Of that Brotherhood1 of Progress, united by a love, sometimes for each other and always for mankind, if Voltaire was the leader, and d’Alembert the thinker, Galiani was certainly the wit. In his own day he was celebrated2 as the man who made Paris laugh—and ponder—by his famous ‘Dialogues on Corn;’ and in our day he is remembered as the gay little buffoon3 of the eighteenth century and the author of a most amusing correspondence. Voltaire went on to declare the Abbé must be as much like his Dialogues as two jets of fire are like each other; and Diderot swore that if he had written a word of the book, he must have written it exactly as it was.
Light, sparkling, irresponsible, like the brilliant babble5 of some precocious6 child, not in the
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THE ABBé FERDINAND GALIANI.
From a Print.
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least hampered7 by respect for the convenances, as quick and flashing as sunshine on diamonds, as bubbling and spontaneous as a dancing little mountain torrent8, perfectly9 free from the bitterness, the malignity10, and the sarcasm11 which make Voltaire’s jests so terrible—the talk and the writing of Galiani are alike unique. The ‘dear little Abbé’ of the women, with his dwarf12’s figure and his great head, his crafty13 Italian brain to conceive a brilliant scheme and his easy flow of wit to present it to his world, stands out alone against the horizon of the eighteenth century.
Ferdinand Galiani first saw the light at Chieti, in Abruzzo, on December 2, 1728. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, in two senses at least. His father was Royal Auditor14 in one of the provinces of the Neapolitan Government; and his uncle was Monseigneur Celestin Galiani, first chaplain to the King of Naples, and a most wealthy, learned, and enlightened churchman.
Little Ferdinand was eight when he was sent to be educated, with his elder brother, Bernard, under this uncle’s supervision15 at Naples. For a time the two children were taught at the convent of the Celestins, as Monseigneur was in Rome, negotiating a peace on behalf of the King of the Two Sicilies. When he returned, he took the boys back to his own palace and gave them the best{64} and the most delightful16 of all forms of learning, the society of clever people. The visitors soon recognised that the way to the uncle’s heart was through the precocious brain of the little nephew—that to teach Ferdinand was to delight Monseigneur. Whatever brother Bernard may have been, Ferdinand was surely the aptest and sharpest of infant prodigies17. He heard discussed around him antiquarianism, history, literature, commerce; and not one seed of information fell on barren ground. Many years after Grimm declared that there was only one man in Paris who really knew Latin, and he was the Abbé Galiani.
He was still a mere18 boy when he represented Bernard at a meeting of the Academy of Naples and read an article on the Immaculate Conception. The worthy19 Academicians, naturally shocked at such a little creature attempting a subject so serious, forbade him to read it. ‘Very well,’ thinks young Ferdinand, ‘I can wait.’ The executioner of Naples died soon after. The Academy was famous for its éloges funèbres. And behold20, there appears, in wicked and most unmistakable travesty21 of the Academical funeral orations22, the éloge of the executioner! The Academy was very indignant, the world very much amused, and Galiani had made his bow to the public in the r?le he was never to relinquish24. He confessed all{65} to the First Minister, Tanucci. Tanucci introduced him to the King and Queen of Naples, who were delighted, and then appeased25 the Academy by condemning26 the delinquent27 to ten days’ spiritual exercises in a neighbouring convent.
At sixteen the boy was already an ardent28 Political Economist29. As England was the country where that science was brought to perfection, he learnt English, translated Locke’s ‘Essay on Money,’ and set to work to write one himself. All the time he was studying diligently30 the ancient navigation, peoples, and commerce of the Mediterranean31, throwing off a satire32 here, a mocking set of verses there, and cultivating that pretty talent for epigram and story-telling.
When ‘Money’ was finished, he read it to Monseigneur, without mentioning its authorship. ‘Why do not you give your mind to serious works such as that?’ said the King’s chaplain, and praised the thing extravagantly33. When Galiani told his secret, Monseigneur was so delighted that he at once set to work at Court to procure34 this promising35 nephew something really worth having. At two-and-twenty years old, having never studied theology and having taken minor36 orders only, and with the sole object of obtaining these emoluments37, Galiani found himself the possessor of the benefice of Centola and the abbey of Saint-Laurent, while{66} a dispensation from Rome gave him the title of Monseigneur and the honour of the mitre. Soon after, the admiring Court of Naples also presented him with the rich abbey of Saint Catherine of Celano.
The wonder is, not that Galiani writhed38 with laughter (like the little Punchinello his friends dubbed39 him) when he alluded40 to the religion of his fathers, but that to the end of his days he saw in that religion, beneath its shameless venality41 and its hideous42 moral corruptions43, some saving truth to bless and comfort man’s soul. When all Paris laughed at the credulity of Madame Geoffrin, whose death was said to have been brought about from over-devotion to her religious duties, it was Galiani who wrote that he considered that unbelief was ‘the greatest effort the mind of man could make against his natural instincts and wishes.... As the soul grows old, belief reappears.’ Unlike nearly all his philosophic44 friends, if his own illusions were few, he was careful to leave undisturbed those of happier people.
In respect to the emoluments he received from Rome, and on which he fattened45 all his life, it may be justly said that he took them as a man takes a fortune out of a business he knows to be rotten, congratulating himself on his own perspicacity46, and believing that beneath the rottenness there{67} still lies the making of a true and honest enterprise.
