We have recently [1884] enjoyed a quite peculiar1 pleasure: hearing, in some detail, the opinions, about the art they practise, of Mr. Walter Besant and Mr. Henry James; two men certainly of very different calibre: Mr. James so precise of outline, so cunning of fence, so scrupulous2 of finish, and Mr. Besant so genial3, so friendly, with so persuasive4 and humorous a vein5 of whim6: Mr. James the very type of the deliberate artist, Mr. Besant the impersonation of good nature. That such doctors should differ will excite no great surprise; but one point in which they seem to agree fills me, I confess, with wonder. For they are both content to talk about the “art of fiction”; and Mr. Besant, waxing exceedingly bold, goes on to oppose this so-called “art of fiction” to the “art of poetry.” By the art of poetry he can mean nothing but the art of verse, an art of handicraft, and only comparable with the art of prose. For that heat and height of sane7 emotion which we agree to call by the name of poetry, is but a libertine8 and vagrant9 quality; present, at times, in any art, more often absent from them all; too seldom present in the prose novel, too frequently absent from the ode and epic10. Fiction is the same case; it is no substantive11 art, but an element which enters largely into all the arts but architecture. Homer, Wordsworth, Phidias, Hogarth, and Salvini, all deal in fiction; and yet I do not suppose that either Hogarth or Salvini, to mention but these two, entered in any degree into the scope of Mr. Besant’s interesting lecture or Mr. James’s charming essay. The art of fiction, then, regarded as a definition, is both too ample and too scanty12. Let me suggest another; let me suggest that what both Mr. James and Mr. Besant had in view was neither more nor less than the art of narrative13.
But Mr. Besant is anxious to speak solely14 of “the modern English novel,” the stay and bread-winner of Mr. Mudie; and in the author of the most pleasing novel on that roll, all sorts and conditions of men, the desire is natural enough. I can conceive, then, that he would hasten to propose two additions, and read thus: the art of fictitious15 narrative in prose.
Now the fact of the existence of the modern English novel is not to be denied; materially, with its three volumes, leaded type, and gilded16 lettering, it is easily distinguishable from other forms of literature; but to talk at all fruitfully of any branch of art, it is needful to build our definitions on some more fundamental ground then binding17. Why, then, are we to add “in prose”? The Odyssey18 appears to me the best of romances; The Lady of the Lake to stand high in the second order; and Chaucer’s tales and prologues19 to contain more of the matter and art of the modern English novel than the whole treasury20 of Mr. Mudie. Whether a narrative be written in blank verse or the Spenserian stanza21, in the long period of Gibbon or the chipped phrase of Charles Reade, the principles of the art of narrative must be equally observed. The choice of a noble and swelling22 style in prose affects the problem of narration23 in the same way, if not to the same degree, as the choice of measured verse; for both imply a closer synthesis of events, a higher key of dialogue, and a more picked and stately strain of words. If you are to refuse Don Juan, it is hard to see why you should include Zanoni or (to bracket works of very different value) The Scarlet24 Letter; and by what discrimination are you to open your doors to The Pilgrim’s Progress and close them on The Faery Queen? To bring things closer home, I will here propound25 to Mr. Besant a conundrum26. A narrative called Paradise Lost was written in English verse by one John Milton; what was it then? It was next translated by Chateaubriand into French prose; and what was it then? Lastly, the French translation was, by some inspired compatriot of George Gilfillan (and of mine) turned bodily into an English novel; and, in the name of clearness, what was it then?
