The women to whose personalities6 and writings we are presently to turn—Mrs. Behn and Mrs. Manley—stand out among the least attractive products of an age of low ideals and scandalous living. But they none the less remain figures of some permanent attractiveness to those of us who care to investigate the beginnings of our great modern prose fiction; and it is on account of their relative or historic importance that I have undertaken to say something about them in this place.
In order, however, to make such historic importance clear, we must go back a little in our inquiry8.
The titanic9 imaginative energy of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods had found its principal outlet10 in the drama. It was on the stage and through the literature of the stage that, during the most brilliant era of its intellectual activity, the genius of the English people, for the most part, sought expression. The drama thus became the representative and the embodiment of all that was strongest and most characteristic 127in the national life. In it we find the great mental and moral movements of the time gathered up and made vocal11; to it we turn for the fullest and richest manifestation12 of the national mind. As Mr. Symonds truly said: “The drama, its own original creation, stood to the English nation in the place of all the other arts. England ... needed no ?sthetic outlet but the drama.”
But little by little the close connection between the stage and the national life was severed13; and cut off from its sources of deepest impulse and inspiration, the drama fell gradually into a condition of decrepitude14 and decay. For many years before the Revolution the breach15 between theatre and people had been a slowly widening one; and by the time the Restoration once more gave free rein16 to dramatic art, the separation had become complete. No longer making catholic appeal to the whole community, no longer absorbing into itself, by way of nourishment17 and stimulation18, the broad and generous interests of a varied19 social life, the drama now became the mouthpiece and the mirror of one class only—of the aristocratic class, which had brought foreign fashions, tastes, morality, with it from abroad. The theatre of Shakspere and his contemporaries had been, as it were, the flower and 128fruitage of a period of intense national vigor21 and excitement; the theatre of Congreve and Wycherley was little more than the passing amusement of the idle and demoralized fashionable world. Harassed22 by Puritan austerity on the one hand, and more seriously perverted23 by Royalist profligacy24 upon the other, the drama was forced into a relationship with the larger mass of the people at once unnatural25 and most disastrous26; and thus the plays of the time, in spite of all their pungency27 of wit and glitter of dialogue, lack that breadth of horizon, earnestness of purpose, and firm grasp of life, without which no body of literature—and no body of dramatic literature especially—can lay claim to permanent value and significance.
Meanwhile a new taste was growing up, and with it a fresh channel was opened for imaginative activity. While the drama, sapped at its foundations, was sinking deeper and deeper into corruption28, and before as yet any effort had been put forth29 to save it from its fate, the first noteworthy experiments were being made towards the development of a class of literature which has since acquired unrivalled popularity, and every year continues to fill a larger and larger place in public estimation, as well as upon our 129library shelves. The causes which combined to bring about the decline of the drama and the rise of the modern novel were so varied in character and intricate in their outworkings, that even the briefest discussion of them here would commit us to an unwarrantable digression; though it should be said, and said emphatically, that the change is not to be regarded as a mere31 matter of shifting literary taste, since it was unquestionably related, in the most direct and intimate way, with some of the largest and deepest movements of the time in society, manners, and general thought.[5] Suffice it for us now to remark the simple fact that, while the dramatists of the Restoration were engaged upon works which, fortunately for English society and letters, left but little permanent mark upon the history of the theatre, the foundations were being slowly but firmly laid upon which the vast superstructure of modern fiction was presently to be reared.
So thoroughly33 absorbed had men been in the drama, and so natural had it seemed for those 130of imaginative power to turn directly to the stage, that hitherto prose fiction, though by no means neglected, had done little towards making a decisive start. Some popular stories, then long current, had been gathered up and circulated in chap-books, and had in sundry34 cases furnished materials for contemporary playwrights35; translations had been made from several foreign languages, and in this way “Don Quixote,” and the works of Rabelais, Boccaccio, Montemayor, and others, introduced to English readers; while such collections of versions and adaptations as those of Painter and Turbervile might have been found, it is said, so great had been their temporary vogue36, on almost every London bookstall. Moreover, the form of fiction had been occasionally employed by philosophers for broaching37 new theories of life and government; as by More, in his “Utopia,” and Bacon, in his “New Atlantis.” And, far more important than any such sporadic38 efforts as these, there were the romances produced by some of the early dramatists—Lyly, and his most famous followers39, Lodge40 and Greene, in particular. To these have to be added the chivalrous41 pastoral of Sir Philip Sidney, “warbler of poetic42 prose”; and in a very different category, the stories and 131sketches of Thomas Nash, Dekker, and Chettle, whose work, apart altogether from any question of absolute merit, is of supreme44 significance to the student of English fiction, because in it we find the crude beginnings of the picaresque novel of later times.
Lumped together in this way—and the above paragraph makes no pretence45 at completeness of statement,—the amount of prose fiction of one and another kind produced in England under Elizabeth and James the First may seem to be considerable, and certainly no student of the evolution of literature, or of the many-sided intellectual activity of the Shaksperian age, would to-day think of underrating it. Yet it is possible perhaps to go to the other extreme, and to exaggerate its historic importance. To trace the connection between the tentative output of the ’prentice-writers just referred to and the fully5 grown fiction of the eighteenth century—to indicate, for example, the lines along which Nash leads us through Defoe to Smollett and Fielding, and the points of unexpected contact between Sidney and Richardson is an inquiry full of curious interest for the special student. But too much might easily be made of the results brought to light thereby46. After duly allowing 132for the isolated47 productions of the Elizabethan period, which undoubtedly broke ground in many directions, we come back still to the broad fact, that it was not until after the Restoration, and largely as a result of what was then undertaken and accomplished48, that the novel firmly established itself as a well-defined form of literary art. With the Restoration, therefore, it may fairly be said that we open a new chapter in the history of English fiction.
The new era, however, began badly enough, in the midst of a byway of most absurd experiment, which could not, in the nature of things, lead to any permanent achievement. For along with so much else that was French in manners, fashions, morals, turns of speech, there had already been imported into England a taste for the peculiar49 form of romance—the roman à longue haleine—which was just then enjoying amazing popularity in the country of its birth, on the other side of the Channel. As we turn back to the dull and monstrous50 productions of the class now in question, we find it difficult enough to conceive that in any place, under any possible circumstances, there should have been men and women able to derive51 not simply enjoyment52, but 133passionate and continuous enjoyment, from their pages. But the famous H?tel de Rambouillet had set its mark upon them, and in the well-prepared country of the “Arcadia,” they realized instant and complete success, not only among the ultra-fashionables of a Gallicized society, but also in the more general reading world.
We must glance for a moment at one or two of the most salient characteristics of the school of fiction which thus became for a time so widely influential53, that we may at once appreciate its stultifying54 tendencies, and bring into clear perspective what we shall presently have to say about the work of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Behn. In doing this we need go no farther than the examples furnished by the three most prominent French leaders of polite taste—Gomberville, La Calprenède, and Mlle. de Scudéri.
