[May 19, 1840.]
Hero–Gods, Prophets, Poets, Priests are forms of Heroism1 that belong to the old ages, make their appearance in the remotest times; some of them have ceased to be possible long since, and cannot any more show themselves in this world. The Hero as Man of Letters, again, of which class we are to speak to-day, is altogether a product of these new ages; and so long as the wondrous2 art of Writing, or of Ready-writing which we call Printing, subsists3, he may be expected to continue, as one of the main forms of Heroism for all future ages. He is, in various respects, a very singular phenomenon.
He is new, I say; he has hardly lasted above a century in the world yet. Never, till about a hundred years ago, was there seen any figure of a Great Soul living apart in that anomalous5 manner; endeavoring to speak forth6 the inspiration that was in him by Printed Books, and find place and subsistence by what the world would please to give him for doing that. Much had been sold and bought, and left to make its own bargain in the market-place; but the inspired wisdom of a Heroic Soul never till then, in that naked manner. He, with his copy-rights and copy-wrongs, in his squalid garret, in his rusty7 coat; ruling (for this is what he does), from his grave, after death, whole nations and generations who would, or would not, give him bread while living, — is a rather curious spectacle! Few shapes of Heroism can be more unexpected.
Alas8, the Hero from of old has had to cramp9 himself into strange shapes: the world knows not well at any time what to do with him, so foreign is his aspect in the world! It seemed absurd to us, that men, in their rude admiration11, should take some wise great Odin for a god, and worship him as such; some wise great Mahomet for one god-inspired, and religiously follow his Law for twelve centuries: but that a wise great Johnson, a Burns, a Rousseau, should be taken for some idle nondescript, extant in the world to amuse idleness, and have a few coins and applauses thrown him, that he might live thereby12; this perhaps, as before hinted, will one day seem a still absurder phasis of things! — Meanwhile, since it is the spiritual always that determines the material, this same Man-of-Letters Hero must be regarded as our most important modern person. He, such as he may be, is the soul of all. What he teaches, the whole world will do and make. The world’s manner of dealing13 with him is the most significant feature of the world’s general position. Looking well at his life, we may get a glance, as deep as is readily possible for us, into the life of those singular centuries which have produced him, in which we ourselves live and work.
There are genuine Men of Letters, and not genuine; as in every kind there is a genuine and a spurious. If hero be taken to mean genuine, then I say the Hero as Man of Letters will be found discharging a function for us which is ever honorable, ever the highest; and was once well known to be the highest. He is uttering forth, in such way as he has, the inspired soul of him; all that a man, in any case, can do. I say inspired; for what we call “originality15,” “sincerity16,” “genius,” the heroic quality we have no good name for, signifies that. The Hero is he who lives in the inward sphere of things, in the True, Divine and Eternal, which exists always, unseen to most, under the Temporary, Trivial: his being is in that; he declares that abroad, by act or speech as it may be in declaring himself abroad. His life, as we said before, is a piece of the everlasting17 heart of Nature herself: all men’s life is, — but the weak many know not the fact, and are untrue to it, in most times; the strong few are strong, heroic, perennial18, because it cannot be hidden from them. The Man of Letters, like every Hero, is there to proclaim this in such sort as he can. Intrinsically it is the same function which the old generations named a man Prophet, Priest, Divinity for doing; which all manner of Heroes, by speech or by act, are sent into the world to do.
Fichte the German Philosopher delivered, some forty years ago at Erlangen, a highly remarkable19 Course of Lectures on this subject: “Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten, On the Nature of the Literary Man.” Fichte, in conformity20 with the Transcendental Philosophy, of which he was a distinguished21 teacher, declares first: That all things which we see or work with in this Earth, especially we ourselves and all persons, are as a kind of vesture or sensuous23 Appearance: that under all there lies, as the essence of them, what he calls the “Divine Idea of the World;” this is the Reality which “lies at the bottom of all Appearance.” To the mass of men no such Divine Idea is recognizable in the world; they live merely, says Fichte, among the superficialities, practicalities and shows of the world, not dreaming that there is anything divine under them. But the Man of Letters is sent hither specially22 that he may discern for himself, and make manifest to us, this same Divine Idea: in every new generation it will manifest itself in a new dialect; and he is there for the purpose of doing that. Such is Fichte’s phraseology; with which we need not quarrel. It is his way of naming what I here, by other words, am striving imperfectly to name; what there is at present no name for: The unspeakable Divine Significance, full of splendor25, of wonder and terror, that lies in the being of every man, of every thing, — the Presence of the God who made every man and thing. Mahomet taught this in his dialect; Odin in his: it is the thing which all thinking hearts, in one dialect or another, are here to teach.
Fichte calls the Man of Letters, therefore, a Prophet, or as he prefers to phrase it, a Priest, continually unfolding the Godlike to men: Men of Letters are a perpetual Priesthood, from age to age, teaching all men that a God is still present in their life, that all “Appearance,” whatsoever26 we see in the world, is but as a vesture for the “Divine Idea of the World,” for “that which lies at the bottom of Appearance.” In the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world’s Priest; — guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time. Fichte discriminates28 with sharp zeal29 the true Literary Man, what we here call the Hero as Man of Letters, from multitudes of false unheroic. Whoever lives not wholly in this Divine Idea, or living partially30 in it, struggles not, as for the one good, to live wholly in it, — he is, let him live where else he like, in what pomps and prosperities he like, no Literary Man; he is, says Fichte, a “Bungler, Stumper.” Or at best, if he belong to the prosaic32 provinces, he may be a “Hodman;” Fichte even calls him elsewhere a “Nonentity,” and has in short no mercy for him, no wish that he should continue happy among us! This is Fichte’s notion of the Man of Letters. It means, in its own form, precisely33 what we here mean.
In this point of view, I consider that, for the last hundred years, by far the notablest of all Literary Men is Fichte’s countryman, Goethe. To that man too, in a strange way, there was given what we may call a life in the Divine Idea of the World; vision of the inward divine mystery: and strangely, out of his Books, the world rises imaged once more as godlike, the workmanship and temple of a God. Illuminated34 all, not in fierce impure36 fire-splendor as of Mahomet, but in mild celestial37 radiance; — really a Prophecy in these most unprophetic times; to my mind, by far the greatest, though one of the quietest, among all the great things that have come to pass in them. Our chosen specimen38 of the Hero as Literary Man would be this Goethe. And it were a very pleasant plan for me here to discourse39 of his heroism: for I consider him to be a true Hero; heroic in what he said and did, and perhaps still more in what he did not say and did not do; to me a noble spectacle: a great heroic ancient man, speaking and keeping silence as an ancient Hero, in the guise40 of a most modern, high-bred, high-cultivated Man of Letters! We have had no such spectacle; no man capable of affording such, for the last hundred and fifty years.
But at present, such is the general state of knowledge about Goethe, it were worse than useless to attempt speaking of him in this case. Speak as I might, Goethe, to the great majority of you, would remain problematic, vague; no impression but a false one could be realized. Him we must leave to future times. Johnson, Burns, Rousseau, three great figures from a prior time, from a far inferior state of circumstances, will suit us better here. Three men of the Eighteenth Century; the conditions of their life far more resemble what those of ours still are in England, than what Goethe’s in Germany were. Alas, these men did not conquer like him; they fought bravely, and fell. They were not heroic bringers of the light, but heroic seekers of it. They lived under galling41 conditions; struggling as under mountains of impediment, and could not unfold themselves into clearness, or victorious42 interpretation43 of that “Divine Idea.” It is rather the Tombs of three Literary Heroes that I have to show you. There are the monumental heaps, under which three spiritual giants lie buried. Very mournful, but also great and full of interest for us. We will linger by them for a while.
Complaint is often made, in these times, of what we call the disorganized condition of society: how ill many forces of society fulfil their work; how many powerful are seen working in a wasteful44, chaotic45, altogether unarranged manner. It is too just a complaint, as we all know. But perhaps if we look at this of Books and the Writers of Books, we shall find here, as it were, the summary of all other disorganizations; — a sort of heart, from which, and to which all other confusion circulates in the world! Considering what Book writers do in the world, and what the world does with Book writers, I should say, It is the most anomalous thing the world at present has to show. — We should get into a sea far beyond sounding, did we attempt to give account of this: but we must glance at it for the sake of our subject. The worst element in the life of these three Literary Heroes was, that they found their business and position such a chaos46. On the beaten road there is tolerable travelling; but it is sore work, and many have to perish, fashioning a path through the impassable!
Our pious47 Fathers, feeling well what importance lay in the speaking of man to men, founded churches, made endowments, regulations; everywhere in the civilized48 world there is a Pulpit, environed with all manner of complex dignified49 appurtenances and furtherances, that therefrom a man with the tongue may, to best advantage, address his fellow-men. They felt that this was the most important thing; that without this there was no good thing. It is a right pious work, that of theirs; beautiful to behold50! But now with the art of Writing, with the art of Printing, a total change has come over that business. The Writer of a Book, is not he a Preacher preaching not to this parish or that, on this day or that, but to all men in all times and places? Surely it is of the last importance that he do his work right, whoever do it wrong; — that the eye report not falsely, for then all the other members are astray! Well; how he may do his work, whether he do it right or wrong, or do it at all, is a point which no man in the world has taken the pains to think of. To a certain shopkeeper, trying to get some money for his books, if lucky, he is of some importance; to no other man of any. Whence he came, whither he is bound, by what ways he arrived, by what he might be furthered on his course, no one asks. He is an accident in society. He wanders like a wild Ishmaelite, in a world of which he is as the spiritual light, either the guidance or the misguidance!
Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous51 of all things man has devised. Odin’s Runes were the first form of the work of a Hero; Books written words, are still miraculous Runes, the latest form! In Books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. Mighty52 fleets and armies, harbors and arsenals53, vast cities, high-domed, many-engined, — they are precious, great: but what do they become? Agamemnon, the many Agamemnons, Pericleses, and their Greece; all is gone now to some ruined fragments, dumb mournful wrecks54 and blocks: but the Books of Greece! There Greece, to every thinker, still very literally55 lives: can be called up again into life. No magic Rune is stranger than a Book. All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation56 in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.
Do not Books still accomplish miracles, as Runes were fabled57 to do? They persuade men. Not the wretchedest circulating-library novel, which foolish girls thumb and con4 in remote villages, but will help to regulate the actual practical weddings and households of those foolish girls. So “Celia” felt, so “Clifford” acted: the foolish Theorem of Life, stamped into those young brains, comes out as a solid Practice one day. Consider whether any Rune in the wildest imagination of Mythologist58 ever did such wonders as, on the actual firm Earth, some Books have done! What built St. Paul’s Cathedral? Look at the heart of the matter, it was that divine Hebrew BOOK, — the word partly of the man Moses, an outlaw59 tending his Midianitish herds60, four thousand years ago, in the wildernesses61 of Sinai! It is the strangest of things, yet nothing is truer. With the art of Writing, of which Printing is a simple, an inevitable62 and comparatively insignificant63 corollary, the true reign10 of miracles for mankind commenced. It related, with a wondrous new contiguity64 and perpetual closeness, the Past and Distant with the Present in time and place; all times and all places with this our actual Here and Now. All things were altered for men; all modes of important work of men: teaching, preaching, governing, and all else.
