But it is not only or chiefly as the Host of All the World that d’Holbach is remarkable9. He was the ‘ma?tre d’h?tel of philosophy.’ Voltaire, banned and exiled, could only encourage
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PAUL-HENRI-THIRY. BARON D’HOLBACH.
From a Portrait in the Musée Condé, Chantilly.
{119}
his children from lonely Cirey or far Geneva. D’Holbach was here, in the midst of them.
Comfortable, cultured, liberal, the freest of all free thinkers, and yet always in the smiling good favour of the authorities, not shy and retiring like d’Alembert, not wild and imprudent like Diderot, without a profession to distract him from his appointed métier, with a well-stocked mind, an enormous income, a fine library, a pretty wife, a first-rate cook, and an admirable cellar—why, here was the man intended by Fate to be the link to bind11 us together and to make for us a meeting-place, a common ground, where, in words to be first applied12 only to the Head of our Party,
In very wantonness of childish mirth
We puffed13 Bastilles, and thrones, and shrines14 away,
Insulted Heaven, and liberated15 earth.
Was it for good or evil? Who shall say?
. . . . . .
Paul-Henri-Thiry d’Holbach was born in 1723 at Heidelsheim, in the Palatinate. His father, said Jean Jacques Rousseau when he had quarrelled with the son, was a parvenu16. Another of Paul-Henri’s guests announced that his host was called Baron because he was ‘of German origin, had a small estate in Westphalia, and an income of sixty thousand livres.’ Very little is known with certainty of his family. He was brought up in Paris,{120} and was from the first French of the French, Parisian of the Parisians. He seems to have visited Germany as a very young man, and to have studied natural science there. He made his bow to the literary world by translating German scientific works into French. At his death Grimm wrote in the ‘Literary Correspondence’ that the rapid progress natural history and chemistry had made for thirty years in France was largely owing to the Baron d’Holbach.
As a young man the Baron was what he remained all his life—a compiler, an annotator17, a transcriber18, rather than the possessor of any great original talent of his own. Boy and man he had in perfection that gift which surely makes for human happiness more than any other single quality—a devoted19 love of learning. He was always rich enough to buy the books and the leisure to gratify that love. He lived in an age and in the midst of brilliantly accomplished20 men and women. He should have found life delightful21. He did. A serene22, easy, generous nature, troubled by no agitating23 ambitions, everything seems to have fallen out from the first according to his modest desires. For him, and for him alone among Voltaire’s co-operators, the path to light and knowledge flowered pleasantly all the way. The others look out eagerly from their portraits{121}—furrowed foreheads and burning eyes—or with faces noble and sad, like d’Alembert or Condorcet. Only the good Baron is seated at his ease in his pleasant, sumptuous24 garden, surveying life calmly and leisurely25. Which things are a parable26.
In 1752 or 1753, when he was about thirty years old, he began writing articles for that Encyclop?dia which set on almost all its other contributors the ban of Government ill-favour. Only Paul-Henri—writing always judiciously27 under a pseudonym—gained nothing but pleasure and approbation28 from his excellent papers on mineralogy and chemistry. He formed the happiest life-long friendships with his fellow-writers in that immortal book. He married a pretty and charming wife, Mademoiselle d’Aine. She died, in August 1754, after a very brief married life. D’Holbach travelled abroad with Grimm for a while.
In 1755, he obtained a special dispensation from the Pope, and married his deceased wife’s sister, Mademoiselle Charlotte-Suzanne d’Aine, and began to live with her a life which presented the very rare combination of perfect domestic contentment and the most brilliant social success.
In the very heart and core of Paris, Rue Royale butte Saint-Roch, the Baron held in his town house what Rousseau calls the ‘club holbachique,’ Diderot ‘the synagogue of the Rue{122} Royale,’ and Garat ‘the Institute of France before there was one.’ Here, at two o’clock every Sunday and Thursday, unless the d’Holbachs were in the country, their friends were certain to find a free and affluent31 hospitality, the most intellectual society of the capital, the most distinguished32 foreigners who visited it, a host as liberal in idea as in the very good cheer to which he made his guests welcome, and the most daring speculative34 conversation of the eighteenth century.
But, after all, it was not in the Rue Royale that d’Holbach and his friends found their most characteristic setting. Grandval, near Charenton, remains35 not only the most influential36 salon37 of the age, the great headquarters of a great party and the arsenal38 in which were forged the armaments which destroyed a king, a dynasty, and a state religion, but also the country house of the period.
When Talleyrand, in that much quoted phrase, declared that no one knew how delightful a thing life could be unless he had belonged to the upper classes before the Revolution, he might have been thinking of the life at Grandval in particular.
There was a fine and charming chateau39, and the most delightful of gardens. Grandval was just near enough to Paris, and just far enough away—which is to say, it was absolute country, within easy reach of town, in an age when the suburb{123} was not, or, at least, when the social drawbacks comprehended in the word ‘suburban’ had no existence. The estate actually belonged to Madame d’Aine, d’Holbach’s mother-in-law, who was as ‘lively as any romp41 of fifteen,’ always thoroughly42 enjoying herself, determined43 her guests should do the same, and with the rare wisdom to leave them to do it in their own way.