In the first place, the would-be student of the so-called classical-heroic romances of these once celebrated55 writers is staggered by their tremendous bulk and inordinate56 prolixity57. The modern reader shudders58 at Richardson, and takes his “Pamela” and “Sir Charles Grandison” in condensed editions. But Richardson is brevity itself compared with these earlier indefatigable59 laborers60 in the field of the novel. Gomberville’s 134“Polexandre” began in four volumes quarto, and in its later editions comprised some six thousand pages; the “Cléopatre” of La Calprenède, when finished, filled twelve octavo volumes; “Pharamond,” written partly by the same author, and partly by Pierre d’Ortigue de Vaumorière, reached nearly the same length; while the “Clélie” and “Le Grand Cyrus” of Mlle. de Scudéri—who in the matter of resolute61 long-windedness was, naturally enough, more than a match for her masculine rivals—extended respectively to some eight thousand and fifteen thousand octavo pages.[6] These, and such as these, were the works that Pope was ridiculing62 when in “The Rape63 of the Lock” he built out of them an altar for the due celebration of the “adventurous64 baron’s” religious rites65; and he was surely justified66 in describing them as “huge French romances.” It makes us feel how little of permanence and stability there is in any matter of taste, when we remember that these colossal67 productions, over which the most patient reader of to-day would soon catch himself yawning, were once awaited with interest and devoured68 with avidity.
135But even more important, from the standpoint of literary history, than the mere size of these overgrown absurdities69 were their structural70 principles and peculiarities71 of style. An offshoot apparently72 from the chivalrous and pastoral romances of earlier date, with the addition of what it pleased writers and readers alike to regard as an “historical” blend of interest, the classical-heroic romance proper presents a bewildering jumble73 of the most far-sought and incongruous materials. In fine disregard of anachronism and inconsistency, their authors carry us hither and thither74 about the world, introducing us to Greeks and Romans, Egyptians and Persians, Knights75 of the Round Table, Paladins of Charlemagne, shepherds and shepherdesses of nowhere in particular, and even Peruvian Incas. The main plot, as a rule deceptively simple, is complicated from first to last by enormous and intricate ramifications76 of secondary actions; a characteristic due to the fact that every fresh individual introduced, whether in the central narrative77, or in some excrescence from it, persists in recounting his own adventures at tremendous length. Thus we have story within story, wheel within wheel, 136till the reader completely loses his hold upon the tangled78 threads of intrigue79, and collapses80 into a condition of dazed despair.[7] But this is not the worst. The characters seem to be totally unable to tell their experiences in a straightforward81 fashion and have done with it. They linger by the way—time being of no importance to any of them—to indulge in everlasting82 conversations and soliloquies, discourse83 learnedly on delicate questions of gallantry and honor, quote, criticise84, sentimentalize, pour out page after page of inflated86 rhapsody, and cavil87 remorselessly on the ninth part of a hair. Thus the so-called “historic” element in these romances, is nominal88 only. The heroes and heroines, of whatever race, clime, or era, are only masquerading men and women of seventeenth-century France, with the ridiculous jargon89 of the H?tel de Rambouillet incessantly90 upon their lips.
It will be seen from this brief description that the classical-heroic romance was absolutely artificial and unreal; that it had, and pretended to 137have, no touch or contact with the things of solid existence. Characters, incidents, sentiments, speech were all of a world apart—Utopia, Arcadia, No-Man’s-Land. Life was not distorted, as it is in the writings of many romantic novelists and most of our modern realists. It was simply not considered at all.
At the time when these ponderous91 and vapid92 productions reached the climax93 of their popularity on their native soil, French was well understood by the educated classes in England; and it was in their original tongue, therefore, that they made their way at first among the fellow-countrymen of Milton. But translations soon followed with a rapidity that bore startling testimony94 to the strength of the new taste. “Polexandre” appeared in an English version as early as 1647; “Ibrahim,” “Cassandra,” and “Cléopatre” in 1652; while “Clélie,” “Astrée,” “Scipion,” “Le Grand Cyrus,” “Zelinda,” and “Almahide” were all translated and published between the latter date and 1677. On the heels of these regular translations soon came sundry imitations which, after the manner of imitations in general, reproduced with scrupulous95 fidelity96 all the worst features of the original works. “Eliana,” issued in 1661, reads almost like a 138burlesque of the heroic style, and abounds97 in long-drawn98 descriptive passages of the most florid and fantastic kind. Running this very close in overwrought extravagance of theme and language, the “Pandion and Amphigenia” of Crowne the dramatist saw the light four years later. But the most celebrated of the English specimens100 of this exotic school is a somewhat earlier work—the “Parthenissa” of Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery; a production left incomplete after reaching more than eight hundred folio pages. This is pronounced by Dunlop, whose industry and patience in reading the romances of this period must have been little short of superhuman, to be the best English specimen99 of its class; and most of us will probably be more ready to accept his judgment101 than to undertake its verification.[8]
Both “Eliana” and “Parthenissa” were broken off abruptly102, the latter in the middle of one of its most interesting situations; and Dunlop is probably right in regarding this fact as 139evidence of the gradual decline of the taste out of which they had grown and to which they had appealed. Indeed, so far as England was concerned, the classical-heroic romance could not have been otherwise than ephemeral. It had no real hold upon English society, and was fundamentally out of harmony with the spirit of an age in which chivalry103 had degenerated104 into empty gallantry, and playing at pastoral simplicity105 had ceased to be an aristocratic amusement. The temper of which it was one manifestation for a time made its influence deeply felt in almost every department of literature; it invaded even poetry; and directly inspired that extraordinary form of drama, so familiar to the student of Davenant and Dryden—the heroic play. But the prose fiction to which it gave existence carried in its essential qualities the seeds of early decay. It is true that in certain quarters it retained a faint and shadowy kind of reputation longer than might have been expected.[9] But the rise of a totally different school of novelists in the last 140decades of the seventeenth century, practically marks the close of its career; and dying, it left no issue.
We are now at length prepared to appreciate the historic significance and interest of what, in a rather loose way, is commonly called the prose fiction of the Restoration.
Says Mrs. Manley, in the introductory address to the reader in her “Secret History of Queen Zarah”:—
“Romances in France have for a long time been the diversion and amusement of the whole world; the people ... have read these works with a most surprising greediness; but that fury is very much abated106, and they are all fallen off from this distraction107. The little histories of this kind have taken place [sic] of romances, whose prodigious108 number of volumes were sufficient to tire and satiate such whose heads were most filled with these notions.... These little pieces which have banished109 romances are much more agreeable to the brisk and impetuous humor of the English, who have naturally no taste for long-winded performances; for they have no sooner begun a book than they desire to see the end of it.”