The Neapolitan Government having adopted all the ideas suggested in ‘Money,’ the fortunate young gentleman who had written it started off in excellent spirits, in November 1751, for Rome, Florence, and Venice. The Pope, and all the grandees47, savants, and littérateurs in Italy petted and made much of the agreeable little prodigy48.
In June 1753 his uncle, Celestin, died, leaving Ferdinand his fortune. Galiani still remained in Naples, the spirit and the delight of the brilliant society that Monseigneur had gathered about him. But there was never any time in his life when it was enough for this wit to be wit only. He said of himself that he had all the vices49, and his friends declared he had all the tastes. The friends were right. He soon began to make a collection of the stones thrown up by Vesuvius, classified them, wrote a beautiful dissertation50 on them, and sent them to the Pope with the inscription51, Holy Father, command that these stones be made bread. Benedict the Fourteenth was a comfortable person who loved a joke and thought it worth its reward. He replied by giving the little Abbé yet another benefice, Amalfi, worth three hundred ducats. Then, of course, the Geological Academy of Herculaneum must do something more for such a{68} lively geologist53 than merely make him a member of its body: it presented him with a pension.
In 1758 this spoilt child of fortune had the honour of composing Pope Benedict’s funeral oration23. Then he was made Chancellor54 to the King, and, in 1759, Secretary to the Embassy in Paris.
It was the turning-point of his life, and the greatest event of his history. But for that appointment, he might have been nothing, after all, but some brilliant little local light, with his sparkling Southern talents only employed for the advantage of Italy and certainly never heard of beyond her borders. To it he owed all his fame and the gayest and most successful epoch55 in his existence. To it the world owes its picture of the man himself, the ‘Dialogues on Corn,’ and the Correspondence with Madame d’épinay.
Galiani was at first pleased to go. But he was thirty years old, and had never yet been out of his own country. She had done generously by him, and he was extremely rich. On the other hand, the secretaryship involved further large emoluments, and Galiani was not one of those rare, wise people who know how easy it is to be rich enough; he had not learned from the possession of money how very little it can buy. Paris was then not only the capital of France, but the social capital of{69} the world. She was at the height of her ancient glory. Revolutions had not shattered her splendid buildings or the delicate fabric56 of the most easy, polished, accomplished57 society under heaven. She was the finishing school of Europe. Her language was the language of many Courts, of Frederick of Prussia, and of the letters of Catherine the Great. From her printing presses she poured forth58, almost daily, masterpieces of literature, or pamphlets which were to change dynasties and shake kingdoms. On her throne sat Louis the Fifteenth, as rotten as the society of which he was the head, but, like that society, with a rottenness covered by a magnificence which awed59 investigation60 into silence. Choiseul was the minister in name, and Madame de Pompadour in reality; and over the salons62, then in the height of their power and distinction, presided women ‘who in the decline of their beauty revealed the dawn of their intelligence.’
Such a world should have pleased Galiani, or any happy Southerner who loved to bask63 in the warmth of prosperity and shrug64 his shoulders at the possibility of future disaster. But at first it did not. He was cold and homesick. His health, he wrote, would certainly not survive the unequal climate. Foreign customs, bad air, detestable water, everything here is noxious65 to my Italian{70} temperament66! Then Choiseul received the petted wit of the Neapolitan parties coldly, nonchalantly, indifferently. And Versailles—Versailles was yet more objectionable. When Galiani was presented there in June 1760, with his four-and-a-half-foot figure overladen with the ridiculous gala dress of the period, the men burst into open laughter and the women sneered67 behind their fans. Why should that cruel age, which had no compassion68 on the helplessness of little children, on poverty, on misfortune, on weakness, and which, when it did not mock at moral suffering, fled from it as from a disease one might catch—why should such an age pity the sensibilities of a deformed69 little foreigner, an absurd dwarf of an abbé, whom no one in Paris (which is to say the world) had ever heard of before?
Galiani was more than a match for the laughers. ‘Sire,’ he said to the King, ‘you now see only a sample of the secretary; the secretary will arrive later.’ The King was delighted; but the secretary retired70 with that cruel laughter ringing in his heart. For a whole year he pleaded passionately71 for his recall. He wrote bitterly of the French as ‘a mobile and superficial race full at once of passion and lightness.... My clothes, my character, my way of thinking, and all my natural defects will always{71} make me insupportable to this people and to myself.’
From being the most popular and successful man in Naples, he was in Paris the insignificant72 secretary at whom, as he passed by, men mocked with the tongue in the cheek. They did not indeed mock for ever. His own sharp tongue was bound to win him respect and reputation. First it was a jest uttered here; and then a story, with his own inimitable gesticulation, told there. This little secretary is going to be amusing! Further, he was always accompanied by his ame damnée, the most intelligent of monkeys, who was only something less entertaining than his master. The master, moreover, could play on the clavecin, and sing to it, wonderfully. Even for the Parisians of that day his conversation was free, na?f, unhampered. The man has ideas, as we all have, on the liberty of the Press and the Masses, on the Deluge73 that is coming after us; only he can put those ideas so that the expression reads like a romance or sounds like a jest!
