A man may be in all things a Londoner and yet be a provincial6. The accident of birthplace does not necessarily involve parochialism of the soul. It is not the village which produces the Hampden, but the Hampden who immortalises the village. It is a favourite jest of Rusticus that his urban brother has the manner of Omniscience7 and the knowledge of a parish beadle. Nevertheless, though the strongest blood insurgent8 in the metropolitan9 heart is not that which is native to it, one might well be proud to have had one's atom-pulse atune from the first with the large rhythm of the national life at its turbulent, congested, but ever ebullient11 centre. Certainly Browning was not the man to be ashamed of his being a Londoner, much less to deny his natal12 place. He was proud of it: through good sense, no doubt, but possibly also through some instinctive13 apprehension14 of the fact that the great city was indeed the fit mother of such a son. "Ashamed of having been born in the greatest city of the world!" he exclaimed on one occasion; "what an extraordinary thing to say! It suggests a wavelet in a muddy shallow grimily contorting itself because it had its birth out in the great ocean."
On the day of the poet's funeral in Westminster Abbey, one of the most eminent15 of his peers remarked to me that Browning came to us as one coming into his own. This is profoundly true. There was in good sooth a mansion16 prepared against his advent17. Long ago, we should have surrendered as to a conqueror18: now, however, we know that princes of the mind, though they must be valorous and potent19 as of yore, can enter upon no heritance save that which naturally awaits them, and has been made theirs by long and intricate processes.
The lustrum which saw the birth of Robert Browning, that is the third in the nineteenth century, was a remarkable20 one indeed. Thackeray came into the world some months earlier than the great poet, Charles Dickens within the same twelvemonth, and Tennyson three years sooner, when also Elizabeth Barrett was born, and the foremost naturalist21 of modern times first saw the light. It is a matter of significance that the great wave of scientific thought which ultimately bore forward on its crest22 so many famous men, from Brewster and Faraday to Charles Darwin, had just begun to rise with irresistible23 impulsion. Lepsius's birth was in 1813, and that of the great Flemish novelist, Henri Conscience, in 1812: about the same period were the births of Freiligrath, Gutzkow, and Auerbach, respectively one of the most lyrical poets, the most potent dramatist, the most charming romancer of Germany: and, also, in France, of Théophile Gautier and Alfred de Musset. Among representatives of the other arts--with two of which Browning must ever be closely associated--Mendelssohn and Chopin were born in 1809, and Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner within the four succeeding years: within which space also came Diaz and Meissonier and the great Millet24. Other high names there are upon the front of the century. Macaulay, Cardinal25 Newman, John Stuart Mill (one of the earliest, by the way, to recognise the genius of Browning), Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Ampère, Quinet, Prosper26 Merimée, Sainte-Beuve, Strauss, Montalembert, are among the laurel-bearers who came into existence betwixt 1800 and 1812.
When Robert Browning was born in London in 1812, Sheridan had still four years to live; Jeremy Bentham was at the height of his contemporary reputation, and Godwin was writing glibly28 of the virtues29 of humanity and practising the opposite qualities, while Crabbe was looked upon as one of the foremost of living poets. Wordsworth was then forty, Sir Walter Scott forty-one, Coleridge forty-two, Walter Savage30 Landor and Charles Lamb each in his forty-fifth year. Byron was four-and-twenty, Shelley not yet quite of age, two radically31 different men, Keats and Carlyle, both youths of seventeen. Abroad, Laplace was in his maturity32, with fifteen years more yet to live; Joubert with twelve; Goethe, with twenty; Lamarck, the Schlegels, Cuvier, Chateaubriand, Hegel, Niebühr (to specify33 some leading names only), had many years of work before them. Schopenhauer was only four-and-twenty, while Béranger was thirty-two. The Polish poet Mickiewicz was a boy of fourteen, and Poushkin was but a twelvemonth older; Heine, a lad of twelve, was already enamoured of the great Napoleonic legend. The foremost literary critic of the century was running about the sands of Boulogne, or perhaps wandering often along the ramparts of the old town, introspective even then, with something of that rare and insatiable curiosity which we all now recognise as so distinctive34 of Sainte-Beuve. Again, the greatest creative literary artist of the century, in prose at any rate, was leading an apparently35 somewhat indolent schoolboy life at Tours, undreamful yet of enormous debts, colossal36 undertakings37, gigantic failures, and the Comédie Humaine. In art, Sir Henry Raeburn, William Blake, Flaxman, Canova, Thorwaldsen, Crome, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Constable38, Sir David Wilkie, and Turner were in the exercise of their happiest faculties39: as were, in the usage of theirs, Beethoven, Weber, Schubert, Spohr, Donizetti, and Bellini.