These remarks will doubtless strike some readers as curious, and we may well wonder what the followers of Taine, particularly, would make of 141the “brisk and impetuous humor” here alleged110 to characterize the English people. But they are valuable to us, irrespective of their psychology111, because they enable us to understand how the new fiction—the fiction in which, despite all adventitious112 differences, we can clearly recognize the beginnings of the modern novel—arose to take the place of the Anglo-French romance. The “little histories” to which Mrs. Manley refers grew up by the most natural process of reaction against the “prodigious number of volumes” into which, as we have noted113, the older narratives114 had run. Nor was it in measure only that a change was initiated115. As we shall presently see, the novel of the Restoration, broadly so-called, differed from its predecessors116 not merely in length, but also in the more important qualities of subject-matter, treatment, and style. The old Arcadia was finally forsaken117 for the solid earth, and lengthy118 descriptions, multifarious episodes, wearisome soliloquies, and needless tortuosities of plot were at the same time left behind. Real life now formed the basis of the story, and, despite occasional reminiscences of the older manner, crispness of narration119 became one of the writers’ principal aims.
We have here undertaken to consider a little 142this healthy and significant change from the romance to the novel in the writings of two of its representative exponents—Mrs. Behn and Mrs. Manley. It should be understood, however, that in adopting this course we have no intention of throwing their work into undue120 prominence121. They were but part-factors in a general movement, and must be contented122 to share its honors with a number of their contemporaries. Nevertheless, they possess a special interest for the student of English literature, for two very good reasons. In the first place, taken together, they illustrate123 with remarkable124 clearness those broader characteristics of the new fiction which it is our principal concern in this little essay to bring to light; and, secondly125, there is the fact that they were women. It is surely in itself instructive to find that while the great Elizabethan drama can adduce no example of a woman-writer, it is in the productions of a couple of women that we can study to the best advantage some of the rudimentary developments of the modern novel.[10]
143It will be convenient for us to ignore the strict demands of chronology and begin with the work of Mrs. Manley, which, though somewhat later in date than Mrs. Behn’s, may properly be taken first, since it is at once cruder in form and historically of minor126 importance.
Mrs. De la Riviere Manley—“poor Mrs. Manley,” as Swift calls her, in the “Journal to Stella”—enjoyed anything but a peaceful life. It seems to be an accepted tradition among biographers of men and women of letters to begin their narratives by protesting that the lives of authors seldom furnish exciting materials, and then to go on to add that their particular heroes or heroines are exceptions to the general rule. Certainly Mrs. Manley was an exception, if rule indeed it be, which I think open to question. She herself has given us some account of her adventures and misfortunes in different portions of her “New Atalantis,” and more particularly in “The History of Rivella”—an autobiography127 and apologia pro4 vita sua—published in 1714, under the pseudonym128 of Sir Charles Lovemore. 144There is no need for us to follow her through all her varied experiences, the record of which, though often lively enough, is seldom of a very improving character. It will be sufficient to give the briefest outline of her career.
She was born in Guernsey about the year 1677, her father, Sir Roger Manley, being, as is generally stated, governor, or, as seems more probable, deputy governor, of that island. According to her own account, she grew up into a sharp-witted, impressionable girl, who, receiving rather more than an average education, early gave signs of an intelligence beyond what, at that time, was considered the fair endowment of her sex. Her tribulations129, too, began early. Her parents died when she was still very young, and she fell into the hands of a male cousin, who unfortunately became enamored of her. The man was known to be married already, but he asserted that his wife was dead; and Rivella, deceived by his protestations, entered into a secret marriage with him. The theme of one of her most unsavory stories seems to have been directly suggested by this tragic130 episode in her own life. After a while, of course, the truth came out. Then her scoundrelly husband abandoned her, and she was left to shift for herself as best she 145might. About this time she gained the patronage131 of the famous Duchess of Cleveland, one of Charles the Second’s mistresses, in attendance upon whom she remained during some six months. But the Duchess was a woman of fickle132 temper. She soon grew tired of Mrs. Manley; and, by pretending that she had discovered her in an intrigue with her son (and there may possibly have been more ground than poor Rivella admits for the allegation), found an excuse for dismissing her from her service. It was now that Mrs. Manley appears to have taken up her pen in earnest—and a very reckless and caustic133 pen it by and by turned out to be. Her tragedy, “The Royal Mistress,” acted in 1696, proved so successful that she found herself courted by all the dandies and witlings of the day; and for some years, as a consequence, she spent her time principally in getting out of one intrigue into another. Nevertheless, she found leisure, amid all her excitements, to write and produce her “Secret Memoirs134 and Manners of Several Persons of Quality, from the New Atalantis”—a work which, under the most thinly disguised names, attacked in an extremely violent and outspoken135 manner the men who had been mainly instrumental in bringing about the Revolution. 146In virtue136 of this production Mrs. Manley may be said to have secured the doubtful honor of being the first political woman-writer in England. So successful was the satire137 in reaching those for whom it was intended, that the printer was straightway apprehended138; but Mrs. Manley—who, as Swift contemptuously put it, “had generous principles for one of her sort”—would not allow him to suffer in her behalf. She appeared before the Court of King’s Bench, and declared herself solely139 responsible for the entire undertaking140, maintaining, moreover, “with unaltered constancy, that the whole work was mere invention, without any cynical141 allusion142 to real characters.”[11] Mrs. Manley, indeed, seems to have cared a great deal more about getting her printer out of a scrape than about sticking too solemnly to the simple truth; since, apart altogether from the manifestly satirical intention of the book, we know that she made its publication the basis of a personal application to the ministry143. In the “Journal to Stella,” Swift tells us how he afterwards met Mrs. Manley at the house of Lord Peterborough, and adds that she was there “soliciting him to get some pension or reward for her service in the cause, by writing 147her ‘Atalantis.’” Still we must frankly144 admit that her loyalty145 to the printer in such a crisis throws her character into a rather favorable light.
However, after a short period of confinement146, and sundry appearances before the court, Mrs. Manley was allowed to go free, and the matter dropped. After this adventure, she produced several dramatic pieces, wrote some pamphlets of a political kind, and for a time conducted “The Examiner,” which had then been relinquished147 by Swift. Indeed, she appears to have remained in the full swing of activity to the close of her life. She died, aged32 about forty-seven, in 1724, at the house of one John Barber, an alderman of the City of London, with whom it is supposed she had for some time past been living.
In person, as she herself very candidly148 tells us, Mrs. Manley was fat, and her face had been early marked by that terrible scourge149 of the age, the smallpox150; notwithstanding which defects, her fascination151 of manner and conversation was so great, that she was always popular with the other sex. Of her moral character, perhaps, the less said the better. Circumstances had not been kind to Rivella; and at this distance of time, and with all the intrigues152 in which she was involved, it is not always easy to say how 148far she was sinned against, and how far sinning, or whether her own statement came anywhere near the facts of the case when she boldly declared that “her virtues” were “her own, her vices153 occasioned by her misfortunes.” Still we must admit the truth of the words which she has put into the mouth of d’Aumont in the “History of Rivella”: “If she have but half so much of the practice as the theory, in the way of love, she must certainly be a most accomplished person.” And a most accomplished person, after her own fashion, she evidently seems to have been.
The most famous of her writings—if the word famous can properly be used, when they have all passed into oblivion—is, of course, the “New Atalantis”—that veritable “cornucopia of scandal,” as Swift dubbed154 it. This work swept its author into temporary notoriety, and for a few years was perhaps as much talked of and discussed as any publication of the time. But the life has long since gone out of its personalities and topical allusions155, and the ordinary reader of English literature, if he recall it even by name, is likely to remember it only for the use Pope makes of it in a well-known passage in “The Rape of the Lock”:—
149“Let wreaths of triumph now my temples twine156!