But, once more, why should we add “fictitious”? The reason why is obvious. The reason why not, if something more recondite27, does not want for weight. The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, whether it is applied28 to the selection and illustration of a real series of events or of an imaginary series. Boswell’s Life of Johnson (a work of cunning and inimitable art) owes its success to the same technical manoeuvres as (let us say) Tom Jones: the clear conception of certain characters of man, the choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a great number that offered, and the invention (yes, invention) and preservation29 of a certain key in dialogue. In which these things are done with the more art — in which with the greater air of nature — readers will differently judge. Boswell’s is, indeed, a very special case, and almost a generic30; but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every biography with any salt of life, it is in every history where events and men, rather than ideas, are presented — in Tacitus, in Carlyle, in Michelet, in Macaulay — that the novelist will find many of his own methods most conspicuously31 and adroitly32 handled. He will find besides that he, who is free — who has the right to invent or steal a missing incident, who has the right, more precious still, of wholesale33 omission34 — is frequently defeated, and, with all his advantages, leaves a less strong impression of reality and passion. Mr. James utters his mind with a becoming fervour on the sanctity of truth to the novelist; on a more careful examination truth will seem a word of very debateable propriety35, not only for the labours of the novelist, but for those of the historian. No art — to use the daring phrase of Mr. James — can successfully “compete with life”; and the art that seeks to do so is condemned36 to perish Montibus Aviis. Life goes before us, infinite in complication; attended by the most various and surprising meteors; appealing at once to the eye, to the ear, to the mind — the seat of wonder, to the touch — so thrillingly delicate, and to the belly37 — so imperious when starved. It combines and employs in its manifestation38 the method and material, not of one art only, but of all the arts, Music is but an arbitrary trifling39 with a few of life’s majestic40 chords; painting is but a shadow of its pageantry of light and colour; literature does but drily indicate that wealth of incident, of moral obligation, of virtue41, vice42, action, rapture43 and agony, with which it teems44. To “compete with life,” whose sun we cannot look upon, whose passions and diseases waste and slay45 us — to compete with the flavour of wine, the beauty of the dawn, the scorching46 of fire, the bitterness of death and separation — here is, indeed, a projected escalade of heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress coat, armed with a pen and a dictionary to depict47 the passions, armed with a tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the insufferable sun. No art is true in this sense: none can “compete with life”: not even history, built indeed of indisputable facts, but these facts robbed of their vivacity48 and sting; so that even when we read of the sack of a city or the fall of an empire, we are surprised, and justly commend the author’s talent, if our pulse be quickened. And mark, for a last differentia, that this quickening of the pulse is, in almost every case, purely49 agreeable; that these phantom50 reproductions of experience, even at their most acute, convey decided51 pleasure; while experience itself, in the cockpit of life, can torture and slay.
What, then, is the object, what the method, of an art, and what the source of its power? The whole secret is that no art does “compete with life.” Man’s one method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality. The arts, like arithmetic and geometry, turn away their eyes from the gross, coloured and mobile nature at our feet, and regard instead a certain figmentary abstraction. Geometry will tell us of a circle, a thing never seen in nature; asked about a green circle or an iron circle, it lays its hand upon its mouth. So with the arts. Painting, ruefully comparing sunshine and flake-white, gives up truth of colour, as it had already given up relief and movement; and instead of vying52 with nature, arranges a scheme of harmonious53 tints54. Literature, above all in its most typical mood, the mood of narrative, similarly flees the direct challenge and pursues instead an independent and creative aim. So far as it imitates at all, it imitates not life but speech: not the facts of human destiny, but the emphasis and the suppressions with which the human actor tells of them. The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men who told their stories round the savage55 camp-fire. Our art is occupied, and bound to be occupied, not so much in making stories true as in making them typical; not so much in capturing the lineaments of each fact, as in marshalling all of them towards a common end. For the welter of impressions, all forcible but all discreet56, which life presents, it substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent57 of the same idea, all chiming together like consonant58 notes in music or like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters, from all its pages, from all its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and re-echoes its one creative and controlling thought; to this must every incident and character contribute; the style must have been pitched in unison59 with this; and if there is anywhere a word that looks another way, the book would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller without it. Life is monstrous60, infinite, illogical, abrupt61 and poignant62; a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, flowing and emasculate. Life imposes by brute63 energy, like inarticulate thunder; art catches the ear, among the far louder noises of experience, like an air artificially made by a discreet musician. A proposition of geometry does not compete with life; and a proposition of geometry is a fair and luminous64 parallel for a work of art. Both are reasonable, both untrue to the crude fact; both inhere in nature, neither represents it. The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life, which are forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of leather, but by its immeasurable difference from life, which is designed and significant, and is both the method and the meaning of the work.
The life of man is not the subject of novels, but the inexhaustible magazine from which subjects are to be selected; the name of these is legion; and with each new subject — for here again I must differ by the whole width of heaven from Mr. James — the true artist will vary his method and change the point of attack. That which was in one case an excellence65, will become a defect in another; what was the making of one book, will in the next be impertinent or dull. First each novel, and then each class of novels, exists by and for itself. I will take, for instance, three main classes, which are fairly distinct: first, the novel of adventure, which appeals to certain almost sensual and quite illogical tendencies in man; second, the novel of character, which appeals to our intellectual appreciation66 of man’s foibles and mingled67 and inconstant motives68; and third, the dramatic novel, which deals with the same stuff as the serious theatre, and appeals to our emotional nature and moral judgment70.