It is not inadvisedly that I make this specification40 of great names, of men who were born coincidentally with, or were in the broader sense contemporaries of Robert Browning. There is no such thing as a fortuitous birth. Creation does not occur spontaneously, as in that drawing of David Scott's where from the footprint of the Omnipotent41 spring human spirits and fiery42 stars. Literally43 indeed, as a great French writer has indicated, a man is the child of his time. It is a matter often commented upon by students of literature, that great men do not appear at the beginning, but rather at the acme44 of a period. They are not the flying scud45 of the coming wave, but the gleaming crown of that wave itself. The epoch46 expends47 itself in preparation for these great ones.
If Nature's first law were not a law of excess, the economy of life would have meagre results. I think it is Turgen?ev who speaks somewhere of her as a gigantic Titan, working in gloomy silence, with the same savage intentness upon a subtler twist of a flea's joints48 as upon the Destinies of Man.
If there be a more foolish cry than that poetry is on the wane49, it is that the great days had passed away even before Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson were born. The way was prepared for Browning, as it was for Shakspere: as it is, beyond doubt, for the next high peer of these.
There were 'Roberts' among the sons of the Browning family for at least four generations. It has been affirmed, on disputable authority, that the surname is the English equivalent for Bruning, and that the family is of Teutonic origin. Possibly: but this origin is too remote to be of any practical concern. Browning himself, it may be added, told Mr. Moncure Conway that the original name was De Bruni. It is not a matter of much importance: the poet was, personally and to a great extent in his genius, Anglo-Saxon. Though there are plausible50 grounds for the assumption. I can find nothing to substantiate51 the common assertion that, immediately, or remotely, his people were Jews.[1]
[1] Fairly conclusive52 evidence to the contrary, on the paternal53 side, is afforded in the fact that, in 1757, the poet's great-grandfather gave one of his sons the baptismal name of Christian54. Dr. Furnivall's latest researches prove that there is absolutely "no ground for supposing the presence of any Jewish blood in the poet's veins55."
As to Browning's physiognomy and personal traits, this much may be granted: if those who knew him were told he was a Jew they would not be much surprised. In his exuberant56 vitality57, in his sensuous58 love of music and the other arts, in his combined imaginativeness and shrewdness of common sense, in his superficial expansiveness and actual reticence59, he would have been typical enough of the potent and artistic60 race for whom he has so often of late been claimed.
What, however, is most to the point is that neither to curious acquaintances nor to intimate friends, neither to Jews nor Gentiles, did he ever admit more than that he was a good Protestant, and sprung of a Puritan stock. He was tolerant of all religious forms, but with a natural bias61 towards Anglican Evangelicalism.
In appearance there was, perhaps, something of the Semite in Robert Browning: yet this is observable but slightly in the portraits of him during the last twenty years, and scarcely at all in those which represent him as a young man. It is most marked in the drawing by Rudolf Lehmann, representing Browning at the age of forty-seven, where he looks out upon us with a physiognomy which is, at least, as much distinctively62 Jewish as English. Possibly the large dark eyes (so unlike both in colour and shape what they were in later life) and curved nose and full lips, with the oval face, may have been, as it were, seen judaically by the artist. These characteristics, again, are greatly modified in Mr. Lehmann's subsequent portrait in oils.