Madame d’Holbach was pretty, gay, and charming. She played on the lute40, adored her husband and children, and hated philosophy. If her guests like to talk it—and they are always talking it—well, by all means, so they shall! Live and let live, do as you like come what may—these would have been the Grandval rules, if it had ever bothered itself to have anything so tiresome44 as rules.
The d’Holbach children were adorable—or despatched to governesses and servants if they even threatened to become less than adorable. There were two little boys and a couple of little girls, the elder ‘as pretty as a cherub,’ said Diderot, and the younger ‘a ball of fat, all pink and white.’
Then there was an ami de la maison, a household fixture45, a chimney-corner habitué—a Scotchman named Hope, and nicknamed Père Hoop46—a shrivelled, withered47, pessimistic person, who suffered, or said he suffered, from ‘life-weariness{124}’ and bad health, who was an excellent foil to what Sterne called the ‘joyous sett’ in which he found himself, and the perpetual and dismally48 good-natured butt30 of Madame d’Aine’s rippling50 jokes.
The Baron had all the virtues51 of the host. He was not only rich and generous—with that cook and cellar beyond reproach. In those days to be a perfect entertainer something more even than this was required. An agreeable talker, and a still more agreeable listener, really learned, but with the most pleasing human weakness for a little scandal, as easy-going as his mother-in-law and his wife, entirely52 simple in manner, with no faintest touch of pretension53 or affectation, a bon vivant in the pleasantest and most harmless sense of the phrase—who would not delight to have been among his guests?
There were generally three or four of them staying in the house, and sometimes very many more. Diderot was here often for weeks together, and sometimes for months. He had a special bedroom always reserved for him. In d’Holbach’s most intimate confidence, his abundance, fecundity54, and inspiration were in piquant55 contrast to the Baron’s calm learning and well-regulated sense. Here too came, but not very often, Diderot’s partner in the Encyclop?dia, d’Alembert. Too shy and retiring to enjoy Grandval’s freedom and{125} liveliness as a recreation, d’Alembert’s work for his party was not to be advanced, as his brethren certainly advanced their work, by speculative talk in clever company—but always in solitude56, in silence, and in simplicity57.
Turgot, like d’Alembert, was from time to time a guest, but a rare one. Turgot was beginning to Do, what most of his friends were still discussing How to do.
Little Galiani skipped down very often from the Italian Embassy, and the Paris he worshipped, to amuse the Baron’s house-party by telling it those stories, ‘like dramas,’ which no one ever found too long. ‘That man is a pantomime from his head to his feet,’ said admiring Diderot, watching him. After 1761, the heavy Abbé Morellet, the would-be refuter of Galiani’s wit on the Corn Laws, was constantly at the Baron’s ‘developing my theories on public economy’ to his own great satisfaction. His audience have not left their feelings on record.
Grimm, Diderot’s dear Damon, was here very often, with that slightly nauseous affection for his Pythias, which, said the frankly58 vain Denis, made d’Holbach jealous. For jealous, one may be allowed to read ‘disgusted.’
Grimm’s chère amie, Madame d’épinay, sometimes accompanied him. Her sister-in-law,{126} Madame d’Houdetot, often drove down to Grandval with her superb Marquis de Saint-Lambert in her train. Pitted deeply with the smallpox59, with a cast in her eye, and a little given to too much wine, the secret of Madame d’Houdetot’s charm is hard to be found by this generation. But in that one, it was not only Rousseau who discovered it to his cost. Saint-Lambert’s ‘faith unfaithful kept him falsely true’ to her for so many years that it came to be considered quite praiseworthy, and he would have been admitted to Grandval as Madame d’Houdetot’s constant lover, if his passion for Madame du Chatelet and his poem on the ‘Seasons’ had not given him the entrée as a literary character as well.
His rival, Jean Jacques Rousseau, was also an habitué at d’Holbach’s. The peaceful Baron could agree even with that fretful child of genius, until one unlucky day, when, Grandval having suffered gladly and politely a curé’s reading of his own stupid tragedy, Jean Jacques bounces furiously out of his armchair, seizes the manuscript from its author, and throws it to the ground—‘Do you not see these people are laughing at you? Go back to your curacy.’ The kindliest and politest of hosts tries to smooth the ruffled60 plumage of both playwright61 and Rousseau. If the curé was appeased62 is not a matter of moment. Jean Jacques burst{127} out of the house in a rage, and despite all the efforts of Grimm and of Diderot, as well as of d’Holbach himself, never returned to it. ‘He imagined all his misfortunes our doing ... and thought we had incited63 ... all Europe against him,’ says Grimm. He did try, however, to make some amends64 to his good host by portraying65 him in the ‘New élo?sa’ in the character of Wolmar—‘benevolent66, active, patient, tranquil67, friendly, and trustful.’
Marmontel came here very often: and that dreadful, garrulous69 old bore, the Abbé Raynal, was constantly to be found seeking ideas among the Baron’s guests for his ‘History of the Two Indies,’ which received, and did not deserve, the advertisement of burning.