(The victor cried); the glorious prize is mine!
While fish in streams, or birds delight in air,
Or in a coach and six the British fair;
As long as Atalantis shall be read,
Or the small pillow grace a lady’s bed;
While visits shall be paid on solemn days,
When numerous wax-lights in bright order blaze;
While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,
So long my honor, name, and praise shall live!”
But though this book, as we shall hereafter find, is not without its significance for the student of the English novel, it is less interesting and important from our point of view than “The Power of Love: In Seven Examples,” to which for the present we will confine our attention.
As the title indicates, this volume consists of seven separate stories—“The Fair Hypocrite,” “The Physician’s Stratagem,” “The Wife’s Resentment,” “The Husband’s Resentment” (in two examples), “The Happy Fugitives,” and “The Perjured157 Beauty.” The keynote of the whole collection is clearly struck in the following passage from the first-mentioned of the tales:—
“Of all those passions which may be said to tyrannize over the heart of man, love is not only the most violent, but the most persuasive158.... A lover esteems159 nothing difficult in the pursuit of his desires. It is then that fame, honor, chastity, and glory have no longer 150their due estimation, even in the most virtuous160 breast. When love truly seizes the heart, it is like a malignant161 fever which thence disperses162 itself through all the sensible parts; the poison preys163 upon the vitals, and is only extinguished by death; or by as fatal a cure, the accomplishment164 of its own desires.”
The “love” shadowed forth in these sentences is that which dominates each of the seven “Examples” in this little book, which are thus only variations on a single persistent165 theme. It is the merest animal passion—passion unrefined by sentiment, uncolored by emotion; the love of Etheridge and Wycherley. Upon the gratification of this in a licit, or, as frequently happens, in an illicit166 way, the plot is, with the monotony of a modern French novel, everywhere made to turn. The heroes of her stories are all, like Mr. Slye, in the author’s rather amusing sketch43, the “Stage-Coach Journey to Exeter,” “naturally amorous167”; her heroines, like the Fair Princess in “The Happy Fugitives,” are one and all “born under an amorous constellation,” and like her, are forever “floating on the tempestuous168 sea of passion, guided by a master who is too often pleased with the shipwreck169 of those whom he conducts.” So violent are the experiences portrayed170 that we can hardly avoid the 151thought that Mrs. Manley must have adhered in practice to the maxim171 of “Astrophel and Stella”—“Look in thy heart, and write,”—and must have gone straight to some of the stormiest episodes of her own career for the pictures which she gives us. Passion and gratification—these, then, are the regular ingredients of her stories. Of the larger and finer influence of love; of its strengthening and ennobling power; of the way in which its subtle mastery will work through life,—
“Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought, and amiable172 words,
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man,”—
of all these things, familiar enough, fortunately, to the reader of modern fiction, we have scarcely a trace. So far as the influence of love is shown at all, it is consistently shown as a debasing influence. This point, clearly set forth in the quotation173 already made, may be illustrated174 from the record of the writer’s own life. In the “History of Rivella,” she tells us that, when quite a girl, she was infatuated with a handsome young soldier who, when the gaming-tables were brought out, found, to his embarrassment175, that he had no money to play with. Noticing this, Rivella 152went to her father’s drawer, stole some money, and gave it to him. Now, mark the author’s commentary upon the action: “Being perfectly176 just,” she says, “by nature, principle, and education, nothing but love, and that in a high degree, could have made her otherwise.” Here we have, then, a fair expression of the kind of love which is presented to us in these “Examples.” A despotic animal appetite, unchecked in its fierce, impulsive177 play by any nobler considerations whatever, it drives human nature downward, captive and slave to the “fury passions” which civilization has been struggling to bring under partial control.
These seven stories, therefore, are anything but pleasant reading, unless they be, like certain incidents referred to in the “New Atalantis,” “pleasant ... to the ears of the vicious.” It is not only that they are repulsive178 because of the undisguised licentiousness179 that everywhere prevails in them; they are occasionally disgusting on account of the large part played by the merely horrible. So intimately related are unemotionalized passion and utter brutality180, that, as might be expected, here, where the one is so conspicuous181, the other has considerable place. The revenge taken by the woman upon her 153worthless husband in “The Wife’s Resentment” (Did recollection of her own wrongs add bitterness to Rivella’s pen, we may well wonder?) may be cited as an example of this. Don Roderigo, a Spanish gentleman, after trying for fifteen months to seduce182 a poor girl named Violenta, marries her in a moment of thoughtlessness, but keeps the marriage a secret from his friends. Before long he is forced by his family into a second and public union with a wealthy heiress. The news of his inconstancy fills Violenta with delirious183 passion; and nothing will appease184 her but revenge, sudden and complete. She decoys Roderigo into her apartment, murders him while he is asleep, and, not contented with this, deliberately185 tears out his eyes and mangles186 “his body all over with an infinite number of gashes” before throwing it out into the street. And what is particularly noteworthy is, that the narrator herself does not seem to be in the least impressed by the loathsome187 details accumulated in her description. She reports the incident as though it were a matter of course, and quietly tells us that when Violenta was brought to justice for her crime, the duke, the magistrates188, and all the spectators were amazed “at the courage and magnanimity of the maid, and that one of so 154little rank should have so great a sense of her dishonor.”
Unquestionably the most pleasing of all these stories, alike from a literary and from a moral standpoint, is “The Happy Fugitives,” a simple tale, containing comparatively little to which exception could be taken. The plots of “The Physician’s Stratagem” and “The Perjured Beauty,” on the other hand, are too hideous189 to be reproduced. As a whole, the book is desperately190 dull and tiresome191; for the pornographic horrors of its pages are unredeemed by any excellencies of style. Its only interest for us here, therefore, is an historic one; and about this side of the matter, we shall have a general word or two to say later on.
If, morally considered, she is equally open to stricture, our second woman-novelist, Mrs. Behn, at least bulks out as a more considerable figure in the annals of English letters. Highly eulogized by some of the most distinguished192 of her contemporaries—Dryden, Otway, and Southerne among the number,—she must still be spoken of with the respect due to her undoubted talents, versatility193, industry, and courage. That she is to be regarded as “an honor and glory” 155to her sex, as one of her enthusiastic admirers roundly declared, it would now, for many reasons, be out of the question to maintain. But the one fact that she was the first woman of her country to support herself entirely194 by the pen, itself establishes her right to a certain place in the long line of female writers who have since her day done so much for literature.