To look at Teaching, for instance. Universities are a notable, respectable product of the modern ages. Their existence too is modified, to the very basis of it, by the existence of Books. Universities arose while there were yet no Books procurable65; while a man, for a single Book, had to give an estate of land. That, in those circumstances, when a man had some knowledge to communicate, he should do it by gathering66 the learners round him, face to face, was a necessity for him. If you wanted to know what Abelard knew, you must go and listen to Abelard. Thousands, as many as thirty thousand, went to hear Abelard and that metaphysical theology of his. And now for any other teacher who had also something of his own to teach, there was a great convenience opened: so many thousands eager to learn were already assembled yonder; of all places the best place for him was that. For any third teacher it was better still; and grew ever the better, the more teachers there came. It only needed now that the King took notice of this new phenomenon; combined or agglomerated67 the various schools into one school; gave it edifices69, privileges, encouragements, and named it Universitas, or School of all Sciences: the University of Paris, in its essential characters, was there. The model of all subsequent Universities; which down even to these days, for six centuries now, have gone on to found themselves. Such, I conceive, was the origin of Universities.
It is clear, however, that with this simple circumstance, facility of getting Books, the whole conditions of the business from top to bottom were changed. Once invent Printing, you metamorphosed all Universities, or superseded70 them! The Teacher needed not now to gather men personally round him, that he might speak to them what he knew: print it in a Book, and all learners far and wide, for a trifle, had it each at his own fireside, much more effectually to learn it! — Doubtless there is still peculiar71 virtue72 in Speech; even writers of Books may still, in some circumstances, find it convenient to speak also, — witness our present meeting here! There is, one would say, and must ever remain while man has a tongue, a distinct province for Speech as well as for Writing and Printing. In regard to all things this must remain; to Universities among others. But the limits of the two have nowhere yet been pointed73 out, ascertained74; much less put in practice: the University which would completely take in that great new fact, of the existence of Printed Books, and stand on a clear footing for the Nineteenth Century as the Paris one did for the Thirteenth, has not yet come into existence. If we think of it, all that a University, or final highest School can do for us, is still but what the first School began doing, — teach us to read. We learn to read, in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of Books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves! It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done their best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection of Books.
But to the Church itself, as I hinted already, all is changed, in its preaching, in its working, by the introduction of Books. The Church is the working recognized union of our Priests or Prophets, of those who by wise teaching guide the souls of men. While there was no Writing, even while there was no Easy-writing, or Printing, the preaching of the voice was the natural sole method of performing this. But now with Books! — He that can write a true Book, to persuade England, is not he the Bishop75 and Archbishop, the Primate76 of England and of All England? I many a time say, the writers of Newspapers, Pamphlets, Poems, Books, these are the real working effective Church of a modern country. Nay77 not only our preaching, but even our worship, is not it too accomplished78 by means of Printed Books? The noble sentiment which a gifted soul has clothed for us in melodious79 words, which brings melody into our hearts, — is not this essentially80, if we will understand it, of the nature of worship? There are many, in all countries, who, in this confused time, have no other method of worship. He who, in any way, shows us better than we knew before that a lily of the fields is beautiful, does he not show it us as an effluence of the Fountain of all Beauty; as the handwriting, made visible there, of the great Maker81 of the Universe? He has sung for us, made us sing with him, a little verse of a sacred Psalm82. Essentially so. How much more he who sings, who says, or in any way brings home to our heart the noble doings, feelings, darings and endurances of a brother man! He has verily touched our hearts as with a live coal from the altar. Perhaps there is no worship more authentic83.
Literature, so far as it is Literature, is an “apocalypse of Nature,” a revealing of the “open secret.” It may well enough be named, in Fichte’s style, a “continuous revelation” of the Godlike in the Terrestrial and Common. The Godlike does ever, in very truth, endure there; is brought out, now in this dialect, now in that, with various degrees of clearness: all true gifted Singers and Speakers are, consciously or unconsciously, doing so. The dark stormful indignation of a Byron, so wayward and perverse84, may have touches of it; nay the withered85 mockery of a French sceptic, — his mockery of the False, a love and worship of the True. How much more the sphere-harmony of a Shakspeare, of a Goethe; the cathedral music of a Milton! They are something too, those humble86 genuine lark-notes of a Burns, — skylark, starting from the humble furrow87, far overhead into the blue depths, and singing to us so genuinely there! For all true singing is of the nature of worship; as indeed all true working may be said to be, — whereof such singing is but the record, and fit melodious representation, to us. Fragments of a real “Church Liturgy” and “Body of Homilies,” strangely disguised from the common eye, are to be found weltering in that huge froth-ocean of Printed Speech we loosely call Literature! Books are our Church too.
Or turning now to the Government of men. Witenagemote, old Parliament, was a great thing. The affairs of the nation were there deliberated and decided88; what we were to do as a nation. But does not, though the name Parliament subsists, the parliamentary debate go on now, everywhere and at all times, in a far more comprehensive way, out of Parliament altogether? Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty89 saying; it is a literal fact, — very momentous90 to us in these times. Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. Writing brings Printing; brings universal everyday extempore Printing, as we see at present. Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures. the requisite91 thing is, that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite. The nation is governed by all that has tongue in the nation: Democracy is virtually there. Add only, that whatsoever power exists will have itself, by and by, organized; working secretly under bandages, obscurations, obstructions93, it will never rest till it get to work free, unencumbered, visible to all. Democracy virtually extant will insist on becoming palpably extant. —
On all sides, are we not driven to the conclusion that, of the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful and worthy95 are the things we call Books! Those poor bits of rag-paper with black ink on them; — from the Daily Newspaper to the sacred Hebrew BOOK, what have they not done, what are they not doing! — For indeed, whatever be the outward form of the thing (bits of paper, as we say, and black ink), is it not verily, at bottom, the highest act of man’s faculty96 that produces a Book? It is the Thought of man; the true thaumaturgic virtue; by which man works all things whatsoever. All that he does, and brings to pass, is the vesture of a Thought. This London City, with all its houses, palaces, steam-engines, cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic and tumult97, what is it but a Thought, but millions of Thoughts made into One; — a huge immeasurable Spirit of a THOUGHT, embodied98 in brick, in iron, smoke, dust, Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, and the rest of it! Not a brick was made but some man had to think of the making of that brick. — The thing we called “bits of paper with traces of black ink,” is the purest embodiment a Thought of man can have. No wonder it is, in all ways, the activest and noblest.
All this, of the importance and supreme99 importance of the Man of Letters in modern Society, and how the Press is to such a degree superseding100 the Pulpit, the Senate, the Senatus Academicus and much else, has been admitted for a good while; and recognized often enough, in late times, with a sort of sentimental101 triumph and wonderment. It seems to me, the Sentimental by and by will have to give place to the Practical. If Men of Letters are so incalculably influential102, actually performing such work for us from age to age, and even from day to day, then I think we may conclude that Men of Letters will not always wander like unrecognized unregulated Ishmaelites among us! Whatsoever thing, as I said above, has virtual unnoticed power will cast off its wrappages, bandages, and step forth one day with palpably articulated, universally visible power. That one man wear the clothes, and take the wages, of a function which is done by quite another: there can be no profit in this; this is not right, it is wrong. And yet, alas, the making of it right, — what a business, for long times to come! Sure enough, this that we call Organization of the Literary Guild103 is still a great way off, encumbered94 with all manner of complexities104. If you asked me what were the best possible organization for the Men of Letters in modern society; the arrangement of furtherance and regulation, grounded the most accurately105 on the actual facts of their position and of the world’s position, — I should beg to say that the problem far exceeded my faculty! It is not one man’s faculty; it is that of many successive men turned earnestly upon it, that will bring out even an approximate solution. What the best arrangement were, none of us could say. But if you ask, Which is the worst? I answer: This which we now have, that Chaos should sit umpire in it; this is the worst. To the best, or any good one, there is yet a long way.
One remark I must not omit, That royal or parliamentary grants of money are by no means the chief thing wanted! To give our Men of Letters stipends106, endowments and all furtherance of cash, will do little towards the business. On the whole, one is weary of hearing about the omnipotence107 of money. I will say rather that, for a genuine man, it is no evil to be poor; that there ought to be Literary Men poor, — to show whether they are genuine or not! Mendicant108 Orders, bodies of good men doomed109 to beg, were instituted in the Christian110 Church; a most natural and even necessary development of the spirit of Christianity. It was itself founded on Poverty, on Sorrow, Contradiction, Crucifixion, every species of worldly Distress111 and Degradation112. We may say, that he who has not known those things, and learned from them the priceless lessons they have to teach, has missed a good opportunity of schooling113. To beg, and go barefoot, in coarse woollen cloak with a rope round your loins, and be despised of all the world, was no beautiful business; — nor an honorable one in any eye, till the nobleness of those who did so had made it honored of some!
Begging is not in our course at the present time: but for the rest of it, who will say that a Johnson is not perhaps the better for being poor? It is needful for him, at all rates, to know that outward profit, that success of any kind is not the goal he has to aim at. Pride, vanity, ill-conditioned egoism of all sorts, are bred in his heart, as in every heart; need, above all, to be cast out of his heart, — to be, with whatever pangs114, torn out of it, cast forth from it, as a thing worthless. Byron, born rich and noble, made out even less than Burns, poor and plebeian115. Who knows but, in that same “best possible organization” as yet far off, Poverty may still enter as an important element? What if our Men of Letters, men setting up to be Spiritual Heroes, were still then, as they now are, a kind of “involuntary monastic order;” bound still to this same ugly Poverty, — till they had tried what was in it too, till they had learned to make it too do for them! Money, in truth, can do much, but it cannot do all. We must know the province of it, and confine it there; and even spurn116 it back, when it wishes to get farther.
Besides, were the money-furtherances, the proper season for them, the fit assigner of them, all settled, — how is the Burns to be recognized that merits these? He must pass through the ordeal117, and prove himself. This ordeal; this wild welter of a chaos which is called Literary Life: this too is a kind of ordeal! There is clear truth in the idea that a struggle from the lower classes of society, towards the upper regions and rewards of society, must ever continue. Strong men are born there, who ought to stand elsewhere than there. The manifold, inextricably complex, universal struggle of these constitutes, and must constitute, what is called the progress of society. For Men of Letters, as for all other sorts of men. How to regulate that struggle? There is the whole question. To leave it as it is, at the mercy of blind Chance; a whirl of distracted atoms, one cancelling the other; one of the thousand arriving saved, nine hundred and ninety-nine lost by the way; your royal Johnson languishing118 inactive in garrets, or harnessed to the yoke119 of Printer Cave; your Burns dying broken-hearted as a Gauger121; your Rousseau driven into mad exasperation122, kindling123 French Revolutions by his paradoxes124: this, as we said, is clearly enough the worst regulation. The best, alas, is far from us!
And yet there can be no doubt but it is coming; advancing on us, as yet hidden in the bosom125 of centuries: this is a prophecy one can risk. For so soon as men get to discern the importance of a thing, they do infallibly set about arranging it, facilitating, forwarding it; and rest not till, in some approximate degree, they have accomplished that. I say, of all Priesthoods, Aristocracies, Governing Classes at present extant in the world, there is no class comparable for importance to that Priesthood of the Writers of Books. This is a fact which he who runs may read, — and draw inferences from. “Literature will take care of itself,” answered Mr. Pitt, when applied126 to for some help for Burns. “Yes,” adds Mr. Southey, “it will take care of itself; and of you too, if you do not look to it!”