The cautious Buffon soon edged away from this salon, as he also edged away from the gatherings70 of Helvétius. The monstrous71 things these people talk about might come to the ears of the authorities—accompanied by the fact that the politic72 author of the ‘Natural History’ was among the talkers! Helvétius himself was often at d’Holbach’s, until the storm of fury and hatred73 which assailed74 his book ‘On the Mind’ banished75 him, astounded76 and embittered77, to his estates in Burgundy.
Madame Geoffrin, with her prim78 little cap tied under her firm old chin, drove down to play{128} picquet with the Baron and to scold Diderot for neglecting his wife.
It was partly owing to the influence of Diderot—himself greatly bitten by the Anglomania just creeping into fashion—that the Baron entertained Englishmen so largely both in Paris and in the country.
In the years 1762-64-66 Sterne accepted the hospitality of the host, whom he called ‘the great protector of wits and the s?avans who are no wits,’ to so large an extent that he could say the Baron’s house was as his own. To be sure, d’Holbach’s ‘joyous sett’ must have admirably suited this Parson Yorick, who had ‘no religion but in appearance,’ and a domestic morality very little better than the worst of the Baron’s French convives.
The ‘broad, unmeaning face’ of Hume, the historian, was sometimes to be seen at d’Holbach’s table, where he found himself for the first time with thinkers not too narrow, but too emancipated79, for his liking80. It was the Baron who, speaking from experience, warned Hume against nourishing in his bosom81 a serpent like Rousseau, and from d’Holbach’s house, says Hume’s biographer, Burton, that the story of the famous quarrel between Hume and Rousseau spread all over France ‘in a moment.{129}’
David Garrick came to Grandval, and delighted an age and a company passionately82 devoted to histrionic talent. A sprightly83 Madame Riccoboni used to write accounts of d’Holbach’s society to the actor when he had gone back to England; and whenever she saw the Baron looked bored or worried, made that expression a text on which to moralise on the worthlessness of riches.
The Baron did not often appear anything but placid84, however, and there are very few of his guests who even hint at anything in himself or his gatherings which was not smooth and delightful.
Horace Walpole, indeed, talks of ‘dull d’Olbach’s.’ But then Horace was the intimate friend of Madame du Deffand, who loathed85 ‘les philosophes’ and all their ways and works, and on one occasion at least was so unlucky as to find himself at one of the Baron’s dinner parties, not only the solitary86 Englishman out of a party of twelve, but next to that tedious Raynal. ‘I dreaded87 opening my mouth in French before so many people and so many servants,’ says Horace; and to avoid being bored by the ‘Two Indies,’ he made signs to Raynal that he was deaf. After dinner, Raynal discovered the trick, and naturally was not pleased.
John Wilkes, with his ugly face, his flaming past, and his irresistible88 charm, also sat at the Baron’s cosmopolitan89 board; as did Benjamin{130} Franklin, Lord Shelburne, and Priestley—Non-conformist, chemist, and one of the founders90 of modern scientific criticism.
Some of these people, of course, only dined, or were merely invited to spend a long day in the Grandval grounds and gardens; but many became part of the house party for days, like Galiani, for weeks, like Grimm, for months, like Diderot, or for ever, like Father Hoop.
In the forenoon, the guests were left entirely to their own devices, and unless by special arrangement, never met each other or their host until dinner-time at half-past one or two. Some of them had arrived with a chef-d’?uvre in their pockets—or, it might be, up their sleeves. Here, in the pleasant solitude of these morning hours, Galiani, no doubt, was ‘settling the question of the Corn Laws,’ Grimm engrossed92 with his ‘Literary Correspondence,’ and Hoop arranging his pessimism93 into a regular system. (Madame d’Aine had thoughtfully provided Hoop with a bedroom overlooking the moat, so that he could at any moment put his principles into practice and throw himself into it.) Diderot, beside his open windows and with the solace94 of a cup of tea, wrote for Mademoiselle Volland those descriptions of life at Grandval to which all narrators of it are indebted.
As for the Baron—the Baron always seemed{131} to have plenty to do in that magnificent library, where he could invariably find chapter and verse for the maddest of Diderot’s theories, but where the actual nature of his occupation was known only to Diderot himself, to a certain very useful friend called Naigeon, who, having been painter and sculptor95, had finally settled into a philosopher, and to La Grange, the d’Holbach children’s tutor.
It is charitable to suppose that the women also performed their duties in the morning, since it is certain they performed none at any other time of day. But in this age, if a woman was witty96 and charming, her métier was considered to be fulfilled, and she not only did nothing practical for the good of humanity, but, better still, never even felt she ought to be doing something. Madame d’Holbach had her lute and her embroidery97 frame, the kindest of clever husbands, those engaging babies, and a perpetual house party. What more could be expected of her? Of Madame d’Aine, it is not recorded that she had any other r?le than that of adding to the gaiety of her household.
At about half-past one, then, the work of the day was done, and hosts and guests met in the salon, and went in to dinner—the famous dinner, exquisitely98 arranged and appointed; servants{132} numerous, noiseless, and perfectly99 au fait in their duties; the most delicate wines, and the most irreproachable100 of chefs. A couple of Englishmen, perhaps, and half a dozen French men and women had driven down to it from Paris. There were generally from twelve to fifteen persons at table, and sometimes more. Good as the fare was—much too good for the health of some of the diners—‘the only intoxication’ at this table ‘was of ideas.’
