TO any7 reader of the books of Joseph Conrad it must be at once plain that his immediate1 experiences and impressions of life have gone very directly to the making of his art. It may happen often enough that an author's artistic2 life is of no importance to the critic and that his dealing3 with it is merely a personal impertinence and curiosity, but with the life of Joseph Conrad the critic has something to do, because, again and again, this writer deliberately5 evokes6 the power of personal reminiscence, charging it with the burden of his philosophy and the creation of his characters.
With the details of his life we cannot, in any way, be concerned, but with the three backgrounds against whose form and colour 8his art has been placed we have some compulsory7 connection.
Joseph Conrad (Teodor Josef Konrad Karzeriowski) was born on 6th December 1857, and his birthplace was the Ukraine in the south of Poland. In 1862 his father, who had been concerned in the last Polish rebellion, was banished8 to Vologda. The boy lived with his mother and father there until his mother died, when he was sent back to the Ukraine. In 1870 his lather9 died.
Conrad was then sent to school in Cracow and there he remained until 1874, when, following an absolutely compelling impulse, he went to sea. In the month of May, 1878, he first landed on English ground; he knew at that time no English but learnt rapidly, and in the autumn of 1878 joined the Duke of Sutherland as ordinary seaman10. He became a Master in the English Merchant Service in 1884, in which year he was naturalised. In 1894 he left the sea, whose servant he had been for nearly twenty years: he sent the manuscript of a novel that he had been writing at various periods during 9his sea life to Mr Fisher Unwin. With that publisher's acceptance of Almayer's Folly11 the third period of his life began. Since then his history has been the history of his books.
Looking for an instant at the dramatic contrast and almost ironical12 relationship of these three backgrounds—Poland, the Sea, the inner security and tradition of an English country-side—one can realise what they may make of an artist. That early Polish atmosphere, viewed through all the deep light and high shade of a remembered childhood, may be enough to give life and vigour14 to any poet's temperament15. The romantic melancholy16 born of early years in such an atmosphere might well plant deeply in any soul the ironic13 contemplation of an impossible freedom.
Growing into youth in a land whose farthest bounds were held by unlawful tyranny, Conrad may well have contemplated18 the sea as the one unlimited19 monarchy20 of freedom and, even although he were too young to realise what impulses 10those were that drove him, he may have felt that space and size and the force of a power stronger than man were the only conditions of possible liberty. He sought those conditions, found them and clung to them; he found, too, an ironic pity for men who could still live slaves and prisoners to other men when to them also such freedom was possible. That ironic pity he never afterwards lost, and the romance that was in him received a mighty21 impulse from that contrast that he was always now to contemplate17. He discovered the Sea and paid to her at once his debt of gratitude22 and obedience23. He thought it no hard thing to obey her when he might, at the same time, so honestly admire her and she has remained for him, as an artist, the only personality that he has been able wholeheartedly to admire. He found in her something stronger than man and he must have triumphed in the contemplation of the dominion24 that she could exercise, if she would, over the tyrannies that he had known in his childhood. 11He found, too, in her service, the type of man who, most strongly, appealed to him. He had known a world composed of threats, fugitive25 rebellions, wild outbursts of defiance26, inefficient27 struggles against tyranny, he was in the company now of those who realised so completely the relationship of themselves and their duty to their master and their service that there was simply nothing to be said about it. England had, perhaps, long ago called to him with her promise of freedom, and now on an English ship he realised the practice and performance of that freedom, indulged in, as it was, with the fewest possible words. Moreover, with his fund of romantic imagination, he must have been pleased by the contrast of his present company, men who, by sheer lack of imagination, ruled and served the most imaginative force in nature. The wonders of the sea, by day and by night, were unnoticed by his companions, and he admired their lack of vision. Too much vision had driven his country under the heel of Tyranny, had bred in himself a despair of 12any possible freedom for far-seeing men; now he was a citizen of a world where freedom reigned28 because men could not perceive how it could be otherwise; the two sides of the shield were revealed to him.