The result to individual Men of Letters is not the momentous one; they are but individuals, an infinitesimal fraction of the great body; they can struggle on, and live or else die, as they have been wont127. But it deeply concerns the whole society, whether it will set its light on high places, to walk thereby; or trample128 it under foot, and scatter129 it in all ways of wild waste (not without conflagration), as heretofore! Light is the one thing wanted for the world. Put wisdom in the head of the world, the world will fight its battle victoriously130, and be the best world man can make it. I called this anomaly of a disorganic Literary Class the heart of all other anomalies, at once product and parent; some good arrangement for that would be as the punctum saliens of a new vitality131 and just arrangement for all. Already, in some European countries, in France, in Prussia, one traces some beginnings of an arrangement for the Literary Class; indicating the gradual possibility of such. I believe that it is possible; that it will have to be possible.
By far the most interesting fact I hear about the Chinese is one on which we cannot arrive at clearness, but which excites endless curiosity even in the dim state: this namely, that they do attempt to make their Men of Letters their Governors! It would be rash to say, one understood how this was done, or with what degree of success it was done. All such things must be very unsuccessful; yet a small degree of success is precious; the very attempt how precious! There does seem to be, all over China, a more or less active search everywhere to discover the men of talent that grow up in the young generation. Schools there are for every one: a foolish sort of training, yet still a sort. The youths who distinguish themselves in the lower school are promoted into favorable stations in the higher, that they may still more distinguish themselves, — forward and forward: it appears to be out of these that the Official Persons, and incipient132 Governors, are taken. These are they whom they try first, whether they can govern or not. And surely with the best hope: for they are the men that have already shown intellect. Try them: they have not governed or administered as yet; perhaps they cannot; but there is no doubt they have some Understanding, — without which no man can! Neither is Understanding a tool, as we are too apt to figure; “it is a hand which can handle any tool.” Try these men: they are of all others the best worth trying. — Surely there is no kind of government, constitution, revolution, social apparatus134 or arrangement, that I know of in this world, so promising135 to one’s scientific curiosity as this. The man of intellect at the top of affairs: this is the aim of all constitutions and revolutions, if they have any aim. For the man of true intellect, as I assert and believe always, is the noble-hearted man withal, the true, just, humane136 and valiant137 man. Get him for governor, all is got; fail to get him, though you had Constitutions plentiful138 as blackberries, and a Parliament in every village, there is nothing yet got —!
These things look strange, truly; and are not such as we commonly speculate upon. But we are fallen into strange times; these things will require to be speculated upon; to be rendered practicable, to be in some way put in practice. These, and many others. On all hands of us, there is the announcement, audible enough, that the old Empire of Routine has ended; that to say a thing has long been, is no reason for its continuing to be. The things which have been are fallen into decay, are fallen into incompetence139; large masses of mankind, in every society of our Europe, are no longer capable of living at all by the things which have been. When millions of men can no longer by their utmost exertion140 gain food for themselves, and “the third man for thirty-six weeks each year is short of third-rate potatoes,” the things which have been must decidedly prepare to alter themselves! — I will now quit this of the organization of Men of Letters.
Alas, the evil that pressed heaviest on those Literary Heroes of ours was not the want of organization for Men of Letters, but a far deeper one; out of which, indeed, this and so many other evils for the Literary Man, and for all men, had, as from their fountain, taken rise. That our Hero as Man of Letters had to travel without highway, companionless, through an inorganic141 chaos, — and to leave his own life and faculty lying there, as a partial contribution towards pushing some highway through it: this, had not his faculty itself been so perverted142 and paralyzed, he might have put up with, might have considered to be but the common lot of Heroes. His fatal misery143 was the spiritual paralysis144, so we may name it, of the Age in which his life lay; whereby his life too, do what he might, was half paralyzed! The Eighteenth was a Sceptical Century; in which little word there is a whole Pandora’s Box of miseries145. Scepticism means not intellectual Doubt alone, but moral Doubt; all sorts of infidelity, insincerity, spiritual paralysis. Perhaps, in few centuries that one could specify146 since the world began, was a life of Heroism more difficult for a man. That was not an age of Faith, — an age of Heroes! The very possibility of Heroism had been, as it were, formally abnegated in the minds of all. Heroism was gone forever; Triviality, Formulism and Commonplace were come forever. The “age of miracles” had been, or perhaps had not been; but it was not any longer. An effete147 world; wherein Wonder, Greatness, Godhood could not now dwell; — in one word, a godless world!
How mean, dwarfish148 are their ways of thinking, in this time, — compared not with the Christian Shakspeares and Miltons, but with the old Pagan Skalds, with any species of believing men! The living TREE Igdrasil, with the melodious prophetic waving of its world-wide boughs149, deep-rooted as Hela, has died out into the clanking of a World-MACHINE. “Tree” and “Machine:” contrast these two things. I, for my share, declare the world to be no machine! I say that it does not go by wheel-and-pinion150 “motives152” self-interests, checks, balances; that there is something far other in it than the clank of spinning-jennies, and parliamentary majorities; and, on the whole, that it is not a machine at all! — The old Norse Heathen had a truer motion of God’s-world than these poor Machine–Sceptics: the old Heathen Norse were sincere men. But for these poor Sceptics there was no sincerity, no truth. Half-truth and hearsay153 was called truth. Truth, for most men, meant plausibility154; to be measured by the number of votes you could get. They had lost any notion that sincerity was possible, or of what sincerity was. How many Plausibilities asking, with unaffected surprise and the air of offended virtue, What! am not I sincere? Spiritual Paralysis, I say, nothing left but a Mechanical life, was the characteristic of that century. For the common man, unless happily he stood below his century and belonged to another prior one, it was impossible to be a Believer, a Hero; he lay buried, unconscious, under these baleful influences. To the strongest man, only with infinite struggle and confusion was it possible to work himself half loose; and lead as it were, in an enchanted155, most tragical156 way, a spiritual death-in-life, and be a Half–Hero!
Scepticism is the name we give to all this; as the chief symptom, as the chief origin of all this. Concerning which so much were to be said! It would take many Discourses158, not a small fraction of one Discourse, to state what one feels about that Eighteenth Century and its ways. As indeed this, and the like of this, which we now call Scepticism, is precisely the black malady159 and life-foe, against which all teaching and discoursing160 since man’s life began has directed itself: the battle of Belief against Unbelief is the never-ending battle! Neither is it in the way of crimination that one would wish to speak. Scepticism, for that century, we must consider as the decay of old ways of believing, the preparation afar off for new better and wider ways, — an inevitable thing. We will not blame men for it; we will lament161 their hard fate. We will understand that destruction of old forms is not destruction of everlasting substances; that Scepticism, as sorrowful and hateful as we see it, is not an end but a beginning.
The other day speaking, without prior purpose that way, of Bentham’s theory of man and man’s life, I chanced to call it a more beggarly one than Mahomet’s. I am bound to say, now when it is once uttered, that such is my deliberate opinion. Not that one would mean offence against the man Jeremy Bentham, or those who respect and believe him. Bentham himself, and even the creed163 of Bentham, seems to me comparatively worthy of praise. It is a determinate being what all the world, in a cowardly half-and-half manner, was tending to be. Let us have the crisis; we shall either have death or the cure. I call this gross, steam-engine Utilitarianism an approach towards new Faith. It was a laying-down of cant14; a saying to oneself: “Well then, this world is a dead iron machine, the god of it Gravitation and selfish Hunger; let us see what, by checking and balancing, and good adjustment of tooth and pinion, can be made of it!” Benthamism has something complete, manful, in such fearless committal of itself to what it finds true; you may call it Heroic, though a Heroism with its eyes put out! It is the culminating point, and fearless ultimatum164, of what lay in the half-and-half state, pervading165 man’s whole existence in that Eighteenth Century. It seems to me, all deniers of Godhood, and all lip-believers of it, are bound to be Benthamites, if they have courage and honesty. Benthamism is an eyeless Heroism: the Human Species, like a hapless blinded Samson grinding in the Philistine166 Mill, clasps convulsively the pillars of its Mill; brings huge ruin down, but ultimately deliverance withal. Of Bentham I meant to say no harm.
But this I do say, and would wish all men to know and lay to heart, that he who discerns nothing but Mechanism167 in the Universe has in the fatalest way missed the secret of the Universe altogether. That all Godhood should vanish out of men’s conception of this Universe seems to me precisely the most brutal168 error, — I will not disparage169 Heathenism by calling it a Heathen error, — that men could fall into. It is not true; it is false at the very heart of it. A man who thinks so will think wrong about all things in the world; this original sin will vitiate all other conclusions he can form. One might call it the most lamentable170 of Delusions171, — not forgetting Witchcraft172 itself! Witchcraft worshipped at least a living Devil; but this worships a dead iron Devil; no God, not even a Devil! Whatsoever is noble, divine, inspired, drops thereby out of life. There remains173 everywhere in life a despicable caput-mortuum; the mechanical hull174, all soul fled out of it. How can a man act heroically? The “Doctrine of Motives” will teach him that it is, under more or less disguise, nothing but a wretched love of Pleasure, fear of Pain; that Hunger, of applause, of cash, of whatsoever victual it may be, is the ultimate fact of man’s life. Atheism175, in brief; — which does indeed frightfully punish itself. The man, I say, is become spiritually a paralytic176 man; this godlike Universe a dead mechanical steam-engine, all working by motives, checks, balances, and I know not what; wherein, as in the detestable belly177 of some Phalaris’-Bull of his own contriving178, he the poor Phalaris sits miserably179 dying!
Belief I define to be the healthy act of a man’s mind. It is a mysterious indescribable process, that of getting to believe; — indescribable, as all vital acts are. We have our mind given us, not that it may cavil180 and argue, but that it may see into something, give us clear belief and understanding about something, whereon we are then to proceed to act. Doubt, truly, is not itself a crime. Certainly we do not rush out, clutch up the first thing we find, and straightway believe that! All manner of doubt, inquiry181, [Gr.] skepsis as it is named, about all manner of objects, dwells in every reasonable mind. It is the mystic working of the mind, on the object it is getting to know and believe. Belief comes out of all this, above ground, like the tree from its hidden roots. But now if, even on common things, we require that a man keep his doubts silent, and not babble182 of them till they in some measure become affirmations or denials; how much more in regard to the highest things, impossible to speak of in words at all! That a man parade his doubt, and get to imagine that debating and logic183 (which means at best only the manner of telling us your thought, your belief or disbelief, about a thing) is the triumph and true work of what intellect he has: alas, this is as if you should overturn the tree, and instead of green boughs, leaves and fruits, show us ugly taloned184 roots turned up into the air, — and no growth, only death and misery going on!
For the Scepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic185 atrophy186 and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things. A sad case for him when all that he can manage to believe is something he can button in his pocket, and with one or the other organ eat and digest! Lower than that he will not get. We call those ages in which he gets so low the mournfulest, sickest and meanest of all ages. The world’s heart is palsied, sick: how can any limb of it be whole? Genuine Acting187 ceases in all departments of the world’s work; dexterous188 Similitude of Acting begins. The world’s wages are pocketed, the world’s work is not done. Heroes have gone out; Quacks189 have come in. Accordingly, what Century, since the end of the Roman world, which also was a time of scepticism, simulacra and universal decadence190, so abounds191 with Quacks as that Eighteenth? Consider them, with their tumid sentimental vaporing192 about virtue, benevolence193, — the wretched Quack-squadron, Cagliostro at the head of them! Few men were without quackery194; they had got to consider it a necessary ingredient and amalgam195 for truth. Chatham, our brave Chatham himself, comes down to the House, all wrapt and bandaged; he “has crawled out in great bodily suffering,” and so on; — forgets, says Walpole, that he is acting the sick man; in the fire of debate, snatches his arm from the sling196, and oratorically swings and brandishes197 it! Chatham himself lives the strangest mimetic life, half-hero, half-quack, all along. For indeed the world is full of dupes; and you have to gain the world’s suffrage198! How the duties of the world will be done in that case, what quantities of error, which means failure, which means sorrow and misery, to some and to many, will gradually accumulate in all provinces of the world’s business, we need not compute199.