The poet's paternal great-grandfather, who was owner of the Woodyates Inn, in the parish of Pentridge, in Dorsetshire, claimed to come of good west-country stock. Browning believed, but always conscientiously63 maintained there was no proof in support of the assumption, that he was a descendant of the Captain Micaiah Browning who, as Macaulay relates in his History of England, raised the siege of Derry in 1689 by springing the boom across Lough Foyle, and perished in the act. The same ancestral line is said to comprise the Captain Browning who commanded the ship The Holy Ghost, which conveyed Henry V. to France before he fought the Battle of Agincourt, and in recognition of whose services two waves, said to represent waves of the sea, were added to his coat of arms. It is certainly a point of some importance in the evidence, as has been indicated, that these arms were displayed by the gallant64 Captain Micaiah, and are borne by the present family. That the poet was a pure-bred Englishman in the strictest sense, however, as has commonly been asserted, is not the case. His mother was Scottish, through her mother and by birth, but her father was the son of a German from Hamburg, named Wiedemann, who, by the way, in connection with his relationship as maternal65 grandfather to the poet, it is interesting to note, was an accomplished66 draughtsman and musician.[2] Browning's paternal grandmother, again, was a Creole. As Mrs. Orr remarks, this pedigree throws a valuable light on the vigour67 and variety of the poet's genius. Possibly the main current of his ancestry68 is as little strictly69 English as German. A friend sends me the following paragraph from a Scottish paper:--"What of the Scottish Brownings? I had it long ago from one of the name that the Brownings came originally from Ayrshire, and that several families of them emigrated to the North of Ireland during the times of the Covenanters. There is, moreover, a small town or village in the North of Ireland called Browningstown. Might not the poet be related to these Scottish Brownings?"
[2] It has frequently been stated that Browning's maternal grandfather, Mr. Wiedemann, was a Jew. Mr. Wiedemann, the son of a Hamburg merchant, was a small shipowner in Dundee. Had he, or his father, been Semitic, he would not have baptised one of his daughters 'Christiana.'
Browning's great-grandfather, as indicated above, was a small proprietor70 in Dorsetshire. His son, whether perforce or from choice, removed to London when he was a youth, and speedily obtained a clerkship in the Bank of England, where he remained for fifty years, till he was pensioned off in 1821 with over ￡400 a year. He died in 1833. His wife, to whom he was married in or about 1780, was one Margaret Morris Tittle, a Creole, born in the West Indies. Her portrait, by Wright of Derby, used to hang in the poet's dining-room. They resided, Mr. R. Barrett Browning tells me, in Battersea, where his grandfather was their first-born. The paternal grandfather of the poet decided71 that his three sons, Robert, William Shergold, and Reuben, should go into business, the two younger in London, the elder abroad. All three became efficient financial clerks, and attained72 to good positions and fair means.[3] The eldest73, Robert, was a man of exceptional powers. He was a poet, both in sentiment and expression; and he understood, as well as enjoyed, the excellent in art. He was a scholar, too, in a reputable fashion: not indifferent to what he had learnt in his youth, nor heedless of the high opinion generally entertained for the greatest writers of antiquity74, but with a particular care himself for Horace and Anacreon. As his son once told a friend. "The old gentleman's brain was a storehouse of literary and philosophical75 antiquities76. He was completely versed77 in medi?val legend, and seemed to have known Paracelsus, Faustus, and even Talmudic personages, personally"--a significant detail, by the way. He was fond of metrical composition, and his ease and grace in the use of the heroic couplet were the admiration78, not only of his intellectual associates, but, in later days, of his son, who was wont79 to affirm, certainly in all seriousness, that expressionally his father was a finer poetic80 artist than himself. Some one has recorded of him that he was an authority on the Letters of Junius: fortunately he had more tangible81 claims than this to the esteem82 of his fellows. It was his boast that, notwithstanding the exigencies83 of his vocation84, he knew