And first for the novel of adventure. Mr. James refers, with singular generosity71 of praise, to a little book about a quest for hidden treasure; but he lets fall, by the way, some rather startling words. In this book he misses what he calls the “immense luxury” of being able to quarrel with his author. The luxury, to most of us, is to lay by our judgment, to be submerged by the tale as by a billow, and only to awake, and begin to distinguish and find fault, when the piece is over and the volume laid aside. Still more remarkable72 is Mr. James’s reason. He cannot criticise73 the author, as he goes, “because,” says he, comparing it with another work, “I have been a Child, but I have never been on a quest for buried treasure.” Here is, indeed, a wilful74 paradox75; for if he has never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated that he has never been a child. There never was a child (unless Master James) but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a military commander, and a bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and suffered shipwreck76 and prison, and imbrued its little hands in gore77, and gallantly78 retrieved79 the lost battle, and triumphantly80 protected innocence81 and beauty. Elsewhere in his essay Mr. James has protested with excellent reason against too narrow a conception of experience; for the born artist, he contends, the “faintest hints of life” are converted into revelations; and it will be found true, I believe, in a majority of cases, that the artist writes with more gusto and effect of those things which he has only wished to do, than of those which he has done. Desire is a wonderful telescope, and Pisgah the best observatory82. Now, while it is true that neither Mr. James nor the author of the work in question has ever, in the fleshly sense, gone questing after gold, it is probable that both have ardently83 desired and fondly imagined the details of such a life in youthful day-dreams; and the author, counting upon that, and well aware (cunning and low-minded man!) that this class of interest, having been frequently treated, finds a readily accessible and beaten road to the sympathies of the reader, addressed himself throughout to the building up and circumstantiation of this boyish dream. Character to the boy is a sealed book; for him, a pirate is a beard, a pair of wide trousers and a liberal complement84 of pistols. The author, for the sake of circumstantiation and because he was himself more or less grown up, admitted character, within certain limits, into his design; but only within certain limits. Had the same puppets figured in a scheme of another sort, they had been drawn85 to very different purpose; for in this elementary novel of adventure, the characters need to be presented with but one class of qualities — the warlike and formidable. So as they appear insidious86 in deceit and fatal in the combat, they have served their end. Danger is the matter with which this class of novel deals; fear, the passion with which it idly trifles; and the characters are portrayed87 only so far as they realise the sense of danger and provoke the sympathy of fear. To add more traits, to be too clever, to start the hare of moral or intellectual interest while we are running the fox of material interest, is not to enrich but to stultify88 your tale. The stupid reader will only be offended, and the clever reader lose the scent89.
The novel of character has this difference from all others: that it requires no coherency of plot, and for this reason, as in the case of Gil Blas, it is sometimes called the novel of adventure. It turns on the humours of the persons represented; these are, to be sure, embodied90 in incidents, but the incidents themselves, being tributary91, need not march in a progression; and the characters may be statically shown. As they enter, so they may go out; they must be consistent, but they need not grow. Here Mr. James will recognise the note of much of his own work: he treats, for the most part, the statics of character, studying it at rest or only gently moved; and, with his usual delicate and just artistic92 instinct, he avoids those stronger passions which would deform93 the attitudes he loves to study, and change his sitters from the humorists of ordinary life to the brute forces and bare types of more emotional moments. In his recent Author of Beltraffio, so just in conception, so nimble and neat in workmanship, strong passion is indeed employed; but observe that it is not displayed. Even in the heroine the working of the passion is suppressed; and the great struggle, the true tragedy, the Scene-A-Faire passes unseen behind the panels of a locked door. The delectable94 invention of the young visitor is introduced, consciously or not, to this end: that Mr. James, true to his method, might avoid the scene of passion. I trust no reader will suppose me guilty of undervaluing this little masterpiece. I mean merely that it belongs to one marked class of novel, and that it would have been very differently conceived and treated had it belonged to that other marked class, of which I now proceed to speak.