Then he was introduced to Baron74 Gleichen, and to Grimm, the first journalist in Europe. Grimm made him known to Madame d’épinay; and his acquaintance with her, with Madame Necker, with Madame Geoffrin, and with Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, implied an introduction to{72} the society of all witty75 Paris, and of all travelling England. He became the friend of d’Alembert, who had just published his ‘Elements of Philosophy,’ of Diderot, of d’Holbach, of Helvétius, of Morellet, and of Marmontel. He met that magnificent icicle, Saint Lambert, still writing his ‘Seasons’ and stealing Madame d’Houdetot from Rousseau. He knew Suard, Thomas, Raynal, and that picturesque76 and ill-fated young Spaniard, the Marquis de Mora.
In a word, by 1760, Galiani was launched—the gayest little skiff that ever danced into a summer sea. The Parisian climate improved in the twinkling of an eye; the bad water became drinkable; the light and fickle77 people turned into one ‘loving and worthy to be loved.’ Some fool of a wit, who had declared that the Abbé would never succeed at Court because he thought too loud and spoke78 too low, must needs eat his words. However low he spoke now, the audience always heard. They expected a bon mot or a na?veté, every time he opened his mouth, and he did not disappoint them. Instead of a poor little dwarf from that God-forsaken Naples, the secretary became ‘the prettiest little Harlequin Italy has produced,’ ‘the incomparable Abbé,’ ‘the head of Machiavelli,’ ‘Machiavellino,’ ‘ce dr?le de Napolitain,’ ‘Plato, with the verve and gestures{73} of Harlequin.’ In a word, he was the mode. The women raved79 about him—he understood them so well!—and fought among each other for his presence at their parties. If Choiseul remained cold, his Duchess—‘the gentlest, amiablest, civil little creature that ever came out of a fairy egg,’ said Horace Walpole—was as fond of her Abbé as were her society sisters. Galiani was asked everywhere and went everywhere. He had found his true element at last. How tame and provincial81 the Neapolitan parties looked now! How dull and restricted were ambitions that limited one to Italy! Paris was the theatre of Europe—with a crowded audience of all nations watching, half laughing and half afraid, the next move in her breathless tragi-comedy. There was hardly ever a more effective actor on her boards than this buffoon, this keen-set little wit, this jester, with here and there, now and then, as if by accident, some poignant82 meaning, some thrilling prophecy beating beneath his jests, and startling his hearers to a brief and sudden gravity.
In spite of the facts that Galiani was busy learning French, making a Commentary on Horace, and working at the duties of his secretaryship with an entirely83 superfluous84 energy, his social life in Paris began early in the morning. It was his custom to stop in bed till the middle of the day{74} and thus receive his friends; tenir son lit de justice, he called it. Sometimes he would wrap himself up, and sit on the bed with his little legs crossed like a tailor. He talked a great deal—a great deal too much, said some people; he had no ‘flashes of silence.’ When his friend began speaking he waited impatiently to leap into the conversation himself; and when the friend attempted to make himself heard, ‘Let me finish,’ says the Abbé, ‘you will have plenty of time to answer me back;’ but he took good care that that time never came. ‘Paris,’ he used to say regretfully in later years, ‘is the only place where they listened to me;’ and one of his biographers declares pathetically that he died of ‘paroles rentrées et non écoutées.’
No wonder he was so full of life in the French capital. The talk of the morning was always followed by more talk in the evening. On Thursdays, it was Madame Geoffrin’s turn to receive. This ‘nurse of philosophy,’ this calm, placid85, old hostess with her quiet, orthodox principles, and her prudent86, regular life, could no more help loving this little libertine87 of a wit than could her lighter88 sisters. He was ‘her abbé, her little abbé, her petite chose.’ As for him, he loved her without after-thought, and with the whole-hearted impetuosity of his{75} nature. He declared that she inspired him with wit, that her arm-chairs were the tripods of Apollo and he was the Sibyl. Her very primness90 egged him on to more reckless stories, to wilder buffooneries; but he went away laughing at her and loving her and respecting her, and did all to the end of his life.
There was another woman whom he also respected, but whom he did not love. With her one intense, overmastering passion centred on her husband, Madame Necker was for ever the Calvinist pastor’s daughter, ‘rigid, frigid91, and good.’ One female friend spoke of her acrimoniously92 as ‘soaked in starch,’ and Galiani himself complained, without by any means intending a compliment, of her ‘cold demeanour of decency93.’ How such a ribald, rollicking person as himself ever gained admittance to a Puritan household would be a wonder in our day; but in that day if, as Galiani himself wrote, one was only to know virtuous94 people, the number of one’s friends would be alarmingly reduced. And—and—Madame Necker’s salon61 was not for herself or her acquaintance; it was for her husband. Across the dinner-table on those Fridays the lively and daring Italian would defend with his rapid, reckless tongue the causes which his heavy host could only maintain with his pen. Leaning after dinner{76} against the chimney corner, with his sparkling eyes lighting95 up his keen pale face, with his dwarf’s figure dressed always with an infinite neatness and nicety, Galiani would fight single-handed that battle against the Economists96, his own and Necker’s special antipathies97, and fight it, too, against such men as Thomas, Raynal, and Morellet. No wonder Madame Necker overlooked her visitor’s peccadilloes98. The little Abbé had such a resistless torrent of logic52! If the other side had reason in its favour, no one had a chance of advancing that reason. Directly anyone else began to talk, Galiani slipped away, and, there being no Opposition99, Parliament rose.
