聲... 彷彿一個哥布林的春天在橡樹林白色的陰暗中爆發了，世界上所有的樹蛙都在樹枝上發出最尖銳的鳴叫。
The soft white shoulders of the birches drooped low in bewildering curtsey, and to the fiddling of a little morning wind the ball began with a tinkling of gem on gem, a stabbing of scintillant azure, so that I was fain to shut my eyes with the splendor of it. 中文書籤： 當我在黃昏時逃離橡樹間精靈樹蛙的詭異尖叫聲時，我彷彿置身於哥布林之地。隨著旭日東升，我又回到了仙境。那些溫順的灌木，像是年度灰燼中的灰色灰姑娘，被魔杖觸碰，披上了比阿拉伯故事中最幸運的公主在最狂野的夢境中閃耀的寶石還要多的華服。珍珠串和鑽石串垂掛著，壓得纖細的枝條幾乎垂到了地上。柔軟潔白的樺樹肩低垂著，行著令人眩目的屈膝禮，伴著清晨微風的琴音，舞會開始了，寶石與寶石碰撞，發出清脆的叮噹聲，閃爍著耀眼的蔚藍光芒，讓我幾乎要閉上眼睛，以免被這份輝煌所刺痛。
It is not possible for a mile-square, foot-thick telephone disk to whisper, yet often it grumbles only a hoarse word or two at so deep a pitch that you would hardly know it was spoken... But there are other times when the winter ice on the pond whoops and roars, and bellows and whangs as if all Bedlam were let loose and were celebrating Guy Fawkes day.
A mile away, of a still winter evening, you may hear this and be dismayed, for the groanings and bellowings are such as belong to no monsters of the present day, though they might be echoes of antedeluvian battles corked within the earth for ages and now for the first time let loose. 中文書籤： 在冬天，池塘找到了聲音。這片一英尺厚的巨大白色冰層，就像電話裡巨大的圓盤，既是接收器也是發射器，在地球與空間之間傳遞著信息... 有時候，你需要離這個接收器很近才能聽到它們。對於一個一英里見方、一英尺厚的電話圓盤來說，它是無法低語的，然而它常常只會發出低沉的一兩個沙啞詞語，音調如此之低，你幾乎不會意識到那是聲音...
* 發音：/ˈmænɪfest/ * 例句：Her anger was manifest in her trembling voice.（她的憤怒在她顫抖的聲音中顯露無遺。） * **Predestined** (ˌpriːˈdestɪnd): 命中注定的，預定的。 * 發音：/ˌpriːˈdestɪnd/ * 例句：He believed that their meeting was predestined.（他相信他們的相遇是命中注定的。） * **Ingenuity** (ˌɪndʒɪˈnjuːɪti): 創造力，獨創性。 * 發音：/ˌɪndʒɪˈnjuːɪti/ * 例句：Her ingenuity in solving problems is truly impressive.（她解決問題的創造力令人印象深刻。） * **Stagnation** (stæɡˈneɪʃən): 停滯，不景氣。
**文法分析：** * **複合句：** "As the failure of the Biden administration’s “small yard, high fence” approach makes clear, it is not enough to seek to protect America’s technological lead." * 這個句子包含一個主句和一個從句。"As the failure of the Biden administration’s “small yard, high fence” approach makes clear" 作為狀語從句，修飾主句 "it is not enough to seek to protect America’s technological lead."。 * 這個句型可以用於表達因果關係，例如：As the weather is getting warmer, people are starting to go outside more.
* 被動語態可以用於強調動作的承受者，例如：The house was built in 1920.（這棟房子建於1920年。） **應用例句：** * The reinvigoration of the city center has attracted many new businesses.（市中心的振興吸引了許多新企業。） * We must avoid becoming complacent and continue to strive for excellence.（我們必須避免變得自滿，並繼續努力追求卓越。） * The benefits of exercise are manifest in improved health and well-being.（運動的好處在於改善健康和幸福感。） * Some people believe that our lives are predestined, while others believe in free will.（有些人認為我們的生活是命中注定的，而另一些人則相信自由意志。）
* Her ingenuity in designing the new product led to its great success.（她在設計新產品方面的創造力使其取得了巨大的成功。） * The country's economic stagnation has led to widespread unemployment.（該國的經濟停滯導致了普遍的失業。） * We need to overcome the sclerosis of old habits and embrace new ideas.（我們需要克服舊習慣的僵化，並擁抱新想法。） 希望這次的英語學習文章對您有所幫助！如果您有任何問題或需要更多解釋，請隨時告訴我。下次再見！(๑´ㅂ`๑)
Thus seconded, he is sanguine in the hope of rendering the second volume which the present number commences, *at least* as deserving of support as the former was: nay, if he reads aright the tokens which are given him of the future, it teems with even richer banquets for his readers, than they have hitherto enjoyed at his board.”
**信使的回聲：** 我們希望能提供一場… 「豐富的宴會」… 為靈魂… 為思想… 那時的美國文學… 特別是南方… 仍在摸索… 我們的聲音… 我們的特色… 我們不願… 只是歐洲的回聲… 我們有自己的土地… 自己的歷史… 自己的風情… 我們有Wissahiccon這樣浪漫的溪流… 有墨西哥那樣遙遠而神秘的見聞… 我們有共和制度下… 對教育與公民素質的關切… 以及… 那些潛藏在人心中… 深邃甚至黑暗的… 情感與衝動… （迴聲在提到埃德加·愛倫·坡時，語調有些許變化，帶著讚賞與一絲不易捉摸的色彩） “… among these, we hope to be pardoned for singling out the name of Mr. EDGAR A.
Found in a Bottle》中對Simoom的描寫） “The air now became intolerably hot, and was loaded with spiral exhalations similar to those arising from heated iron. As night came on, every breath of wind died away, and a more entire calm it is impossible to conceive. The flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the least perceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration.
No watch was set, and the crew, consisting principally of Malays, stretched themselves deliberately upon deck. I went below—not without a full presentiment of evil. Indeed every appearance warranted me in apprehending a Simoom.”
**信使的回聲：** 那種… 壓抑的… 不祥… 在風暴來臨時… 極致的混亂… （迴聲引述對巨大幽靈船的描寫） “At a terrific height directly above us, and upon the very verge of the precipitous descent, hovered a gigantic ship of nearly four thousand tons… Her huge hull was of a deep dingy black… But what mainly inspired us with horror and astonishment, was that she bore up under a press of sail in the very teeth of that supernatural sea, and of that ungovernable hurricane… then trembled and tottered, and—came down.”
Where, mother, where have the fire-flies been All the day long, that their light was not seen? MOTHER. They've been ’mong the flowers and flown through the air, But could not be seen—for the sunshine was there. And thus, little girl, in thy morning’s first light, There are many things hid from thy mind’s dazzled sight, Which the ev’ning of life will too clearly reveal, And teach thee to see—or, it may be, to feel.”
**信使的回聲：** （迴聲變得嚴肅，帶著思慮的重量）對… 這份責任感… 深植人心… 共和制度… 是新生事物… 脆弱… 易受攻擊… 歷史的教訓… 歷歷在目… Minor先生… 他的擔憂… 並非杞人憂天… （迴聲引述Lucian Minor演講中的句子） “Indeed, at the best, it is no trivial task, to conduct the affairs of a great people. Even in the tiny republics of antiquity… government was no such *simple machine*… The only very simple form of government, is despotism… But in republics, there are passions to soothe; clashing interests to reconcile; jarring opinions to mould into one result, for the general weal.
To effect this, requires extensive and accurate knowledge…” **信使的回聲：** 他看到了… 維護共和國… 需要的… 複雜性… 需要… 知識、理性、共識… 而他對… 「開明的人民」（ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE）… 的呼籲… 是核心… （迴聲引述Minor演講中最核心的呼籲） “If it is not ever to be thus; if the anticipations of our revolutionary patriots were not all delusive dreams… if there is a remedy for the diseases that poison the health of liberty;—the reason—that remedy—can be found only in one short precept—ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE!”
**信使的回聲：** 對於… 無法讀寫的… 成年白人數量… 他估計… 達到… 兩萬或三萬… 這在… 那個時代… 是一個… 令人震驚的數字… 他認為… 缺乏教育… 導致了… 無知和… 惡習… 甚至… 阻礙了… 政治上的… 清醒判斷… （迴聲引述Minor對未受教育者政治判斷的評論） “And the aggregate of opinions thus caught by accident, is the basis of the *popular will:* and it is the voice prompted by this will, that is called ‘*The voice of God!
**信使的回聲：** 他不迴避… 城市的… 陰暗面… 貧困… 疾病… 犯罪… 同時也記錄了… 墨西哥人的… 生活方式… 飲食… 社交… 以及… 他認為的… “迷信”… （迴聲引述對Nuestra Señora de los Remedios遊行的描述） “This identical image, they say, still exists—it is about eight inches in height—it is richly decorated. It is believed to possess the power of bringing rain, and of staying the ravages of disease… thousands flocked to join her train.
But a heavy rain began to fall, and the procession was necessarily postponed, the populace being delighted to find that the intercession of Our Lady was of so much avail, and their faith strengthened at the trifling expense of wet jackets.”