I take pleasure in calling the dramatic novel by that name, because it enables me to point out by the way a strange and peculiarly English misconception. It is sometimes supposed that the drama consists of incident. It consists of passion, which gives the actor his opportunity; and that passion must progressively increase, or the actor, as the piece proceeded, would be unable to carry the audience from a lower to a higher pitch of interest and emotion. A good serious play must therefore be founded on one of the passionate96 cruces of life, where duty and inclination97 come nobly to the grapple; and the same is true of what I call, for that reason, the dramatic novel. I will instance a few worthy98 specimens99, all of our own day and language; Meredith’s Rhoda Fleming, that wonderful and painful book, long out of print, 8 and hunted for at bookstalls like an Aldine; Hardy’s Pair of Blue Eyes; and two of Charles Reade’s, Griffith Gaunt and the Double Marriage, originally called White Lies, and founded (by an accident quaintly100 favourable101 to my nomenclature) on a play by Maquet, the partner of the great Dumas. In this kind of novel the closed door of The Author of Beltraffio must be broken open; passion must appear upon the scene and utter its last word; passion is the be-all and the end-all, the plot and the solution, the protagonist102 and the deus ex machina in one. The characters may come anyhow upon the stage: we do not care; the point is, that, before they leave it, they shall become transfigured and raised out of themselves by passion. It may be part of the design to draw them with detail; to depict a full-length character, and then behold103 it melt and change in the furnace of emotion.
8 Now no longer so, thank Heaven!
But there is no obligation of the sort; nice portraiture104 is not required; and we are content to accept mere95 abstract types, so they be strongly and sincerely moved. A novel of this class may be even great, and yet contain no individual figure; it may be great, because it displays the workings of the perturbed105 heart and the impersonal106 utterance107 of passion; and with an artist of the second class it is, indeed, even more likely to be great, when the issue has thus been narrowed and the whole force of the writer’s mind directed to passion alone. Cleverness again, which has its fair field in the novel of character, is debarred all entry upon this more solemn theatre. A far-fetched motive69, an ingenious evasion108 of the issue, a witty109 instead of a passionate turn, offend us like an insincerity. All should be plain, all straightforward110 to the end. Hence it is that, in Rhoda Fleming, Mrs. Lovell raises such resentment111 in the reader; her motives are too flimsy, her ways are too equivocal, for the weight and strength of her surroundings. Hence the hot indignation of the reader when Balzac, after having begun the Duchesse de Langeais in terms of strong if somewhat swollen112 passion, cuts the knot by the derangement113 of the hero’s clock. Such personages and incidents belong to the novel of character; they are out of place in the high society of the passions; when the passions are introduced in art at their full height, we look to see them, not baffled and impotently striving, as in life, but towering above circumstance and acting114 substitutes for fate.
And here I can imagine Mr. James, with his lucid115 sense, to intervene. To much of what I have said he would apparently116 demur117; in much he would, somewhat impatiently, acquiesce118. It may be true; but it is not what he desired to say or to hear said. He spoke119 of the finished picture and its worth when done; I, of the brushes, the palette, and the north light. He uttered his views in the tone and for the ear of good society; I, with the emphasis and technicalities of the obtrusive120 student. But the point, I may reply, is not merely to amuse the public, but to offer helpful advice to the young writer. And the young writer will not so much be helped by genial pictures of what an art may aspire121 to at its highest, as by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms. The best that we can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive, whether of character or passion; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an illustration of the motive, and every property employed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity122 or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a reversion or complement of the main intrigue123; suffer not his style to flag below the level of the argument; pitch the key of conversation, not with any thought of how men talk in parlours, but with a single eye to the degree of passion he may be called on to express; and allow neither himself in the narrative nor any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one sentence that is not part and parcel of the business of the story or the discussion of the problem involved. Let him not regret if this shortens his book; it will be better so; for to add irrelevant124 matter is not to lengthen125 but to bury. Let him not mind if he miss a thousand qualities, so that he keeps unflaggingly in pursuit of the one he has chosen. Let him not care particularly if he miss the tone of conversation, the pungent126 material detail of the day’s manners, the reproduction of the atmosphere and the environment. These elements are not essential: a novel may be excellent, and yet have none of them; a passion or a character is so much the better depicted127 as it rises clearer from material circumstance. In this age of the particular, let him remember the ages of the abstract, the great books of the past, the brave men that lived before Shakespeare and before Balzac. And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear in mind that his novel is not a transcript128 of life, to be judged by its exactitude; but a simplification of some side or point of life, to stand or fall by its significant simplicity129. For although, in great men, working upon great motives, what we observe and admire is often their complexity130, yet underneath131 appearances the truth remains132 unchanged: that simplification was their method, and that simplicity is their excellence.