as much of the history of art as any professional critic. His extreme modesty85 is deducible from this na?ve remark. He was an amateur artist, moreover, as well as poet, critic, and student. I have seen several of his drawings which are praise-worthy: his studies in portraiture86, particularly, are ably touched: and, as is well known, he had an active faculty87 of pictorial88 caricature. In the intervals89 of leisure which beset90 the best regulated clerk he was addicted91 to making drawings of the habitual92 visitors to the Bank of England, in which he had obtained a post on his return, in 1803, from the West Indies, and in the enjoyment93 of which he remained till 1853, when he retired94 on a small pension. His son had an independent income, but whether from a bequest95, or in the form of an allowance from his then unmarried Uncle Reuben, is uncertain. In the first year of his marriage Mr. Browning resided in an old house in Southampton Street, Peckham, and there the poet was born. The house was long ago pulled down, and another built on its site. Mr. Browning afterwards removed to another domicile in the same Peckham district. Many years later, he and his family left Camberwell and resided at Hatcham, near New Cross, where his brothers and sisters (by his father's second marriage) lived. There was a stable attached to the Hatcham house, and in it Mr. Reuben Browning kept his horse, which he let his poet-nephew ride, while he himself was at his desk in Rothschild's bank. No doubt this horse was the 'York' alluded96 to by the poet in the letter quoted, as a footnote, at page 189 of this book. Some years after his wife's death, which occurred in 1849, Mr. Browning left Hatcham and came to Paddington, but finally went to reside in Paris, and lived there, in a small street off the Champs élysées, till his death in 1866. The Creole strain seems to have been distinctly noticeable in Mr. Browning, so much so that it is possible it had something to do with his unwillingness97 to remain at St. Kitts, where he was certainly on one occasion treated cavalierly enough. The poet's complexion98 in youth, light and ivory-toned as it was in later life, has been described as olive, and it is said that one of his nephews, who met him in Paris in his early manhood, took him for an Italian. It has been affirmed that it was the emotional Creole strain in Browning which found expression in his passion for music.
[3] The three brothers were men of liberal education and literary tastes. Mr. W.S. Browning, who died in 1874, was an author of some repute. His History of the Huguenots is a standard book on the subject.
By old friends of the family I have been told that Mr. Browning had a strong liking99 for children, with whom his really remarkable faculty of impromptu100 fiction made him a particular favourite. Sometimes he would supplement his tales by illustrations with pencil or brush. Miss Alice Corkran has shown me an illustrated101 coloured map, depictive of the main incidents and scenery of the Pilgrim's Progress, which he genially102 made for "the children."[4]
[4] Mrs. Fraser Corkran, who saw much of the poet's father during his residence in Paris, has spoken to me of his extraordinary analytical104 faculty in the elucidation105 of complex criminal cases. It was once said of him that his detective faculty amounted to genius. This is a significant trait in the father of the author of "The Ring and the Book."
He had three children himself--Robert, born May 7th, 1812, a daughter named Sarianna, after her mother, and Clara. His wife was a woman of singular beauty of nature, with a depth of religious feeling saved from narrowness of scope only by a rare serenity106 and a fathomless107 charity. Her son's loving admiration of her was almost a passion: even late in life he rarely spoke103 of her without tears coming to his eyes. She was, moreover, of an intellectual bent27 of mind, and with an artistic bias having its readiest fulfilment in music, and, to some extent, in poetry. In the latter she inclined to the Romanticists: her husband always maintained the supremacy108 of Pope. He looked with much dubiety upon his son's early writings, "Pauline" and "Paracelsus"; "Sordello," though he found it beyond either his artistic or his mental apprehension, he forgave, because it was written in rhymed couplets; the maturer works he regarded with sympathy and pride, with a vague admiration which passed into a clearer understanding only when his long life was drawing near its close.