**信使的回聲：** 這種… 結合了… 細節描寫… 個人觀察… 和… 文化評論… 的旅行見聞… 滿足了… 讀者對… 外部世界的… 好奇心… 也提供了一種… 通過對比… 來反思… 自身社會… 的方式… 他認為… 墨西哥人民的… 缺點… 源於… 西班牙殖民者的… 政策… 而非… 自身不足… 並對… 他們在… 共和制度下… 的… 潛在進步… 抱有… 希望… （迴聲引述墨西哥日記中對墨西哥人民潛力及未來的看法） “Whatever may be said of the bad blood of the Mexicans, I cannot but view them as a mild and amiable people… for their state of degradation and ignorance they are indebted not to any natural deficiencies of their own, but to the miserable and timid policy of their former Spanish masters… The improvement
Never was any thing so charmingly written: the mere style is positively inimitable.” **信使的回聲：** 但同時… 也指出其… 缺乏原創性… 是對… 唐吉訶德的… 模仿… 對於Dr. Bird的《The Hawks of Hawk-Hollow》… 評價則… 更為複雜… （迴聲引述對《The Hawks of Hawk-Hollow》的評論片段） “The Hawks of Hawk-Hollow is, however, by no means in the *best* manner of its illustrious author. To speak plainly it is a positive failure, and must take its place by the side of the Redgauntlets, the Monasteries, the Pirates, and the Saint Ronan’s Wells.”
Bird人物描寫和詩歌的讚美） “Catherine Loring, however, is one of the sweetest creations ever emanating from the fancy of poet, or of painter… Captain Loring is a *chéf d’oeuvre*… He is however true to itself, and to propriety, and although at times verging upon the *outré*, is highly creditable to the genius of its author… If Dr. Bird can always write thus, and we see no reason for supposing the contrary, he should at once… Turn bard, and drop the play-wright and the novelist.”
**信使的回聲：** （迴聲變得更加冷靜和分析性）是的… 對於… 學術… 實用… 或… 紀念性… 的作品… 評論的… 重心… 轉向了… 內容的… 嚴謹性… 信息的… 價值… 以及… 形式的… 適當性… （迴聲引述對Robinson's Practice的評論片段） “The first volume of this work came out about three years ago; and received so earnest a welcome from the legal profession, that the author’s tardiness in producing the second might be matter of wonder… The present is destined, because it deserves, to be a much greater favorite with the law-book-reading public, than the former volume was.
The arrangement is after a better classification of subjects; rendering it easier to find the doctrine desired, on any given point: and there is a larger proportion of valuable matter—matter not to be found in the Revised Code, or in Tate’s Digest. Indeed there are few works, more copiously filled with useful, and *not-too-obvious* learning.” **信使的回聲：** 對於… 法律專著… 評論關注… 內容的… 實用性… 組織結構… 和… 對… 法律工作者的… 幫助… 即使… 指出… 措辭… 冗餘… 或… 索引… 的不足… 也是… 出於… 提升… 其實用價值… 的目的… 對於… 回憶錄… 比如… Dr.
Rice, it will be perused with the deepest interest and gratification… The greater portion of the work consists of these letters, and they are valuable in every respect… All, however, are full of thought, and give evidence of an elevated, a healthy, cheerful, powerful, and well regulated mind.”
**信使的回聲：** 至於… Glass先生的… 拉丁文《華盛頓傳》… 這是一個… 特殊的… 案例… 評論對… 其… 拉丁文的… 質量… 進行了… 深入… 的… 分析… 讚揚了… 作者的… 獨創性… 和… 克服… 將… 現代概念… 轉化為… 古老語言… 的… 困難… （迴聲引述對Washingtonii Vita拉丁文質量的評論） “We sincerely think that it has been underrated… Simplicity *here* was the most reasonable, and indeed the only admissible elegance. And if this be taken into consideration, we really can call to mind, at this moment, no modern Latin composition whatever much superior to the *Washingtonii Vita* of Mr. Glass.”
Did we indeed design to instruct our youth in a language of possibilities—did we wish to make them proficient in the tongue which *might have been spoken* in ancient Rome, had ancient Rome existed in the nineteenth century, we could scarcely have a better book for the purpose than the Washington of Mr. Glass. But we do not perceive that, in teaching Latin, we have any similar view.
**信使的回聲：** （迴聲變得低沉，帶著歷史的重量與感傷）是的… 你感受到了… 我們的… 時代… 並非… 單一的… 色彩… 我們的土地… 充滿了… 機遇… 充滿了… 活力… 獨立的… 理想… 仍在… 激勵人心… （迴聲引述Halley's Comet—1760的結尾詩句） “Thus was the world when last yon Comet blazed Above our earth. On its celestial light Proudly the free American may gaze: Nations that last beheld its rapid flight Are fading fast; the rest no more are known, While his has risen to a mighty one.”
（迴聲引述Marcelia的片段） “The story goes, that a Neglected girl (an orphan whom the world Frown’d upon,) once strayed thither, and ‘twas thought Did cast her in the stream… …She loved a man who marked her not. He wed, And then the girl grew sick, and pin’d away, And drown’d herself for love!”
* Example: The royal wedding was conducted with great pomp and ceremony. (皇家婚禮以盛大的排場和儀式舉行。) * **extravagances** /ɪkˈstrævəɡənsɪz/ (n. pl.): 奢侈，浪費。指過度或不必要的開支或行為。 * Example: They criticized the company's extravagances during the difficult economic times. (他們批評公司在經濟困難時期的奢侈行為。) * **oppression** /əˈprɛʃən/ (n.): 壓迫，欺壓。指不正當地對待一群人，使其受到傷害或痛苦。 * Example: The government's policies were seen as an act of oppression against the minority group. (政府的政策被視為對少數族裔的壓迫。)
* Example: Making decisions based on sound sense is crucial for success. (基於健全的見識做決策對成功至關重要。) * **practical advice** (phr.): 實用的建議。 * Example: Her practical advice really helped me solve the problem. (她實用的建議確實幫助我解決了問題。) * **valuable information** (phr.): 寶貴的資訊。 * Example: The book is full of valuable information for students. (這本書充滿了對學生來說寶貴的資訊。) * **profound study** (phr.): 深刻的研究。
* "...while others seemed to ignore the multitudinous duties, the performance of which would bring either credit or blame, to themselves, according to the degree of tact or skill exhibited in the discharge thereof." (而另一些人似乎忽略了多種多樣的職責，這些職責的履行會根據他們在執行時所展現的策略或技能程度，給他們帶來榮譽或責備。) 這個長句使用了關係代名詞 "which" 引導非限制性子句，補充說明 "multitudinous duties"。後面的 "according to..." 結構則解釋了結果（榮譽或責備）取決於執行時的表現。單字 "multitudinous" (許多的，大量的) 和 "tact" (策略，手腕) 也很有時代感。 **克萊兒：** 您在書中花了大量篇幅講解生理化學和解剖學，特別是循環系統。這對一位殯葬師來說，為何如此重要？
* Example: The blood began to coagulate shortly after it was exposed to air. (血液暴露在空氣中後很快開始凝固。) * **circulatory system** (phr.): 循環系統。指動物體內運輸血液或淋巴的系統，包括心臟、血管和淋巴管。 * Example: Exercise is good for maintaining a healthy circulatory system. (運動有益於維持健康的循環系統。) * **arteries** /ˈɑːrtəriz/ (n. pl.): 動脈。指將血液從心臟輸送到身體各部分的血管。 * Example: Blockages in the arteries can lead to heart disease. (動脈阻塞會導致心臟病。) * **veins** /veɪnz/ (n. pl.): 靜脈。指將血液從身體各部分輸回心臟的血管。
* Example: Arterial injection is a method used for embalming. (動脈注射是一種用於防腐的方法。) * **natural channels** (phr.): 自然通道。這裡指身體內部的天然管道，如血管。 * Example: Water flows through the natural channels of the riverbed. (水沿著河床的自然通道流動。) * **scientific principles** (phr.): 科學原理。指科學理論所依據的基本定律或事實。 * Example: The experiment demonstrated the scientific principles of gravity. (實驗驗證了重力的科學原理。) * **preservation** /ˌprɛzərˈveɪʃən/ (n.): 保存，防腐。指維持某物的原始狀態，防止其腐爛或損壞。
* "It is, therefore, an undeniable fact, that without this knowledge the embalmer will accomplish his task more or less well, and without knowing with any degree of certainty if the process of injecting is complete..." (因此，這是一個不可否認的事實，沒有這些知識，殯葬師完成工作的程度會參差不齊，而且無法確定注射過程是否徹底完成……) 這個句子使用了 "It is... that..." 的強調結構，強調「這是一個不可否認的事實」。後面的 "more or less well" (或多或少地好/不好) 是一個慣用語，表示程度不確定。 **克萊兒：** 您在書中詳細介紹了幾種保存遺體的方法，特別是一種不需要冰敷，只需注射腹腔內臟的簡易方法，以及一種更為複雜徹底的動脈注射法。您認為這兩種方法的主要區別和適用情境是什麼？
第一種是針對短時間內（**for a certain length of time**），比如幾天，等待家屬從遠方趕來參加葬禮的情況。它主要側重於防止腹部膨脹和口鼻滲液，這是分解初期最容易發生、也最令人不適的現象。透過在腹部進行簡單的切開，排空胃腸內容物，並注射稀釋的防腐液，可以有效抑制內部發酵產氣。這是一種「簡易」（**simple**）且「省力」（**less laborious**）的替代冰敷的方式，尤其適合在逝者家中操作，避免搬運冰櫃的麻煩和對家屬情緒的打擾。 但如果需要將遺體運輸到遙遠的地方（**shipped to the most distant points**），或者需要在家族墓穴中長期保存（**preserved for an indefinite period of time**），那麼第二種，也就是動脈注射法，才是「最完整」（**more complete**）且「持久」（**lasting**）的方法。這需要更深入的解剖學知識和更精準的操作。我們要從大動脈（例如股動脈或主動脈降段）注入更強效的防腐液，讓藥液透過循環系統遍布全身的組織。
