In his delicate thoughtfulness, in his conviction that man’s happiness depends upon his character and not upon his circumstances, in his mistrust of the cold god, Reason, and his belief in the soundness of the intuitions of the heart, Vauvenargues stands alone among his compeers. He stands alone, too, among them in his personal nearness to Voltaire’s affections. The noblest testimony5 to Vauvenargues’ character is that it compelled the reverence6 of him who reverenced7
[Image unavailable.]
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES.
From a Print in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
{97}
nothing; and the finest compliment ever paid to Voltaire was to be loved by a Vauvenargues.
Born on August 6, 1715, at Aix in Provence—in a mean house which still stands and is to-day a grocer’s shop—Luc de Vauvenargues came of a poor family of provincial8 noblesse and was from the first what he remained to the last, delicate in constitution and with limited prospects10 of worldly success.
His very imperfect education he received at the College of Aix, where his small Latin and less Greek were frequently interrupted by ill health. But he had a possession which is in itself an education—a good father.
Joseph de Clapiers had been created Marquis de Vauvenargues in 1722, when Luc was seven years old, for having been the only magistrate12 in Aix who did not run away from the place and his duty when a pestilence13 devastated14 the countryside in 1720.
For companions, Luc had two younger brothers and a cousin of his own age, a coarse, clever, selfish, undisciplined boy, named Victor Riquetti Mirabeau, who was to become the ‘crabbed old Friend of Men’ and the great father of a greater son. The boys had little in common but genius, and were attracted to each other by{98} their very unlikeness. At sixteen, Luc was reading with passionate15 transport that ‘splendid painting of virtue’ ‘Plutarch’s Lives’ (in a translation) and then the letters of Brutus to Caesar, ‘so filled with dignity, loftiness, passion, and courage,’ said he, ‘that I never could read them calmly.’ Victor had already plunged16 into that blusterous, incontinent life which was to bring ruin to his own family and quite spoil the effect of his loud-voiced schemes for the good of mankind.
When both were seventeen the pair parted for a while. Luc must choose one of the only two professions open to his caste—the Church or the Army. The Church would not do, because, boy though he was, he was already philosopher and thinker—ay, in the noblest sense of the word—free-thinker too. Then it must be the Army! Picture this new subaltern of the King’s Own Regiment17, in the loveliest pale grey uniform, faced with Royal blue, with the most splendid braidings, and the very buttonholes sewn with gold silk, with his tall, boyish figure, his handsome face, his ‘proud and pensive18 grace’—for all the world like the soldier-hero of a woman’s novel. But he was already something very different from that. The handsome face bespoke19 a noble nature, ambitious for all great things, strong and ready to begin the world, to play his part therein if it be the part of{99} a man of Deeds alone—or if the Deeds be but foundation for the Thoughts.
His first campaign was in Italy in 1733 with Marshal Villars, who was on his last. Italy! the land of dreams! The boy was filled with splendid visions of following Hannibal across the mountains—with young sanguine21 hopes of gloriously doing his duty and meeting immediate22, glorious rewards. For three years he knew the intoxication—and the horrors—of a victorious23 campaign. And then of a sudden he found himself condemned24 at one-and-twenty to the vicious idleness, the low pleasures, and the deadening routine of a garrison25 life. The rich officers were of course drawn26 by that magnet, the Court, to keep up their military studies and prepare for the next war by dancing attendance on women and flattering the Minister and the King at Versailles. The poor ones remained on duty—with not enough of it to keep them out of mischief27, and with, for the most part, debased tastes, because their intellectual limitations precluded28 them from higher.
The contamination of that useless existence even a Vauvenargues did not wholly escape. For a brief while he was as other men are. But the pleasures of a garrison town could not long hold such a nature as his. Already—he was but twenty-two—he had that love of solitude{100} which, says a great German philosopher, is welcomed or avoided as a man’s personal value is great or small. Already—at an age when other men scarcely realise they have a soul—this man was dominated by the idea of its value and dignity; and deep within him was the passion and resolution to exercise to the full its powers and possibilities.
With his companions he was wholly simple, natural, and friendly—without the faintest taint29 of that conscious superiority which makes many good people at once useless as a moral influence and objectionable as companions. ‘Father,’ his brother officers used to call him. Marmontel said ‘he held all our souls in his hands.’ He soon resumed, by correspondence, his friendship with Victor Mirabeau; and in their discussions on love—the view he takes of this passion is always a sure test of a man’s character—each letter-writer showed the yawning gulf30 that divided him from the other.