It seems to me, you lay your finger here on the heart of the world’s maladies, when you call it a Sceptical World. An insincere world; a godless untruth of a world! It is out of this, as I consider, that the whole tribe of social pestilences200, French Revolutions, Chartisms, and what not, have derived201 their being, — their chief necessity to be. This must alter. Till this alter, nothing can beneficially alter. My one hope of the world, my inexpugnable consolation202 in looking at the miseries of the world, is that this is altering. Here and there one does now find a man who knows, as of old, that this world is a Truth, and no Plausibility and Falsity; that he himself is alive, not dead or paralytic; and that the world is alive, instinct with Godhood, beautiful and awful, even as in the beginning of days! One man once knowing this, many men, all men, must by and by come to know it. It lies there clear, for whosoever will take the spectacles off his eyes and honestly look, to know! For such a man the Unbelieving Century, with its unblessed Products, is already past; a new century is already come. The old unblessed Products and Performances, as solid as they look, are Phantasms, preparing speedily to vanish. To this and the other noisy, very great-looking Simulacrum with the whole world huzzaing at its heels, he can say, composedly stepping aside: Thou art not true; thou art not extant, only semblant; go thy way! — Yes, hollow Formulism, gross Benthamism, and other unheroic atheistic203 Insincerity is visibly and even rapidly declining. An unbelieving Eighteenth Century is but an exception, — such as now and then occurs. I prophesy204 that the world will once more become sincere; a believing world; with many Heroes in it, a heroic world! It will then be a victorious world; never till then.
Or indeed what of the world and its victories? Men speak too much about the world. Each one of us here, let the world go how it will, and be victorious or not victorious, has he not a Life of his own to lead? One Life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us forevermore! It were well for us to live not as fools and simulacra, but as wise and realities. The world’s being saved will not save us; nor the world’s being lost destroy us. We should look to ourselves: there is great merit here in the “duty of staying at home”! And, on the whole, to say truth, I never heard of “world’s” being “saved” in any other way. That mania205 of saving worlds is itself a piece of the Eighteenth Century with its windy sentimentalism. Let us not follow it too far. For the saving of the world I will trust confidently to the Maker of the world; and look a little to my own saving, which I am more competent to! — In brief, for the world’s sake, and for our own, we will rejoice greatly that Scepticism, Insincerity, Mechanical Atheism, with all their poison-dews, are going, and as good as gone. —
Now it was under such conditions, in those times of Johnson, that our Men of Letters had to live. Times in which there was properly no truth in life. Old truths had fallen nigh dumb; the new lay yet hidden, not trying to speak. That Man’s Life here below was a Sincerity and Fact, and would forever continue such, no new intimation, in that dusk of the world, had yet dawned. No intimation; not even any French Revolution, — which we define to be a Truth once more, though a Truth clad in hell-fire! How different was the Luther’s pilgrimage, with its assured goal, from the Johnson’s, girt with mere24 traditions, suppositions, grown now incredible, unintelligible207! Mahomet’s Formulas were of “wood waxed and oiled,” and could be burnt out of one’s way: poor Johnson’s were far more difficult to burn. — The strong man will ever find work, which means difficulty, pain, to the full measure of his strength. But to make out a victory, in those circumstances of our poor Hero as Man of Letters, was perhaps more difficult than in any. Not obstruction92, disorganization, Bookseller Osborne and Fourpence-halfpenny a day; not this alone; but the light of his own soul was taken from him. No landmark208 on the Earth; and, alas, what is that to having no loadstar in the Heaven! We need not wonder that none of those Three men rose to victory. That they fought truly is the highest praise. With a mournful sympathy we will contemplate209, if not three living victorious Heroes, as I said, the Tombs of three fallen Heroes! They fell for us too; making a way for us. There are the mountains which they hurled210 abroad in their confused War of the Giants; under which, their strength and life spent, they now lie buried.
I have already written of these three Literary Heroes, expressly or incidentally; what I suppose is known to most of you; what need not be spoken or written a second time. They concern us here as the singular Prophets of that singular age; for such they virtually were; and the aspect they and their world exhibit, under this point of view, might lead us into reflections enough! I call them, all three, Genuine Men more or less; faithfully, for most part unconsciously, struggling to be genuine, and plant themselves on the everlasting truth of things. This to a degree that eminently212 distinguishes them from the poor artificial mass of their contemporaries; and renders them worthy to be considered as Speakers, in some measure, of the everlasting truth, as Prophets in that age of theirs. By Nature herself a noble necessity was laid on them to be so. They were men of such magnitude that they could not live on unrealities, — clouds, froth and all inanity213 gave way under them: there was no footing for them but on firm earth; no rest or regular motion for them, if they got not footing there. To a certain extent, they were Sons of Nature once more in an age of Artifice214; once more, Original Men.
As for Johnson, I have always considered him to be, by nature, one of our great English souls. A strong and noble man; so much left undeveloped in him to the last: in a kindlier element what might he not have been, — Poet, Priest, sovereign Ruler! On the whole, a man must not complain of his “element,” of his “time,” or the like; it is thriftless work doing so. His time is bad: well then, he is there to make it better! — Johnson’s youth was poor, isolated215, hopeless, very miserable216. Indeed, it does not seem possible that, in any the favorablest outward circumstances, Johnson’s life could have been other than a painful one. The world might have had more of profitable work out of him, or less; but his effort against the world’s work could never have been a light one. Nature, in return for his nobleness, had said to him, Live in an element of diseased sorrow. Nay, perhaps the sorrow and the nobleness were intimately and even inseparably connected with each other. At all events, poor Johnson had to go about girt with continual hypochondria, physical and spiritual pain. Like a Hercules with the burning Nessus’-shirt on him, which shoots in on him dull incurable217 misery: the Nessus’-shirt not to be stript off, which is his own natural skin! In this manner he had to live. Figure him there, with his scrofulous diseases, with his great greedy heart, and unspeakable chaos of thoughts; stalking mournful as a stranger in this Earth; eagerly devouring218 what spiritual thing he could come at: school-languages and other merely grammatical stuff, if there were nothing better! The largest soul that was in all England; and provision made for it of “fourpence-halfpenny a day.” Yet a giant invincible219 soul; a true man’s. One remembers always that story of the shoes at Oxford220: the rough, seamy-faced, rawboned College Servitor stalking about, in winter-season, with his shoes worn out; how the charitable Gentleman Commoner secretly places a new pair at his door; and the rawboned Servitor, lifting them, looking at them near, with his dim eyes, with what thoughts, — pitches them out of window! Wet feet, mud, frost, hunger or what you will; but not beggary: we cannot stand beggary! Rude stubborn self-help here; a whole world of squalor, rudeness, confused misery and want, yet of nobleness and manfulness withal. It is a type of the man’s life, this pitching away of the shoes. An original man; — not a second-hand221, borrowing or begging man. Let us stand on our own basis, at any rate! On such shoes as we ourselves can get. On frost and mud, if you will, but honestly on that; — on the reality and substance which Nature gives us, not on the semblance222, on the thing she has given another than us —!
And yet with all this rugged223 pride of manhood and self-help, was there ever soul more tenderly affectionate, loyally submissive to what was really higher than he? Great souls are always loyally submissive, reverent224 to what is over them; only small mean souls are otherwise. I could not find a better proof of what I said the other day, That the sincere man was by nature the obedient man; that only in a World of Heroes was there loyal Obedience225 to the Heroic. The essence of originality is not that it be new: Johnson believed altogether in the old; he found the old opinions credible206 for him, fit for him; and in a right heroic manner lived under them. He is well worth study in regard to that. For we are to say that Johnson was far other than a mere man of words and formulas; he was a man of truths and facts. He stood by the old formulas; the happier was it for him that he could so stand: but in all formulas that he could stand by, there needed to be a most genuine substance. Very curious how, in that poor Paper-age, so barren, artificial, thick-quilted with Pedantries226, Hearsays, the great Fact of this Universe glared in, forever wonderful, indubitable, unspeakable, divine-infernal, upon this man too! How he harmonized his Formulas with it, how he managed at all under such circumstances: that is a thing worth seeing. A thing “to be looked at with reverence227, with pity, with awe228.” That Church of St. Clement229 Danes, where Johnson still worshipped in the era of Voltaire, is to me a venerable place.
It was in virtue of his sincerity, of his speaking still in some sort from the heart of Nature, though in the current artificial dialect, that Johnson was a Prophet. Are not all dialects “artificial”? Artificial things are not all false; — nay every true Product of Nature will infallibly shape itself; we may say all artificial things are, at the starting of them, true. What we call “Formulas” are not in their origin bad; they are indispensably good. Formula is method, habitude; found wherever man is found. Formulas fashion themselves as Paths do, as beaten Highways, leading toward some sacred or high object, whither many men are bent162. Consider it. One man, full of heartfelt earnest impulse, finds out a way of doing somewhat, — were it of uttering his soul’s reverence for the Highest, were it but of fitly saluting230 his fellow-man. An inventor was needed to do that, a poet; he has articulated the dim-struggling thought that dwelt in his own and many hearts. This is his way of doing that; these are his footsteps, the beginning of a “Path.” And now see: the second men travels naturally in the footsteps of his foregoer, it is the easiest method. In the footsteps of his foregoer; yet with improvements, with changes where such seem good; at all events with enlargements, the Path ever widening itself as more travel it; — till at last there is a broad Highway whereon the whole world may travel and drive. While there remains a City or Shrine231, or any Reality to drive to, at the farther end, the Highway shall be right welcome! When the City is gone, we will forsake232 the Highway. In this manner all Institutions, Practices, Regulated Things in the world have come into existence, and gone out of existence. Formulas all begin by being full of substance; you may call them the skin, the articulation233 into shape, into limbs and skin, of a substance that is already there: they had not been there otherwise. Idols234, as we said, are not idolatrous till they become doubtful, empty for the worshipper’s heart. Much as we talk against Formulas, I hope no one of us is ignorant withal of the high significance of true Formulas; that they were, and will ever be, the indispensablest furniture of our habitation in this world. —
Mark, too, how little Johnson boasts of his “sincerity.” He has no suspicion of his being particularly sincere, — of his being particularly anything! A hard-struggling, weary-hearted man, or “scholar” as he calls himself, trying hard to get some honest livelihood235 in the world, not to starve, but to live — without stealing! A noble unconsciousness is in him. He does not “engrave Truth on his watch-seal;” no, but he stands by truth, speaks by it, works and lives by it. Thus it ever is. Think of it once more. The man whom Nature has appointed to do great things is, first of all, furnished with that openness to Nature which renders him incapable236 of being insincere! To his large, open, deep-feeling heart Nature is a Fact: all hearsay is hearsay; the unspeakable greatness of this Mystery of Life, let him acknowledge it or not, nay even though he seem to forget it or deny it, is ever present to him, — fearful and wonderful, on this hand and on that. He has a basis of sincerity; unrecognized, because never questioned or capable of question. Mirabeau, Mahomet, Cromwell, Napoleon: all the Great Men I ever heard of have this as the primary material of them. Innumerable commonplace men are debating, are talking everywhere their commonplace doctrines237, which they have learned by logic, by rote238, at second-hand: to that kind of man all this is still nothing. He must have truth; truth which he feels to be true. How shall he stand otherwise? His whole soul, at all moments, in all ways, tells him that there is no standing133. He is under the noble necessity of being true. Johnson’s way of thinking about this world is not mine, any more than Mahomet’s was: but I recognize the everlasting element of heart-sincerity in both; and see with pleasure how neither of them remains ineffectual. Neither of them is as chaff239 sown; in both of them is something which the seedfield will grow.