Then, towards the end of his twenty years' service of the sea, the creative impulse in him demanded an outlet29. He wrote, at stray moments of opportunity during several years, a novel, wrote it for his pleasure and diversion, sent it finally to a publisher with all that lack of confidence in posts and publishers that every author, who cares for his creations, will feel to the end of his days. He has said that if Almayer's Folly had been refused he would never have written again, but we may well believe that, let the fate of that book be what it might, the energy and surprise of his discovery of the sea must have been declared to the world. Almayer's Folly, however, was not rejected; its publication caused The Spectator to remark: "The name of Mr Conrad is new to us, but it appears to us as if he might become the Kipling of the Malay Archipelago." He 13had, therefore, encouragement of the most dignified31 kind from the beginning. He himself, however, may have possibly regarded that day in 1897 when Henley accepted The Nigger of the Narcissus for The New Review as a more important date in his new career. That date may serve for the commencement of the third period of his adventure.
The quiet atmosphere of the England that he had adopted made the final, almost inevitable32 contrast with the earlier periods. With such a country behind him it was possible for him to contemplate in peace the whole "case" of his earlier life. It was as a "case" that he saw it, a "case" that was to produce all those other "cases" that were his books. This has been their history.
II
His books, also, find naturally a division into three parts; the first period, beginning with Almayer's Folly in 1895, ended with Lord Jim in 1900. The second contains 14the two volumes of Youth and Typhoon, the novel Romance that he wrote in collaboration33 with Ford34 Madox Hueffer, and ends with Nostromo, published in 1903. The third period begins, after a long pause, in 1907 with The Secret Agent, and receives its climax35 with the remarkable36 popularity of Chance in 1914, and Victory (1915).
His first period was a period of struggle, struggle with a foreign language, struggle with a technique that was always, from the point of view of the "schools," to remain too strong for him, struggles with the very force and power of his reminiscences that were urging themselves upon him, now at the moment of their contemplated freedom, like wild beasts behind iron bars. Almayer's Folly and The Outcast of the Islands (the first of these is sequel to the second) were remarkable in the freshness of their discovery of a new world. It was not that their world had not been found before, but rather that Conrad, by the force of his own individual discovery, proclaimed his find with a new voice and a new vigour. In the 15character of Almayer, of Aissa, of Willems, of Bahalatchi and Abdulla there was a new psychology37 that gave promise of great things. Nevertheless these early stories were overcharged with atmosphere, were clumsy in their development and conveyed in then style a sense of rhetoric38 and lack of ease. His vision of his background was pulled out beyond its natural intensity39 and his own desire to make it overwhelming was so obvious as to frighten the creature into a determination to be, simply out of malicious40 perversity41, anything else.
These two novels were followed by a volume of short stories, Tales of Unrest, that reveal, quite nakedly, Conrad's difficulties. One study in this book, The Return, with its redundancies and overemphasis, is the crudest parody42 on its author and no single tale in the volume succeeds. It was, however, as though, with these efforts, Conrad flung himself free, for ever, from his apprenticeship43; there appeared in 1898 what remains44 perhaps still his most perfect work, The Nigger of the Narcissus. This 16was a story entirely45 of the sea, of the voyage of a ship from port to port and of the influence upon that ship and upon the human souls that she contained, of the approaching shadow of death, an influence ironical, melancholy, never quite horrible, and always tender and humorous. Conrad must himself have loved, beyond all other vessels46, the Narcissus. Never again, except perhaps in The Mirror of the Sea, was he to be so happily at his ease with any of his subjects. The book is a gallery of remarkably47 distinct and authentic48 portraits, the atmosphere is held in perfect restraint, and the overhanging theme is never, for an instant, abandoned. It is, above all, a record of lovingly cherished reminiscence. Of cherished reminiscence also was the book that closed the first period of his work, Lord Jim. This was to remain, until the publication of Chance, his most popular novel. It is the story of a young Englishman's loss of honour in a moment of panic and his victorious49 recovery. The first half of the book is a finely sustained development of a 17vividly remembered scene, the second half has the inevitability51 of a moral idea pursued to its romantic end rather than the inevitability of life. Here then in 1900 Conrad had worked himself free of the underground of the jungle and was able to choose his path. His choice was still dictated52 by the subjects that he remembered most vividly50, but upon these rewards of observation his creative genius was working. James Wait, Donkin, Jim, Marlowe were men whom he had known, but men also to whom he had given a new birth.