* **單字解析：** * **for a certain length of time** (phr.): 在一定時間內。 * Example: The food can be stored in the refrigerator for a certain length of time. (食物可以在冰箱中保存一段時間。) * **simple** /ˈsɪmpəl/ (adj.): 簡單的，容易的。 * Example: The instructions were very simple and easy to follow. (這些說明非常簡單且容易遵循。) * **less laborious** (phr.): 不那麼費力的。 * Example: Using a machine is much less laborious than doing it by hand. (使用機器比手工做省力多了。)
* **preserved for an indefinite period of time** (phr.): 無限期地保存。 * Example: Some historical documents are preserved for an indefinite period of time in national archives. (一些歷史文件被無限期地保存在國家檔案館中。) * **more complete** (phr.): 更完整，更徹底。 * Example: This edition of the book is more complete than the previous one. (這版書比前一版更完整。) * **lasting** /ˈlæstɪŋ/ (adj.): 持久的，永恆的。 * Example: Their friendship proved to be lasting. (他們的友誼證明是持久的。)
* Example: The product was protected by a transparent and elastic covering. (產品受到透明且有彈性覆蓋物的保護。) * **natural and recognizable** (phr.): 自然且可辨識的。 * Example: Despite the changes, her features remained natural and recognizable. (儘管有所變化，她的五官仍然自然且可辨識。) * **circumstances may require** (phr.): 情況可能需要。 * Example: We will adjust the plan as circumstances may require. (我們將根據情況需要調整計畫。)
* **文法分析：** * "It is intended to take the place of the cumbrous refrigerator..." (它是為了取代笨重的冰箱……) "take the place of" 是一個常用的動詞片語，表示「取代」。"cumbrous" (笨重的) 是一個較為正式或舊式的形容詞，描述了當時冰櫃的特點。 * "...rendering the body perfectly inaccessible to the attacks of the ambient atmosphere by the external covering which encases the body, in its transparent and elastic coating..." (...使得身體完全不受周遭大氣的侵襲，透過包裹身體的透明且有彈性塗層……) 這個句子結構較複雜，使用現在分詞片語 "rendering..." 作結果狀語，描述「透明且有彈性塗層」的功能。
* Example: Fibrine is essential for blood clotting. (纖維蛋白對於血液凝固至關重要。) * **insoluble compound** (phr.): 不溶性化合物。指在溶劑（通常是水）中不能溶解的化學物質。 * Example: Chalk is an insoluble compound in water. (粉筆是水中的不溶性化合物。) * **tanning** /ˈtænɪŋ/ (n.): 鞣製（皮革）。指用鞣劑處理動物皮，使其變成皮革的過程。 * Example: Tanning hides is an ancient craft. (鞣製獸皮是一門古老的手藝。) * **imputrescible** /ɪmˈpjuːtrɪsəbəl/ (adj.): 不會腐敗的，防腐的。 * Example: Certain chemicals make organic matter imputrescible.
* Example: His work was based on purely scientific principles. (他的工作基於純粹的科學原理。) * **文法分析：** * "Unless possessed of some knowledge of physiological chemistry and morbid anatomy, it will be impossible for him to judge, with any degree of certainty, what means are to be employed to secure success in embalming." (除非具備一些生理化學和病理解剖學的知識，否則他將無法確定地判斷應採用何種方法來確保防腐成功。) "Unless possessed of..." 是一個省略句，完整的形式是 "Unless he is possessed of..."。這個結構用來強調缺乏某項知識的後果。
* "It is to the antiseptic properties of the sulphurous acid that this preparation owes its preserving qualities." (正是亞硫酸的防腐特性賦予了這種製劑保存的特質。) 這是一個強調句（cleft sentence），使用 "It is... that..." 結構，強調句子中的主語 "the antiseptic properties of the sulphurous acid"。 **克萊兒：** 除了技術層面，您在手冊中也強調了殯葬師的個人素質和職業操守。您認為一位「一流的專業人士」應該具備哪些特質？ **奧古斯特·雷努亞德：** （臉色柔和下來，帶著一絲沉思）啊，這部分與技術同等重要，甚至更甚。技術可以學習，但某些特質是天生的或需要長期培養的。首先是「策略」（**tact**）和「技巧」（**skill**）——不僅是操作的技巧，更是處理人際關係的策略。
* Example: He was a well-bred man who always knew how to behave properly. (他是一位非常有教養的男人，總是知道如何得體地行事。) * **Urbane and affable** (phr.): 溫文爾雅且和藹可親。形容舉止文雅且容易相處。 * Example: The diplomat was known for his urbane and affable manner. (這位外交官以其溫文爾雅且和藹可親的舉止而聞名。) * **punctual** /ˈpʌŋktʃuəl/ (adj.): 準時的。指嚴格遵守時間。 * Example: It's important to be punctual for appointments. (準時赴約很重要。) * **without ostentation** (phr.): 不炫耀地，不張揚地。
* Example: She furnished her house with great taste. (她非常有品味地裝修了她的房子。) * **decorous, quiet bearing** (phr.): 莊重、安靜的舉止。 * Example: The mourners maintained a decorous, quiet bearing throughout the ceremony. (哀悼者在整個儀式中都保持著莊重、安靜的舉止。) * **very little short of self-sacrifice** (phr.): 幾乎是自我犧牲。 * Example: Her dedication to the project was very little short of self-sacrifice. (她對這個專案的投入幾乎是自我犧牲。) * **genteel employment** (phr.): 體面工作。指那些被認為是體面、不需要體力勞動的職業。
* Example: Becoming a clerk was considered a genteel employment in those days. (在那些日子裡，成為一名職員被認為是一份體面工作。) * **solemn and responsible** (phr.): 莊重而負責的。 * Example: Taking care of another person's life is a solemn and responsible task. (照顧另一個人的生命是一項莊重而負責的任務。) * **文法分析：** * "Sorrow has not so blunted all other feelings in relations and friends as to make them relax their lynx eyed vigilance of every motion of the undertaker..."
* "To hesitate at times would be taken for ignorance..." (有時猶豫會被認為是無知……) "To hesitate..." 作句子主語，是不定詞片語作名詞用，表示「猶豫」這個行為。 **克萊兒：** 您還提到了一些實用的管理建議，比如殯葬所的空間安排、儀器的選擇與維護，甚至助理的職責分工。這些細節在當時的行業中，是常見的考量嗎？ **奧古斯特·雷努亞德：** （笑了笑，露出一個略帶自豪的表情）這部分可能不像化學或解剖學那樣「高深」，但對於實際經營一家殯葬所而言，它們「至關重要」（**of the utmost importance**）。在那時，許多殯葬師的工作空間簡陋雜亂，儀器也不夠專業。這不僅影響效率和結果，也增加了感染的風險。 一個「通風良好且光線充足」（**well ventilated and lighted**）的專用「實驗室」（**laboratory**）或準備室，是進行專業操作的基礎。儀器的選擇，尤其注射器（**injecting apparatus**），更是關鍵。
* Example: It is important to work in a well ventilated and lighted room. (在通風良好且光線充足的房間裡工作很重要。) * **laboratory** /ˈlæbrəˌtɔːri/ (n.): 實驗室。用於科學研究或專業操作的房間或建築。 * Example: The chemist spent hours working in his laboratory. (化學家在實驗室裡工作了幾個小時。) * **injecting apparatus** (phr.): 注射器。用於將液體注入體內的設備。 * Example: The nurse prepared the injecting apparatus for the patient. (護士為病人準備了注射器。) * **reliable** /rɪˈlaɪəbəl/ (adj.): 可靠的，可信賴的。
* Example: The durability of the materials used ensures the product lasts for years. (所用材料的耐久性確保產品能使用多年。) * **systematized** /ˈsɪstəmətaɪzd/ (adj.): 系統化的，有條理的。 * Example: Her work process is highly systematized, which increases efficiency. (她的工作流程高度系統化，提高了效率。) * **smooth working** (phr.): 順暢運作。 * Example: The smooth working of the team led to the project's success. (團隊的順暢運作促成了專案的成功。)
感染可以通過皮膚的「擦傷或割傷」（**abrasion of the skin, or cut**）進入體內。 當時許多人對此不夠重視，或是採用一些無效的「預防措施」（**preventives**），甚至有人誤以為酒精可以「抵抗」（**combat**）和「消除」（**render void**）傳染的致命影響，這完全是錯誤且「致命的」（**fatal**）！我的書中明確指出，對抗感染不能依賴僥倖或酒精，而是要依靠「醫療科學」（**medical science**）提供的方向和方法，以及最重要的——「謹慎和小心」（**caution used and the care exercised**）。 具體建議包括：保持工作空間「通風良好」（**perfect ventilation**）；小心處理可能帶有病原體的衣物；使用「消毒劑」（**disinfecting liquids**）淨化空氣，例如氯化鉛或我提到的硝酸鉀與硫酸混合產生的燻蒸氣；操作前用油或豬油塗抹雙手，結束後用消毒液（如次氯酸鈉溶液，Labarraque solution）徹底清洗。
* Example: Scientists are working to find a cure for the deadly virus. (科學家正在尋找治療這種致命病毒的方法。) * **vitiated secretion** (phr.): 污穢分泌物。指因疾病或其他原因而變得不潔或有害的分泌物。 * Example: Handling bodies with contagious diseases involves the risk of contact with vitiated secretions. (處理傳染病遺體存在接觸污穢分泌物的風險。) * **abrasion of the skin, or cut** (phr.): 皮膚擦傷或割傷。 * Example: Cover any abrasion of the skin, or cut, to prevent infection. (覆蓋任何皮膚擦傷或割傷，以防止感染。)
* Example: The contract was rendered void due to fraud. (這份合同因欺詐而作廢。) * **fatal** /ˈfeɪtəl/ (adj.): 致命的，毀滅性的。 * Example: The accident proved fatal for both drivers. (這次事故對兩位司機都是致命的。) * **medical science** (phr.): 醫療科學。 * Example: Advances in medical science have greatly increased life expectancy. (醫療科學的進步極大地提高了預期壽命。) * **caution used and the care exercised** (phr.): 使用的謹慎和採取的護理。
* Example: His goal was to see photography be truly, and really, raised to the rank of a profession. (他的目標是看到攝影被真正地提升到一個專業的層次。) * **calling is a solemn and responsible one** (phr.): 召喚是莊重且負責的。指某人的職業或使命被認為是神聖且需要承擔重大責任的。 * Example: She felt that being a teacher was a calling, a solemn and responsible one. (她覺得當老師是一種召喚，是莊重且負責的。) * **interlopers** /ˈɪntərˌloʊpərz/ (n. pl.): 趁虛而入者，闖入者。指未經許可而進入某地或參與某活動的人，常帶有負面意義。
* Example: The ceremony was conducted with the deferential respect due to the dead. (儀式以對死者的應有尊重進行。) * **the successful undertaker of the future** (phr.): 未來的成功殯葬師。 * Example: The manual aims to train the successful undertaker of the future. (這本手冊旨在培養未來的成功殯葬師。) * **文法分析：** * "It is high time the business of undertaking be truly, and really, raised to the rank of a profession..."