Johnson was a Prophet to his people; preached a Gospel to them, — as all like him always do. The highest Gospel he preached we may describe as a kind of Moral Prudence240: “in a world where much is to be done, and little is to be known,” see how you will do it! A thing well worth preaching. “A world where much is to be done, and little is to be known:” do not sink yourselves in boundless241 bottomless abysses of Doubt, of wretched god-forgetting Unbelief; — you were miserable then, powerless, mad: how could you do or work at all? Such Gospel Johnson preached and taught; — coupled, theoretically and practically, with this other great Gospel, “Clear your mind of Cant!” Have no trade with Cant: stand on the cold mud in the frosty weather, but let it be in your own real torn shoes: “that will be better for you,” as Mahomet says! I call this, I call these two things joined together, a great Gospel, the greatest perhaps that was possible at that time.
Johnson’s Writings, which once had such currency and celebrity242, are now as it were disowned by the young generation. It is not wonderful; Johnson’s opinions are fast becoming obsolete243: but his style of thinking and of living, we may hope, will never become obsolete. I find in Johnson’s Books the indisputablest traces of a great intellect and great heart; — ever welcome, under what obstructions and perversions244 soever. They are sincere words, those of his; he means things by them. A wondrous buckram style, — the best he could get to then; a measured grandiloquence245, stepping or rather stalking along in a very solemn way, grown obsolete now; sometimes a tumid size of phraseology not in proportion to the contents of it: all this you will put up with. For the phraseology, tumid or not, has always something within it. So many beautiful styles and books, with nothing in them; — a man is a malefactor246 to the world who writes such! They are the avoidable kind! — Had Johnson left nothing but his Dictionary, one might have traced there a great intellect, a genuine man. Looking to its clearness of definition, its general solidity, honesty, insight and successful method, it may be called the best of all Dictionaries. There is in it a kind of architectural nobleness; it stands there like a great solid square-built edifice68, finished, symmetrically complete: you judge that a true Builder did it.
One word, in spite of our haste, must be granted to poor Bozzy. He passes for a mean, inflated247, gluttonous248 creature; and was so in many senses. Yet the fact of his reverence for Johnson will ever remain noteworthy. The foolish conceited249 Scotch250 Laird, the most conceited man of his time, approaching in such awe-struck attitude the great dusty irascible Pedagogue251 in his mean garret there: it is a genuine reverence for Excellence252; a worship for Heroes, at a time when neither Heroes nor worship were surmised253 to exist. Heroes, it would seem, exist always, and a certain worship of them! We will also take the liberty to deny altogether that of the witty Frenchman, that no man is a Hero to his valet-de-chambre. Or if so, it is not the Hero’s blame, but the Valet’s: that his soul, namely, is a mean valet-soul! He expects his Hero to advance in royal stage-trappings, with measured step, trains borne behind him, trumpets254 sounding before him. It should stand rather, No man can be a Grand–Monarque to his valet-de-chambre. Strip your Louis Quatorze of his king-gear, and there is left nothing but a poor forked radish with a head fantastically carved; — admirable to no valet. The Valet does not know a Hero when he sees him! Alas, no: it requires a kind of Hero to do that; — and one of the world’s wants, in this as in other senses, is for most part want of such.
On the whole, shall we not say, that Boswell’s admiration was well bestowed255; that he could have found no soul in all England so worthy of bending down before? Shall we not say, of this great mournful Johnson too, that he guided his difficult confused existence wisely; led it well, like a right valiant man? That waste chaos of Authorship by trade; that waste chaos of Scepticism in religion and politics, in life-theory and life-practice; in his poverty, in his dust and dimness, with the sick body and the rusty coat: he made it do for him, like a brave man. Not wholly without a loadstar in the Eternal; he had still a loadstar, as the brave all need to have: with his eye set on that, he would change his course for nothing in these confused vortices of the lower sea of Time. “To the Spirit of Lies, bearing death and hunger, he would in nowise strike his flag.” Brave old Samuel: ultimus Romanorum!
Of Rousseau and his Heroism I cannot say so much. He is not what I call a strong man. A morbid256, excitable, spasmodic man; at best, intense rather than strong. He had not “the talent of Silence,” an invaluable257 talent; which few Frenchmen, or indeed men of any sort in these times, excel in! The suffering man ought really “to consume his own smoke;” there is no good in emitting smoke till you have made it into fire, — which, in the metaphorical258 sense too, all smoke is capable of becoming! Rousseau has not depth or width, not calm force for difficulty; the first characteristic of true greatness. A fundamental mistake to call vehemence259 and rigidity260 strength! A man is not strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him then. He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering, he is the strong man. We need forever, especially in these loud-shrieking days, to remind ourselves of that. A man who cannot hold his peace, till the time come for speaking and acting, is no right man.
Poor Rousseau’s face is to me expressive261 of him. A high but narrow contracted intensity262 in it: bony brows; deep, strait-set eyes, in which there is something bewildered-looking, — bewildered, peering with lynx-eagerness. A face full of misery, even ignoble263 misery, and also of the antagonism264 against that; something mean, plebeian there, redeemed265 only by intensity: the face of what is called a Fanatic266, — a sadly contracted Hero! We name him here because, with all his drawbacks, and they are many, he has the first and chief characteristic of a Hero: he is heartily267 in earnest. In earnest, if ever man was; as none of these French Philosophers were. Nay, one would say, of an earnestness too great for his otherwise sensitive, rather feeble nature; and which indeed in the end drove him into the strangest incoherences, almost delirations. There had come, at last, to be a kind of madness in him: his Ideas possessed268 him like demons269; hurried him so about, drove him over steep places —!
The fault and misery of Rousseau was what we easily name by a single word, Egoism; which is indeed the source and summary of all faults and miseries whatsoever. He had not perfected himself into victory over mere Desire; a mean Hunger, in many sorts, was still the motive151 principle of him. I am afraid he was a very vain man; hungry for the praises of men. You remember Genlis’s experience of him. She took Jean Jacques to the Theatre; he bargaining for a strict incognito270, — “He would not be seen there for the world!” The curtain did happen nevertheless to be drawn271 aside: the Pit recognized Jean Jacques, but took no great notice of him! He expressed the bitterest indignation; gloomed all evening, spake no other than surly words. The glib272 Countess remained entirely273 convinced that his anger was not at being seen, but at not being applauded when seen. How the whole nature of the man is poisoned; nothing but suspicion, self-isolation, fierce moody274 ways! He could not live with anybody. A man of some rank from the country, who visited him often, and used to sit with him, expressing all reverence and affection for him, comes one day; finds Jean Jacques full of the sourest unintelligible humor. “Monsieur,” said Jean Jacques, with flaming eyes, “I know why you come here. You come to see what a poor life I lead; how little is in my poor pot that is boiling there. Well, look into the pot! There is half a pound of meat, one carrot and three onions; that is all: go and tell the whole world that, if you like, Monsieur!” — A man of this sort was far gone. The whole world got itself supplied with anecdotes275, for light laughter, for a certain theatrical276 interest, from these perversions and contortions277 of poor Jean Jacques. Alas, to him they were not laughing or theatrical; too real to him! The contortions of a dying gladiator: the crowded amphitheatre looks on with entertainment; but the gladiator is in agonies and dying.
And yet this Rousseau, as we say, with his passionate278 appeals to Mothers, with his contrat-social, with his celebrations of Nature, even of savage279 life in Nature, did once more touch upon Reality, struggle towards Reality; was doing the function of a Prophet to his Time. As he could, and as the Time could! Strangely through all that defacement, degradation and almost madness, there is in the inmost heart of poor Rousseau a spark of real heavenly fire. Once more, out of the element of that withered mocking Philosophism, Scepticism and Persiflage280, there has arisen in this man the ineradicable feeling and knowledge that this Life of ours is true: not a Scepticism, Theorem, or Persiflage, but a Fact, an awful Reality. Nature had made that revelation to him; had ordered him to speak it out. He got it spoken out; if not well and clearly, then ill and dimly, — as clearly as he could. Nay what are all errors and perversities of his, even those stealings of ribbons, aimless confused miseries and vagabondisms, if we will interpret them kindly281, but the blinkard dazzlement and staggerings to and fro of a man sent on an errand he is too weak for, by a path he cannot yet find? Men are led by strange ways. One should have tolerance282 for a man, hope of him; leave him to try yet what he will do. While life lasts, hope lasts for every man.
Of Rousseau’s literary talents, greatly celebrated283 still among his countrymen, I do not say much. His Books, like himself, are what I call unhealthy; not the good sort of Books. There is a sensuality in Rousseau. Combined with such an intellectual gift as his, it makes pictures of a certain gorgeous attractiveness: but they are not genuinely poetical284. Not white sunlight: something operatic; a kind of rose-pink, artificial bedizenment. It is frequent, or rather it is universal, among the French since his time. Madame de Stael has something of it; St. Pierre; and down onwards to the present astonishing convulsionary “Literature of Desperation,” it is everywhere abundant. That same rose-pink is not the right hue285. Look at a Shakspeare, at a Goethe, even at a Walter Scott! He who has once seen into this, has seen the difference of the True from the Sham–True, and will discriminate27 them ever afterwards.
We had to observe in Johnson how much good a Prophet, under all disadvantages and disorganizations, can accomplish for the world. In Rousseau we are called to look rather at the fearful amount of evil which, under such disorganization, may accompany the good. Historically it is a most pregnant spectacle, that of Rousseau. Banished286 into Paris garrets, in the gloomy company of his own Thoughts and Necessities there; driven from post to pillar; fretted287, exasperated288 till the heart of him went mad, he had grown to feel deeply that the world was not his friend nor the world’s law. It was expedient289, if any way possible, that such a man should not have been set in flat hostility290 with the world. He could be cooped into garrets, laughed at as a maniac291, left to starve like a wild beast in his cage; — but he could not be hindered from setting the world on fire. The French Revolution found its Evangelist in Rousseau. His semi-delirious speculations292 on the miseries of civilized life, the preferability of the savage to the civilized, and such like, helped well to produce a whole delirium293 in France generally. True, you may well ask, What could the world, the governors of the world, do with such a man? Difficult to say what the governors of the world could do with him! What he could do with them is unhappily clear enough, — guillotine a great many of them! Enough now of Rousseau.
It was a curious phenomenon, in the withered, unbelieving second-hand Eighteenth Century, that of a Hero starting up, among the artificial pasteboard figures and productions, in the guise of a Robert Burns. Like a little well in the rocky desert places, — like a sudden splendor of Heaven in the artificial Vauxhall! People knew not what to make of it. They took it for a piece of the Vauxhall fire-work; alas, it let itself be so taken, though struggling half-blindly, as in bitterness of death, against that! Perhaps no man had such a false reception from his fellow-men. Once more a very wasteful life-drama was enacted294 under the sun.
