The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1

They are too rich in their own life and too charged with their own meanings merely to help him out with a lame phrase; they draw him away from his small question to their own greater ones;

它们自身的生活太丰富，意义太深重，以至于无法仅仅帮助他用一个拙劣的短语；它们将他从自己的小问题吸引到它们更大的问题上；

How can places that speak in general so to the imagination not give it, at the moment, the particular thing it wants?

那些在总体上如此激发想象力的地方，怎么可能在那一刻不给予它所想要的具体事物呢？