There appeared now in Youth, Heart of Darkness and Typhoon three of the finest short stories in the English language, work of reminiscence, but glowing at its heart with all the lyrical exultation53 and flame of a passion that had been the ruling power of a life that was now to be abandoned. That salutation of farewell is in Youth and its evocation54 of the East, in The Heart of Darkness and its evocation of the forests that are beyond civilisation55, in Typhoon and its evocation of the sea. He was never, after 18these tales, to write again of the sea as though he were still sailing on it. From this time he belonged, with regret, and with some ironic contempt, to the land.
This second period closed with the production of a work that was deliberately created rather than reminiscent, Nostromo. Conrad may have known Dr Monyngham, Decoud, Mrs Could, old Viola; but; they became stronger than he and, in their completed personalities56, owed no man anything for their creation. There is much to be said about Nostromo, in many ways the greatest of all Conrad's works, but, for the moment, one would only say that its appearance (it appeared first, of all ironical births, in a journal—T.P.'s Weekly—and astonished and bewildered its readers week by week, by its determination not to finish and yield place to something simpler) caused no comment whatever, that its critics did not understand it, and its author's own admirers were puzzled by its unlikeness to the earlier sea stories.
Nostromo was followed by a pause—one 19can easily imagine that its production did, for a moment, utterly57 exhaust its creator. When, however, in 1907 appeared The Secret Agent, a new attitude was most plainly visible. He was suddenly detached, writing now of "cases" that interested him as an investigator58 of human life, but called from his heart no burning participation59 of experience. He is tender towards Winnie Verloc and her old mother, the two women in The Secret Agent, but he studies them quite dispassionately. That love that clothed Jim so radiantly, that fierce contempt that in An Outcast of the Islands accompanied Willems to his degraded death, is gone. We have the finer artist, but we have lost something of that earlier compelling interest. The Secret Agent is a tale of secret service in London; it contains the wonderfully created figure of Verloc and it expresses, to the full, Conrad's hatred62 of those rows and rows of bricks and mortar63 that are so completely accepted by unimaginative men. In 1911 Under Western Eyes spoke64 strongly of a Russian influence 20Turg閚iev and Dostoievsky had too markedly their share in the creation of Razumov and the cosmopolitan65 circle in Geneva. Moreover, it is a book whose heart is cold.
A volume of short stories, A Set of Six, illustrating66 still more emphatically Conrad's new detachment, appeared in 1908 and is remarkable chiefly for an ironically humorous story of the Napoleonic wars—The Duel—a tale too long, perhaps, but admirable for its sustained note. In 1912 he seemed, in another volume, 'Twixt Land and Sea, to unite some of his earlier glow with all his later mastery of his method. A Smile, of Fortune and The Secret Sharer are amazing in the beauty of retrospect67 that they leave behind them in the soul of the reader. The sea is once more revealed to us, but it is revealed now as something that Conrad has conquered. His contact with the land has taken from him something of his earlier intimacy68 with his old mistress. Nevertheless The Secret Sharer is a most marvellous story, marvellous in its completeness of theme and treatment, marvellous in the 21contrast between the confined limitations of its stage and the vast implications of its moral idea. Finally in 1914 appeared Chance, by no means the finest of his books, but catching69 the attention and admiration70 of that wider audience who had remained indifferent to the force and beauty of The Nigger of the Narcissus, of Lord Jim, of Nostromo. With the popular success of Chance the first period of his work is closed. On the possible results of that popularity, their effect on the artist and on the whole world of men, one must offer, here at any rate, no prophecy.