After the orthodoxy of Madame Geoffrin and the decency of Madame Necker, the gatherings100 of Baron d’Holbach at Grandval might have been supposed to have afforded Galiani an agreeable contrast. Not content with disbelieving himself, the Baron’s scepticism was of that eager and proselytising kind which must for ever be destroying the faith of others. He delivered himself of it with a daring irreverence101 that made even the Italian Abbé shudder102, though, heaven knows! he talked freely enough himself, and had listened to free enough talk from others. He was here, as he had been at the Neckers’, almost alone in the Opposition. It delighted him to lean over the{77} table and assure these persons who were for pushing throne and Church, King and priest, down the abyss as fast as might be, that he loved despotism, ‘bien cru, bien vert, bien apre.’ It was Galiani who alone perceived that these wild theories, conceived in salons, must, when translated into deeds, first of all destroy those who conceived them, and that a change in the Constitution, which might be a very beautiful thing when done, was a very vile103 thing in the doing. ‘It worries two or three generations,’ he said, ‘and only obliges posterity104. Posterity is merely a possibility, and we are realities. And why should realities put themselves out for possibilities?’
One day at d’Holbach’s, the conversation on the Deity105 became so outrageous106, that, with every man’s hand against him, Galiani rose. ‘Messieurs les Philosophes,’ says he, ‘you go too fast. If I were the Pope, I should hand you over to the Inquisition; if the King, to the Bastille. But as I have the good luck to be neither, I shall come to dinner next Thursday, and you shall listen to me as patiently as I have listened to you.’
Thursday came. After dinner and coffee, the Abbé takes an armchair, crosses his legs, removes his wig107 (the night being sultry), and, with those lively gesticulations which he can no more help than he can help breathing, tells a story.{78}
‘Please suppose, gentlemen, that one of you, who is the most convinced that this world is the result of chance, happens to be playing at dice108, not in a gambling109 hell but in one of the best houses in Paris. His adversary110, casting one, two, three, four—many times—always throws number six. After the game has gone on a little while, my friend Diderot, we will say, who is losing his money, will certainly call out, “The dice are cogged! This is some swindlers’ den4!” What, philosopher, what? Because ten or twelve throws of dice come out of the box so that you lose half a dozen francs, you are firmly convinced that this is the result of a clever design, an artificial combination, a complicated roguery; and yet, seeing in the universe a mighty111 number of combinations a thousand times more difficult, more complicated, and more useful, you do not suspect that Nature’s dice are also cogged, and that above there is a great Arranger?’
It was a most happy illustration, if not a convincing argument. But the age which was swayed by the eloquence112 of Rousseau always preferred an example to a reason: while the class who laughed later at ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ might certainly be counted on to enjoy a joke against itself.
There was a fourth salon where Galiani{79} was much more at home than at Grandval, or under the prim89 wings of Madame Necker or the motherly feathers of Madame Geoffrin. At Madame d’épinay’s alone, he was perfectly natural, his rollicking, buffooning, all-daring self, able, as only a Southerner is able, to make himself entirely ridiculous without being at all contemptible113.
Madame d’épinay was that clever wife of a ruined Farmer General, who had been petted by Rousseau, and played with by Voltaire. Madame d’Houdetot was her sister-in-law; Diderot was her constant associate; Grimm was her lover; and Galiani became, and remained for twenty years, her most sincere and admiring friend.
A Platonic114 friendship is perhaps only possible when one or other of the Platonists is in love with a third person. Grimm, with his well-regulated head and heart, was not only perfectly able to keep a fickle woman true to him, but himself to retain an honest regard for the Abbé and to use his opinions and his wit for the ‘Literary Correspondence.’
Madame d’épinay’s salon was of all salons the most thoroughly115 characteristic of the time and the people. No one had any duty but to amuse himself. From early in the morning, a few charming and accomplished women, who always relegated{80} their children to servants, their stupid husbands to oblivion, and their households to chance, talked delightfully116 over their embroidery117 (with which the fashion demanded they should toy) to men, of whom among many astounding118 characteristics, not the least astounding is their prodigious119 idleness coupled with their prodigious literary production.
Galiani himself was the greatest attraction Madame d’épinay’s circle could claim. When he came in on a dripping country afternoon at La Chevrette, or in some murky120 winter twilight121 in Paris, there came with him, said Diderot, light, brightness, gaiety, folly122, mirth—everything which makes one forget the cares of life. Mademoiselle d’Ette, who was at once her hostess’s worst and dearest friend, looked up from her embroidery frame with her stealthy eyes aglow123 to welcome an acquisition so delightful. Madame d’épinay was, as ever, gay, caressing124, insouciante. Diderot was in ecstasies125 (he was always in an ecstasy126 about something) at the little Italian’s arrival. He was a perfect treasure on a wet day! If the toy-shops made Galianis, everybody would buy one!