Aphra (or Aphara) Johnson, afterwards Behn, (known as the “Divine Astr?a” in the exuberant195 language of the time,[12] and long commonly referred to as an “extraordinary woman,”[13]) was born towards the end of the reign20 of Charles the First. While still a girl, she was taken to the West Indies by her father, who had been appointed lieutenant-general of Surinam.[14] Johnson himself “died at sea, and never arrived to 156possess the honor designed him.” But the family settled in the colony—a “land flowing with milk and honey,” they are said to have found it,—and continued to reside there till about 1653. A high-colored description of her life abroad is given in her best-known work, as it was during this period that she made her hero’s acquaintance, and became interested in the story of his love and tragic fate. It is characteristic of the tendencies of the age that her biographer should feel it necessary to pause at this point in her narrative to contradict some current town gossip about the kind of relationship which had existed between Astr?a and the African prince. Returning to England, she married a man named Behn, who seems to have been “a merchant in the city, tho’ of Dutch extraction,” but concerning whom our information is of the most meagre sort. Of him we hear little or nothing in connection with Aphra’s subsequent adventurous career; and she was a widow before 1666. Attached to the court of Charles the Second, she attracted so much attention, we are told, by her keenness of intellect, alertness, 157and wit, that she was employed by the Merry Monarch196 in some delicate diplomatic affairs during the Dutch war. These took her to Antwerp in the character of a spy, in which capacity she succeeded so well that in course of time, and by means principally of her innumerable love intrigues, she obtained possession of some secrets of considerable value. “They are mistaken who imagine that a Dutchman can’t love,” remarks her biographer, in commenting upon these incidents; “for tho’ they are generally more phlegmatic197 than other men, yet it sometimes happens that love does penetrate198 their lump and dispense199 an enlivening fire,”—now and then with disastrous results, as we perceive. Her information, however, was neglected by the English Government, and in disgust the patriotic200 lady threw up politics and diplomacy201 altogether, and presently returned to London, narrowly escaping death by shipwreck on the way.
Once more in London, Mrs. Behn, now thrown entirely upon her own resources, turned to her pen for the means of support, and thenceforth continued to occupy herself with literature and pleasure till her death, in 1689. Say what one may about the general quality of her work, its total amount remains202 remarkable, especially when 158one takes into consideration the conditions of poverty, failing health, and many harassing203 distractions204 under which it was produced. For a number of years, with unabated industry but varying success, she poured out plays which were calculated, in style and morality, to hit the prevailing205 taste; and so boldly did she meet her masculine rivals on the common ground of licentiousness, that she earned for herself the highly significant nickname of “the female Wycherley.” Miscellaneous tracts206 and translations kept her busy in the intervals207 of dramatic activity, during which time she also threw off a couple of very curious treatises208, the characters of which are perhaps sufficiently209 indicated by their titles—“The Lover’s Watch; or, The Art of Making Love,” and “The Lady’s Looking-Glass to Dress Herself by; or, The Whole Art of Charming All Mankind.” As manuals of conduct, it is to be feared that these lucubrations hardly tend to edification.
Finally, to leave out for the moment what is, of course, for us now the most important item, her experiments in fiction, which we will deal with by themselves, Mrs. Behn also managed to write and publish a good deal of verse. As work actually done, this must be mentioned, because 159it swells210 her account; but it may be said at once that most of it—and particularly her one ambitious effort, the allegorical “Voyage to the Isle211 of Love,”—is without value or interest. Here and there in her plays, however, she touches a true poetic note, as in the really fine song in “Abdelazer,” for which—though it is doubtless familiar to readers of the anthologies—space may be found here:—
“Love in fantastic triumph sate212,
Whilst bleeding hearts about him flowed,
For whom fresh pains he did create,
And strange tyrannic power he showed;
From thy bright eyes he took his fires,
Which round about in space he hurled213;
But ’twas from mine he took desires
Enough to undo2 the amorous world.
“From me he took his sighs and tears,
From thee his pride and cruelty,
From me his languishment214 and fears,
And every killing215 dart216 from thee;
Thus thou and I the god have armed,
And set him up a deity217,
But my poor heart alone is harmed,
While thine the victor is, and free.”
Her biographer tells us that Mrs. Behn “was a woman of sense, and by consequence [mark the consequence!] a lover of pleasure; as indeed,” 160it is added, “all, both men and women, are,” though “some would be thought above the conditions of humanity, and place their chief pleasure in a proud, vain hypocrisy218.” It needs hardly to be said here that I am not at all concerned to defend the character of Astr?a’s life or the tone of her writings; and at this time of day any denunciation of the one or the other would surely be a work of supererogation. But we should at least try to be fair in our judgments219; and if the very flattering description given “by one of the fair sex” who “knew her intimately” is even approximately correct, she must have been generous, frank, and thoroughly good-hearted. These are not bad qualities in a world which in practice knows only too little about them, though we might hesitate to add, with her anonymous220 friend, that, being thus endowed, “she was, I’m satisfied, a greater honor to our sex than all the canting tribe of dissemblers that die with the false reputation of saints.” So far as her writings themselves are concerned, it has only to be said that when she found herself dependent for a livelihood221 upon her talents and industry, she took what seemed to be the shortest and easiest way open to success, and undertook to produce just what the reading public of her day was most 161willing to pay for—and the reading public of her day was unfortunately ready to pay highest for the most wanton and scandalous things. Herein she was neither better nor worse than the majority of her contemporaries who, like her, wielded222 the professional pen, though the fact that she was a woman undoubtedly adds heinousness223 to her offences against the ordinary decencies of life. “Let any one of common sense and reason,” she says in her own defence—and the circumstance that, like Dryden and others, she was driven into explanation and apology is noteworthy,—“read one of my comedies, and compare it with others of this age; and if they can find one word which can offend the chastest ear, I will submit to all their peevish224 cavils225.” This is the familiar argument—However bad I may be, my neighbors are a trifle worse. I should be very sorry, for Mrs. Behn’s sake, to take up her challenge; sorrier for my own to have it supposed that what has been said above was said in the way of palliation or excuse. Mrs. Behn wrote foully226; and this for most of us, and very properly, is an end of the whole discussion. But it is as idle in these matters of sentiment, taste, expression, as it is elsewhere, to ignore in any final judgment the subtle but profound influence 162of the time-spirit; and though we may regret that such a distinction should have to be made, we must still, in common fairness, remember that Mrs. Behn was a woman of the seventeenth century, and not of our own generation.[15]
But we must now turn to her novels—her “incomparable novels,” as they used to be called. The collected edition of 1705, containing, according to its own statement, “All the Histories and Novels Written by the Late 163Ingenious Mrs. Behn,” includes, besides the two treatises to which reference has been made, the following stories: “The History of Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave,” “The Fair Jilt,” “The Nun,” “Agnes de Castro,” “The Lucky Mistake,” “Memoirs of the Court of the King of Bantam,” and “The Adventure of the Black Lady.”
The first-mentioned of these—“Oroonoko,” the novel with which Mrs. Behn’s name is to-day almost exclusively associated—is from every point of view by far the most interesting of her works. It represents the first really noteworthy experiment in the fiction of the time to descend227 from the misty228 realms of the old romance to the plain ground of actual life. The history—which, as Miss Kavanagh has said, “is the only one of her tales that, spite of all its defects, can still be read with entertainment”[16]—was written at the special request of Charles the Second, to whom Mrs. Behn, on her return from the West Indies, had given “so pleasant and rational an account of his affairs there, and particularly of the misfortunes of Oroonoko, that he desired her to deliver them publicly to the world.” The narrative is, indeed, represented by the author as a direct 164transcript from her own experiences. “I was,” she says, “myself an eye-witness to a great part of what you will here find set down; and what I could not be witness of, I received from the mouth of the chief actor in this history, the hero himself.”