If Vauvenargues ever met the woman worthy31 to hold his heart, to be, in the finest and highest understanding of those words, his companion and completion, is not known. He writes of love as if he had felt it. But to some pure souls—as to a Milton and a St. John the Divine—are revealed in visions the Eden and the New Jerusalem wherein{101} they never walked. Vauvenargues’ letters to Mirabeau treat of the subject with such an exquisite32 dignity and refinement—with such noble silences—that there is at least no doubt that if he never found the woman who would have realised his ideals, he was spared the bitterness of loving one who broke them.
Cousin Victor easily perceived that this thoughtful young soldier was fitted for something widely different from the life of a garrison town. Come up to Paris, then! Take up letters as a career! Win the smiles of the Court, and a pension from the Privy33 Purse! But Vauvenargues not only preferred literature to the sham34 called literary fame, but he loved his own profession.
Thinker as nature had made him, thinker, moralist, aphorist35 as he has come down the ages, he was first of all a man of action, and so sound in thought because he was so strong in deeds. All his maxims36 were ‘hewn from life.’ When the death of the Emperor Charles VI. in 1740 shook the kingdoms of Europe as a child shakes its marbles in a bag, Luc de Vauvenargues shouldered his knapsack and went out to Bohemia under the command of Belle-Isle. Ready to dare and to do, brave, young, high-spirited, knowing no career more glorious than arms, he looked round him and drew from keen experience his views of the world.{102}
The philosopher in a study, weighing the pros11 and cons9 of motives37 he knows by hearsay38, of deeds of which he has read, of passions he has never felt, may be a very fine thinker, but will hardly be chosen as a sound guide to practice.
The explorer who has faced the torrent39 and the mountain, the burning sun of the desert, hunger and cold and thirst, who has himself fought with beasts at Ephesus, will have a knowledge of the country he has discovered, which no books and lectures, no geographical40 or topographical knowledge can ever give to the cleverest student at home. The worth and the use of Vauvenargues’ axioms on life lie largely in the fact that he had been there himself.
The very brief triumph of the capture of Prague in 1742 was succeeded by the horrors of the great mid-winter march from Prague to Egra. The King’s Own suffered terribly. Death, defeat, famine, Vauvenargues knew not as names but as realities. In the spring of 1742 he had lost a young comrade, de Seytres, and wrote an éloge of him. Its immature41 and stilted42 style gives little idea of the warm feeling it clothed. Morley speaks of Vauvenargues’ ‘patient sweetness and equanimity’ as a friend; and records how hardship made him ‘not sour,’ but wise and tender. All through that fearful march, in this strange soldie{103}r’s knapsack were the manuscripts of ‘Discourses on Fame and Pleasure,’ ‘Counsels to a Young Man,’ and a ‘Meditation on Faith.’ Of many of his maxims on patience and the brave endurance of suffering, he must have found at this time cruel personal need.
The handsome young officer who had left France in the prime of his hopes and his manhood, returned to it with his health utterly44 ruined, both his legs frost-bitten, and his lungs seriously affected45.
Still, he gathered together the strength he had left him and the pluck that never failed him, rejoined his regiment in Germany in 1743, fought nobly for his fallen cause at Dettingen, and returned to the garrison of Arras at the end of the year, an invalid46 for life.
It was now obvious he could no longer pursue his calling. Though he wrote with a keen and bitter truth that courage had come to be regarded as a popular delusion47, patriotism48 as a prejudice, and that ‘one sees in the army only disgust, ennui49, neglect, murmuring; luxury and effeminacy have produced the same effrontery50 as peace; and those who should, from their position, arrest the progress of the evil, encourage it by their example,’ yet still he would, if he could, have been soldier to the end. For{104} a time he thought of diplomacy51. ‘Great positions soon teach great minds,’ was one of his axioms. He would have been well fitted. But merit was not of the slightest help to advancement52. To fawn53 on the King and the Mistress, to prostitute one’s life and one’s talents to a Court—here was the way to promotion54. Vauvenargues wrote to the King and corresponded with Amelot the Minister, who answered most amiably55 and affably—and did nothing at all. ‘Permit me, sir,’ wrote Vauvenargues to him at last, with the directness taught in camps, ‘to assure you that it is a moral impossibility for a gentleman, with nothing but zeal56 to commend him, ever to reach the King.’ Amelot, stung a little, promised the next vacant post, and this time promised sincerely.