The Abbé takes his seat, cross-legged as usual, and from that head which was ‘a library of anecdotes,’ reels out a dozen stories, acting128 them all with an inimitable liveliness, while his hearers laugh till they cry.{81}
A few of those stories sound dull in print, or have lost point with their youth; many more disgust modern taste by their elegant indecency. But the man who dubbed Paris, ‘the Café de l’Europe,’ d’Holbach, ‘the ma?tre d’h?tel of philosophy,’ and the vaunted liberty of the Apostles of the Social Contract, ‘the right of interfering129 in other people’s business,’ still proves his title of wit. It was Galiani too who defined the death of Maria Theresa as ‘an ink-bottle spilt over the map of Europe;’ and Sophie Arnould’s exquisite130 lost voice as ‘the most beautiful asthma’ he ever heard. It was Galiani who said that suffering was the cart-horse, and ennui131 the horse in the rich man’s stable. It was Galiani who declared that the Jesuits lengthened132 the Creed133 and shortened the Decalogue that they might succeed better in the world, and Galiani who affirmed that the priests had changed the name of the Sacrament from Pénitence to Confession134, because they thought it sufficient to avow135 their sins without correcting them. Finally, it was Galiani who proved that he knew intimately one side of the life around him, when he declared that the women of the eighteenth century loved with their minds, not with their hearts.
Always inimitably good-humoured, never bored, never weary, ready to play on the clavecin or sing{82} in the most charming voice in the world if the audience should tire of his conversation, seeing the ridiculous side of any subject in a flash, prompt with an anecdote127 to fit the most unforeseen occasion—‘the little creature born at the foot of Vesuvius,’ clown, harlequin, Punchinello—whatever men called him—was, and is, without counterpart in social history. There will be and have been—there certainly were in the eighteenth century—many agreeable young gentlemen who not only often dined out, but who entirely lived and fattened on a pretty taste in stories and bons mots, and a constant readiness to make fools of themselves for the benefit of an idle audience afraid of being bored; but there was rarely, if ever, a buffoon of such vast and solid erudition, of mental capacities so great and so varied136, and of mental achievements so momentous137, as the Abbé Galiani.
While the salons were petting and spoiling him, while he seemed to be doing nothing but talk from morning till night and from night until morning, while he was regarded as such a complete and irresistible138 joke that people laughed at his very name, he had yet worked so hard as Secretary to the Embassy and Chargé d’Affaires that he raised the whole diplomatic corps139 to a worthier140 position, and advanced the interests of Naples with a steadiness and persistency141 usually allotted142 to a{83} very different character. His Majesty143 Louis the Fifteenth presented him with a box set in diamonds. Choiseul’s light indifference144 changed into a cool consideration. All the time the man was writing, observing, thinking. Was he a politician pour rire? He seemed to be everything pour rire. But after all, who knows? The men who had laughed the most heartily145 at his absurdities146, turned and looked at him again with a wonder in their eyes.
In 1765 he obtained a year’s leave of absence and went home to take the baths of Ischia. In 1766, on the invitation of the Marquis Caraccioli, Italian Ambassador, he went to stay in London.
It must be recorded regretfully that the Abbé did not find Britain or the British at all to his taste. David Hume said indignantly that though he only remained two months in our country, talked himself the whole time, and would not allow an Englishman to put in a word, yet when he came away he dogmatised on the character of the nation all the rest of his life as if he had never studied anything else. That he did not share the Anglomania of Voltaire is certainly true. Some years later, to one of his correspondents, he defined the English rather happily as ‘the best educated nation in the world, and consequently the greatest, the most troublesome, and the most melancholy147.{84}’ But some at least of his letters abuse England very freely. It was, no doubt, as difficult for the Britons to understand a Galiani as for a Galiani to understand them; and not at all wonderful that he carried away from our shores an impression of an Englishman as a solid, emotionless person, who resented buffoonery as an insult, never uttered a joke or saw one, and had all the qualities which make a nation mighty and an individual disagreeable.
The Abbé was a somewhat graver man himself when he came back to Paris. He was now thirty-eight years old, a little less free of tongue, a thought less sceptical in religion. His letters of the time contain grave observations on the Seven Years’ War, and on the condition of the Paris Parliament. But he was still about the salons, still Parisian to the finger-tips, and he still loved Paris from his soul.
And in 1769, like a clap of thunder, came the foudroyant news of his recall to Naples.
Recalled! The hostesses of Paris looked at each other in dismay. Recalled! It is surely the end of all things if some political exigency148, some party question, is allowed to interfere149 with our amusements like this! Is it Choiseul, who has protected the Economists, while Galiani hated them, who has done this thing? The exact reason for it was then matter of speculation150, and is so still.{85} It was enough, more than enough, that it was a fact that this dear, merry, little Abbé must pack up his trunks and go out of light into darkness, out of the sunshine of social favour in which he had basked151 and purred and gambolled152, into the gloom of the provincial obscurity from which he had come.
If Paris was struck with dismay, Galiani himself was overwhelmed by the greatest calamity153 of his life. He declared that he had never wept at anything, not even the death of his relations, so much as at leaving Paris. ‘They have torn me from Paris,’ he cried, ‘and they have torn out my heart.’ He swore that the only good thing that wearisome Mr. Sterne, the English author, ‘ever uttered was when he said to me, “It is better to die in Paris than to live in Naples.”’ He wrung154 his hands, and bemoaned155 out loud, according to his temperament. He followed his departure by letters to Madame d’épinay and to d’Alembert which are really pathetic. He was also leaving behind him in Paris a woman to whom he was tied by an attachment156, not Platonic. He was torn, in brief, from everything—friends and mistress, career, work, play—life itself. No wonder despair seized his soul. He went, and in parting flung into the camp of the Economists, whom he believed to be the enemy responsible for his over{86}throw, a bomb whose explosion rang through Europe.