III
To any reader who cares, seriously, to study the art of Joseph Conrad, no better advice could be offered than that he should begin with the reading of the two volumes that have been omitted from the preceding list. Some Reminiscences and The Mirror of the Sea demand consideration on the threshold of any survey of this author's work, because 22they reveal, from a personal, wilful71 and completely anarchistic72 angle, the individuality that can only be discovered, afterwards, objectively, in the process of creation.
In both these books Conrad is, quite simply, himself for anyone who cares to read. They are books dictated by no sense of precedent73 nor form nor fashion. They are books of their own kind, even more than are the novels. Some Reminiscences has only Tristram Shandy for its rival in the business of getting everything done without moving a step forward. The Mirror of the Sea has no rival at all.
We may suppose that the author did really intend to write his reminiscences when he began. He found a moment that would make, a good starting-point, a moment in the writing of his first book, Almayer's Folly, at the conclusion or, more truly, cessation of Some Reminiscences, that moment is still hanging in mid-air, the writing of Almayer has not proceeded two lines farther down the stage, the maid-servant, is still standing74 in the doorway75, the hands of 23the clock have covered five minutes of the dial. What has occurred is simply that the fascination76 of the subject has been too strong. It is of the very essence of Conrad's art that one thing so powerfully suggests to him another that to start him on anything at all is a tragedy, because life is so short. His reminiscences would be easy enough to command would they only not take on a life of their own and shout at their unfortunate author: "Ah! yes. I'm interesting, of course, but don't you remember...?"
The whole adventure of writing his first book is crowded with incident, not because he considers it a wonderful book or himself a marvellous figure, but simply because any incident in the world must, in his eyes, be crowded about with other incidents. There is the pen one wrote the book with, that pen that belonged to poor old Captain B———— of the Nonsuch who... or there is the window just behind the writing-table that looked out into the river, that river that reminds one of the year '88 when...
In the course of his thrilling voyage of 24discovery we are, by a kind of most blessed miracle, told something of Mr Nicholas B. and of the author's own most fascinating uncle. We even, by an extension of the miracle, learn something of Conrad as ship's officer (this the merest glimpse) and as a visitor to his uncle's house in Poland.
So by chance are these miraculous77 facts and glimpses that we catch at them with eager, extended hands, praying, imploring78 them to stay; indeed those glimpses may seem to us the more wonderful in that they have been, by us, only partially79 realised.
Nevertheless, in spite of its eager incoherence, at the same time both breathless, and, by the virtue81 of its author's style, solemn, we do obtain, in addition to our glimpses of Poland and the sea, one or two revelations of Conrad himself. Our revelations come to us partly through our impression of his own zest82 for life, a zest always ironical, often sceptical, but always eager and driven by a throbbing83 impulse of vitality84. Partly also through certain deliberate utterances85. He tells us: 25"Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills. It rests, notably86, amongst others, on the idea of Fidelity87. At a time when nothing which is not revolutionary in some way or other can expect to attract much attention I have not been revolutionary in my writings." (Page 20.)
Or again:
"All claim to special righteousness awakens88 in me that scorn and anger from which a philosophical89 mind should be free." (Page 21.)
Or again:
"Even before the most seductive reveries I have remained mindful of that sobriety of interior life, that asceticism90 of sentiment, in which alone the naked form of truth, such as one conceives it, such as one feels it, can be rendered without shame." (Page 194.)
This simplicity91, this fidelity, this hatred of self-assertion and self-satisfaction, this sobriety—these qualities do give some implication of the colour of the work that will 26arise from them; and when to these qualities we add that before-mentioned zest and vigour we must have some true conception of the nature of the work that he was to do.