Vauvenargues retired57 to Provence and to quiet, to learn his new business. There he was attacked by confluent small-pox, which left him nearly blind and wholly disfigured: a misfortune he felt painfully as ‘one of those accidents which prevent the soul from showing itself.’ But worse than any disfigurement, the partial blindness made, of course, a diplomatic career an impossibility for ever.
Before the campaign of 1743, Vauvenargues had introduced himself to Arouet de Voltaire, by a letter in which the obscure soldier-critic com{105}pared Corneille disadvantageously with Racine. Nothing is so delightful58 in Voltaire’s own genius as his generous recognition of other men’s. Nothing is more to his honour than his high admiration59 for the moral gifts of a Vauvenargues who was young enough to be his son, who was poor, forlorn, a nobody, and whose fine qualities of lofty highmindedness, delicacy60, patience and serenity61 found, alas62! no counterpart in Voltaire’s own nature. It is so much the more to his credit that he could admire what he could never imitate, and appreciate what was wholly foreign to his temperament63. He rejoiced in the thoughtful ability of that letter. ‘It is the part of such a man as you,’ he replied, ‘to have preferences but no exclusions64.’
The campaign of 1743 had interrupted their relationship. But they resumed it now, and, behold65! it had turned into friendship.
Voltaire was at this time fifty years old, famous as the author of the ‘English Letters,’ the ‘Henriade,’ a few brilliant plays, and also as Court wit and versifier. But he was already in mental attitude what he had not yet become in mental output and in active deed. He could recognise in this Vauvenargues not only a friend and a literary critic, but a thinker and a philosopher. Vauvenargues sent him by degrees most of his{106} writings, and Voltaire’s criticisms thereon, as sincere as they were enthusiastic, were in themselves a powerful persuasion66 to the man of deeds to become man of words; while the Master’s whole-hearted devotion to his own profession—the best and the noblest of all, though it bring no bread but the bread of affliction and of tears—was a further strong inducement to Vauvenargues to join the great brotherhood67 too. This soldier-thinker can tell men what to do when we have made them free to do what they will! He is, he has confessed it, as ‘follement amoureux de la liberté’ as I myself! To the individual soul he can give the help and the courage I have tried to give to the race, and to the riddle68 of the painful earth he can bring a wiser, tenderer, and braver solution than mine!
Vauvenargues was not, in fact, an intellect a Voltaire would lose. The young soldier decided69 to adopt literature as a profession, and began the world afresh.
Everything, save only Voltaire’s encouragement, was against such a decision. The old Marquis de Vauvenargues—from a very natural but very mistaken and unrobust tenderness—would have kept his son at home to lead a safe, idle, invalid life in Provence, with a stroll on the terrace of the Vauvenargues’ country-house for exercise, a thick-headed provincial neighbour for{107} mental recreation, and his own aches and pains for an interest. His other relations (on the principle of Myrtle in ‘The Conscious Lovers’—‘We never had one of our Family before that descended70 from Persons that Did anything’) objected to letters for one of Us as a low walk, leading directly to the Bastille. It was true that the moment was an inglorious one for literature. The Encyclop?dia was unconceived. Voltaire himself was not yet the mighty71 influence he was to become. Writing did pay badly, and the young Marquis was deadly poor. Greatest objection of all was his own strong leaning to a life of action, and he himself first wrote of literature as being as ‘repugnant’ to him as to his family. ‘But necessity knows no law.’
That momentary72 bitterness passed. ‘Despair is the worst of faults,’ said he. It was his part—allotted to him by misfortune, by fate, by God—no longer to act himself, but to teach other men how to act. He thrust aside the objections of his relatives. ‘It is better to derogate73 from one’s caste than from one’s genius.’ He silenced his own disappointment. ‘A great soul loves to fight against ill fortune ... and the battle pleases him, independently of the victory.’
In May, 1745, he came up to Paris, and in a {108}very humble74 lodging75, where the Rue43 Larrey and the School of Medicine are now situated76, began the world afresh.
Anyone who supposes his discontent to come from his circumstances and not from himself, should consider the life of Vauvenargues, and the one book with which he has enriched humanity.
Disappointed, disfigured, a failure; useless for the career he had loved, incapable77 of the career he had tried; cast off by his own people; solitary78 in a great city; often in pain of body, and because the work he had chosen was not the work Nature had originally chosen for him, often in pain of mind too—if ever man had an excuse for cursing God and fate, it was surely Luc de Vauvenargues.