The tragedy of Burns’s life is known to all of you. Surely we may say, if discrepancy295 between place held and place merited constitute perverseness296 of lot for a man, no lot could be more perverse then Burns’s. Among those second-hand acting-figures, mimes297 for most part, of the Eighteenth Century, once more a giant Original Man; one of those men who reach down to the perennial Deeps, who take rank with the Heroic among men: and he was born in a poor Ayrshire hut. The largest soul of all the British lands came among us in the shape of a hard-handed Scottish Peasant.
His Father, a poor toiling298 man, tried various things; did not succeed in any; was involved in continual difficulties. The Steward300, Factor as the Scotch call him, used to send letters and threatenings, Burns says, “which threw us all into tears.” The brave, hard-toiling, hard-suffering Father, his brave heroine of a wife; and those children, of whom Robert was one! In this Earth, so wide otherwise, no shelter for them. The letters “threw us all into tears:” figure it. The brave Father, I say always; — a silent Hero and Poet; without whom the son had never been a speaking one! Burns’s Schoolmaster came afterwards to London, learnt what good society was; but declares that in no meeting of men did he ever enjoy better discourse than at the hearth301 of this peasant. And his poor “seven acres of nursery-ground,” — not that, nor the miserable patch of clay-farm, nor anything he tried to get a living by, would prosper31 with him; he had a sore unequal battle all his days. But he stood to it valiantly302; a wise, faithful, unconquerable man; — swallowing down how many sore sufferings daily into silence; fighting like an unseen Hero, — nobody publishing newspaper paragraphs about his nobleness; voting pieces of plate to him! However, he was not lost; nothing is lost. Robert is there the outcome of him, — and indeed of many generations of such as him.
This Burns appeared under every disadvantage: uninstructed, poor, born only to hard manual toil299; and writing, when it came to that, in a rustic303 special dialect, known only to a small province of the country he lived in. Had he written, even what he did write, in the general language of England, I doubt not he had already become universally recognized as being, or capable to be, one of our greatest men. That he should have tempted304 so many to penetrate305 through the rough husk of that dialect of his, is proof that there lay something far from common within it. He has gained a certain recognition, and is continuing to do so over all quarters of our wide Saxon world: wheresoever a Saxon dialect is spoken, it begins to be understood, by personal inspection306 of this and the other, that one of the most considerable Saxon men of the Eighteenth Century was an Ayrshire Peasant named Robert Burns. Yes, I will say, here too was a piece of the right Saxon stuff: strong as the Harz-rock, rooted in the depths of the world; — rock, yet with wells of living softness in it! A wild impetuous whirlwind of passion and faculty slumbered307 quiet there; such heavenly melody dwelling308 in the heart of it. A noble rough genuineness; homely309, rustic, honest; true simplicity310 of strength; with its lightning-fire, with its soft dewy pity; — like the old Norse Thor, the Peasant-god!
Burns’s Brother Gilbert, a man of much sense and worth, has told me that Robert, in his young days, in spite of their hardship, was usually the gayest of speech; a fellow of infinite frolic, laughter, sense and heart; far pleasanter to hear there, stript cutting peats in the bog311, or such like, than he ever afterwards knew him. I can well believe it. This basis of mirth (“fond gaillard,” as old Marquis Mirabeau calls it), a primal312 element of sunshine and joyfulness313, coupled with his other deep and earnest qualities, is one of the most attractive characteristics of Burns. A large fund of Hope dwells in him; spite of his tragical history, he is not a mourning man. He shakes his sorrows gallantly314 aside; bounds forth victorious over them. It is as the lion shaking “dew-drops from his mane;” as the swift-bounding horse, that laughs at the shaking of the spear. — But indeed, Hope, Mirth, of the sort like Burns’s, are they not the outcome properly of warm generous affection, — such as is the beginning of all to every man?
You would think it strange if I called Burns the most gifted British soul we had in all that century of his: and yet I believe the day is coming when there will be little danger in saying so. His writings, all that he did under such obstructions, are only a poor fragment of him. Professor Stewart remarked very justly, what indeed is true of all Poets good for much, that his poetry was not any particular faculty; but the general result of a naturally vigorous original mind expressing itself in that way. Burns’s gifts, expressed in conversation, are the theme of all that ever heard him. All kinds of gifts: from the gracefulest utterances315 of courtesy, to the highest fire of passionate speech; loud floods of mirth, soft wailings of affection, laconic316 emphasis, clear piercing insight; all was in him. Witty duchesses celebrate him as a man whose speech “led them off their feet.” This is beautiful: but still more beautiful that which Mr. Lockhart has recorded, which I have more than once alluded317 to, How the waiters and ostlers at inns would get out of bed, and come crowding to hear this man speak! Waiters and ostlers:— they too were men, and here was a man! I have heard much about his speech; but one of the best things I ever heard of it was, last year, from a venerable gentleman long familiar with him. That it was speech distinguished by always having something in it. “He spoke211 rather little than much,” this old man told me; “sat rather silent in those early days, as in the company of persons above him; and always when he did speak, it was to throw new light on the matter.” I know not why any one should ever speak otherwise! — But if we look at his general force of soul, his healthy robustness318 every way, the rugged downrightness, penetration319, generous valor320 and manfulness that was in him, — where shall we readily find a better-gifted man?
Among the great men of the Eighteenth Century, I sometimes feel as if Burns might be found to resemble Mirabeau more than any other. They differ widely in vesture; yet look at them intrinsically. There is the same burly thick-necked strength of body as of soul; — built, in both cases, on what the old Marquis calls a fond gaillard. By nature, by course of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of bluster321; a noisy, forward, unresting man. But the characteristic of Mirabeau too is veracity322 and sense, power of true insight, superiority of vision. The thing that he says is worth remembering. It is a flash of insight into some object or other: so do both these men speak. The same raging passions; capable too in both of manifesting themselves as the tenderest noble affections. Wit; wild laughter, energy, directness, sincerity: these were in both. The types of the two men are not dissimilar. Burns too could have governed, debated in National Assemblies; politicized, as few could. Alas, the courage which had to exhibit itself in capture of smuggling323 schooners324 in the Solway Frith; in keeping silence over so much, where no good speech, but only inarticulate rage was possible: this might have bellowed325 forth Ushers326 de Breze and the like; and made itself visible to all men, in managing of kingdoms, in ruling of great ever-memorable epochs! But they said to him reprovingly, his Official Superiors said, and wrote: “You are to work, not think.” Of your thinking-faculty, the greatest in this land, we have no need; you are to gauge120 beer there; for that only are you wanted. Very notable; — and worth mentioning, though we know what is to be said and answered! As if Thought, Power of Thinking, were not, at all times, in all places and situations of the world, precisely the thing that was wanted. The fatal man, is he not always the unthinking man, the man who cannot think and see; but only grope, and hallucinate, and missee the nature of the thing he works with? He mis-sees it, mistakes it as we say; takes it for one thing, and it is another thing, — and leaves him standing like a Futility327 there! He is the fatal man; unutterably fatal, put in the high places of men. — “Why complain of this?” say some: “Strength is mournfully denied its arena328; that was true from of old.” Doubtless; and the worse for the arena, answer I! Complaining profits little; stating of the truth may profit. That a Europe, with its French Revolution just breaking out, finds no need of a Burns except for gauging329 beer, — is a thing I, for one, cannot rejoice at —!
Once more we have to say here, that the chief quality of Burns is the sincerity of him. So in his Poetry, so in his Life. The song he sings is not of fantasticalities; it is of a thing felt, really there; the prime merit of this, as of all in him, and of his Life generally, is truth. The Life of Burns is what we may call a great tragic157 sincerity. A sort of savage sincerity, — not cruel, far from that; but wild, wrestling naked with the truth of things. In that sense, there is something of the savage in all great men.
Hero-worship, — Odin, Burns? Well; these Men of Letters too were not without a kind of Hero-worship: but what a strange condition has that got into now! The waiters and ostlers of Scotch inns, prying330 about the door, eager to catch any word that fell from Burns, were doing unconscious reverence to the Heroic. Johnson had his Boswell for worshipper. Rousseau had worshippers enough; princes calling on him in his mean garret; the great, the beautiful doing reverence to the poor moon-struck man. For himself a most portentous331 contradiction; the two ends of his life not to be brought into harmony. He sits at the tables of grandees332; and has to copy music for his own living. He cannot even get his music copied: “By dint333 of dining out,” says he, “I run the risk of dying by starvation at home.” For his worshippers too a most questionable334 thing! If doing Hero-worship well or badly be the test of vital well-being335 or ill-being to a generation, can we say that these generations are very first-rate? — And yet our heroic Men of Letters do teach, govern, are kings, priests, or what you like to call them; intrinsically there is no preventing it by any means whatever. The world has to obey him who thinks and sees in the world. The world can alter the manner of that; can either have it as blessed continuous summer sunshine, or as unblessed black thunder and tornado336, — with unspeakable difference of profit for the world! The manner of it is very alterable; the matter and fact of it is not alterable by any power under the sky. Light; or, failing that, lightning: the world can take its choice. Not whether we call an Odin god, prophet, priest, or what we call him; but whether we believe the word he tells us: there it all lies. If it be a true word, we shall have to believe it; believing it, we shall have to do it. What name or welcome we give him or it, is a point that concerns ourselves mainly. It, the new Truth, new deeper revealing of the Secret of this Universe, is verily of the nature of a message from on high; and must and will have itself obeyed. —
My last remark is on that notablest phasis of Burns’s history, — his visit to Edinburgh. Often it seems to me as if his demeanor337 there were the highest proof he gave of what a fund of worth and genuine manhood was in him. If we think of it, few heavier burdens could be laid on the strength of a man. So sudden; all common Lionism. which ruins innumerable men, was as nothing to this. It is as if Napoleon had been made a King of, not gradually, but at once from the Artillery338 Lieutenancy339 in the Regiment340 La Fere. Burns, still only in his twenty-seventh year, is no longer even a ploughman; he is flying to the West Indies to escape disgrace and a jail. This month he is a ruined peasant, his wages seven pounds a year, and these gone from him: next month he is in the blaze of rank and beauty, handing down jewelled Duchesses to dinner; the cynosure341 of all eyes! Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity. I admire much the way in which Burns met all this. Perhaps no man one could point out, was ever so sorely tried, and so little forgot himself. Tranquil342, unastonished; not abashed343, not inflated, neither awkwardness nor affectation: he feels that he there is the man Robert Burns; that the “rank is but the guinea-stamp;” that the celebrity is but the candle-light, which will show what man, not in the least make him a better or other man! Alas, it may readily, unless he look to it, make him a worse man; a wretched inflated wind-bag, — inflated till he burst, and become a dead lion; for whom, as some one has said, “there is no resurrection of the body;” worse than a living dog! — Burns is admirable here.
And yet, alas, as I have observed elsewhere, these Lion-hunters were the ruin and death of Burns. It was they that rendered it impossible for him to live! They gathered round him in his Farm; hindered his industry; no place was remote enough from them. He could not get his Lionism forgotten, honestly as he was disposed to do so. He falls into discontents, into miseries, faults; the world getting ever more desolate344 for him; health, character, peace of mind, all gone; — solitary345 enough now. It is tragical to think of! These men came but to see him; it was out of no sympathy with him, nor no hatred346 to him. They came to get a little amusement; they got their amusement; — and the Hero’s life went for it!
Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of “Light-chafers,” large Fire-flies, which people stick upon spits, and illuminate35 the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honor to the Fire-flies! But —!
点击收听单词发音
1 heroism | |
n.大无畏精神,英勇 | |
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2 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
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3 subsists | |
v.(靠很少的钱或食物)维持生活,生存下去( subsist的第三人称单数 ) | |
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4 con | |
n.反对的观点,反对者,反对票,肺病;vt.精读,学习,默记;adv.反对地,从反面;adj.欺诈的 | |
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5 anomalous | |
adj.反常的;不规则的 | |
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6 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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7 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
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8 alas | |
int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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9 cramp | |
n.痉挛;[pl.](腹)绞痛;vt.限制,束缚 | |
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10 reign | |
n.统治时期,统治,支配,盛行;v.占优势 | |
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11 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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12 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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13 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
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14 cant | |
n.斜穿,黑话,猛扔 | |
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15 originality | |
n.创造力,独创性;新颖 | |
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16 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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17 everlasting | |
adj.永恒的,持久的,无止境的 | |
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18 perennial | |
adj.终年的;长久的 | |
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19 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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20 conformity | |
n.一致,遵从,顺从 | |
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21 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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22 specially | |
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地 | |
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23 sensuous | |
adj.激发美感的;感官的,感觉上的 | |
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24 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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25 splendor | |
n.光彩;壮丽,华丽;显赫,辉煌 | |
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26 whatsoever | |
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么 | |
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27 discriminate | |
v.区别,辨别,区分;有区别地对待 | |
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28 discriminates | |
分别,辨别,区分( discriminate的第三人称单数 ); 歧视,有差别地对待 | |
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29 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
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30 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
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31 prosper | |
v.成功,兴隆,昌盛;使成功,使昌隆,繁荣 | |
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32 prosaic | |
adj.单调的,无趣的 | |
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33 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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34 illuminated | |
adj.被照明的;受启迪的 | |
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35 illuminate | |
vt.照亮,照明;用灯光装饰;说明,阐释 | |
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36 impure | |
adj.不纯净的,不洁的;不道德的,下流的 | |
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37 celestial | |
adj.天体的;天上的 | |
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38 specimen | |
n.样本,标本 | |
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39 discourse | |
n.论文,演说;谈话;话语;vi.讲述,著述 | |
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40 guise | |
n.外表,伪装的姿态 | |
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41 galling | |
adj.难堪的,使烦恼的,使焦躁的 | |
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42 victorious | |
adj.胜利的,得胜的 | |
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43 interpretation | |
n.解释,说明,描述;艺术处理 | |
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44 wasteful | |
adj.(造成)浪费的,挥霍的 | |
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45 chaotic | |
adj.混沌的,一片混乱的,一团糟的 | |
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46 chaos | |
n.混乱,无秩序 | |
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47 pious | |
adj.虔诚的;道貌岸然的 | |
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48 civilized | |
a.有教养的,文雅的 | |
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49 dignified | |
a.可敬的,高贵的 | |
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50 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
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51 miraculous | |
adj.像奇迹一样的,不可思议的 | |
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52 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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53 arsenals | |
n.兵工厂,军火库( arsenal的名词复数 );任何事物的集成 | |
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54 wrecks | |
n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 );(事故中)遭严重毁坏的汽车(或飞机等);(身体或精神上)受到严重损伤的人;状况非常糟糕的车辆(或建筑物等)v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 );使(船舶)失事,使遇难,使下沉 | |
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55 literally | |
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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56 preservation | |
n.保护,维护,保存,保留,保持 | |
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57 fabled | |
adj.寓言中的,虚构的 | |
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58 mythologist | |
n.神话学家;神话作家 | |
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59 outlaw | |
n.歹徒,亡命之徒;vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
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60 herds | |
兽群( herd的名词复数 ); 牧群; 人群; 群众 | |
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61 wildernesses | |
荒野( wilderness的名词复数 ); 沙漠; (政治家)在野; 不再当政(或掌权) | |
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62 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
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63 insignificant | |
adj.无关紧要的,可忽略的,无意义的 | |
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64 contiguity | |
n.邻近,接壤 | |
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65 procurable | |
adj.可得到的,得手的 | |
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66 gathering | |
n.集会,聚会,聚集 | |
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67 agglomerated | |
团聚颗粒 | |
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68 edifice | |
n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿,教室) | |
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69 edifices | |
n.大建筑物( edifice的名词复数 ) | |
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70 superseded | |
[医]被代替的,废弃的 | |
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71 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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72 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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73 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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74 ascertained | |
v.弄清,确定,查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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75 bishop | |
n.主教,(国际象棋)象 | |
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76 primate | |
n.灵长类(目)动物,首席主教;adj.首要的 | |
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77 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
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78 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
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79 melodious | |
adj.旋律美妙的,调子优美的,音乐性的 | |
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80 essentially | |
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上 | |
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81 maker | |
n.制造者,制造商 | |
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82 psalm | |
n.赞美诗,圣诗 | |
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83 authentic | |
a.真的,真正的;可靠的,可信的,有根据的 | |
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84 perverse | |
adj.刚愎的;坚持错误的,行为反常的 | |
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85 withered | |
adj. 枯萎的,干瘪的,(人身体的部分器官)因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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86 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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87 furrow | |
n.沟;垄沟;轨迹;车辙;皱纹 | |
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88 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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89 witty | |
adj.机智的,风趣的 | |
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90 momentous | |
adj.重要的,重大的 | |
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91 requisite | |
adj.需要的,必不可少的;n.必需品 | |
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92 obstruction | |
n.阻塞,堵塞;障碍物 | |
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93 obstructions | |
n.障碍物( obstruction的名词复数 );阻碍物;阻碍;阻挠 | |
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94 encumbered | |
v.妨碍,阻碍,拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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95 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
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96 faculty | |
n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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97 tumult | |
n.喧哗;激动,混乱;吵闹 | |
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98 embodied | |
v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 );象征;包括;包含 | |
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99 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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100 superseding | |
取代,接替( supersede的现在分词 ) | |
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101 sentimental | |
adj.多愁善感的,感伤的 | |
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102 influential | |
adj.有影响的,有权势的 | |
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103 guild | |
n.行会,同业公会,协会 | |
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104 complexities | |
复杂性(complexity的名词复数); 复杂的事物 | |
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105 accurately | |
adv.准确地,精确地 | |
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106 stipends | |
n.(尤指牧师的)薪俸( stipend的名词复数 ) | |
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107 omnipotence | |
n.全能,万能,无限威力 | |
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108 mendicant | |
n.乞丐;adj.行乞的 | |
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109 doomed | |
命定的 | |
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110 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
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111 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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112 degradation | |
n.降级;低落;退化;陵削;降解;衰变 | |
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113 schooling | |
n.教育;正规学校教育 | |
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114 pangs | |
突然的剧痛( pang的名词复数 ); 悲痛 | |
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115 plebeian | |
adj.粗俗的;平民的;n.平民;庶民 | |
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116 spurn | |
v.拒绝,摈弃;n.轻视的拒绝;踢开 | |
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117 ordeal | |
n.苦难经历,(尤指对品格、耐力的)严峻考验 | |
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118 languishing | |
a. 衰弱下去的 | |
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119 yoke | |
n.轭;支配;v.给...上轭,连接,使成配偶 | |
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120 gauge | |
v.精确计量;估计;n.标准度量;计量器 | |
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121 gauger | |
n.收税官 | |
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122 exasperation | |
n.愤慨 | |
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123 kindling | |
n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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124 paradoxes | |
n.似非而是的隽语,看似矛盾而实际却可能正确的说法( paradox的名词复数 );用于语言文学中的上述隽语;有矛盾特点的人[事物,情况] | |
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125 bosom | |
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的 | |
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126 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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127 wont | |
adj.习惯于;v.习惯;n.习惯 | |
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128 trample | |
vt.踩,践踏;无视,伤害,侵犯 | |
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129 scatter | |
vt.撒,驱散,散开;散布/播;vi.分散,消散 | |
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130 victoriously | |
adv.获胜地,胜利地 | |
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131 vitality | |
n.活力,生命力,效力 | |
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132 incipient | |
adj.起初的,发端的,初期的 | |
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133 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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134 apparatus | |
n.装置,器械;器具,设备 | |
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135 promising | |
adj.有希望的,有前途的 | |
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136 humane | |
adj.人道的,富有同情心的 | |
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137 valiant | |
adj.勇敢的,英勇的;n.勇士,勇敢的人 | |
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138 plentiful | |
adj.富裕的,丰富的 | |
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139 incompetence | |
n.不胜任,不称职 | |
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140 exertion | |
n.尽力,努力 | |
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141 inorganic | |
adj.无生物的;无机的 | |
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142 perverted | |
adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 );腐蚀;败坏;使堕落 | |
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143 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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144 paralysis | |
n.麻痹(症);瘫痪(症) | |
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145 miseries | |
n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 );痛苦的事;穷困;常发牢骚的人 | |
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146 specify | |
vt.指定,详细说明 | |
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147 effete | |
adj.无生产力的,虚弱的 | |
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148 dwarfish | |
a.像侏儒的,矮小的 | |
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149 boughs | |
大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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150 pinion | |
v.束缚;n.小齿轮 | |
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151 motive | |
n.动机,目的;adv.发动的,运动的 | |
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152 motives | |
n.动机,目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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153 hearsay | |
n.谣传,风闻 | |
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154 plausibility | |
n. 似有道理, 能言善辩 | |
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155 enchanted | |
adj. 被施魔法的,陶醉的,入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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156 tragical | |
adj. 悲剧的, 悲剧性的 | |
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157 tragic | |
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的 | |
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158 discourses | |
论文( discourse的名词复数 ); 演说; 讲道; 话语 | |
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159 malady | |
n.病,疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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160 discoursing | |
演说(discourse的现在分词形式) | |
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161 lament | |
n.悲叹,悔恨,恸哭;v.哀悼,悔恨,悲叹 | |
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162 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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163 creed | |
n.信条;信念,纲领 | |
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164 ultimatum | |
n.最后通牒 | |
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165 pervading | |
v.遍及,弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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166 philistine | |
n.庸俗的人;adj.市侩的,庸俗的 | |
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167 mechanism | |
n.机械装置;机构,结构 | |
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168 brutal | |
adj.残忍的,野蛮的,不讲理的 | |
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169 disparage | |
v.贬抑,轻蔑 | |
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170 lamentable | |
adj.令人惋惜的,悔恨的 | |
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171 delusions | |
n.欺骗( delusion的名词复数 );谬见;错觉;妄想 | |
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172 witchcraft | |
n.魔法,巫术 | |
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173 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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174 hull | |