Of his children's company he never tired, even when they were scarce out of babyhood. He was fond of taking the little Robert in his arms, and walking to and fro with him in the dusk in "the library," soothing109 the child to sleep by singing to him snatches of Anacreon in the original, to a favourite old tune10 of his, "A Cottage in a Wood." Readers of "Asolando" will remember the allusions110 in that volume to "my father who was a scholar and knew Greek." A week or two before his death Browning told an American friend, Mrs. Corson, in reply to a statement of hers that no one could accuse him of letting his talents lie idle: "It would have been quite unpardonable in my case not to have done my best. My dear father put me in a condition most favourable111 for the best work I was capable of. When I think of the many authors who have had to fight their way through all sorts of difficulties, I have no reason to be proud of my achievements. My good father sacrificed a fortune to his convictions. He could not bear with slavery, and left India and accepted a humble112 bank-office in London. He secured for me all the ease and comfort that a literary man needs to do good work. It would have been shameful113 if I had not done my best to realise his expectations of me."[5]
[5] 'India' is a slip on the part either of Browning or of Mrs. Corson. The poet's father was never in India. He was quite a youth when he went to his mother's sugar-plantation at St. Kitts, in the West Indies.
The home of Mr. Browning was, as already stated, in Camberwell, a suburb then of less easy access than now, and where there were green trees, and groves114, and enticing115 rural perspectives into "real" country, yet withal not without some suggestion of the metropolitan air.
"The old trees
Which grew by our youth's home--the waving mass
Of climbing plants, heavy with bloom and dew--
The morning swallows with their songs like words--
All these seem clear. . . .
. . . most distinct amid
The fever and the stir of after years."
(Pauline.)
Another great writer of our time was born in the same parish: and those who would know Herne Hill and the neighbourhood as it was in Browning's youth will find an enthusiastic guide in the author of Praeterita.
Browning's childhood was a happy one. Indeed, if the poet had been able to teach in song only what he had learnt in suffering, the larger part of his verse would be singularly barren of interest. From first to last everything went well with him, with the exception of a single profound grief. This must be borne in mind by those who would estimate aright the genius of Robert Browning. It would be affectation or folly116 to deny that his splendid physique--a paternal inheritance, for his father died at the age of eighty-four, without having ever endured a day's illness--and the exceptionally fortunate circumstances which were his throughout life, had something to do with that superb faith of his which finds concentrated expression in the lines in Pippa's song--"God's in His Heaven, All's right with the world!"
It is difficult for a happy man with an imperturbable117 digestion118 to be a pessimist119. He is always inclined to give Nature the benefit of the doubt. His favourite term for this mental complaisance120 is "catholicity of faith," or, it may be, "a divine hope." The less fortunate brethren bewail the laws of Nature, and doubt a future readjustment, because of stomachs chronically121 out of order. An eminent author with a weak digestion wrote to me recently animadverting on what he calls Browning's insanity122 of optimism: it required no personal acquaintanceship to discern the dyspeptic well-spring of this utterance123. All this may be admitted lightly without carrying the physiological124 argument to extremes. A man may have a liberal hope for himself and for humanity, although his dinner be habitually125 a martyrdom. After all, we are only dictated126 to by our bodies: we have not perforce to obey them. A bitter wit once remarked that the soul, if it were ever discovered, would be found embodied127 in the gastric128 juice. He was not altogether a fool, this man who had learnt in suffering what he taught in epigram; yet was he wide of the mark.
As a very young child Browning was keenly susceptible129 to music. One afternoon his mother was playing in the twilight130 to herself. She was startled to hear a sound behind her. Glancing round, she beheld131 a little white figure distinct against an oak bookcase, and could just discern two large wistful eyes looking earnestly at her. The next moment the child had sprung into her arms, sobbing132 passionately133 at he knew not what, but, as his paroxysm of emotion subsided134, whispering over and over, with shy urgency, "Play! play!"