La Rochefoucauld, rich and prosperous, with friends, position, and honour, had denied human virtue, and assailed79 it with cold malignities which still strike despair into the soul; and Voltaire himself, the most successful man of letters in history, turned upon life with gibes80, and sneered81 at faith and happiness as alike chim?ras.
But Vauvenargues looked out on the world which had given him nothing, with serene82 and patient eyes, and in a single book, as direct, strong, and simple as his own nature, evolved one of the most wise and comforting, one of the most sane,{109} serene, and practical schemes of life, given to our race.
The great questions, Why am I? Whither go I? Whence came I? he asked himself as a thoughtful man must, but being a doer long before he was a thinker, he wasted little time in vainly seeking to answer them. Among his papers are a Prayer as well as the ‘Meditation.’ For simple faith he had ever reverence and envy—for all solemn questions a deep respect; and though he had no formulated83 religion, was yet deeply religious. But with him to be religious meant to Do Well. Live this life aright, and the next will take care of itself. ‘The thought of death deceives us, it makes us forget to live: one must live as if one would never die.’ To waste time and energy in idle discussion and speculation84 on another world when there is so much to do to set this one straight, found no countenance85 from this man of Deeds. Do, not dream, was his motto for ever.
There is not a page in his book—there is scarcely a line—which does not bear witness to his strong faith in men’s honour and goodness, to his passionate conviction that out of worst evil one can get good, that the cruellest misfortunes ennoble and purify if one will let them, and our griefs may be for ever our gains. The hand that wrote was fevered with disease. No rich man,{110} this, announcing glibly86 how comfortable it is to be poor. In the most vicious of all ages—and in not the least vicious of that age’s environments—Vauvenargues had preserved his high ideals and his lofty character, and in sickness, sorrow, and disappointment he practised daily the courage he preached.
Instead of mockery—the besetting87 sin of his generation—this man, and this man alone, had for men’s follies88 and absurdities89 only infinite compassion90. Of him has been aptly quoted Bacon’s beautiful phrase, ‘he had an aspect as though he pitied men.’ His philosophy remains91 for ever to the unquiet heart at once balm and tonic—the cool hand of compassion on the burning forehead—the touch of a friend, who knows—the strong grasp of help to raise the feeble from his weakness and despair, and to make him do what he can.
Some of the axioms have become part of men’s speech, if not part of their soul.
‘Great thoughts come from the heart.’
‘We should comfort ourselves for not having fine talents, as we comfort ourselves for not having fine positions; we can be above both by the heart.’
‘Great men undertake great things because they are great, and fools because they think them easy.{111}’
‘Would you say great things? Then first accustom92 yourself never to say false ones.’
‘Who can bear all, can dare all.’
‘Envy is confessed inferiority.’
‘Few sorrows are without remedy: despair is more deceptive93 than hope.’
‘Who gives his word lightly, breaks it.’
‘He who has great feeling, knows much.’
‘To the passions one owes the best things of the mind.’
Into that mad devotion to wit which was the snare94 of all his compeers, Vauvenargues never fell. He worshipped at the shrine95 of a diviner goddess called Truth. There is not a single example—even in his maxims, when the temptation would naturally be strongest—of his sacrificing fidelity96 to smartness.
In February 1746, after he had been less than a year in Paris, he published anonymously97 that book by which he has gone down the ages and up to the gods, and which contains only the ‘Introduction to the Knowledge of the Human Mind,’ some ‘Reflections,’ the ‘Counsels to a Young Man,’ a few critical articles, the ‘Meditation on Faith,’ and the ‘Maxims.’
Clear, clean, and vigorous in style, as sharp and brief as a military order—it was well said by a friend that its author ‘wanted first of all to get{112} along quickly and drag little baggage after him;’ and better said by himself that, ‘when an idea will not bear a simple form of expression, it is the sign for rejecting it.’
It was not the sort of work likely to bring him present fame, or money. He did not expect them. As he worked in his miserable98 lodgings99, ill lit and ill warmed, already a prey100 to consumption, and suffering often acutely from the old frost-bites—no such hopes had buoyed101 him. But he did what he had told other men to do—worked for the work’s sake—and he found what he had told them they would find, joy in the working and satisfaction in a noble aim, be it unrewarded for ever.