In 1770 there appeared in Paris the ‘Dialogues on the Corn Trade.’ The taxation157 of, or free trade in, grain had long been a vexed158 question, not only in the minds of politicians but in the minds of all intelligent Frenchmen. Free Food! cried the Economist, rich in the support of Turgot and of Choiseul. Tax it! replied their opponents, mighty with the strength of Terrai, the graceless Controller-General, and the growing influence of Necker.
Through the wit and the parties, in the midst of ardent secretarial duties and of continual literary studies, somehow, at some time—though how and at what time it would be difficult to say—Galiani had brought to bear on the question his Italian shrewdness and brilliancy, all the learning and observation taught him by his uncle, and the judgment159 and the wisdom taught him by Heaven. No man would have believed that such a merry, light, social person could have pondered so deeply; no one had believed it. The book was in the form of a dialogue between a Marquis and a Chevalier, It was as gay and rollicking as the little Abbe’s own talk. In fact, it was his own talk; but it was something much more. It was much more even than a pamphlet on a passing question, on a matter{87} of local momentary160 importance, ‘Read between the lines and in the margin,’ it was an able work on the science of government, what Grimm called justly ‘the production of a sound and enlightened philosopher, and of a statesman.’ In it the author exposed his theory that a man of State must know not only his business but the human heart—‘You must study men before you can rule them.’ This knowledge he denied to Turgot; and he warned France, in solemn prophecy to be fulfilled too soon, to beware in her rulers, not the rogues161 and the knaves—they soon show themselves in their true colours—but l’honnête homme trompé. ‘He wishes all men well, so all men trust him; but he is deceived as to the means of doing well.’
The work was received with the wildest enthusiasm. In far Ferney, the spirited old Patriarch of Literature jumped for joy, almost literally162, at a wit and a style so inimitable. No man ever reasoned so agreeably before.... ‘No man has ever made famine so amusing.... If the work does not diminish the price of bread, it will give pleasure to the whole nation.... Plato and Molière have combined to write it....’ Excellent! excellent! And in the same year, 1770, the master himself wrote for his ‘Questions on the Encyclop?dia’ the article on Grain wherein Galiani was not forgotten.{88}
Diderot, who, with Grimm and Madame d’épinay, had helped to correct the proofs of the ‘Dialogues,’ declared impetuously to Mademoiselle Volland that he had gone down on his knees to implore163 Galiani to publish them. Grimm said that if he were Controller-General he should attach the Abbé to France, if it cost the King forty thousand livres per annum, ‘without any other stipulation164 but that he should amuse himself and come twice a week to chat with me over the affairs of my Government.’ Even Fréron, élie Fréron, the brilliant Parisian journalist, who hated Voltaire and consequently all Voltaire’s colleagues and disciples165, could not help praising the thing in his ‘Literary Year.’ Frederick the Great wrote the author a flattering letter.
The book’s foes166 advertised it even better than its friends. At first, the leaders in the Economist camp looked at each other in dismay. Granted that they had justice and reason on their side, what could justice and reason do in the Paris of 1770 against that bubbling, sparkling wit? The capital must, first of all, be amused. What use, then, to advance the always doubtful argument that a writer cannot be at once gay and trustworthy, that if he is really worth hearing he can never be heard without a yawn?
The Abbé Morellet, as large as Galiani was{89} small, and as ponderous167 in style as the Abbé was light, was employed to answer him. The good man wrote his refutation with such haste and ardour that the skin of his little finger was completely worn off from much rubbing against the side of his desk. And, after all, no one read him. He may, or may not, be right; he is certainly dull!
Then Turgot took up a mightier168 pen and wielded169 a mightier influence. Noble and disinterested170, a better and a greater man than Galiani, the Statesman of that company of which the Abbé was but the Wit, Turgot sought, as did Galiani, the good and the progress of humanity; but he sought it by a different road, and by the labour of his whole life. He recognised the cleverness of the book; a bad cause, said he, could not be maintained with more grace and cleverness. But my little brother the Abbé is wrong, not the less. In the ‘Dialogues’ there peeped out, thought Turgot, something of the comfortable indifference of those who are content to leave the world as it is because it goes so smoothly171 with them, something of the laziness and the selfishness that come naturally to a little writer himself so comfortably beneficed and mitred. Galiani lacked, in fact, Turgot’s ‘instincts of the heart which teach the head.’
Right or wrong—l’honnête homme trompé{90} perhaps—Turgot had put his soul into the great cause of humanity, and Galiani had only put his mind. What wonder that they saw the same world with different eyes, and would have worked out the salvation172 of falling France, by methods not only opposite but opposed?
Galiani went back to Naples. For many months, for years, his letters are full of his book, that effort which, even if misdirected, proved that he was no drone in the hive, that he too had that one great virtue173 common to all the philosophers and redeeming174 half their sins—he had heard the trumpet-call of responsibility towards his fellows, and had answered it.