The motive229 of the story is the tragedy of Oroonoko’s life, and this is worked out simply, but with a good deal of power. The grandson of an African king, and a youth of great strength, courage, and intelligence, Oroonoko early becomes enamored of Imoinda—“a beauty, that to describe her truly, one need only say she was female to the noble male,”—but to whom, unfortunately, his grandfather also takes a fancy. The young people are secretly married; notwithstanding which, the old king has the girl carried to his palace and placed among his mistresses. In desperation, the husband makes his way by night to Imoinda’s chamber230. Here he is discovered by the king’s guards; Imoinda is sold into slavery; and after a while Oroonoko shares the same fate—“a lion taken in a toil231.” By a remarkable coincidence, they are brought at length to the same place—the colony where Aphra and her family were then living. Thus unexpectedly reunited to the woman he had 165deemed lost to him forever, Oroonoko is for a time contented with his lot; but presently, growing weary of captivity232, he plans a revolt among the slaves, upon the suppression of which he is brutally233 punished. After this he escapes to the woods with his young wife, whose fidelity and never-failing devotion are very touchingly234 set forth. Then comes the final tragedy. Dreading235 that she may fall into the hands of the whites, he deliberately and with her full consent, murders her; and after remaining for several days half-insensible beside her corpse236, he is again taken by the colonists237, and hacked238 to pieces limb by limb. With his death, the simple story ends.
Now, in the first and casual reading of this novel, we may very probably be struck rather by its points of similarity to the older romances than by its qualities of essential difference from them. For Mrs. Behn frequently adopts the heroic, or “big bow-wow” strain, especially in her sentimental85 situations, and where she desires to be particularly effective. Her language is often stilted239 and conventional, and there are occasions when we are more than half-convinced that Surinam is, after all, only another way of spelling Arcadia. But further study of the work will convince us that we must not attach too much 166importance to what are really superficial characteristics. In the deeper matters of substance and purpose, the story belongs not to the old school of fiction, but to the new; and that Mrs. Behn herself understood what she was about, is, I think, made clear by what she says in the opening paragraph:—
“I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this royal slave, to entertain my reader with the adventures of a feigned240 hero, whose life and fortunes fancy may manage at the poet’s pleasure; nor in relating the truth, design to adorn241 it with any accidents, but such as arrived in earnest to him. And it shall come simply into the world, recommended by its own proper merits and natural intrigues; there being enough of reality to support it, and to render it diverting, without the addition of invention.”
Two points, then, are noticeable in this work. In the first place, it depends for its interest not on astonishing adventures, high-flown diction, or extravagant242 play of fancy, but simply on the sterling243 humanity of the narrative. The unfortunate hero and his wife are, of course, drawn upon the heroic scale, but they still possess the solid traits of real manhood and womanhood, and, applying the supreme test in all such cases, we find that we can believe in them. The chasm244 which separates such an achievement as this 167from the windy sentimentalities of the Anglo-French romance is a very wide one, and Mrs. Behn’s boldness of innovation was, therefore, the more remarkable. In the second place, “Oroonoko” is written with a well-defined didactic aim. It is a novel with a purpose—the remote forerunner245 of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and the whole modern school of ethical246 fiction. Thus, together with a marked tendency towards realism, Mrs. Behn’s book exhibits a no less marked bias247 in the direction of practical teaching. Its historic significance is therefore twofold.[17]
Mrs. Behn’s other tales show less originality248, and are neither so attractive nor so valuable. They are short love-stories which, though not so radically249 and aggressively impure250 as her plays, are still tainted251 through and through by the prevailing grossness of the time. Like Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Behn makes mere physical appetite—the 168passion which “rages beyond the inspirations of a god all soft and gentle, and reigns252 more like a fury from hell”[18]—the turning-point of all her plots; like Mrs. Manley, she centres the entire interest of her narratives in the gratification, not in the influences, of this passion. Like Mrs. Manley, too,—and here the severest judgment might well pass unprotested,—she is as harsh and free-spoken as the most profligate253 of male cynics regarding the foibles of her own sex. Vain, selfish, salacious, intriguing254, spiteful, her female figures, as a whole, are simply repulsive in their unqualified animality; and as we read of their lives and their doings, we no longer wonder at the open savagery255 of a Wycherley, or the undisguised contempt of a Congreve, in an age when a woman could thus write of women, without fear, almost without reproach. Finally, like Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Behn is ready at times to indulge not only in scenes of the utmost coarseness, but also in pictures of the most revolting brutality. An instance of this might be given from “The Fair Jilt”, where the unskilful execution of Tarquin is detailed256 with horrible minuteness. The best of these shorter stories is “The Lucky Mistake,” a tale written throughout 169with comparatively good taste. They are nearly all based on fact—many on direct observation; and this renders them, from a student’s point of view, interesting. But there is a great sameness in the incidents described, and on the side of characterization they are very weak indeed. The plots are all made up out of the same classes of material; and the men and women of any one story are hardly to be distinguished otherwise than by name from those of any other.
And now, in returning to the question of the historic significance of the two writers into whose books—habitually allowed to stand undisturbed upon the library shelf—we have here rather rashly ventured to pry257, we shall find, if I mistake not, that little remains to be said. Brief as our analysis of the heroic romances and the tales of Mrs. Behn and Mrs. Manley has necessarily been, it will, if it does not fail entirely of its purpose, suffice to mark the points of fundamental contrast between them. The nature and importance of the changes exemplified in these story-tellers of the Restoration will thus be made clear.
Hitherto, as we have seen, fiction had made little or no attempt to deal frankly with life. In other words, it had not as yet found its proper 170sphere. Purely258 a thing of the imagination, it had sought its subjects afar, proudly ignoring the common matters of the world—the joys and sorrows, the hopes and struggles of every-day humanity. The words which the author of a life of Sidney, prefixed to one of the early editions of the “Arcadia,” applies to that work, we might with equal fairness apply to almost the entire mass of fiction thus far written. “The invention is wholly spun259 out of the fancy,” he says. The scene was laid in some far-away dreamland, not the less remote and visionary because occasionally called by a familiar earthly name; the characters were swollen260 out to superhuman proportions, and were endowed with qualities that no mortal being has ever been known to possess; their adventures were on the face of them impossible; they thought, acted, talked as no man or woman had thought, acted, talked since the world began. Life and fiction stood entirely apart. The real world of tangible261 flesh and blood found for the time its only expression in the drama. In fiction there was as yet no human interest whatever.