The book dropped from the press perfectly102 stillborn. Reflections and moralities in the Paris of 1746! No, thank you. No one even troubled to abuse it. No one, except Marmontel, who was Vauvenargues’ personal friend, reviewed it. But Voltaire loudly pronounced it one of the best books in the language: ‘The age ... is not worthy of you, but it has you, and I bless Nature. A year ago I said you were a great man, and you have betrayed my secret.’ After Vauvenargues’ death he wrote of him, ‘How did you soar so high in this age of littleness?’ and spoke20 of the ‘Maxims’ as characteristic of a profoundly sincere and thoughtful mind, wholly above all jealousies103 and party{113} spirit. For sixty years the book lay germinating104 in a hard and barren soil, unworthy of it; and then rose fresh and strong from oblivion to the just and growing fame it enjoys to-day. It has been well said ‘to give the soul of man an impetus105 towards truth.’
Though his tastes, his poverty, and his health alike precluded Vauvenargues from joining in the socialities of the cafés and the salons106 during his brief life in Paris, he saw sometimes Marmontel and d’Argental, and often Voltaire. Marmontel was still only a boy who had just started literary life on a capital of six louis and the patronage107 of Voltaire; and d’Argental, Voltaire’s dear ‘guardian angel,’ was the nephew of Madame de Tencin, and, perhaps, the author of her novels. Marmontel was on a very different plane of intellect and character from Vauvenargues—while the one was a lusty boy beginning the world, the other was a patient thinker who was leaving it. But in those bare and dreary108 surroundings, in the disfigured invalid of whom men had never heard, even the commonplace cleverness of a Marmontel worshipped a hero. Long years after, he speaks of Vauvenargues’ ‘unalterable serenity’—of his brave and tender heart. ‘With him one learnt to live and learnt to die.’
As for Voltaire, one can picture him just elected to the French Academy, the protégé of{114} Madame de Pompadour, the dearest friend of young Frederick the Great, and fast becoming the most astonishing man in Europe, entering into the dull room, full of liveliness and animation109, ay, and full too of real kindness and sympathy, while the invalid sat by the fireside listening silently awhile, and then striking across the Master’s brilliant volubility with some quiet truth which he had long proved and pondered. That he found Voltaire’s conversation a powerful stimulus110 to his own mind, and a very real delight, is not doubtful. There are few Voltaires in the world, and it was one of Vauvenargues’ misfortunes that, save Victor Mirabeau, he had known scarcely anyone who was his intellectual equal.
But if Voltaire roused the mind, Vauvenargues strengthened the soul. After his death, Voltaire wrote of him that he had always seen him ‘the most unfortunate and the most tranquil111 of men.’ It was this lucky genius of an Arouet who brought his fumings and his impatience112, his irritableness over this, his chagrins113 about that, for the consolation114 of the man to whose sufferings his own had been as a drop in the ocean. Vauvenargues always seems the elder of the two, as it were. He was as certainly the wiser, as he was certainly the far inferior genius.
What were his thoughts when those few friends{115} had left him? It is on their testimony that he never uttered a complaining or a bitter word. His writings contain not an angry line—not one rebellion against God and Fate. It was the happy people who grumbled—perhaps it always is. Once, only once, there is a striving against destiny. In a moment of relaxation115 from bodily pain he wrote to an intimate friend, ‘I have need of all your affection, my dear Saint-Vincens: all Provence is in arms, and I am here at my fireside.’ He went on to offer his feeble help to the service he had loved, and to beg for the smallest post in his old active career.
But in a second came realisation. He was too ill to be of any use. Only thirty-two, he saw life slipping from him, and leaving him at that fireside a wreck116, only fit for the hulks. But he bore ‘his dark hour unseen,’ and troubled no man with his troubles.
His disease gained on him daily now. For the last year he was too ill to write. How far harder to die bravely by inches, unable even to do one’s work, than to rush a smiling hero upon the swords in a glorious moment of exaltation, unweakened by disease, and uplifted by the applause of just men and of one’s own heart!
Vauvenargues saw death coming slowly while it was yet a great way off, and was not afraid.{116} No saint this, beholding117 in fervid118 ecstasy119 the vision of a world to come; but a strong man who had done his best with the world he had, and had written of that unknown future only in patient hope. ‘My passions and thoughts die but to be born again: every night I die on my bed but to take again new strength and freshness: this experience of death reassures120 me against the decay and the dissolution of my body.’
He had lived to do his duty and to think of others, and thus he died.
The date was May 28, 1747, and the period one of the least honourable121 in the life of his friend Voltaire. But from his sycophancy122 of Pope and King, from a foul123 and noisy Court, from feverish124 bickerings with his Madame du Chatelet, and the coarse worldliness of his old Duchesse du Maine, Vauvenargues’ death recalled him to his truer self, and roused him to the real work of his life. No other loss he ever suffered, it is said, affected him more profoundly.