It is strange that among all his father's collection of drawings and engravings nothing had such fascination136 for him as an engraving135 of a picture of Andromeda and Perseus by Caravaggio. The story of the innocent victim and the divine deliverer was one of which in his boyhood he never tired of hearing: and as he grew older the charm of its pictorial presentment had for him a deeper and more complex significance. We have it on the authority of a friend that Browning had this engraving always before his eyes as he wrote his earlier poems. He has given beautiful commemoration to his feeling for it in "Pauline":--
"Andromeda!
And she is with me--years roll, I shall change,
But change can touch her not--so beautiful
With her dark eyes, earnest and still, and hair
Lifted and spread by the salt-sweeping137 breeze;
And one red beam, all the storm leaves in heaven,
Resting upon her eyes and face and hair,
As she awaits the snake on the wet beach,
By the dark rock, and the white wave just breaking
At her feet; quite naked and alone,--a thing
You doubt not, nor fear for, secure that God
Will come in thunder from the stars to save her."
One of his own early recollections was that of sitting on his father's knees in the library, and listening with enthralled138 attention to the Tale of Troy, with marvellous illustrations among the glowing coals in the fireplace; with, below all, the vaguely139 heard accompaniment--from the neighbouring room where Mrs. Browning sat "in her chief happiness, her hour of darkness and solitude140 and music"--of a wild Gaelic lament141, with its insistent142 falling cadences143. A story concerning his poetic precocity144 has been circulated, but is not worth repeating. Most children love jingling145 rhymes, and one need not be a born genius to improvise146 a rhyming couplet on an occasion.
It is quite certain that in nothing in these early poemicules, in such at least as have been preserved without the poet's knowledge and against his will, is there anything of genuine promise. Hundreds of youngsters have written as good, or better, Odes to the Moon, Stanzas147 on a Favourite Canary, Lines on a Butterfly. What is much more to the point is, that at the age of eight he was able not only to read, but to take delight in Pope's translation of Homer. He used to go about declaiming certain couplets with an air of intense earnestness highly diverting to those who overheard him.
About this time also he began to translate the simpler odes of Horace. One of these (viii. Bk. II.) long afterwards suggested to him the theme of his "Instans Tyrannus." It has been put on record that his sister remembers him, as a very little boy, walking round and round the dining-room table, and spanning out the scansion of his verses with his hand on the smooth mahogany. He was scarce more than a child when, one Guy Fawkes' day, he heard a woman singing an unfamiliar148 song, whose burden was, "Following the Queen of the Gipsies, O!" This refrain haunted him often in the after years. That beautiful fantastic romance, "The Flight of the Duchess," was born out of an insistent memory of this woman's snatch of song, heard in childhood. He was ten when, after several passions malheureuses, this precocious149 Lothario plunged150 into a love affair whose intensity151 was only equalled by its hopelessness. A trifle of fifteen years' seniority and a husband complicated matters, but it was not till after the reckless expenditure152 of a Horatian ode upon an unclassical mistress that he gave up hope. The outcome of this was what the elder Browning regarded as a startling effusion of much Byronic verse. The young Robert yearned153 for wastes of ocean and illimitable sands, for dark eyes and burning caresses154, for despair that nothing could quench155 but the silent grave, and, in particular, for hollow mocking laughter. His father looked about for a suitable school, and decided to entrust156 the boy's further education to Mr. Ready, of Peckham.