n.船身;(果、实等的)外壳;vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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175 atheism | |
n.无神论,不信神 | |
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176 paralytic | |
adj. 瘫痪的 n. 瘫痪病人 | |
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177 belly | |
n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
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178 contriving | |
(不顾困难地)促成某事( contrive的现在分词 ); 巧妙地策划,精巧地制造(如机器); 设法做到 | |
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179 miserably | |
adv.痛苦地;悲惨地;糟糕地;极度地 | |
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180 cavil | |
v.挑毛病,吹毛求疵 | |
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181 inquiry | |
n.打听,询问,调查,查问 | |
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182 babble | |
v.含糊不清地说,胡言乱语地说,儿语 | |
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183 logic | |
n.逻辑(学);逻辑性 | |
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184 taloned | |
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185 chronic | |
adj.(疾病)长期未愈的,慢性的;极坏的 | |
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186 atrophy | |
n./v.萎缩,虚脱,衰退 | |
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187 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
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188 dexterous | |
adj.灵敏的;灵巧的 | |
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189 quacks | |
abbr.quacksalvers 庸医,骗子(16世纪习惯用水银或汞治疗梅毒的人)n.江湖医生( quack的名词复数 );江湖郎中;(鸭子的)呱呱声v.(鸭子)发出嘎嘎声( quack的第三人称单数 ) | |
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190 decadence | |
n.衰落,颓废 | |
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191 abounds | |
v.大量存在,充满,富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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192 vaporing | |
n.说大话,吹牛adj.蒸发的,自夸的v.自夸,(使)蒸发( vapor的现在分词 ) | |
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193 benevolence | |
n.慈悲,捐助 | |
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194 quackery | |
n.庸医的医术,骗子的行为 | |
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195 amalgam | |
n.混合物;汞合金 | |
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196 sling | |
vt.扔;悬挂;n.挂带;吊索,吊兜;弹弓 | |
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197 brandishes | |
v.挥舞( brandish的第三人称单数 );炫耀 | |
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198 suffrage | |
n.投票,选举权,参政权 | |
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199 compute | |
v./n.计算,估计 | |
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200 pestilences | |
n.瘟疫, (尤指)腺鼠疫( pestilence的名词复数 ) | |
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201 derived | |
vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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202 consolation | |
n.安慰,慰问 | |
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203 atheistic | |
adj.无神论者的 | |
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204 prophesy | |
v.预言;预示 | |
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205 mania | |
n.疯狂;躁狂症,狂热,癖好 | |
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206 credible | |
adj.可信任的,可靠的 | |
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207 unintelligible | |
adj.无法了解的,难解的,莫明其妙的 | |
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208 landmark | |
n.陆标,划时代的事,地界标 | |
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209 contemplate | |
vt.盘算,计议;周密考虑;注视,凝视 | |
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210 hurled | |
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 );大声叫骂 | |
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211 spoke | |
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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212 eminently | |
adv.突出地;显著地;不寻常地 | |
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213 inanity | |
n.无意义,无聊 | |
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214 artifice | |
n.妙计,高明的手段;狡诈,诡计 | |
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215 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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216 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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217 incurable | |
adj.不能医治的,不能矫正的,无救的;n.不治的病人,无救的人 | |
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218 devouring | |
吞没( devour的现在分词 ); 耗尽; 津津有味地看; 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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219 invincible | |
adj.不可征服的,难以制服的 | |
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220 Oxford | |
n.牛津(英国城市) | |
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221 second-hand | |
adj.用过的,旧的,二手的 | |
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222 semblance | |
n.外貌,外表 | |
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223 rugged | |
adj.高低不平的,粗糙的,粗壮的,强健的 | |
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224 reverent | |
adj.恭敬的,虔诚的 | |
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225 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
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226 pedantries | |
n.假学问,卖弄学问,迂腐( pedantry的名词复数 ) | |
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227 reverence | |
n.敬畏,尊敬,尊严;Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称;v.尊敬,敬畏,崇敬 | |
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228 awe | |
n.敬畏,惊惧;vt.使敬畏,使惊惧 | |
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229 clement | |
adj.仁慈的;温和的 | |
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230 saluting | |
v.欢迎,致敬( salute的现在分词 );赞扬,赞颂 | |
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231 shrine | |
n.圣地,神龛,庙;v.将...置于神龛内,把...奉为神圣 | |
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232 forsake | |
vt.遗弃,抛弃;舍弃,放弃 | |
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233 articulation | |
n.(清楚的)发音;清晰度,咬合 | |
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234 idols | |
偶像( idol的名词复数 ); 受崇拜的人或物; 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物; 神像 | |
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235 livelihood | |
n.生计,谋生之道 | |
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236 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
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237 doctrines | |
n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 );教义;学说;(政府政策的)正式声明 | |
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238 rote | |
n.死记硬背,生搬硬套 | |
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239 chaff | |
v.取笑,嘲笑;n.谷壳 | |
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240 prudence | |
n.谨慎,精明,节俭 | |
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241 boundless | |
adj.无限的;无边无际的;巨大的 | |
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242 celebrity | |
n.名人,名流;著名,名声,名望 | |
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243 obsolete | |
adj.已废弃的,过时的 | |
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244 perversions | |
n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 );变坏;变态心理 | |
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245 grandiloquence | |
n.夸张之言,豪言壮语,豪语 | |
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246 malefactor | |
n.罪犯 | |
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247 inflated | |
adj.(价格)飞涨的;(通货)膨胀的;言过其实的;充了气的v.使充气(于轮胎、气球等)( inflate的过去式和过去分词 );(使)膨胀;(使)通货膨胀;物价上涨 | |
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248 gluttonous | |
adj.贪吃的,贪婪的 | |
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249 conceited | |
adj.自负的,骄傲自满的 | |
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250 scotch | |
n.伤口,刻痕;苏格兰威士忌酒;v.粉碎,消灭,阻止;adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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251 pedagogue | |
n.教师 | |
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252 excellence | |
n.优秀,杰出,(pl.)优点,美德 | |
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253 surmised | |
v.臆测,推断( surmise的过去式和过去分词 );揣测;猜想 | |
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254 trumpets | |
喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 ); 小号; 喇叭形物; (尤指)绽开的水仙花 | |
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255 bestowed | |
赠给,授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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256 morbid | |
adj.病的;致病的;病态的;可怕的 | |
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257 invaluable | |
adj.无价的,非常宝贵的,极为贵重的 | |
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258 metaphorical | |
a.隐喻的,比喻的 | |
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259 vehemence | |
n.热切;激烈;愤怒 | |
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260 rigidity | |
adj.钢性,坚硬 | |
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261 expressive | |
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的 | |
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262 intensity | |
n.强烈,剧烈;强度;烈度 | |
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263 ignoble | |
adj.不光彩的,卑鄙的;可耻的 | |
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264 antagonism | |
n.对抗,敌对,对立 | |
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265 redeemed | |
adj. 可赎回的,可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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266 fanatic | |
n.狂热者,入迷者;adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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267 heartily | |
adv.衷心地,诚恳地,十分,很 | |
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268 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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269 demons | |
n.恶人( demon的名词复数 );恶魔;精力过人的人;邪念 | |
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270 incognito | |
adv.匿名地;n.隐姓埋名;adj.化装的,用假名的,隐匿姓名身份的 | |
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271 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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272 glib | |
adj.圆滑的,油嘴滑舌的 | |
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273 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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274 moody | |
adj.心情不稳的,易怒的,喜怒无常的 | |
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275 anecdotes | |
n.掌故,趣闻,轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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276 theatrical | |
adj.剧场的,演戏的;做戏似的,做作的 | |
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277 contortions | |
n.扭歪,弯曲;扭曲,弄歪,歪曲( contortion的名词复数 ) | |
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278 passionate | |
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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279 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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280 persiflage | |
n.戏弄;挖苦 | |
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281 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
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282 tolerance | |
n.宽容;容忍,忍受;耐药力;公差 | |
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283 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
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284 poetical | |
adj.似诗人的;诗一般的;韵文的;富有诗意的 | |
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285 hue | |
n.色度;色调;样子 | |
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286 banished | |
v.放逐,驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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287 fretted | |
焦躁的,附有弦马的,腐蚀的 | |
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288 exasperated | |
adj.恼怒的 | |
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289 expedient | |
adj.有用的,有利的;n.紧急的办法,权宜之计 | |
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290 hostility | |
n.敌对,敌意;抵制[pl.]交战,战争 | |
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291 maniac | |
n.精神癫狂的人;疯子 | |
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292 speculations | |
n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 );思考;投机活动;推断 | |
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293 delirium | |
n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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294 enacted | |
制定(法律),通过(法案)( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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295 discrepancy | |
n.不同;不符;差异;矛盾 | |
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296 perverseness | |
n. 乖张, 倔强, 顽固 | |
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297 mimes | |
n.指手画脚( mime的名词复数 );做手势;哑剧;哑剧演员v.指手画脚地表演,用哑剧的形式表演( mime的第三人称单数 ) | |
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298 toiling | |
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉 | |
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299 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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300 steward | |
n.乘务员,服务员;看管人;膳食管理员 | |
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301 hearth | |
n.壁炉炉床,壁炉地面 | |
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302 valiantly | |
adv.勇敢地,英勇地;雄赳赳 | |
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303 rustic | |
adj.乡村的,有乡村特色的;n.乡下人,乡巴佬 | |
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304 tempted | |
v.怂恿(某人)干不正当的事;冒…的险(tempt的过去分词) | |
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305 penetrate | |
v.透(渗)入;刺入,刺穿;洞察,了解 | |
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306 inspection | |
n.检查,审查,检阅 | |
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307 slumbered | |
微睡,睡眠(slumber的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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308 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
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309 homely | |
adj.家常的,简朴的;不漂亮的 | |
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310 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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311 bog | |
n.沼泽;室...陷入泥淖 | |
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312 primal | |
adj.原始的;最重要的 | |
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313 joyfulness | |
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314 gallantly | |
adv. 漂亮地,勇敢地,献殷勤地 | |
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315 utterances | |
n.发声( utterance的名词复数 );说话方式;语调;言论 | |
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316 laconic | |
adj.简洁的;精练的 | |
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317 alluded | |
提及,暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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318 robustness | |
坚固性,健壮性;鲁棒性 | |
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319 penetration | |
n.穿透,穿人,渗透 | |
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320 valor | |
n.勇气,英勇 | |
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321 bluster | |
v.猛刮;怒冲冲的说;n.吓唬,怒号;狂风声 | |
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322 veracity | |
n.诚实 | |
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323 smuggling | |
n.走私 | |
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324 schooners | |
n.(有两个以上桅杆的)纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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325 bellowed | |
v.发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的过去式和过去分词 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫 | |
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326 ushers | |
n.引座员( usher的名词复数 );招待员;门房;助理教员v.引,领,陪同( usher的第三人称单数 ) | |
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327 futility | |
n.无用 | |
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328 arena | |
n.竞技场,运动场所;竞争场所,舞台 | |
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329 gauging | |
n.测量[试],测定,计量v.(用仪器)测量( gauge的现在分词 );估计;计量;划分 | |
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330 prying | |
adj.爱打听的v.打听,刺探(他人的私事)( pry的现在分词 );撬开 | |
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331 portentous | |
adj.不祥的,可怕的,装腔作势的 | |
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332 grandees | |
n.贵族,大公,显贵者( grandee的名词复数 ) | |
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333 dint | |
n.由于,靠;凹坑 | |
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334 questionable | |
adj.可疑的,有问题的 | |
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335 well-being | |
n.安康,安乐,幸福 | |
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336 tornado | |
n.飓风,龙卷风 | |
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337 demeanor | |
n.行为;风度 | |
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338 artillery | |
n.(军)火炮,大炮;炮兵(部队) | |
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339 lieutenancy | |
n.中尉之职,代理官员 | |
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340 regiment | |
n.团,多数,管理;v.组织,编成团,统制 | |
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341 cynosure | |
n.焦点 | |
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342 tranquil | |
adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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343 abashed | |
adj.窘迫的,尴尬的v.使羞愧,使局促,使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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344 desolate | |
adj.荒凉的,荒芜的;孤独的,凄凉的;v.使荒芜,使孤寂 | |
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345 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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346 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
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