The talk ranged from the history and customs of the Chinese to the final annihilation of the human race. Sometimes it lit on ‘Clarissa Harlowe,’ and the company divided itself into For and Against Sentiment as understood by the bookseller Richardson. Occasionally the meal was given up to buffoonery, and Madame d’Aine led the way with jokes of such a character that if Morellet is conscientious101 in declaring in his ‘Memoirs’ that all freedoms, except freedoms as to speculation102, were banished from d’Holbach’s gatherings, he must certainly have been deaf. One day, a story going the round of the Paris cafés, holds the table curious and laughing. The Baron, says Grimm, was as amusingly credulous103 of gossip as he was sceptical of everything else. Another day, it is a question of ton or of mode; and a third, of art or of literature.{133}
There was scarcely one of d’Holbach’s convives—there was not one of Voltaire’s co-operators—who did not contribute, at one time or another, a masterpiece, or at least a Book of the Moment, for d’Holbach’s table to discuss.
In 1755, it is the famous article on ‘Existence’ in the Encyclop?dia, by young Turgot, our shy, rare guest, which brings the heads of the older Encyclop?dists together over the walnuts104 and the wine, and inspires them with prophecies of a great future for its quiet author. Three or four years later, the great suppression of that Encyclop?dia itself inflames105 the passions of the party, goads106 Diderot to fury, and d’Alembert to despair.
In 1759, the ‘Candide’ of the Master sets the table in a roar of delight. ‘The Social Contract’ of our impossible, impassioned Jean Jacques sounds for us, in 1762, the trumpet-note of battle in that sonorous107 opening sentence: ‘Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains.’ The next year, the guests give their ever-generous admiration108 to a far wiser work—one of the mightiest109 weapons ever forged against ‘the greatest of human curses’—‘The Treatise110 on Tolerance111.’ In 1765, d’Alembert comes out of his shell again with his ‘History of the Destruction of the Jesuits;’ while Diderot is for ever finger deep in ink—up to the neck in ideas.{134}
Only, at the head of the table, d’Holbach, host and president, always applauding, encouraging, (and sometimes also financing) the producers, himself produces nothing. Yet it is not because he does not go, as it were, with his guests. He goes far beyond them. Here, the women of the party left the table after dinner as they do in England, to exchange what Diderot called their ‘little confidences.’ Then the conversation took, not the kind of freedoms which Morellet declared he did not hear, but speculative liberties which, said he, ‘would have brought down thunderbolts on the house a hundred times if they ever fell for that.’
At d’Holbach’s table, with d’Holbach pushing, urging, with a quiet, invincible112 persistence113, with Diderot waving the flag, leading, pleading, inciting114, the ‘club holbachique’ dragged every dogma, every so-called fact of existence, every creed115, into court before them; judged by the tribunal of their own reason, and cast away all that failed to satisfy it, as fagots for the burning.
Grandval did not speculate, as did Voltaire and his guests at Ferney, on the attributes of God and the nature of the Soul. It began where he left off: asked not, What is God? but, Is there a God? not, What is the Soul? but, Have we a Soul? and in each case answered, No.
Gagged for hundreds of years, Grandval used{135} the newly seized freedom of thought and speech as a very little later the mob used its social and political liberty. The bloody116 extremes of the Terror, and the speculative extremes of d’Holbach’s table, were alike the result of long slavery and repression117.
That d’Holbach at least was strongly and honestly persuaded of the truth of his own unbelief, and was convinced that he did well to destroy in men those faiths which, looking back on history, he saw were responsible for the intolerable miseries118 of religious persecution119, is not doubtful. D’Holbach was an honest man. It is true, indeed, that he was not one of the highest intellectual capacity. His seems to have been just the kind of clever mind—much more common among women than men—which is the dupe of its own cleverness, and easily led by it into absurdities120 which both wise people, and very simple ones, detect and avoid.
Set the problem of deriving121 Everything from Nothing, it is not marvellous that the Grandval talkers descended122 sometimes to the wildest nonsense. Horace Walpole said acidly that they soon turned his head with ‘a new system of antediluvian123 deluges124 which they have invented to prove the eternity125 of matter.... Nonsense for nonsense, I prefer the Jesuits.’ No wonder poor little Galiani (he was an Abbé, though he very often forgot it){136} fled to the more circumspect126 gatherings of Madame Geoffrin, that the wise Turgot also turned away from Grandval, and d’Alembert drew back from an atheism127 so positive and arrogant128.
By the time the philosophers joined the women it was four, five, or even six o’clock. It does take some hours to construct Man and the Universe out of Chaos129, with nothing but blind Force to help us! Then came for the host himself, and some few of the other men of the party, a walk in the beautiful gardens. Most of the Baron’s guests, however, sat indoors with the women, Nature and exercise being both greatly out of fashion in the eighteenth century.