If the fact that Vauvenargues loved him bears high testimony to the character of Voltaire, the virtue of Vauvenargues, like the virtue of Addison, may well give ‘reputation to an age.’
Flippant and false, at once supremely125 clever and supremely silly, the eighteenth century, to whom Duty was a mockery and Wit was a god,{117} is in some sort redeemed126 by the brave, silent life, and the high ideals he proved practical and not visionary by fulfilling himself, of this soldier aphorist.
While of all the Brothers of Progress, Vauvenargues alone approached Truth as a suppliant127, and thus gained, surely, the nearest vision of her face.
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indigenous
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| adj.土产的，土生土长的，本地的 | |
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aphorism
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| n.格言，警语 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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reverenced
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| v.尊敬，崇敬( reverence的过去式和过去分词 )；敬礼 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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cons
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| n.欺骗，骗局( con的名词复数 )v.诈骗，哄骗( con的第三人称单数 ) | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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pros
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| abbr.prosecuting 起诉；prosecutor 起诉人；professionals 自由职业者；proscenium （舞台）前部n.赞成的意见( pro的名词复数 )；赞成的理由；抵偿物；交换物 | |
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magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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pestilence
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| n.瘟疫 | |
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devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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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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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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regiment
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pensive
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bespoke
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| adj.（产品）订做的；专做订货的v.预定( bespeak的过去式 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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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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sanguine
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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25
garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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precluded
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| v.阻止( preclude的过去式和过去分词 )；排除；妨碍；使…行不通 | |
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29
taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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30
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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31
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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32
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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33
privy
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| adj.私用的；隐密的 | |
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34
sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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35
aphorist
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| 警句家 | |
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36
maxims
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| n.格言，座右铭( maxim的名词复数 ) | |
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37
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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38
hearsay
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| n.谣传，风闻 | |
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39
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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40
geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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41
immature
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| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
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42
stilted
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| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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43
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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44
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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45
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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46
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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47
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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48
patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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49
ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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50
effrontery
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| n.厚颜无耻 | |
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51
diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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52
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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53
fawn
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| n.未满周岁的小鹿；v.巴结，奉承 | |
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54
promotion
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| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
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55
amiably
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| adv.和蔼可亲地，亲切地 | |
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56
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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57
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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58
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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59
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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60
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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61
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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62
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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63
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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64
exclusions
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| n.不包括的项目：如接受服务项目是由投保以前已患有的疾病或伤害引致的，保险公司有权拒绝支付。；拒绝( exclusion的名词复数 )；排除；被排斥在外的人（或事物）；排外主义 | |
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65
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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66
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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67
brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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68
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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69
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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70
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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71
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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72
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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73
derogate
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| v.贬低，诽谤 | |
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74
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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75
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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76
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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77
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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78
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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79
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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80
gibes
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| vi.嘲笑，嘲弄（gibe的第三人称单数形式） | |
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81
sneered
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| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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82
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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83
formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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84
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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85
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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86
glibly
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| adv.流利地，流畅地；满口 | |
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87
besetting
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| adj.不断攻击的v.困扰( beset的现在分词 )；不断围攻；镶；嵌 | |
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88
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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89
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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90
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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91
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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92
accustom
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| vt.使适应，使习惯 | |
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93
deceptive
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| adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的 | |
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94
snare
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| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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95
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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96
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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97
anonymously
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| ad.用匿名的方式 | |
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98
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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99
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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100
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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101
buoyed
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| v.使浮起( buoy的过去式和过去分词 )；支持；为…设浮标；振奋…的精神 | |
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102
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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103
jealousies
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| n.妒忌( jealousy的名词复数 )；妒羡 | |
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104
germinating
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| n.& adj.发芽（的）v.（使）发芽( germinate的现在分词 ) | |
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105
impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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106
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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107
patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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108
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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109
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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110
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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111
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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112
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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113
chagrins
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| v.使懊恼，使懊丧，使悔恨( chagrin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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114
consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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115
relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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116
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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117
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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118
fervid
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| adj.热情的；炽热的 | |
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119
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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120
reassures
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| v.消除恐惧或疑虑，恢复信心( reassure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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121
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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122
sycophancy
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| n.拍马屁，奉承，谄媚；吮痈舐痔 | |
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123
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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124
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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125
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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126
redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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127
suppliant
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| adj.哀恳的；n.恳求者，哀求者 | |
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