After Paris, Naples was not merely dull, it was extinction175. The poor little Abbé bemoaned his fate to Madame d’épinay in the most touching176 of all jesting letters. True, there was society here, and Galiani was its lion. But what society! There was Lady Orford, Robert Walpole’s daughter-in-law, who had a country house close to Galiani’s at Santo Sorio, at the foot of Vesuvius, and there was Sir William Hamilton, now British envoy177 and, to be, the husband of Lady Hamilton. Presently there came, too, the Marquis of Lansdowne, who was amiable80, which, said Galiani, ‘is a very rare thing for an Englishman, and Secretary of State, which is a very common thing.{91}’
But the Abbé hated the English; and he was bored to death. The Court of Naples gave him more lucrative178 posts—and though he described himself as avide without being avare, which meant that he was greedy of money and yet lavish179 in spending it—money, even when it does not beget180 ennui, certainly never destroys it. He turned to his museum full of medals and bronzes, pictures and weapons—and that bored him too. Paris, Paris! He hankered after it for ever. ‘What is the good of inoculation181 here,’ he grumbled182, after expressing delight in that discovery, ‘when living itself is not worth while?’ ‘What a life!’ he wrote dismally183 to d’Holbach in 1770. ‘Nothing amusing here ... no edicts ... no suspensions of payment ... no quarrels about any thing—not even about religion. Dear Paris, how I regret you!’
In 1771 died there that Madame Daubinière to whom he had been attached by no Platonic tie, and whom he had not hesitated to recommend to the good offices of Madame d’épinay; and in the same year the death of Helvétius, the rich and amiable ex-Farmer-General, ‘left a blank in the line of our battalion184.’ ‘Let us love each other the better, we who remain,’ says Galiani. ‘Close the lines. Advance! Fire!’ He was always declaring he had no heart; but it was there, under the lava185 of worldliness and mockery, as Pompeii and Herculaneum{92} lay hid beneath the lava of his own Vesuvius. He was soon busy procuring186 a post at Court for his unsuccessful brother Bernard—Bernard, who had a large family, little money, and the dull bookworm talents that bring no more. Then Bernard died, and up starts the Abbé in a new r?le. There are three stupid nieces to be married, to say nothing of the widow! The indefatigable187 uncle found the girls eligible188 husbands, although one of them, as he wrote frankly189, was as ugly as a hunchback. Then he discovered some one to marry his sister-in-law. ‘If this goes on,’ he wrote to Madame d’épinay, ‘people will clap when I go into my box at the theatre.’
Presently the King of Naples gave him yet two more posts—entailing not only emoluments but work—and he resumed his literary labours, wrote a pamphlet on the ‘Instincts and Habitual190 Tastes of Man,’ a comic opera, to Paisiello’s music, called ‘The Imaginary Socrates,’ and another most amusing pamphlet, written in a single night, to distract the Neapolitans from their fright on the eruption191 of Vesuvius in 1779.
In 1781 he visited Rome, and was courted by all the great people; and when he came home Naples gave him another rich abbey and another most lucrative civil appointment. He was still a comparatively young man. Fortune had over{93}turned her horn at his feet. ‘The torment192 of all things accomplished, the plague of nought193 to desire,’ might well have been Galiani’s. But he had the rare power of finding happiness where it most often hides—in small and common things. The monkey which had amused his leisure he had replaced by a couple of cats, and it afforded him infinite amusement to watch their gambols194 and their habits, and write long dissertations195 on the natural history of the animal to Madame d’épinay in Paris.
His friendship with her had lasted without break or blot196 for nearly five-and-twenty years. If happiness meant only exemption197 from suffering, then well for Galiani that no woman ever held his heart more nearly than this light, bright, irresponsible little person. But that side of existence which brings the deepest sorrow brings too the highest joy, and who is spared the first, misses the second. Madame Daubinière had touched neither his soul nor his life; Madame d’épinay only aroused a capacity for a friendship which, as he loved no one, had certainly assumed some of the absorption of a passion. When she died in 1783, he stood in the presence of a great and a most genuine sorrow. She had represented the Paris he would see no more; to answer her letters had been a large occupation in his life—and she was dead!{94} He turned to his work as his last hope, to the one means that was left of making life endurable. In 1785 he was attacked by apoplexy, and two years later he travelled for his health. But it was not improved. ‘The dead are so bored,’ he said in his old jesting manner; ‘they have asked me to come and cheer them a little.’
In the October of 1787 the King and Queen of Naples commanded him to meet them at Portici. He went, but he was long past receiving pleasure from such honours. The Sovereigns were struck with his altered appearance, and begged him to consult a doctor. Queen Caroline wrote him a letter imploring198 him to renounce199 his scepticism and make ready for heaven. He answered with dignity and respect; but no physician for either the soul or the body could aid him now. He kept his gaiety to the last. As he had loved in life to be surrounded by friends, they were about his deathbed. He declared to them that he felt no sorrow in dying, save that he would fain have lived to publish his book on Horace. The night before his death Gatti, his friend and doctor, told him he had refused an invitation to the opera from the Ambassador of France to be near his friend. ‘Ah,’ says Galiani, ‘you still look on me as Harlequin? Well, perhaps I shall prove more amusing than the opera.’ And he did. Two hours{95} before his death General Acton, the Prime Minister, called to see him. ‘Tell his Excellency I cannot receive him. My carriage is at the door. Warn him to prepare his own.’
He died on October 30, 1787, aged200 nearly fifty-nine.
Dagonet, King’s Fool at Arthur’s Court, could not avert201 his master’s ruin, but, noblest of all Fools, he tried. Galiani, with his laughing bells jingling202 in those ‘Dialogues,’ spoke his message in jests and could not help starving France, nor even postpone203 by an hour the raid on the bakers’ shops in the Faubourg St. Antoine. But he, too, did his best.