When the walkers returned the evening was drawing in, and there were lights and cards on the table. Some of the guests rested on long chairs. Some played picquet, some billiards130, some tric-trac. Some visited their host’s picture gallery or his famous cabinet of natural history. He was himself always pleasant, courteous131, cheerful. He loved to rally gently ‘the old mummy,’ as he called Father Hoop, and, perhaps, other Fathers, certain Jesuit priests, whom, in defiance132 of all his own principles, he generously made free of his house.
Old Madame d’Aine entertained the whole company with her perfectly indecorous and perfectly good-natured wit. Madame d’Holbach,{137} always ‘douce et honnête,’ ‘très aimable,’ and exquisitely dressed (the description is Madame d’épinay’s), accepted her mother’s buffooneries with absolute complacency.
Coarse as this society was in its speech—worse as it was in its easy condonation133 of vice91 than the worst social sets of our own day—in one respect at least it was immeasurably superior. Except for an occasional desultory134 game proposed by their hosts, the guests at Grandval were expected to bring, and did bring, their own entertainment with them in their own heads. To be bored would have been to confess oneself stupid. For the costly135 freaks of amusement, the elaborately idiotic136 devices of modern times to prevent the visitor having to fall back for an instant on his own resources or intelligence, Grandval had no need. If materialism137 was its creed, there was, as has been justly said, a great deal of ‘indirect spiritualism’ in its practice. Its lengthy138 dinners were feasts of reason (in spite of those intellectual extravagances) as well as of costly meats and wines, and the ill-flavoured jests were only interludes in the midst of brilliant and fruitful talk on literature, history, politics, and the new world beginning for France.
Supper came about nine—‘wit, gaiety, and champagne,’ Diderot described it. Then more{138} conversation, until sometimes the party were still ardently139 philosophising with their bedroom candle-sticks in their hands.
When d’Holbach had been entertaining, apparently140 without a break, for at least ten years, he took what seemed to his friends the foolhardy, not to say desperate, resolve of crossing the Channel. To bury himself in what Diderot called ‘the depths of England’ for two months is a very different thing, the Baron will find, from entertaining Englishmen (and those quite the most enlightened of their species) in Paris! He did find it so. If England delighted Voltaire, soothed141 wounded Helvétius, and pleased even critical Grimm, she thoroughly disgusted d’Holbach. He gave Diderot his vivid first impressions of her, and Diderot retailed142 them, red-hot, for Sophie Volland and for posterity143.
The Baron was hospitably144 received and entertained in this island by a rich and generous host, whose name has not transpired145; he had the best of health during his visit, and he paid that visit in August, when even the British climate can be very tolerable; he had the pleasure of calling on his guest, Garrick; he went to Oxford146 and Cambridge; travelled in some of the prettiest English counties, and he was bored—to extinction147.
Our confessedly bad manners he found worse than anyone had ever found them before, and{139} was dreadfully disgusted with people ‘on whose faces one never sees friendliness148, confidence, or gaiety, but which all wear the inscription149, “What is there in common between you and me?”’ The aristocracy struck him as cold and haughty150, the common people as rough and violent. As for the dinner parties, ‘where people sit according to their rank, and formality and ceremony are beside each guest,’ after the gracious ease of Grandval, the Baron may be forgiven for finding them intolerable.
Then the public entertainments: ‘This people is sad and melancholy151, especially in places built for pleasure. You can hear a pin drop. A hundred stiff and silent women promenade152 round an orchestra discoursing153 the most delicious music,’ and the promenade can only be compared to ‘the processions of the Egyptians round the mausoleum of Osiris.’
Then the gambling154: ‘Englishmen lose incredible sums in perfect silence. By thirty they have exhausted155 all the pleasures, even beneficence. Ennui156 ... conducts them to the Thames, unless they prefer a pistol.’
At the universities, the good Baron found many ‘rich do-nothings drinking and sleeping half the day;’ at Court, corruption157; among the people, no public education and great inequality of riches. The King, to be sure, was powerful chiefly to do{140} good, but still he was much the master. With regard to religion, ‘the Christian158 religion,’ said the Baron, ‘is almost extinct in England.’ This was an advantage from his point of view. But then, though there were innumerable Deists, like Hume, there was not an atheist159, or not an avowed160 one. The travelling facilities he praised—there were always post-horses in plenty; and at the meals at inns, he found himself ‘served promptly161, but with no affability.’ It must be owned that now and again the Baron has us on the hip29.
But, after all, there was very great good in England: it made one so delighted to get back to France. D’Holbach, who had left Paris about August 1, 1765, had returned there by September 20. He dined that same evening with his dear Diderot and a whole colony of English, ‘who had left their morgue and sadness on the banks of the Thames.’
Two years after his return, there appeared, not only to the horror of Court, Church, and Government, but to the horror of the philosophers also, a book called ‘Christianity Unveiled, or an Examination of the Principles and Effects of Revealed Religion.’
It purported162 to be by a person called Boulanger. It asserted Christianity to be unnecessary for the maintenance of law and order; declared its dogmas{141} incoherent, its morals fit only to make enthusiasts163 and fanatics164, and its political results infinitely165 fatal and disastrous166.