With Mrs. Behn commenced the tendency to deal with life—to make the novel in some sense a reproduction of actual experience. We may 171regret that the special phases of the human comedy that she deliberately chose to write about, were only too often phases the least worthy30 of attention; that her interests were narrowed down, and her work crippled, by considerations of the most cramping262 and disastrous kinds; that she knew nothing of proportion and perspective, and little of the higher and finer developments of motive and character; that she could not see life steadily263, and did not see it whole. But all this must not stand in the way of our insisting that she was one of the first writers of prose fiction—perhaps the first in England—to substitute the solid stuff of reality for the flimsy material of the imagination. Crude and partial as her observations were, she at least observed; sorry as are most of the results of her study of the world, she did study it at first hand—did hold the mirror up to nature. What she accomplished in thus opening up the field of the modern novel, what Mrs. Manley accomplished in following her lead, are matters, therefore, of sufficient importance to call for distinct recognition. We do not claim for the books of these two women any individual merit or interest. But when we lay aside one of their stories, bearing in mind the conditions of the time at which 172it was written, we realize that, artistically265, if not always morally, they represent a step in advance; that it was by such work as this—poor and hopelessly dull as it may seem to us to-day—that the folios of La Calprenède and De Scudéri were overthrown266, the way made clear for Defoe and Richardson, and the foundations of modern fiction firmly laid.
But now let us notice the suggestive circumstance that, like nearly all innovators, these first realists seriously overstepped the mark. In their early attempts to exchange Fairy Land for the actual world, we find too large a place given to fact, in the most hard and circumscribed267 sense of the word. In place of pure fancy, they sought to give absolute and undiluted reality; in place of a picture without existing counterpart, they strove to secure the detailed verisimilitude of a photograph. Indeed, for a time the aims and methods of fiction were almost entirely lost sight of. And it is easy to see how this unfortunate result was brought about. Weary of the conventionalities of the old romances, and of the shadowy heroes and heroines with whose tedious adventures and even more tedious disquisitions their pages were filled, the novelists of the Restoration made a bold endeavor to get back to 173the life with which they were familiar, and to deal with the world as they knew it to exist. But for the moment, there seemed only one way of doing this. Instead of fancy, they must have fact; instead of wandering off into the impossible, they must limit themselves to the things which had actually happened—which had really, in Charles Reade’s witty268 phrase, gone through the formality of taking place. Hence, for the present, the constructive269 work of the imagination—which some of us, in these days of so-called Naturalism, are still old-fashioned enough to hold essentially270 important—was almost entirely neglected. Nearly every story was statedly “founded on fact”; and the business of the novelist was practically reduced to the task of presenting, with but slight embellishment or rearrangement, specific occurrences in life. Thus we have an early example of the tendency, just now so conspicuous, towards what M. Brunetière has happily called “reportage” in literature. In the reaction against the school of heroic romance, the new story-writers, therefore, went to the other extreme. To take the materials of familiar existence and to reorganize them, thus producing a work of art which is at once all compact of truth and imagination, was for the 174time being beyond their ken7. To their limited view, realism meant slavish reality.
It was only after this mistake had been made that the possibility of avoiding the airy unrealities of old romance, without being bound down to the skeleton facts of life, gradually became apparent. The discovery that a writer could be true to experience and human nature without necessarily reproducing actual events or photographing individual men and women, was the outcome of many experiments and much failure, and was at length hit upon in a half-blind and fortuitous way. It was only little by little that the element of acknowledged fiction was allowed to encroach upon the domain271 of truth; only little by little that people began to understand that the art of fiction and the art of lying are not one and the same, and that the boldest play of imagination in the treatment of life is not always to be associated with the distortion of reality. In the works of Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Behn we see the English novel stumbling painfully towards the comprehension of its own objects. We have reached firm ground, and that is a great achievement; for only when we move on firm ground is the novel possible. But the dead weight of the actual is too heavy for us; we cannot synthesize 175the results of experience; we gather observations, but we are unable to make artistic264 productions out of them. Thus, we have a “New Atalantis” (and the book is historically significant just for this reason) which is little more than a jumble of personal scandal, filled in with occasional false incidents and mendacious272 details; an “Oroonoko,” which is rather a fanciful biography than a tale; we have a “Wife’s Resentment,” a “Fair Jilt,” a “Lucky Mistake,”—stories all of which are based more or less exclusively on historic occurrences or on events that had come under the direct observation of the relaters.[19] Even where there is a lack of truth, the appearance of truth is still carefully preserved. Things which have not actually happened are nevertheless related as facts; real characters are put through unreal incidents; the novel is supposed to give history; fiction and falsehood are as yet confused.
With this brief summary of the qualities and shortcomings of our two women-novelists, this little paper might properly close. But it may be interesting if, having carried our inquiry thus far, 176we add a paragraph about the way in which the rigid273 reality of the works at which we have been glancing grew gradually out into the genuine realism of the later novel.
Properly to understand this tendency towards an equilibrium274 between fact and imagination, we should turn aside to examine the profound influence exerted over the fiction of the time of the “Tatler” and the “Spectator.” But for our present purposes we shall find the movement forward clearly enough exemplified in the work of one man—the author of “Robinson Crusoe,” whose writings, therefore, we will take as our clue.
Beginning with the production of history, or semi-history, in which real characters, slightly exaggerated, move through real scenes, or through scenes to but small extent imaginary, Defoe proceeded little by little to import more of fiction into his narrative, to the detriment275 of the small substratum of truth still retained. By and by, he did no more than preserve the mere frame-work of history—as in “The Journal of the Plague Year” and the “Memoirs of a Cavalier,” in which most of the characters and many of the incidents are purely fictitious276. After this, the remaining element of truth was gradually 177eliminated, and he reached the production of narratives of fictitious characters in fictitious settings and among fictitious scenes. “From writing biographies with real names attached to them,” says Professor Minto, in his Life of Defoe, “it was but a short step to writing biographies with fictitious names.” Even when that short step was taken, the artifices277 resorted to by him to preserve the apparent truthfulness278 of his narrations279 show us that he was by no means satisfied that it would be desirable to let matters of fact slip out of his work entirely. Though what he wrote was false, he still tried to palm it off upon the world as true. This makes the writing of Defoe more like lying than fiction, and goes far to explain the extraordinary minuteness of the circumstantial method adopted by him. But it marks, also, the transitional quality of his work. As Mr. Leslie Stephen has neatly280 put it, “Defoe’s novels are simply history minus the facts.” Only in his latest works do we find this pseudo-history making way for fiction proper; and then we recognize in Defoe the distinct forerunner of the great novelists of the eighteenth century.
But to follow this matter farther would take us beyond the due bounds, already somewhat 178transgressed, of our present study. As we may now see, the story of English fiction from the period of the Anglo-French romance to the time of Fielding and Smollett, is a long one, and we have undertaken to deal with only one chapter here—the chapter which tells of Mrs. Behn and Mrs. Manley, of what they did, and of what they failed to do. That finished, our task is at an end.