(現在是殯葬業真正提升到專業層次的時候了……) "It is high time that + 主語 + 動詞過去式" 或 "It is high time for + 名詞 + to + 動詞原形" 表示「是時候做某事了」，語氣較強烈。這裡使用了省略that和be動詞的形式。 * "...let every undertaker be convinced that his calling is a solemn and responsible one, and our ranks will soon be free from the few interlopers who, so far, have impeded our progress towards a just recognition from the public..." (...讓每個殯葬師都確信他們的召喚是莊重且負責的，這樣我們的隊伍很快就會擺脫那些至今為止阻礙我們獲得公眾公正認可的少數闖入者……) "let... be convinced" 是祈使句結構，表達作者的期望。
也許，正是在那種「讓喬治去做吧」(Let George do it) 的氛圍中，我和 George Kelley、Walter Chase 這些老派紳士的交流，最終推動了我必須「親自去做」。這種 engulf 在艱苦但迷人的工作中 的感覺，是很真實的。 **哈珀：** 您提到了艱苦的工作，從書中讀到，修復過程充滿了挑戰，尤其是在那個深冬。挖開輪坑、清理水槽、搬運沉重的岩石和舊設備，聽起來都極為不易。您能描述一下那些特別困難的時刻嗎？以及，在這些挑戰中，是什麼讓您們堅持下去？ **Castonguay：** (皺了皺眉，似乎回到了那些泥濘和嚴寒的日子) 哦，冬天來得早，特別是1960年的12月。鱈魚角的冬天 usually 比較溫和，但那年真是個老派的嚴冬。攝氏零下十幾度的天氣，在水槽和輪坑裡工作，穿再多衣服也擋不住那股 from below 滲透上來的刺骨寒氣。冰塊 constantly 在我們的靴子周圍凝結， penetrating chill 從輪坑深處升起。我們得花好幾個小時破冰才能開始工作。
他們用 crude tools 就能 build things for permanence，像這座磨坊的mortised, tenoned and dowelled beams，hard as rock。而今天的 builders 和 architects 似乎滿足於 "chicken houses"，難以 replicate 那些帶有 charm, character and dignity 的 small things，比如 bow roof 或 box returns。Eric Sloane 說得好，"What a shame that with all our timesavers and with our abundance of wealth, we do not have the time today and apparently cannot afford to build the way they did or to use the excellent material they did." 這 not only 適用於建築，也適用於很多方面。
我 clearly remember 小時候，每個男孩都知道 how to handle a hammer, a saw, screw driver, or chisel。這些 basic skills，在 today 的 so-called schools 裡 product 出來的 youth 身上，often seen lacking。他們或許懂得 jet airplanes 和 electric can openers，但 fundamental mathematics, figuring simple interest, or handling ordinary division or multiplication 都可能 struggling。這是一個 sharp contrast。 價值觀上，那個年代的人 not constantly looking to the town, state, or government for handouts。
Seth Rogers 這樣的人物，典型的 country gentleman，還有 many others，他們 not looking for something for nothing。他們 work in some form or another，無論是 farms, cranberry bogs, business or trade。他們時間不多，但時間被 put to great use in production。錢不多，因為他們 not need it。那是一種 totally different 的 way of life。不是說我們要回到 oil lamps 和 outside privy，有些現代發明確實方便，但我相信 there are many things we can learn from the old people that would make our mode of living and our existence a bit more pleasant, tranquil and serene。
Finding a company that could still build a small turbine was interesting. 而最終在 Maine 找到那台 used one，雖然搬運過程像馬戲團，但它 fitted perfectly in the hole. 最 fascinating 的是磨石，French buhr type stones。這東西 practically impossible to obtain today。我們發現，even if 你找到了，你可能也不知道 how to "pick up" them，也就是 re-sharpen the grooves。幸運的是，我們找到了 Arthur Mattson 先生，one of the few men left with that skill。
And it worked, efficiently, for centuries. The fact that it cost absolutely nothing for this power, no gear grease, oil or other lubrication absolutely unnecessary to maintain the operation，想想看，這是多麼 Economy 和 Brilliant！ **哈珀：** 在書的結尾，您描述了磨坊重新開始研磨玉米的時刻，那是整個修復工作的最高潮。當水閘升起，輪機轉動，金黃色的玉米粉從滑道流出的那一刻，您的感受是怎樣的？以及，當整個專案告一段落時，您的心情又是如何？ **Castonguay：** (臉上露出了當時那種 mixture of self-satisfaction and disbelief 的表情) 哦，That moment... 那是 August 3, 1961，差不多 exactly a year after we started。
我猜你也能 well imagine who that was. (笑) 那是 a feeling of great self-satisfaction。這些石頭已經 seventy-one years 沒有轉動了。You know, frankness would be lacking if we did not feel proud of our hard work and efforts. 它 ran smoothly, with very little noise. 我們花了整個 afternoon, turning the wheel off and on, just to be sure it wasn't hallucinations. The wheel and its gears responded with a very deliberate cadence. It was real. 但 project 結束時，心情是很 complex 的。
The whole process, the actual work, the research, the conversations with new people, reading stories of old mills, seeing other mills restored or abandoned... it was most fascinating. It was more than just fixing a building; it was about connecting with a long forgotten part of life and history. 然後，你知道嗎？(臉上又出現了一絲 George Kelley 式的頑皮表情) George 剛才打電話給我，他說... "Harold... you know what?" 我問 "No, what?" 他說... "I think I have found an old tide mill..." (頓了一下，笑著搖頭) 好像我們的 adventure 還沒有結束。
你看，她一走上街，感官就被打開了：【"In people’s eyes, in the swing, tramp, and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June."】（在人們的眼神裡，在搖擺、沉重的腳步裡；在喧囂和騷動裡；在馬車、汽車、公共汽車、貨車、遊走廣告牌的人們的穿梭和搖擺裡；在銅管樂隊裡；在手搖風琴裡；在空中某架飛機奇怪的高聲吟唱裡，有她所熱愛的一切；生命；倫敦；這個六月的時刻。） 這個早晨、這座城市、這些聲音和景象，都是她「生命」的組成部分。
Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air."】（噹！它響了。先是警告聲，帶著音樂感；然後是時刻，無可挽回。鉛色的圓圈消散在空氣中。）它的聲音，既是提醒，也是宣告。它是倫敦的心跳，是那個時代的節奏。 時間在我的小說中，不只是線性的流逝。它是記憶、是感受、是意識的潮汐。大笨鐘的每一次響聲，都像是把「現在」這個瞬間釘在時間的軸上，但同時，它又觸發了人物的記憶，將他們拉回過去，與年輕時的自己、與那些已經逝去或改變的人事物相遇。克拉麗莎聽到鐘聲，會想起伯頓的早晨、想起彼得·沃爾什。彼得聽到鐘聲，也會想起與克拉麗莎在伯頓的時光，想起他以為已經死去的安特·海倫娜。 時間是無情的，它帶來衰老，帶來失去（「一年一年過去，她的那一份被削得越來越少」）。但時間也是豐厚的，它積累了經驗，沉澱了情感。人物的意識就像是在時間的河流中漂浮，既被當下的浪潮推動，又被河底的暗流牽扯，那些暗流就是過去的記憶、未完成的情感。