Voltaire fell upon the thing tooth and nail. ‘Impiety Unveiled,’ he called it. It was not Christianity, but the perversions167 of Christianity, with which he quarrelled. In the margin168 of his own copy of the book he wrote criticisms as scathing169 as they are brief. That it was both discussed and condemned170 at d’Holbach’s table, is practically certain. Galiani at least professed172 Christianity; Turgot practised it. There are many men—there were some even round d’Holbach’s board—who, having themselves relinquished173 a faith, are yet greatly averse174 to hearing that faith blasphemed; and who would fain leave for the souls of others the consolations175 their reason denies to their own. D’Holbach, to be sure, would commend the thing. ‘A proselytising atheist,’ as his friends had long known him to be—he must approve this daring effort to make men think as he did.
Soon came talk of other books—from the same hand it might be—certainly from a hand as bold. In 1767 appeared a pamphlet called ‘The Mind of the Clergy;’ in 1768 ‘Priests Unmasked,’ and ‘Portable Theology.’ The last was condemned to be burnt.
Then came whispers of yet another work on the same lines, but on a far larger scale, written with an{142} even greater daring, with ‘the zeal176 of a missionary177 for atheism,’ with a passion, a fanaticism178, an enthusiasm, usually associated with the ‘heated pulpiteer’ of some narrow sect179; and yet having in it, too, something of the serenity180, the calm and confident faith of the believer wholly satisfied with his belief. Who has written it? A. M. Mirabaud, Perpetual Secretary to the French Academy, is to be the name, it is said, on the title-page. But the real author? Diderot, whose Encyclop?dic labours bring him in touch with all the literary men in Paris, is impulsively181 positive that he has not the slightest idea. Naigeon—Naigeon, the Baron’s factotum—is abroad on some business of the Baron’s and cannot be appealed to. Most of the company condemn171 the book unseen. The extremists of the party are always the worst enemies the party has to dread68. At the head of his table, fingering his glass thoughtfully, the Baron, with his benevolent, leisurely air, is only following his usual custom in saying little and listening much.
In August 1770, there was published in London and Amsterdam ‘The System of Nature, or The Laws of the Physical and Moral World,’ by Mirabaud, Perpetual Secretary to the French Academy.
The best kept literary secret in history is the authorship of the ‘Letters of Junius,’ for that remains a secret still. But the Baron d’Holbac{143}h’s authorship of ‘The System of Nature’ is certainly among the most piquant concealments in literature.
He had begun by sitting and listening to criticisms, mostly adverse182, on his ‘Christianity Unveiled’ and the pamphlets which followed it, which were all from his pen. Many people start a literary career under as thick a veil of anonymity183. A few have died still under the disguise. But no book has ever attracted such howls of rage and imprecation, such a storm of universal loathing184 and opprobrium185 as did ‘The System of Nature,’ while its author sat in perfect peace and comfort, beloved by all his fellows, safe, unsuspected, and serene. D’Holbach, said Grimm long after, when d’Holbach was dead and the secret out, never ran any danger from his books, save the danger of being bored by them.
Naigeon, La Grange, and Diderot were in his confidence. Diderot was more than in it. To most of the Baron’s works—certainly to ‘The System of Nature’—he lent some of the colour and fire of his genius. Poor Diderot was always suspect of anything rash and extreme. ‘The System of Nature’ was published quite early in August. On the 10th of that month, Denis slipped off to Langres and the baths of Bourbonne. The Baron went on having dinner parties. On the 18th, the book was condemned to be burnt.{144} The Baron continued to dine in peace. Then, as men read it, and passed it secretly from one to the other, the murmurs186 of horror and hatred swelled187 to a roar—the roar of the great multitude, always deafening188 and terrible. Above it, d’Holbach heard, close, distinct, and scathing, the bitter condemnations of his own guests and friends. He went on dining to that accompaniment.
From Ferney, Voltaire pronounced the work ‘a philippic against God’ and ‘a sin against nature;’ swore it had wrought189 irreparable harm to philosophy; passionately refuted it in his article on ‘God’ in the Philosophical191 Dictionary; while it wrung192 from him, in a letter to the Duc de Richelieu, that famous confession193: ‘I think it very good to sustain the doctrine194 of the existence of a punishing and rewarding God: society has need of this opinion.’ Galiani declared ‘this Mirabaud’ to be ‘the Abbé Terrai of metaphysics: he causes the bankruptcy195 of knowledge, of happiness, and of the human mind.’ La Harpe called it ‘this infamous196 book.’ Young Goethe said he fled from it as from a spectre. It caused Frederick the Great to break with the philosophic190 party. Grimm, indeed—but this was after d’Holbach’s death, when it was no longer dangerous to hold such opinions—praised the purity of its author’s intentions, and the passages of ‘imposing elo{145}quence’ the book contained—though these, he added, Grimm-like, ‘were by Diderot.’