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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undo
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| vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销 | |
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possessed
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pro
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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ken
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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titanic
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outlet
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vocal
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manifestation
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severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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decrepitude
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breach
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rein
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nourishment
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stimulation
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varied
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reign
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vigor
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harassed
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perverted
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unnatural
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pungency
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corruption
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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31
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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32
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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33
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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34
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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35
playwrights
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| n.剧作家( playwright的名词复数 ) | |
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36
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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37
broaching
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| n.拉削；推削；铰孔；扩孔v.谈起( broach的现在分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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38
sporadic
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| adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的 | |
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39
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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40
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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41
chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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42
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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43
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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44
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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45
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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46
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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47
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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48
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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49
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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50
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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51
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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52
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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53
influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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54
stultifying
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| v.使成为徒劳，使变得无用( stultify的现在分词 ) | |
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55
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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56
inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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57
prolixity
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| n.冗长，罗嗦 | |
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58
shudders
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| n.颤动，打颤，战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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59
indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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60
laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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61
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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62
ridiculing
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| v.嘲笑，嘲弄，奚落( ridicule的现在分词 ) | |
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63
rape
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| n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸 | |
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64
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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65
rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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66
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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67
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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68
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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69
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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70
structural
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| adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的 | |
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71
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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72
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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73
jumble
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| vt.使混乱，混杂；n.混乱；杂乱的一堆 | |
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74
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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75
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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76
ramifications
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| n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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77
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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78
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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79
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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80
collapses
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|
| 折叠( collapse的第三人称单数 )； 倒塌； 崩溃； （尤指工作劳累后）坐下 | |
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81
straightforward
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|
| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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82
everlasting
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|
| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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83
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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84
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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85
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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86
inflated
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|
| adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨 | |
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87
cavil
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| v.挑毛病，吹毛求疵 | |
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88
nominal
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|
| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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89
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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90
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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91
ponderous
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|
| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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92
vapid
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| adj.无味的；无生气的 | |
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93
climax
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|
| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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94
testimony
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|
| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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95
scrupulous
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|
| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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96
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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97
abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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98
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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99
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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100
specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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101
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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102
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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103
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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104
degenerated
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| 衰退，堕落，退化( degenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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105
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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106
abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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107
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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108
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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109
banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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110
alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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111
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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112
adventitious
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| adj.偶然的 | |
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113
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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114
narratives
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| 记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分 | |
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115
initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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116
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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117
Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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118
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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119
narration
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| n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体 | |
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120
undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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121
prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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122
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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123
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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124
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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125
secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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126
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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127
autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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128
pseudonym
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| n.假名，笔名 | |
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129
tribulations
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| n.苦难( tribulation的名词复数 )；艰难；苦难的缘由；痛苦 | |
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130
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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131
patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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132
fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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133
caustic
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| adj.刻薄的，腐蚀性的 | |
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134
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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135
outspoken
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| adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的 | |
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136
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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137
satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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138
apprehended
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 )； 理解 | |
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139
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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140
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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141
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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142
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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143
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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144
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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145
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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146
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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147
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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148
candidly
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| adv.坦率地，直率而诚恳地 | |
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149
scourge
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| n.灾难，祸害；v.蹂躏 | |
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150
smallpox
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| n.天花 | |
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151
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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152
intrigues
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| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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153
vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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154
dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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155
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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156
twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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157
perjured
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| adj.伪证的，犯伪证罪的v.发假誓，作伪证( perjure的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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158
persuasive
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| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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159
esteems
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| n.尊敬，好评( esteem的名词复数 )v.尊敬( esteem的第三人称单数 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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160
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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161
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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162
disperses
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| v.（使）分散( disperse的第三人称单数 )；疏散；驱散；散布 | |
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163
preys
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| v.掠食( prey的第三人称单数 )；掠食；折磨；（人）靠欺诈为生 | |
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164
accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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165
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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166
illicit
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| adj.非法的，禁止的，不正当的 | |
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167
amorous
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| adj.多情的；有关爱情的 | |
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168
tempestuous
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| adj.狂暴的 | |
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169
shipwreck
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| n.船舶失事，海难 | |
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170
portrayed
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| v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
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171
maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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172
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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173
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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174
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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175
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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176
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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177
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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178
repulsive
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| adj.排斥的，使人反感的 | |
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179
licentiousness
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| n.放肆，无法无天 | |
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180
brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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181
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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182
seduce
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| vt.勾引，诱奸，诱惑，引诱 | |
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183
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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184
appease
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| v.安抚，缓和，平息，满足 | |
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185
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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186
mangles
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| n.轧布机，轧板机，碾压机（mangle的复数形式）vt.乱砍（mangle的第三人称单数形式） | |
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187
loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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188
magistrates
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| 地方法官，治安官( magistrate的名词复数 ) | |
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189
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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190
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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191
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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192
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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193
versatility
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| n.多才多艺，多样性，多功能 | |
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194
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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195
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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196
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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197
phlegmatic
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| adj.冷静的，冷淡的，冷漠的，无活力的 | |
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198
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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199
dispense
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| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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200
patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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201
diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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202
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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203
harassing
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| v.侵扰，骚扰( harass的现在分词 )；不断攻击（敌人） | |
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204
distractions
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| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
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205
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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206
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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207
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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208
treatises
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| n.专题著作，专题论文，专著( treatise的名词复数 ) | |
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209
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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210
swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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211
isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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212
sate
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| v.使充分满足 | |
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213
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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214
languishment
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| 衰弱，无力，呆滞 | |
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215
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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216
dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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217
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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218
hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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219
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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220
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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221
livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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222
wielded
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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223
heinousness
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224
peevish
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| adj.易怒的，坏脾气的 | |
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225
cavils
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| v.挑剔，吹毛求疵( cavil的第三人称单数 ) | |
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226
foully
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| ad.卑鄙地 | |
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227
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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228
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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229
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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230
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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231
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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232
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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233
brutally
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| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
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234
touchingly
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| adv.令人同情地，感人地，动人地 | |
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235
dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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236
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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237
colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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238
hacked
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| 生气 | |
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239
stilted
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| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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240
feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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241
adorn
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| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
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242
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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243
sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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244
chasm
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| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
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245
forerunner
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| n.前身，先驱（者），预兆，祖先 | |
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246
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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247
bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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248
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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249
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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250
impure
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| adj.不纯净的，不洁的；不道德的，下流的 | |
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251
tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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252
reigns
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| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
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253
profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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254
intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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255
savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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256
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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257
pry
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| vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起) | |
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258
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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259
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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260
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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261
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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262
cramping
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| 图像压缩 | |
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263
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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264
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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265
artistically
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| adv.艺术性地 | |
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266
overthrown
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| adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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267
circumscribed
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| adj.[医]局限的：受限制或限于有限空间的v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定 | |
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268
witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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269
constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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270
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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271
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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272
mendacious
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| adj.不真的，撒谎的 | |
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273
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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274
equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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275
detriment
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| n.损害；损害物，造成损害的根源 | |
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276
fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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277
artifices
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| n.灵巧( artifice的名词复数 )；诡计；巧妙办法；虚伪行为 | |
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278
truthfulness
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| n. 符合实际 | |
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279
narrations
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| 叙述事情的经过，故事( narration的名词复数 ) | |
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280
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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