It is for this that Some Reminiscences is valuable. To read it as a detached work, to expect from it the amiable92 facetiousness93 of a book of modern memories or the heavy authoritative94 coherence80 of the My Autobiography95 or My Life of some eminent96 scientist or theologian, is to be most grievously disappointed.
If the beginning is bewilderment the end is an impression of crowding, disordered life, of a tapestry97 richly dark, with figures woven into the very thread of it and yet starting to life with an individuality all their own. No book reveals more clearly the reasons both of Conrad's faults and of his merits. No book of his is more likely by reason of its honesty and simplicity to win him true friends. As a work of art there is almost everything to be said against it, except that it has that supreme98 gift that remains, at the end, almost all that we ask of any work of 27art, overwhelming vitality. But it is formless, ragged99, incoherent, inconclusive, a fragment of eager, vivid, turbulent reminiscence poured into a friend's ear in a moment of sudden confidence. That may or may not be the best way to conduct reminiscences; the book remains a supremely100 intimate, engaging and enlightening introduction to its author.
With The Mirror of the Sea we are on very different ground. As I have already said, this is Conrad's happiest book—indeed, with the possible exception of The Nigger of the Narcissus, his only happy book. He is happy because he is able, for a moment, to forget his distrust, his dread101, his inherent ironical pessimism102. He is here permitting himself the whole range of his enthusiasm and admiration, and behind that enthusiasm there is a quiet, sure confidence that is strangely at variance103 with the distrust of his later novels.
The book seems at first sight to be a collection of almost haphazard104 papers, with such titles as Landfalls and Departures, 28Overdue and Missing, Rulers of East and West, The Nursery of the Craft. No reader however, can conclude it without having conveyed to him a strangely binding105 impression of Unity30. He has been led, it will seem to him, mto the very heart of the company of those who know the Sea as she really is, he has been made free of a great order.
The foundation of his intimacy springs from three sources—the majesty106, power and cruelty of the Sea herself, the homely107 reality of the lives of the men who serve her, the vibrating, beautiful life of the ships that sail upon her. This is the Trilogy that holds in its hands the whole life and pageant108 of the sea; it is because Conrad holds all three elements in exact and perfect balance that this book has its unique value, its power both of realism, for this is the life of man, and of romance, which is the life of the sea.
Conrad's attitude to the Sea herself, in this book, is one of lyrical and passionate60 worship. He sees, with all the vivid accuracy of his realism, her deceits, her 29cruelties, her inhuman109 disregard of the lives of men, but, finally, her glory is enough for him. He will write of her like this:
"The sea—this truth must be confessed—has no generosity110. No display of manly111 qualities—courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness—has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power. The ocean has the conscienceless temper of a savage112 autocrat113 spoiled by much adulation. He cannot brook114 the slightest appearance of defiance, and has remained the irreconcilable115 enemy of ships and men ever since ships and men had the unheard-of audacity116 to go afloat together in the face of his frown... the most amazing wonder of the deep is its unfathomable cruelty."
Nevertheless she holds him her most willing slave and he is that because he believes that she alone in all the world is worthy117 to indulge this cruelty. She positively118 "brings it off," this assertion of her right, and once he is assured of that, he will yield absolute obedience. In this worship of the Sea and the winds that rouse her he allows himself a 30lyrical freedom that he was afterwards to check. He was never again, not even in Typhoon and Youth, to write with such free and spontaneous lyricism as in his famous passage about the "West Wind."