Who reads ‘The System of Nature’ now? It never was in any sense a great book. But it certainly was one of the three or four most famous books of an age richer in them than any other age in history. It was, after all, simply the logical outcome, the natural, though the extreme result of the rationalistic criticism of the fifty or sixty years which preceded it. The philosophers had sought to define God. D’Holbach said aloud, what the fool of David’s time said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’
In Part I. he disposed of Kings as effete197, luxurious198, war-making, and tyrannical. Then he expounded199 his views on Happiness. Men will never be happy till they are enlightened, and never enlightened till they have ceased to believe in a God. Study Nature, and obey Nature’s laws—that is the way to felicity, if way there be. Then he went on to Mind. All Mind is Matter. Of Free Will he denied the existence, as twelve years earlier his friend Helvétius had denied it in his book ‘On the Mind.’ Still, even if one cannot help one’s wrong-doing, punishments there must be, for the good of society; only such punishments should be reformative and never cruel. In his protest against torture and the brutalising{146} effect of public executions, one sees for a moment the man behind the book. With regard to the Immortality200 of the Soul, since there is no such thing as soul, it cannot be immortal. The false doctrine of Hell is useless even as a deterrent201 from sin.
Part II. contains what is certainly the most burning and outspoken202 attack on the Existence of God to be found in literature. That there is a Force behind Matter, I admit. He who does not admit this, must be a madman. But further I will not go. As for morality depending on a belief in a Deity—not at all. Nature bids man do right as his own best interest. Let each try to do his utmost for the greatest good of the greatest number, and there stands established a high and an unselfish ideal.
Preached, as these doctrines203 were, in a style not a little vehement204 and abundant, with much Teutonic pomposity205 and rhetoric206, it could soon be said of d’Holbach that he had ‘accommodated atheism to chambermaids and to hairdressers.’ More learned critics disliked his manner as much as his matter. ‘Four times too many words in the book,’ says Voltaire acidly. But the uneducated, or the half-educated, prefer both their oratory207 and their literature rich and fruity.
{147}
Simple and learned alike would, or should, had they known him, have given the author credit for the certain fact that ‘no sordid208 end, no personal consideration, attached him to his dismal49 system.’ If his anonymity shielded him from danger, it kept from him fame and celebrity too, and gave him the wholesome209, but not soothing210, experience of hearing expressed to his face criticisms of the kind generally only made behind one’s back. He did not gain even the painful glories of martyrdom; and had money been an object to him, by the publication of such works as his, he can only have lost it.
Long before the tumult211 ‘The System of Nature’ raised had passed away, the Baron was busy supplementing it. In 1772 appeared ‘Good Sense, or Natural Ideas opposed to Supernatural Ideas,’ which was a sort of simplification of ‘The System of Nature.’ It was burnt. Then appeared ‘The Social System,’ which tried to establish a rule of morality totally unfounded on religion. That was burnt too. Then there was a translation from Hobbes. The last, or one of the last, of d’Holbach’s published works was entitled ‘Universal Morality, or the Duties of Man founded on his Nature.’ This appeared in 1776. He had the pleasure of watching all the bonfires from a distance where there was not the least danger of scorching212.
In 1781 one of his daughters was married.{148} Her father was now fifty-eight years old. Did philosophy, as Galiani inquired (Galiani had returned to Italy in 1769), still eat at his table with its old appetite? Grimm said—in Grimm’s caustic213 fashion—that the guests fell off somewhat when the Baron had to retrench214 his expenses to establish his children. Some of the convives had gone before that, to solve for themselves those questions on a future world, and the existence of the soul, which they had discussed so often. In 1771 died Helvétius; in 1778 Voltaire himself. In 1783, d’Alembert, who had indeed long ceased to frequent the Baron’s society, or any society, laid down the burden of his life. In the next year, Diderot, the friend of his heart, the fruitful inspiration of his work, was called away from d’Holbach’s side for ever.
It must have been with this society, as it is with all societies at last: the sight of vacant chairs stops the mirth, and among the living guests glide215 others, dear and dead. When one has more memories than hopes, the time has come to give up such gatherings. That time came even to the Host of his generation. By his own fireside he had to the end the wife he loved. She long survived him. He had, too, that tranquil and even disposition216 which is surely one of the best of assets—a possession indeed.{149}
The Baron was as prudent10 in the time of his death as he had been in the conduct of his life. He died on January 21 of that annus mirabilis, 1789. Five years more, and he would have seen his own principles enthroned with the Goddess of Reason at Notre-Dame, and as, in part at least, the consequence of her reign33, the streets of Paris running with blood. Directly after his death, the secret of his authorship became public property.
It is permissible217 only to think of d’Holbach now as his guests and friends thought of him in life—not as the author of ‘The System of Nature’ at all, but as the liberal patron of letters, the best and kindliest of good, easy men. One may be permitted to hate as bitterly as Voltaire did the unreasonableness218 of his philosophy of pure reason; and yet to regard the philosopher with gratitude219 and appreciation220, as the man who played in the great intellectual revival221 of his time one of the homeliest, yet one of the most necessary of parts.
For d’Holbach provided the rendez-vous.