她也好奇，她【"looked out with her little pink face pursed in enquiry."】（用她小小的粉色臉蛋，皺著眉頭好奇地望出去。）同樣的外部事件，在他們不同的內心世界裡激起了如此不同的迴響。他們都在以各自的方式感知著世界的壓力和不可解的奧秘。他們的相遇，雖然只在小說結構上，卻是一種強烈的對比，也是一種，或許吧，一種在「存在」層面上的共鳴。賽普蒂默斯的死亡，在克拉麗莎的派對上被提及，這也將死亡——這個生命的終極對立面——帶入了克拉麗莎精心營造的社交空間。 **艾薇：** 這場派對，克拉麗莎為它付出了很多心力，稱它為一種「獻祭」（an offering）。彼得·沃爾什和理查德·達洛維似乎對此抱持不同的看法，認為她只是愛慕虛榮。您怎麼看待克拉麗莎舉辦派對的動機？這與她內心的「無限潛能」或「內心平靜與喜悅」有關嗎？ **吳爾芙：** (手指輕敲著茶杯邊緣) 獻祭… 嗯，這是一個她自己用來理解這個行為的詞。對她來說，派對不只是社交，不只是虛榮。
她渴望把不同的人、不同的生活片段【"if only they could be brought together; so she did it. And it was an offering; to combine, to create; but to whom？ An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps."】（要是他們能被帶到一起就好了；於是她這樣做了。這是一種獻祭；去結合，去創造；但對誰呢？或許是為了獻祭而獻祭。）這是一種創造的衝動，一種把破碎的世界連接起來的努力。 彼得和理查德的看法… 他們都是男性視角，從他們自己的經驗和對她的理解來判斷。彼得覺得她只是愛慕虛榮，【"simply a snob in short."】（簡言之就是個勢利鬼。）理查德則覺得她喜歡這種興奮是孩子氣，對她的心臟不好。但他們都看不到她內心真正的原因。
就像克拉麗莎所想的，【"even between husband and wife a gulf; and that one must respect, thought Clarissa, watching him open the door; for one would not part with it oneself, or take it, against his will, from one’s husband, without losing one’s independence, one’s self-respect—something, after all, priceless."】（即使在夫妻之間也有一道鴻溝；那是必須尊重的，克拉麗莎看著他打開門時這樣想；因為你不會願意自己放棄它，或違背你丈夫的意願去奪走它，否則就會失去你的獨立性，你的自尊——畢竟是無價之物。）這道「鴻溝」，不是隔閡，而是一種必須尊重的個人空間，是「自我」存在的必要條件。 彼得和克拉麗莎年輕時的熱情，像火焰一樣燃燒，但最終，火焰無法維持，因為彼得要求完全的分享，那會摧毀彼此的獨立。
但在彼得來訪後，她坐下來修補禮服，【"sitting down on the sofa with her dress over her knees, her scissors, her silks"】（她坐在沙發上，裙子攤在膝蓋上，放著剪刀、絲線，）這變成了一種穩定自己、重新找回「自我」的方式。在混亂和情緒的衝擊下，她通過這個具體的、有條理的動作，將自己重新組裝起來，找回那個「定點」的克拉麗莎。 這些物件和動作，它們本身沒有情感，但當它們與人物的意識和情境結合時，就發出了微弱但深刻的迴響。讀者通過觀察這些外在的行為和對事物細節的感知，可以自己去體會人物內心的狀態，而不是被直接告知「他很焦慮」或「她很難過」。這就像你們「光之雕刻」的約定一樣，呈現客觀的細節，情感就自然而然地從中浮現。 **艾薇：** 光之雕刻，是的，我們也是這麼做的。它需要極致的觀察力和精準的文字。您的寫作風格，尤其是在描繪意識流動方面，對後世影響深遠。您是如何在文字中捕捉這種非線性的、跳躍的思緒狀態的？ **吳爾芙：** 意識… 它不是一條直線，而是一片廣闊的海洋，波浪翻騰，有時平靜，有時狂暴。
【"Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death."】（死亡是反抗。死亡是嘗試去溝通；人們感到無法觸及那個神秘地躲避著他們的中心；親密感漸行漸遠；狂喜消逝，人變得孤獨。死亡中有一種擁抱。）他無法忍受現實世界的壓力，無法與人連結，他的死亡是他為自己選擇的一條路。 克拉麗莎在派對上聽到這個消息，【"Oh! thought Clarissa, in the middle of my party, here’s death, she thought."】（哦！克拉麗莎心想，在我的派對中間，死亡來了，她想。）死亡闖入了她精心營造的生命慶典。這是一種強烈的並置。
「當她剛搬來Wren Cottage時，她對周遭的一切都感到厭惡（**disgust which seized upon her**）。她覺得自己的舊家狹隘而微不足道（**contracted, paltry place**），空氣中瀰漫著陳舊的氣味，這讓她煩躁地（**peevishly**）推開食物。這也讓她意識到，她已經不屬於那個世界了。她想成為一位真正的淑女，但又因其出身而感到自卑與屈辱（**inferiority and humiliation**）。」我補充道，將文本中南希的心理活動融入到對話中。 「是的，她對一些看似粗俗的言行感到不快（**grated on**）。」露西回憶道，「當我母親和父親第一次遇到她時，南希的反應是非常激動的，甚至有些難以控制的（**ungovernable**）憤恨（**hot resentment**）。那時她對我母親的讚美與對父親的恭維，讓我覺得有些奇怪。她似乎想巴結（**currying favour**）我們，但又帶著一股不情願的抗拒。
* **例句:** Her **hot-headedness** often led her to make hasty decisions she later regretted. (她的魯莽衝動常使她做出事後後悔的倉促決定。) 3. **practical divorce and disjunction** (實際上的離婚與分離) * **發音:** /ˈpræktɪkəl dɪˈvɔːrs ænd dɪsˈdʒʌŋkʃən/ * **解釋:** 指儘管法律上可能未正式離婚，但在實際生活中已完全分離，關係斷裂。disjunction強調斷開，脫節。 * **文法:** "practical" 為形容詞，修飾 "divorce" 和 "disjunction"。 * **例句:** Despite still being legally married, their lives had become a state of **practical divorce and disjunction**.
* **例句:** Her lack of formal education exposed her social **deficiencies** in high society. (她缺乏正規教育，這暴露了她在上流社會中的社交缺陷。) 6. **self-assertion** (堅持己見，自我主張) * **發音:** /ˌsɛlf əˈsɜːrʃən/ * **解釋:** 指堅定地表達自己的觀點、權利或需求。 * **文法:** 名詞。 * **例句:** Her strong **self-assertion** was often mistaken for arrogance. (她強烈的自我主張常被誤認為傲慢。) 7. **inarticulate** (表達不清的) * **發音:** /ˌɪnɑːrˈtɪkjələt/ * **解釋:** 指無法清晰或有效地表達自己的想法或感受。 * **文法:** 形容詞。
* **例句:** He was so overwhelmed by emotion that he became completely **inarticulate**. (他被情緒淹沒，以至於完全表達不清。) 8. **overture** (求和，提議) * **發音:** /ˈoʊvərtʃər/ * **解釋:** 指嘗試建立關係或達成協議的提議或行動。在這裡特指和解的姿態。 * **文法:** 名詞。 * **例句:** Despite their long-standing feud, neither side was willing to make the first **overture**. (儘管他們長期不和，雙方都不願率先提出和解。) 9. **probation** (考驗) * **發音:** /prəˈbeɪʃən/ * **解釋:** 指一段測試期，在此期間某人的行為或能力會受到評估。在文中指南希自我改造的過程。 * **文法:** 名詞。
* **例句:** The new employee was still on **probation** during her first three months. (這位新員工在最初的三個月仍處於試用期。) 10. **disgust which seized upon her** (抓住她的厭惡感) * **發音:** /dɪsˈɡʌst wɪtʃ siːzd əˈpɒn hɜːr/ * **解釋:** 指強烈的厭惡感突然襲來，完全籠罩了某人。 * **文法:** "seized upon" 為動詞片語，強調突然而徹底的控制。 * **例句:** A profound **disgust seized upon her** as she realized the extent of his betrayal. (當她意識到他背叛的程度時，一股深切的厭惡感籠罩了她。) 11.
* **例句:** Her constant complaining really **grated on** his nerves. (她不停的抱怨真讓他惱火。) 14. **hot resentment** (強烈的憤恨) * **發音:** /hɒt rɪˈzɛntmənt/ * **解釋:** 指非常強烈、激烈的不滿或怨恨情緒。 * **文法:** 形容詞 "hot" 強調了 "resentment" 的程度。 * **例句:** The injustice of the situation filled her with **hot resentment**. (處境的不公讓她充滿了強烈的憤恨。) 15. **inferiority and humiliation** (自卑與屈辱) * **發音:** /ɪnˌfɪəriˈɔːrəti ænd hjuːˌmɪliˈeɪʃən/ * **解釋:** inferiority (自卑感，低人一等) + humiliation (屈辱，丟臉)。
* **例句:** He was always **currying favour** with the boss, hoping for a promotion. (他總是在巴結老闆，希望能得到晉升。) 17. **convulsions of feeling** (情感的劇烈波動) * **發音:** /kənˈvʌlʃənz əv ˈfiːlɪŋ/ * **解釋:** 指情感或情緒上極其劇烈、無法控制的震動或動盪。 * **文法:** 名詞片語，"convulsions" 原指抽搐，這裡引申為情感上的劇烈起伏。 * **例句:** She was shaken by violent **convulsions of feeling** after hearing the news. (聽到這個消息後，她被情感的劇烈波動所震動。) 18.