The Mirror of the Sea forms then the best possible introduction to Conrad's work, because it attests119, more magnificently and more confidently than anything else that he has written, his faith and his devotion. It presents also, however, in its treatment of the second element of his subject, the men on the ships, many early sketches120 of the characters whom he, both before and afterwards, developed so fully61 in his novels. About these same men there are certain characteristics to be noticed, characteristics that must be treated more fully in a later analysis of Conrad's creative power, but that nevertheless demand some mention here as witnesses of the emotions, the humours, the passions that he, most naturally, observes. It is, in the first place, to be marked that almost all the men upon the sea, from "poor Captain B————, who used 31to suffer from sick headaches, in his young days, every time he was approaching a coast," to the dramatic Dominic ("from the slow, imperturbable121 gravity of that broad-chested man you would think he had never smiled in his life"), are silent and thoughtful. Granted this silence, Conrad in his half-mournful, half-humorous survey, is instantly attracted by any possible contrast. Captain B———- dying in his home, with two grave, elderly women sitting beside him in the quiet room, "his eyes resting fondly upon the faces in the room, upon the pictures on the wall, upon all the familiar objects of that home whose abiding122 and clear image must have flashed often on his memory in times of stress and anxiety at sea"—"poor P————," with "his cheery temper, his admiration for the jokes in Punch, his little oddities—like his strange passion for borrowing looking-glasses, for instance"—that captain who "did everything with an air which put your attention on the alert and raised your expectations, but the result somehow was always on stereotyped123 32lines, unsuggestive, empty of any lesson that one could lay to heart"—that other captain in whom "through a touch of self-seeking that modest artist of solid merit became untrue to his temperament"—here are little sketches for those portraits that afterwards we are to know so well, Marlowe, Captain M'Whirr, Captain Lingard, Captain Mitchell and many others. Here we may fancy that his eye lingers as though in the mere4 enumeration124 of little oddities and contrasted qualities he sees such themes, such subjects, such "cases" that it is hard, almost beyond discipline, to leave them. Nevertheless they have to be left. He has obtained his broader contrast by his juxtaposition125 of the curious muddled126 jumble127 of the human life against the broad, august power of the Sea—that is all that his present subject demands, that is his theme and his picture.
Not all his theme, however; there remains the third element in it, the soul of the ship. It is, perhaps, after all, with the life of the ship that The Mirror of The Sea, ultimately, has most to do. 33As other men write of the woman they have loved, so does Conrad write of his ships. He sees them, in this book that is so especially dedicated128 to their pride and beauty, coloured with a fine glow of romance, but nevertheless he realises them with all the accurate detail of a technician who describes his craft. You may learn of the raising and letting go of an anchor, and he will tell the journalists of their crime in speaking of "casting" an anchor when the true technicality is "brought up"—"to an anchor" understood. In the chapter on "Yachts" he provides as much technical detail as any book of instruction need demand and then suddenly there come these sentences—"the art of handling slips is finer, perhaps, than the art of handling men."... "A ship is a creature which we have brought into the world, as it were on purpose to keep us up to mark."
Indeed it is the ship that gives that final impression of unity, of which I have already spoken, to the book. She grows, as it were, from her birth, in no ordered sequence of 34events, but admitting us ever more closely into her intimacy, telling us, at first shyly, afterwards more boldly, little things about herself, confiding129 to us her trials, appealing sometimes to our admiration, indulging sometimes our humour. Conrad is tender to her as he is to nothing human. He watches her shy, new, in the dock, "her reputation all to make yet in the talk of the seamen130 who were to share their life with her."... "She looked modest to me. I imagined her diffident, lying very quiet, with her side nestling shyly against the wharf131 to which she was made fast with very new lines, intimidated132 by the company of her tried and experienced bisters already familiar with all the violences of the ocean and the exacting133 love of men."
Her friend stands there on the quay134 and bids her be of good courage; he salutes135 her grace and spirit—he echoes, with all the implied irony136 of contrast, his companion's "Ships are all right...."
He explains the many kinds of ships that there are—the rogues137, the wickedly malicious, 35the sly, the benevolent138, the proud, the adventurous139, the staid, the decorous. For even the worst of these he has indulgences that he would never offer to the soul of man. He cannot be severe before such a world of fine spirits.