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1
brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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buffoon
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| n.演出时的丑角 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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babble
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| v.含糊不清地说，胡言乱语地说，儿语 | |
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precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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malignity
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| n.极度的恶意，恶毒；（病的）恶性 | |
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sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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crafty
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| adj.狡猾的，诡诈的 | |
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auditor
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| n.审计员，旁听着 | |
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supervision
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| n.监督，管理 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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prodigies
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| n.奇才，天才（尤指神童）( prodigy的名词复数 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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20
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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travesty
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| n.歪曲，嘲弄，滑稽化 | |
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orations
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| n.（正式仪式中的）演说，演讲( oration的名词复数 ) | |
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oration
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| n.演说，致辞，叙述法 | |
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24
relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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condemning
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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delinquent
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| adj.犯法的，有过失的；n.违法者 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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economist
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| n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人 | |
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diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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emoluments
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| n.报酬，薪水( emolument的名词复数 ) | |
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writhed
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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venality
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| n.贪赃枉法，腐败 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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corruptions
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| n.堕落( corruption的名词复数 )；腐化；腐败；贿赂 | |
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philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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fattened
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| v.喂肥( fatten的过去式和过去分词 )；养肥（牲畜）；使（钱）增多；使（公司）升值 | |
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perspicacity
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| n. 敏锐, 聪明, 洞察力 | |
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grandees
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| n.贵族，大公，显贵者( grandee的名词复数 ) | |
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prodigy
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| n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆 | |
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49
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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dissertation
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| n.（博士学位）论文，学术演讲，专题论文 | |
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51
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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52
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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53
geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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54
chancellor
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| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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61
salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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salons
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| n.（营业性质的）店( salon的名词复数 )；厅；沙龙（旧时在上流社会女主人家的例行聚会或聚会场所）；（大宅中的）客厅 | |
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63
bask
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| vt.取暖，晒太阳，沐浴于 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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noxious
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| adj.有害的，有毒的；使道德败坏的，讨厌的 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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deformed
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| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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71
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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72
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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73
deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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74
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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78
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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79
raved
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| v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说 | |
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80
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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81
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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82
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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83
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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84
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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85
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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86
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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87
libertine
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| n.淫荡者；adj.放荡的，自由思想的 | |
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88
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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89
prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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90
primness
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| n.循规蹈矩，整洁 | |
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91
frigid
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| adj.寒冷的，凛冽的；冷淡的；拘禁的 | |
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92
acrimoniously
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| adv.毒辣地，尖刻地 | |
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93
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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94
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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95
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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96
economists
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| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
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97
antipathies
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| 反感( antipathy的名词复数 )； 引起反感的事物； 憎恶的对象； （在本性、倾向等方面的）不相容 | |
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98
peccadilloes
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| n.轻罪，小过失( peccadillo的名词复数 ) | |
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99
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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100
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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101
irreverence
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| n.不尊敬 | |
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102
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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103
vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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104
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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105
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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106
outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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107
wig
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| n.假发 | |
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108
dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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109
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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110
adversary
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| adj.敌手，对手 | |
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111
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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112
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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113
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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114
platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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115
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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116
delightfully
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| 大喜，欣然 | |
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117
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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118
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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119
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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120
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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121
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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122
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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123
aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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124
caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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125
ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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126
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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127
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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128
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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129
interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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130
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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131
ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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132
lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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133
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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134
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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135
avow
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| v.承认，公开宣称 | |
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136
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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137
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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138
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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139
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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140
worthier
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| 应得某事物( worthy的比较级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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141
persistency
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| n. 坚持(余辉, 时间常数) | |
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142
allotted
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| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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143
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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144
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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145
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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146
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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147
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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148
exigency
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| n.紧急；迫切需要 | |
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149
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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150
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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151
basked
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| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的过去式和过去分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
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152
gambolled
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| v.蹦跳，跳跃，嬉戏( gambol的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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153
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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154
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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155
bemoaned
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| v.为（某人或某事）抱怨( bemoan的过去式和过去分词 )；悲悼；为…恸哭；哀叹 | |
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156
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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157
taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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158
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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159
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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160
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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161
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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162
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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163
implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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164
stipulation
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| n.契约，规定，条文；条款说明 | |
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165
disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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166
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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167
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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168
mightier
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| adj. 强有力的，强大的，巨大的 adv. 很，极其 | |
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169
wielded
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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170
disinterested
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| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
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171
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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172
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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173
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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174
redeeming
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| 补偿的，弥补的 | |
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175
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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176
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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177
envoy
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| n.使节，使者，代表，公使 | |
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178
lucrative
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| adj.赚钱的，可获利的 | |
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179
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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180
beget
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| v.引起；产生 | |
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181
inoculation
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| n.接芽；预防接种 | |
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182
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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183
dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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184
battalion
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| n.营；部队；大队(的人) | |
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185
lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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186
procuring
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的现在分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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187
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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188
eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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189
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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190
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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191
eruption
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| n.火山爆发；（战争等）爆发；（疾病等）发作 | |
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192
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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193
nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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194
gambols
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| v.蹦跳，跳跃，嬉戏( gambol的第三人称单数 ) | |
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195
dissertations
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| 专题论文，学位论文( dissertation的名词复数 ) | |
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196
blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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197
exemption
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| n.豁免，免税额，免除 | |
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198
imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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199
renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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200
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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201
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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202
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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203
postpone
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| v.延期，推迟 | |
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