* **例句:** Despite the **enacted disability**, she found ways to pursue her dreams. (儘管有頒布的限制，她仍找到了追求夢想的方法。) 20. **unrepealable** (不能廢除的) * **發音:** /ˌʌnrɪˈpiːləbəl/ * **解釋:** 指無法被撤銷、廢除或改變的。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** The law was considered **unrepealable** due to its deep roots in the constitution. (這條法律因其在憲法中的深厚根基而被認為是不可廢除的。) 21. **undisclosed hope** (未揭露的希望) * **發音:** /ˌʌndɪsˈkloʊzd hoʊp/ * **解釋:** undisclosed (未揭露的，隱藏的) + hope (希望)。指某種秘密地、不為人知的希望。
* **例句:** She felt **vexed** by the constant interruptions during her work. (她因為工作時不斷的打擾而感到惱怒。) 23. **preoccupied** (全神貫注的) * **發音:** /priˈɒkjupaɪd/ * **解釋:** 指思想被某事完全佔據，以至於無法專注於其他事物。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** He was too **preoccupied** with his research to notice his friend enter the room. (他全神貫注於研究，以至於沒注意到朋友進了房間。) 24. **pitiless** (無情的) * **發音:** /ˈpɪtɪləs/ * **解釋:** 無憐憫之心，冷酷無情。 * **文法:** 形容詞。
* **例句:** The historian argued that the empire's downfall was due to its **moral decadence**. (歷史學家認為帝國的衰落是緣於其道德墮落。) 32. **unwilling cynicism** (不情願的犬儒主義) * **發音:** /ʌnˈwɪlɪŋ ˈsɪnɪsɪzm/ * **解釋:** unwilling (不情願的) + cynicism (犬儒主義，懷疑論)。指一種被迫接受的，對人性或社會持懷疑、悲觀態度的思想。 * **文法:** 形容詞修飾名詞。 * **例句:** His repeated disappointments led to an **unwilling cynicism** about love. (他屢次受挫，導致他對愛情產生了不情願的犬儒主義。) 33.
* **例句:** Her financial situation was in a **precarious condition** after losing her job. (她失業後，經濟狀況處於不穩定的狀態。) 35. **impulse** (衝動) * **發音:** /ˈɪmpʌls/ * **解釋:** 指一種突然的、無法預測的做某事的強烈慾望或驅動力。 * **文法:** 名詞。 * **例句:** He acted on a sudden **impulse** and bought a plane ticket. (他憑藉一時衝動買了張機票。) 36. **vindicate** (證明…無罪，維護) * **發音:** /ˈvɪndɪkeɪt/ * **解釋:** 證明某人無罪、正確，或某事有道理。 * **文法:** 動詞。 **例句:** The new evidence helped to **vindicate** his reputation.
* **例句:** Her **self-will** often made her resistant to good advice. (她的任性常使她不願聽取好的建議。) 43. **arduous** (艱鉅的) * **發音:** /ˈɑːrdʒuəs/ * **解釋:** 指非常困難、需要大量努力和耐力的。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** Climbing Mount Everest is an **arduous** task. (攀登珠穆朗瑪峰是一項艱鉅的任務。) 44. **quailed** (畏縮) * **發音:** /kweɪld/ * **解釋:** 因恐懼或膽怯而退縮、畏縮。 * **文法:** 動詞過去式。 * **例句:** The soldier did not **quail** in the face of danger. (士兵在危險面前沒有畏縮。) 45.
**string her nerves** (使她神經繃緊) * **發音:** /strɪŋ hɜːr nɜːrvz/ * **解釋:** 使某人的神經或意志變得堅定、緊張以應對挑戰。 * **文法:** 動詞片語，"string" 在此意為使繃緊。 * **例句:** The imminent presentation served to **string her nerves**. (即將到來的演示讓她神經繃緊。) 46. **exultation** (狂喜) * **發音:** /ˌɛɡzʌlˈteɪʃən/ * **解釋:** 指極大的喜悅、得意或歡欣。 * **文法:** 名詞。 * **例句:** The team's victory was met with widespread **exultation** from their fans. (球隊的勝利引發了球迷們普遍的狂喜。) 47.
* **例句:** She suspected there was an **eavesdropper** hiding behind the door. (她懷疑門後藏著一個偷聽者。) 50. **beneficial** (有益的) * **發音:** /ˌbɛnɪˈfɪʃəl/ * **解釋:** 對某人或某事有幫助、有利的。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** Regular exercise is **beneficial** for your health. (定期運動對您的健康有益。) 51. **patroness** (贊助人) * **發音:** /ˈpeɪtrənɛs/ * **解釋:** 指女性的贊助人，給予支持或保護的人。 * **文法:** 名詞。 * **例句:** The artist thanked her **patroness** for her generous support. (藝術家感謝她的贊助人慷慨的支持。) 52.
* **例句:** The old squire was considered the **parish potentate**, making all the local decisions. (這位老鄉紳被認為是教區的權威，負責所有地方決策。) 57. **fastidious** (挑剔的) * **發音:** /fəˈstɪdiəs/ * **解釋:** 對細節極為關注，追求完美，以至於難以取悅。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** He was a **fastidious** eater, rarely satisfied with any meal. (他吃飯很挑剔，很少對任何一餐感到滿意。) 58. **propensity** (傾向) * **發音:** /prəˈpɛnsəti/ * **解釋:** 指某人或某物自然傾向於某種行為或狀態。 * **文法:** 名詞。
* **例句:** He had a natural **propensity** for kindness and generosity. (他天生傾向於善良和慷慨。) 59. **pique** (惱怒) * **發音:** /piːk/ * **解釋:** 因冒犯或輕視而引起的惱怒或不滿。 * **文法:** 名詞或動詞。 * **例句:** His casual remark caused her a fit of **pique**. (他隨意的評論讓她一陣惱怒。) 60. **mollified** (平息) * **發音:** /ˈmɒlɪfaɪd/ * **解釋:** 指情緒被安撫、平息。 * **文法:** 動詞過去式或過去分詞作形容詞。 * **例句:** The customer was **mollified** by the manager's sincere apology. (經理的真誠道歉平息了顧客的怒氣。) 61.
* **例句:** The child's constant whining was **exasperating**. (孩子不停的抱怨令人惱怒。) 63. **stave off** (拖延) * **發音:** /steɪv ɒf/ * **解釋:** 延遲或避免某事的發生。 * **文法:** 動詞片語。 * **例句:** She tried to **stave off** the inevitable decision as long as possible. (她試圖盡可能拖延這個不可避免的決定。) 64. **hypocrisy** (虛偽) * **發音:** /hɪˈpɒkrɪsi/ * **解釋:** 指假裝擁有實際上並不具備的道德或信仰。 * **文法:** 名詞。
* **例句:** The two rivals called a temporary **truce** for the holidays. (這兩個競爭對手在假期期間暫時休戰。) 68. **acquiesce** (默許) * **發音:** /ˌækwɪˈɛs/ * **解釋:** 不情願地接受或同意某事。 * **文法:** 動詞。 * **例句:** She decided to **acquiesce** to her parents' wishes, though she wasn't happy about it. (她決定默許父母的願望，儘管她並不高興。) 69. **repudiate** (拒絕) * **發音:** /rɪˈpjuːdieɪt/ * **解釋:** 拒絕接受、否認或放棄。 * **文法:** 動詞。 * **例句:** The politician **repudiated** the accusations against him.
* **例句:** There was a clear **disjunction** between his words and his actions. (他的言行之間存在明顯的分離。) 71. **agitated** (激動不安的) * **發音:** /ˈædʒɪteɪtɪd/ * **解釋:** 感到不安、緊張或興奮。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** She became increasingly **agitated** as the waiting time lengthened. (隨著等待時間的延長，她變得越來越激動不安。) 72. **injudicious** (不審慎的) * **發音:** /ˌɪndʒuˈdɪʃəs/ * **解釋:** 顯示出判斷力不足，不明智的。 * **文法:** 形容詞。
* **例句:** It was an **injudicious** decision to invest all his savings in one stock. (將所有積蓄投資於一隻股票是不明智的決定。) 73. **propensity** (傾向) * **發音:** /prəˈpɛnsəti/ * **解釋:** 指某人或某物自然傾向於某種行為或狀態。 * **文法:** 名詞。 * **例句:** He had a natural **propensity** for kindness and generosity. (他天生傾向於善良和慷慨。) 74. **discerning eyes** (有洞察力的眼睛) * **發音:** /dɪˈsɜːrnɪŋ aɪz/ * **解釋:** discerning (有洞察力的，有辨別力的) + eyes (眼睛)。指能夠敏銳地察覺細節或真相的眼睛。 * **文法:** 形容詞修飾名詞。
* **例句:** Her **discerning eyes** quickly spotted the forgery. (她敏銳的眼睛很快就發現了偽造品。) 75. **poignant** (辛酸的) * **發音:** /ˈpɔɪnjənt/ * **解釋:** 引起強烈情感，通常是悲傷或懷舊的。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** The old photograph evoked **poignant** memories of her childhood. (這張舊照片勾起了她童年辛酸的回憶。) 76. **sodden** (濕透的) * **發音:** /ˈsɒdən/ * **解釋:** 被液體完全浸透的。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** His clothes were **sodden** from the heavy rain. (他的衣服被大雨淋濕了。) 77.
* **例句:** The police quickly identified the **culprit** responsible for the theft. (警方很快就確認了盜竊案的犯人。) 78. **unscathed** (毫髮無損的) * **發音:** /ʌnˈskeɪðd/ * **解釋:** 未受傷害或損害的。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** Despite the car accident, he emerged **unscathed**. (儘管發生了車禍，他卻毫髮無損。) 79. **spurns** (輕蔑) * **發音:** /spɜːrnz/ * **解釋:** 輕蔑地拒絕、蔑視。 * **文法:** 名詞或動詞。 * **例句:** He was deeply hurt by her **spurns** of his affection. (她對他感情的輕蔑深深地傷害了他。) 80.