Finally, in the episode of the Tremolino and her tragic140 end (an end that has in it a suggestion of that later story, Freya of the Seven Inlands), in that sinister141 adventure of Dominic and the vile142 Caesar, he shows us, in miniature, what it is that he intends to do with all this material. He gives us the soul of the Tremolino, the soul of Dominic, the soul of the sea upon which they are voyaging. Without ever deserting the realism upon which he builds his foundations he raises upon it his house of romance.
This book remains by far the easiest, the kindest, the most friendly of all his books. He has been troubled here by no questions of form, of creation, of development, whether of character or of incident.
It is the best of all possible prologues143 to his more creative work.
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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artistic
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dealing
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mere
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deliberately
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evokes
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compulsory
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lather
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| n.(肥皂水的)泡沫，激动 | |
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seaman
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folly
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ironical
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ironic
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vigour
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temperament
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melancholy
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contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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contemplated
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unlimited
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monarchy
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mighty
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gratitude
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obedience
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dominion
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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26
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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27
inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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28
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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29
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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30
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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31
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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32
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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33
collaboration
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| n.合作，协作；勾结 | |
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34
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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35
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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36
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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37
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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38
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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39
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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40
malicious
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| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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41
perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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42
parody
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| n.打油诗文，诙谐的改编诗文，拙劣的模仿；v.拙劣模仿，作模仿诗文 | |
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43
apprenticeship
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| n.学徒身份；学徒期 | |
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44
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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45
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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46
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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47
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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48
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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49
victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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50
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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51
inevitability
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| n.必然性 | |
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52
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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53
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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54
evocation
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| n. 引起，唤起 n. <古> 召唤，招魂 | |
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55
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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56
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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57
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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58
investigator
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| n.研究者，调查者，审查者 | |
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59
participation
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| n.参与，参加，分享 | |
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60
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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61
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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62
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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63
mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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64
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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65
cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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66
illustrating
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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67
retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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68
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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69
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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70
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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71
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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72
anarchistic
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| 无政府主义的 | |
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73
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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74
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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75
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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76
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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77
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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78
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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79
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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80
coherence
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| n.紧凑；连贯；一致性 | |
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81
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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82
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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83
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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84
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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85
utterances
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| n.发声( utterance的名词复数 )；说话方式；语调；言论 | |
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86
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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87
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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88
awakens
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的第三人称单数 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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89
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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90
asceticism
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| n.禁欲主义 | |
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91
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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92
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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93
facetiousness
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| n.滑稽 | |
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94
authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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95
autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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96
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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97
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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98
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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99
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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100
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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101
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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102
pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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103
variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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104
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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105
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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106
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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107
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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108
pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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109
inhuman
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| adj.残忍的，不人道的，无人性的 | |
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110
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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111
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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112
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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113
autocrat
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| n.独裁者；专横的人 | |
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114
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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115
irreconcilable
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| adj.（指人）难和解的，势不两立的 | |
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116
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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117
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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118
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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119
attests
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| v.证明( attest的第三人称单数 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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120
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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121
imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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122
abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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123
stereotyped
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| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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124
enumeration
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| n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查 | |
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125
juxtaposition
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| n.毗邻，并置，并列 | |
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126
muddled
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| adj.混乱的；糊涂的；头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱，弄糟( muddle的过去式)；使糊涂；对付，混日子 | |
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127
jumble
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| vt.使混乱，混杂；n.混乱；杂乱的一堆 | |
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128
dedicated
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| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
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129
confiding
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| adj.相信人的，易于相信的v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的现在分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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130
seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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131
wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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132
intimidated
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| v.恐吓；威胁adj.害怕的；受到威胁的 | |
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133
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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134
quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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135
salutes
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| n.致敬，欢迎，敬礼( salute的名词复数 )v.欢迎，致敬( salute的第三人称单数 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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136
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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137
rogues
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| n.流氓( rogue的名词复数 )；无赖；调皮捣蛋的人；离群的野兽 | |
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138
benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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139
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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140
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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141
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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142
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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143
prologues
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| n.序言，开场白( prologue的名词复数 ) | |
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