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sociable
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| adj.好交际的，友好的，合群的 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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celebrity
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| n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望 | |
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memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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shrines
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| 圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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parvenu
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| n.暴发户，新贵 | |
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annotator
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| n.注释者 | |
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transcriber
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| 抄写者 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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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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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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agitating
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| 搅动( agitate的现在分词 )； 激怒； 使焦虑不安； （尤指为法律、社会状况的改变而）激烈争论 | |
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sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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parable
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| n.寓言，比喻 | |
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judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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affluent
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| adj.富裕的，富有的，丰富的，富饶的 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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arsenal
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| n.兵工厂，军械库 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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lute
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| n.琵琶，鲁特琴 | |
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romp
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| n.欢闹；v.嬉闹玩笑 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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fixture
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| n.固定设备；预定日期；比赛时间；定期存款 | |
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hoop
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| n.（篮球）篮圈，篮 | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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dismally
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| adv.阴暗地，沉闷地 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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53
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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54
fecundity
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| n.生产力；丰富 | |
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piquant
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| adj.辛辣的，开胃的，令人兴奋的 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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smallpox
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| n.天花 | |
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ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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playwright
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| n.剧作家，编写剧本的人 | |
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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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incited
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| 刺激，激励，煽动( incite的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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portraying
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| v.画像( portray的现在分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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benevolent
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| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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garrulous
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| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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politic
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| adj.有智虑的；精明的；v.从政 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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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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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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emancipated
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| adj.被解放的，不受约束的v.解放某人（尤指摆脱政治、法律或社会的束缚）( emancipate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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81
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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sprightly
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| adj.愉快的，活泼的 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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88
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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cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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91
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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pessimism
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| n.悲观者，悲观主义者，厌世者 | |
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solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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95
sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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96
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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97
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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98
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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99
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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100
irreproachable
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| adj.不可指责的，无过失的 | |
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101
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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102
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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103
credulous
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| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
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104
walnuts
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| 胡桃（树）( walnut的名词复数 )； 胡桃木 | |
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105
inflames
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| v.（使）变红，发怒，过热( inflame的第三人称单数 ) | |
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106
goads
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| n.赶牲口的尖棒( goad的名词复数 )v.刺激( goad的第三人称单数 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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107
sonorous
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| adj.响亮的，回响的；adv.圆润低沉地；感人地；n.感人，堂皇 | |
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108
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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109
mightiest
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| adj.趾高气扬( mighty的最高级 )；巨大的；强有力的；浩瀚的 | |
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110
treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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111
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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112
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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113
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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114
inciting
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| 刺激的，煽动的 | |
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115
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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116
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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117
repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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118
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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119
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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120
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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121
deriving
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| v.得到( derive的现在分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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122
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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123
antediluvian
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| adj.史前的，陈旧的 | |
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124
deluges
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| v.使淹没( deluge的第三人称单数 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付 | |
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125
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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126
circumspect
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| adj.慎重的，谨慎的 | |
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127
atheism
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| n.无神论，不信神 | |
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128
arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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129
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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130
billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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131
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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132
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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133
condonation
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| n.容忍，宽恕，原谅 | |
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134
desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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135
costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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136
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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137
materialism
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| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
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138
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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139
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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140
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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141
soothed
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| v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦 | |
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142
retailed
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| vt.零售（retail的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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143
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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144
hospitably
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| 亲切地，招待周到地，善于款待地 | |
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145
transpired
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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146
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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147
extinction
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| n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种 | |
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148
friendliness
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| n.友谊，亲切，亲密 | |
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149
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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150
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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151
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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152
promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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153
discoursing
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| 演说（discourse的现在分词形式） | |
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154
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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155
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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156
ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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157
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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158
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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159
atheist
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| n.无神论者 | |
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160
avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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161
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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162
purported
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| adj.传说的，谣传的v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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163
enthusiasts
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| n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 ) | |
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164
fanatics
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| 狂热者，入迷者( fanatic的名词复数 ) | |
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165
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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166
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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167
perversions
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| n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 )；变坏；变态心理 | |
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168
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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169
scathing
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| adj.（言词、文章）严厉的，尖刻的；不留情的adv.严厉地，尖刻地v.伤害，损害（尤指使之枯萎）( scathe的现在分词) | |
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170
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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171
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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172
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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173
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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174
averse
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| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
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175
consolations
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| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
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176
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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177
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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178
fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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179
sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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180
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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181
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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182
adverse
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| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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183
anonymity
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| n.the condition of being anonymous | |
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184
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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185
opprobrium
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| n.耻辱，责难 | |
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186
murmurs
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| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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187
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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188
deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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189
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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190
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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191
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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192
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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193
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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194
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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195
bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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196
infamous
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| adj.声名狼藉的，臭名昭著的，邪恶的 | |
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197
effete
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| adj.无生产力的，虚弱的 | |
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198
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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199
expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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200
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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201
deterrent
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| n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的 | |
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202
outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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203
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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204
vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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205
pomposity
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| n.浮华；虚夸；炫耀；自负 | |
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206
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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207
oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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208
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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209
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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210
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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211
tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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212
scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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213
caustic
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| adj.刻薄的，腐蚀性的 | |
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214
retrench
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| v.节省，削减 | |
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215
glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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216
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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217
permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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218
unreasonableness
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| 无理性； 横逆 | |
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219
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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220
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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221
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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