* **例句:** After the marathon, she was **prostrate with exhaustion**. (跑完馬拉松後，她筋疲力盡地倒下了。) 81. **hoity-toity** (傲慢的) * **發音:** /ˈhɔɪti ˈtɔɪti/ * **解釋:** 指行為或態度高傲、自負，帶有輕蔑意味。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** Her **hoity-toity** manner made her unpopular among her peers. (她傲慢的態度讓她在同儕中不受歡迎。) 82. **aggrieved** (感到委屈的) * **發音:** /əˈɡriːvd/ * **解釋:** 因為感到被不公正對待而感到憤怒或委屈。 * **文法:** 形容詞。 * **例句:** He felt **aggrieved** by the unfair criticism. (他對不公平的批評感到委屈。)
* **例句:** She was an **unavowed neophyte** in the world of high fashion, learning quickly but discreetly. (她在高級時裝界是個未被承認的初學者，學習迅速但低調。) 87. **phaeton** (輕便雙輪馬車) * **發音:** /ˈfeɪətən/ * **解釋:** 一種開放式的、通常四輪的輕便馬車，有時也指帶有可折疊頂篷的敞篷汽車。 * **文法:** 名詞。 * **例句:** The lady arrived in her elegant **phaeton**, drawn by two spirited horses. (這位女士駕著她優雅的輕便雙輪馬車，由兩匹駿馬拉動，駛了過來。) 88. **stately card** (莊重的名片) * **發音:** /ˈsteɪtli kɑːrd/ * **解釋:** stately (莊重的，宏偉的) + card (名片)。
* **例句:** Her **piquant** wit made her a delightful conversationalist. (她有趣的機智使她成為一個令人愉快的健談者。) 91. **conjunction** (結合) * **發音:** /kənˈdʒʌŋkʃən/ * **解釋:** 兩件或多件事物同時發生或結合在一起。 * **文法:** 名詞。 * **例句:** Her success was due to a fortunate **conjunction** of talent and opportunity. (她的成功是天賦與機會幸運結合的結果。) 92. **appealing look** (懇求的眼神) * **發音:** /əˈpiːlɪŋ lʊk/ * **解釋:** appealing (懇求的，有吸引力的) + look (眼神)。指一種請求幫助或同情的眼神。 * **文法:** 形容詞修飾名詞。
* **例句:** The child gave his mother an **appealing look**, hoping for a treat. (孩子用懇求的眼神看著媽媽，希望得到一點點心。) 93. **confounding** (使困惑) * **發音:** /kənˈfaʊndɪŋ/ * **解釋:** 使人感到困惑、混亂或不知所措。 * **文法:** 動詞現在分詞或形容詞。 * **例句:** The mystery novel's plot was **confounding** to many readers. (這部懸疑小說的情節讓許多讀者感到困惑。) 94. **bewildered** (迷惑的) * **發音:** /bɪˈwɪldərd/ * **解釋:** 感到困惑、不知所措或迷失方向。 * **文法:** 形容詞。
* **例句:** Her plain black dress gave her the appearance of a **conventual costume**. (她樸素的黑色連衣裙讓她看起來像穿著修道院服裝。) 96. **inevitable heirship** (不可避免的繼承權) * **發音:** /ɪnˈɛvɪtəbəl ˈɛərʃɪp/ * **解釋:** inevitable (不可避免的) + heirship (繼承權)。指某人無法逃避的繼承地位或權利。 * **文法:** 形容詞修飾名詞。 * **例句:** He reluctantly accepted his **inevitable heirship** to the family business. (他勉強接受了家族企業不可避免的繼承權。) 97.
* **例句:** The customer was **mollified** by the manager's sincere apology. (經理的真誠道歉安撫了顧客。) 99. **conciliatory tone** (和解的語氣) * **發音:** /kənˈsɪliətɔːri toʊn/ * **解釋:** conciliatory (和解的，調解的) + tone (語氣)。指一種旨在平息爭端、恢復友好關係的語氣。 * **文法:** 形容詞修飾名詞。 * **例句:** He adopted a **conciliatory tone** in the negotiations to avoid further conflict. (他在談判中採取了和解的語氣，以避免進一步的衝突。) 100.
* **例句:** His initial **prepossession** in her favor made him overlook her flaws. (他最初對她抱有好感，使他忽略了她的缺點。) 101. **interloper** (闖入者) * **發音:** /ˈɪntərləʊpər/ * **解釋:** 指未經允許或不受歡迎的闖入者，尤其是侵犯他人領地或活動的人。 * **文法:** 名詞。 * **例句:** The locals viewed the newcomer as an **interloper** in their tightly-knit community. (當地人把這個新來者看作是他們緊密社區的闖入者。) 102. **subjugation** (征服) * **發音:** /ˌsʌbdʒʊˈɡeɪʃən/ * **解釋:** 指被征服、被控制的狀態。 * **文法:** 名詞。
* **例句:** Her decision was not based on love, but on **mercenary calculation**. (她的決定不是基於愛情，而是基於唯利是圖的計算。) 107. **blushed fiery red** (臉漲得通紅) * **發音:** /blʌʃt ˈfaɪəri rɛd/ * **解釋:** 指臉頰因強烈情感（如羞恥、憤怒或興奮）而變得非常紅。 * **文法:** 動詞片語，"fiery" 強調了紅色的激烈程度。 * **例句:** When confronted with the truth, he **blushed fiery red**. (當被告知真相時，他臉漲得通紅。) 108. **ignoble rivalship** (卑劣的競爭) * **發音:** /ɪɡˈnoʊbəl ˈraɪvəlʃɪp/ * **解釋:** ignoble (卑劣的，不光彩的) + rivalship (競爭，對抗)。
這段詩句：「I du believe in Freedom’s cause, / Ez fur away ez Paris is; / I love to see her stick her claws / In them infarnal Pharisees; / But libbaty’s a kind o’ thing / That don’t agree with niggers.」（我確實信仰自由的事業，只要它遠在巴黎；我喜歡看她對那些該死的法利賽人張牙舞爪；但自由這東西，卻與黑人合不來。）這赤裸裸地揭示了當時社會的虛偽和矛盾。 而在《Peter Brush, The Great Used Up》中，彼得·布拉什對政治人物的抱怨，以及他對「共和國忘恩負義」的控訴，是否也反映了當時普通民眾對政治現實的無奈與諷刺？他明明是個「最善良的人」，卻在政治中屢屢碰壁，最終「被利用殆盡」，這背後隱含著什麼樣的批判呢？ **托馬斯·錢德勒·哈利伯頓**：您觀察得非常敏銳，克萊兒小姐！幽默在那個時代，的確是社會批判的利器。
「Yankee」口音的拖腔和鼻音，以及西部和南方的廣泛元音發音（如 `whar` for `where`，`thar` for `there`），都是語言活生生的體現。這些不標準的發音，在嚴謹的英語語法老師眼裡或許是「錯誤」，但對於理解一個民族的語言發展，卻是珍貴的「心跡」（The Light of the Heart’s Traces）。正是這些看似「粗俗」的方言，構成了美國幽默的獨特載體，也使得這些故事更具地方特色和生活氣息。 **克萊兒**：您說得真好，哈利伯頓先生。這些幽默故事確實是社會的「稜鏡」。彼得·布拉什的經歷讓我想起您序言中提到的「Puritans」與「Yankee」的轉變。
您說：「Add two hundred years’ influence of soil, climate, and exposure, with its necessary result of idiosyncrasies, and we have the present Yankee, full of expedients, half master of all trades, inventive in all but the beautiful, full of shifts, not yet capable of comfort, armed at all points against the old enemy, hunger, longanimous, good at patching, not so careful for what is best as for what *will do*, with a clasp to his purse, and a button to his pocket, not skilled to build against time, as
(What a terrible crack your gridiron’s got in it!)。這種幽默不是刻意的笑話，而是源於他內心巨大衝突下的不自覺的滑稽表現。他對烤架、壁爐上南瓜的觀察，以及數木頭鐘滴答聲的行為，都反映了Yankee人內心深處那種拘謹與務實，即便是「愛情」這種浪漫的事，也變得充滿了生活的細節和尷尬的真實感。最後，一場蘋果醬「爆炸」的鬧劇，卻意外地促成了他的姻緣，這也暗合了Yankee人那種「兵來將擋，水來土掩」的應變能力，即便再窘迫，也總能找到「出口」。 而《My First Visit to Portland》則更直接地展現了Yankee的「狡黠」和「精打細算」。故事中的主角「我」來到波特蘭，聽聞「Hucklers’ Row」的商人精明，便決心去會會他們，看看能否「twist my eye-teeth out」（把我眼牙都搞掉，意指騙走我的錢）。 主角在麵包和蘋果酒的交易中，先是要求「兩美分買三個麵包」，然後又用這三個麵包「換一杯蘋果酒」。
* **例句**：In the old days, trappers would hunt **musquash** for their fur. (在過去，捕獸者會獵捕麝鼠以獲取牠們的毛皮。) 4. **temerity** (/tɪˈmɛrɪti/): (名詞) 魯莽、大膽。指不顧後果的冒險行為或言論。 * **例句**：He had the **temerity** to question the professor's research. (他竟然敢質疑教授的研究，真是魯莽。) 5. **bellows** (/ˈbɛloʊz/): (名詞，複數形式) 風箱。一種用於吹風助燃的工具。 * **例句**：She used the **bellows** to get the fire roaring. (她用風箱使爐火熊熊燃燒。) 6. **beplastered** (/bɪˈplæstərd/): (動詞的過去分詞，形容詞) 塗滿、沾滿。通常指被黏性物質大量覆蓋。
* **例句**：His solution was an **expedient** rather than a long-term fix. (他的解決方案是權宜之計，而非長期解決方案。) 10. **longanimous** (/lɒŋˈɡænɪməs/): (形容詞，較不常用) 寬宏大量的、有耐心的。 * **例句**：A teacher needs to be **longanimous** with slow learners. (老師需要對學習較慢的學生寬宏大量。) 11. **niggard-geniality** (複合詞，非正式): 吝嗇的親切感。指表面親切卻骨子裡精打細算、不願付出。 * **例句**：His offers of help often came with a touch of **niggard-geniality**, always expecting something in return. (他的幫助提議總帶著一絲吝嗇的親切感，總是期望有所回報。) 12.