II
Since the above was written another novelist has entered repeatedly the lists of theory: one well worthy of mention, Mr. W. D. Howells; and none ever couched a lance with narrower convictions. His own work and those of his pupils and masters singly occupy his mind; he is the bondslave, the zealot of his school; he dreams of an advance in art like what there is in science; he thinks of past things as radically133 dead; he thinks a form can be outlived: a strange immersion134 in his own history; a strange forgetfulness of the history of the race! Meanwhile, by a glance at his own works (could he see them with the eager eyes of his readers) much of this illusion would be dispelled135. For while he holds all the poor little orthodoxies of the day — no poorer and no smaller than those of yesterday or tomorrow, poor and small, indeed, only so far as they are exclusive — the living quality of much that he has done is of a contrary, I had almost said of a heretical, complexion136. A man, as I read him, of an originally strong romantic bent137 — a certain glow of romance still resides in many of his books, and lends them their distinction. As by accident he runs out and revels138 in the exceptional; and it is then, as often as not, that his reader rejoices — justly, as I contend. For in all this excessive eagerness to be centrally human, is there not one central human thing that Mr. Howells is too often tempted139 to neglect: I mean himself? A poet, a finished artist, a man in love with the appearances of life, a cunning reader of the mind, he has other passions and aspirations140 than those he loves to draw. And why should he suppress himself and do such reverence141 to the Lemuel Barkers? The obvious is not of necessity the normal; fashion rules and deforms142; the majority fall tamely into the contemporary shape, and thus attain143, in the eyes of the true observer, only a higher power of insignificance144; and the danger is lest, in seeking to draw the normal, a man should draw the null, and write the novel of society instead of the romance of man.
The End
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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libertine
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| n.淫荡者；adj.放荡的，自由思想的 | |
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vagrant
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| n.流浪者，游民；adj.流浪的，漂泊不定的 | |
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epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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substantive
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| adj.表示实在的；本质的、实质性的；独立的；n.实词，实名词；独立存在的实体 | |
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scanty
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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fictitious
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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odyssey
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| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
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prologues
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| n.序言，开场白( prologue的名词复数 ) | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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stanza
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| n.（诗）节，段 | |
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swelling
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narration
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| n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体 | |
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scarlet
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propound
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conundrum
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recondite
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applied
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preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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generic
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conspicuously
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adroitly
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wholesale
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omission
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propriety
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condemned
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belly
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manifestation
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trifling
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40
majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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41
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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42
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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43
rapture
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| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
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44
teems
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| v.充满( teem的第三人称单数 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注 | |
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45
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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46
scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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47
depict
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| vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述 | |
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48
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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49
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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50
phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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51
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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52
vying
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| adj.竞争的；比赛的 | |
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53
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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54
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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55
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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56
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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57
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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58
consonant
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| n.辅音；adj.[音]符合的 | |
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59
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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60
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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61
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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62
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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63
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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64
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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65
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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66
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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67
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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68
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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69
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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70
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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71
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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72
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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73
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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74
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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75
paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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76
shipwreck
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| n.船舶失事，海难 | |
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77
gore
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| n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶 | |
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78
gallantly
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| adv. 漂亮地，勇敢地，献殷勤地 | |
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79
retrieved
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| v.取回( retrieve的过去式和过去分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息） | |
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80
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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81
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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82
observatory
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| n.天文台，气象台，瞭望台，观测台 | |
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83
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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84
complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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85
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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86
insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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87
portrayed
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| v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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88
stultify
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| v.愚弄；使呆滞 | |
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89
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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90
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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91
tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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92
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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93
deform
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| vt.损坏…的形状；使变形，使变丑；vi.变形 | |
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94
delectable
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| adj.使人愉快的；美味的 | |
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95
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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96
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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97
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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98
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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99
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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100
quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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101
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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102
protagonist
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| n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公 | |
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103
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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104
portraiture
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| n.肖像画法 | |
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105
perturbed
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| adj.烦燥不安的v.使（某人）烦恼，不安( perturb的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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106
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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107
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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108
evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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109
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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110
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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111
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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112
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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113
derangement
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| n.精神错乱 | |
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114
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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115
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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116
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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117
demur
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| v．表示异议，反对 | |
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118
acquiesce
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| vi.默许，顺从，同意 | |
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119
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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120
obtrusive
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| adj.显眼的；冒失的 | |
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121
aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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122
congruity
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| n.全等，一致 | |
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123
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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124
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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125
lengthen
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| vt.使伸长，延长 | |
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126
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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127
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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128
transcript
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| n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书 | |
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129
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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130
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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131
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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132
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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133
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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134
immersion
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| n.沉浸；专心 | |
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135
dispelled
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| v.驱散，赶跑( dispel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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137
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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138
revels
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| n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
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139
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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140
aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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141
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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142
deforms
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| 使变形，使残废，丑化( deform的第三人称单数 ) | |
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143
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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144
insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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