* **例句**：Their **calculating-fanaticism** for profit knew no bounds. (他們對利潤的精打細算的狂熱毫無止境。) 13. **cast-iron enthusiasm** (複合詞，非正式): 鐵鑄的熱情。指堅定不移、難以動搖的熱情。 * **例句**：Her **cast-iron enthusiasm** for the project inspired everyone around her. (她對這個計畫鐵鑄般的熱情感染了周圍所有人。) 14. **unwilling-humour** (複合詞，非正式): 不情願的幽默。指無意間或在不情願的情況下表現出的幽默。 * **例句**：His awkwardness in social situations often resulted in a peculiar **unwilling-humour**. (他在社交場合的笨拙常常會導致一種特殊的不情願的幽默。) 15.
* **例句**：The mayor's donation, though public, was a clear example of **close-fisted generosity**. (市長的捐贈雖然公開，卻是吝嗇的慷慨的明顯例子。) 16. **expurgate** (/ˈɛkspərˌɡeɪt/): (動詞) 刪除（不當內容）、淨化。指從書本、電影等內容中刪除被認為是冒犯、不雅或不適宜的部分。 * **例句**：The editor decided to **expurgate** some of the more explicit passages from the novel. (編輯決定刪除小說中一些較為露骨的段落。) **文法分析與應用例句**： 1.
* **例句**：He said he *had finished* his homework, but it *turned out* he hadn't even started. (他說他已經寫完作業了，結果他根本還沒開始。) * **例句**：She *thought* she *had seen* a ghost, but it *was* just her reflection. (她以為自己看見鬼了，但那只是她的倒影。) 2. **動詞 "to be" 的口語變體 (Colloquial Variants of "to be")** * 原文：「Republics is ungrateful!」 (Peter Brush, The Great Used Up) * 分析：這裡的 "is" 是 "are" 的非標準口語變體，常用於美國南方方言或非正規語境中。它反映了語音上的簡化和語言使用的靈活性。 * 正規改寫：Republics *are* ungrateful!
**誇張的比較級和最高級 (Exaggerated Comparatives and Superlatives)** * 原文：「His eye was sorter oneasy, and dartin’ about, and he seemed to be choked as he kept tryin’ to swaller somethin’—the long beard on his face looked powerful black, or else his face looked powerful white, one or the ’yether.」 (Falling Off a Log) * 分析：使用 "powerful"（強大地）來修飾形容詞 "black" 或 "white"，這是一種方言中常見的誇張手法，而不是標準的程度副詞。它強調了強烈的視覺效果。
* 正規改寫：His eye was somewhat uneasy, darting about, and he seemed to be choked as he kept trying to swallow something—the long beard on his face looked *very* black, or else his face looked *very* white, one or the other. * **例句**：That soup is **powerful** spicy. (那湯辣得厲害。) * **例句**：He was **mighty** surprised when he saw the results. (他看到結果時非常驚訝。) 4.
) * **例句**：He **don't know nothin'** about it. (口語/方言，意為：He doesn't know anything about it.) **克萊兒**：哈利伯頓先生，您的解釋真是太棒了！您將這些看似簡單的幽默故事，提升到了對美國民族性格和語言演變的深刻洞察。我現在更能理解，為什麼這部作品能讓當時的英國讀者對美國有全新的認識。這種幽默，的確是一種「切片」，讓我們看到那個時代的人們如何生活、思考、以及面對現實。 在《A Yankee Card-Table》中，那個「長臉、瘦削的東部佬」的形象，以及他對「bathe」（臥鋪）與「bath」（洗澡）的執拗，還有他那件「鈕扣跑到肩膀上」的舊外套，都活靈活現地描繪出Yankee人的「精明」與「不修邊幅」。當肯塔基州的船夫利用他的背部當賭桌，甚至在他的外套上用粉筆記帳時，這種「實用」和「無禮」的結合，真是讓人啼笑皆非。
而這也解釋了為什麼我會對「unfit for the perusal of the latter」（不適合某些讀者閱讀）的表達進行「expurgation」（刪除）。我的目的，是讓英國讀者能夠領略美國幽默的「精華」，而不是被其過於粗俗或地方性極強的表達所阻礙。這是一種平衡：在保留其「raciness」（原汁原味）的同時，提升其「value」（價值）和可接受性。我相信，透過這些語言細節，讀者不僅能會心一笑，更能透過幽默的稜鏡，看到一個充滿活力、不斷演變的美國。 **克萊兒**：哈利伯頓先生，您的解釋讓我豁然開朗。語言，的確是社會的活字典。這些口語詞彙和表達方式，不僅僅是娛樂，更是文化認同的標誌，也是社會變遷的見證。 在《Polly Peablossom’s Wedding》這個故事中，我們看到一個典型的南方鄉村婚禮場景。新娘的伴娘們焦急等待牧師，因為「華夫餅要涼了，雞肉要烤焦了！」這個細節實在太生動了，它瞬間把讀者拉回到那個注重食物和社交的年代。
當故事中出現類似「Why, darn it! we are the *very best* sort of people. Stuff! nonsense! The wedding shall go on; Polly shall have a husband.」（該死！我們就是最棒的人！廢話！胡說！婚禮照常進行！波莉會嫁出去的！）這樣的宣言時，它雖然是針對「北卡羅來納」的局部自豪，但其背後所蘊含的那種「我們自己動手」、「我們就是好」的自信與決斷，卻是一種超越地域的「美國精神」。這種精神，無論是體現在新英格蘭的「Yankee」精明，還是西部人的「誇張」與「無畏」，或是南方人的「熱情」與「自豪」中，都有其共通之處。 這些幽默故事，就像一面面鏡子，讓不同地區的美國人看到彼此的「滑稽」與「可愛」，在笑聲中建立起一種共同的「家族感」。對於英國讀者而言，他們看到的不僅是異國情調，更是美國社會底層充滿活力和創造力的一面。這種由民間智慧和生活細節編織而成的幽默，比任何政治宣言都能更真實地呈現一個民族的「真性情」，從而潛移默化地塑造和鞏固著一種新的「美國人」身份。
在您的序言中，您特別列出了許多美國英語的「錯誤發音」對照表，比如 `Arter` for `After`、`Bile` for `Boil`、`Deu` for `Do`。您還提到了新英格蘭人習慣的拖長音和鼻音，以及西方和南方人將特定元音發音得更寬（如 `whar` for `where`）。 在您看來，這些「不標準」的發音和拼寫，對於理解美國的幽默和文化有何特別意義？它們是單純的語言「缺陷」，還是反映了更深層次的社會或文化現象？以及，作為一位編輯者，您在處理這些方言時，是如何平衡「忠實記錄」與「為英國讀者提供可讀性」之間的？ **托馬斯·錢德勒·哈利伯頓**：克萊兒小姐，這是一個非常關鍵的問題，也是我編輯這部選集時最需要權衡的挑戰之一。 首先，我絕不認為這些發音和拼寫是單純的語言「缺陷」。相反，它們是美國這片土地上，語言在特定環境下自然演變的結果，是活生生的文化印記。正如我在序言中所述，新英格蘭的清教徒後裔，因其嚴格的紀律和貧瘠的土地，發展出了一種「刻板」但「務實」的性格，這也反映在他們「拖腔」和「鼻音」的發音上，與蘇格蘭的幽默有異曲同工之妙。
例如，新英格蘭人習慣在 `ow` 和 `oo` 音前插入一個短 `i` 音，變成 `kyow` for `cow`、`tyoo` for `too`。這種發音，或許在倫敦的沙龍裡會被視為「粗野」，但在康涅狄格州的農場裡，它卻是鄰里之間親切交流的標誌。它反映了當地人樸實、不事雕琢的性格，以及在嚴酷環境下，對語言「高效」而非「優雅」的追求。 因此，這些「不標準」的發音，其實是理解美國幽默的關鍵所在。許多幽默點，尤其是在對話中，正是通過這些獨特的語音和語法結構來實現的。它們為人物賦予了鮮明的地域色彩和個性，使得他們的言行舉止更加生動、可信，也更有趣。如果將這些方言完全「標準化」，幽默的精髓就會喪失大半。 至於如何平衡「忠實記錄」與「可讀性」，這確實是一門藝術。我的做法是，在不影響核心幽默效果的前提下，對部分過於晦澀、難懂或可能引起英國讀者反感的表達進行「expurgation」（刪除或輕微修改）。我盡可能保留了方言的語音特徵（例如通過拼寫變體如 `thar` for `there`），但也避免了過於極端的、需要大量注釋才能理解的表達。