Here he remained till he was fourteen. But already he knew the dominion157 of dreams. His chief enjoyment, on holiday afternoons, was to gain an unfrequented spot, where three huge elms re-echoed the tones of incoherent human music borne thither-ward by the west winds across the wastes of London. Here he loved to lie and dream. Alas158, those elms, that high remote coign, have long since passed to the "hidden way" whither the snows of yester year have vanished. He would lie for hours looking upon distant London--a golden city of the west literally enough, oftentimes, when the sunlight came streaming in long shafts159 from behind the towers of Westminster and flashed upon the gold cross of St. Paul's. The coming and going of the cloud-shadows, the sweeping of sudden rains, the dull silvern light emanating160 from the haze161 of mist shrouding162 the vast city, with the added transitory gleam of troubled waters, the drifting of fogs, at that distance seeming like gigantic veils constantly being moved forward and then slowly withdrawn163, as though some sinister164 creature of the atmosphere were casting a net among all the dross165 and débris of human life for fantastic sustenance166 of its own--all this endless, ever-changing, always novel phantasmagoria had for him an extraordinary fascination. One of the memorable167 nights of his boyhood was an eve when he found his way, not without perturbation of spirit because of the unfamiliar solitary168 dark, to his loved elms. There, for the first time, he beheld London by night. It seemed to him then more wonderful and appalling169 than all the host of stars. There was something ominous170 in that heavy pulsating171 breath: visible, in a waning172 and waxing of the tremulous, ruddy glow above the black enmassed leagues of masonry173; audible, in the low inarticulate moaning borne eastward174 across the crests175 of Norwood. It was then and there that the tragic176 significance of life first dimly awed177 and appealed to his questioning spirit: that the rhythm of humanity first touched deeply in him a corresponding chord.
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cosmopolitan
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| adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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grandiose
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| adj.宏伟的，宏大的，堂皇的，铺张的 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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omniscience
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| n.全知，全知者，上帝 | |
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insurgent
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| adj.叛乱的，起事的；n.叛乱分子 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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ebullient
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| adj.兴高采烈的，奔放的 | |
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natal
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| adj.出生的，先天的 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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naturalist
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| n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者) | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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23
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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24
millet
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| n.小米，谷子 | |
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25
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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26
prosper
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| v.成功，兴隆，昌盛；使成功，使昌隆，繁荣 | |
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27
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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28
glibly
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| adv.流利地，流畅地；满口 | |
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29
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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30
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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31
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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32
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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33
specify
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| vt.指定，详细说明 | |
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34
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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35
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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36
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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37
undertakings
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| 企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务 | |
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38
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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39
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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40
specification
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| n.详述；[常pl.]规格，说明书，规范 | |
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41
omnipotent
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| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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42
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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43
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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44
acme
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| n.顶点，极点 | |
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45
scud
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| n.疾行；v.疾行 | |
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46
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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47
expends
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| v.花费( expend的第三人称单数 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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48
joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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49
wane
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| n.衰微，亏缺，变弱；v.变小，亏缺，呈下弦 | |
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50
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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51
substantiate
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| v.证实；证明...有根据 | |
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52
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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53
paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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54
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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55
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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56
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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57
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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58
sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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59
reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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60
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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61
bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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62
distinctively
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| adv.特殊地，区别地 | |
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63
conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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64
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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65
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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66
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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67
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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68
ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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69
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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70
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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71
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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72
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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73
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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74
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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75
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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76
antiquities
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| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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77
versed
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| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
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78
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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79
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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80
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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81
tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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82
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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83
exigencies
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| n.急切需要 | |
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84
vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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85
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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86
portraiture
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| n.肖像画法 | |
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87
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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88
pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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89
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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90
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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91
addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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92
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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93
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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94
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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95
bequest
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| n.遗赠；遗产，遗物 | |
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96
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
unwillingness
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| n. 不愿意，不情愿 | |
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98
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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99
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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100
impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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101
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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102
genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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103
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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104
analytical
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| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
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105
elucidation
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| n.说明，阐明 | |
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106
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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107
fathomless
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| a.深不可测的 | |
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108
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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109
soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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110
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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111
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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112
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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113
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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114
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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115
enticing
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| adj.迷人的；诱人的 | |
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116
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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117
imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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118
digestion
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| n.消化，吸收 | |
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119
pessimist
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| n.悲观者；悲观主义者；厌世 | |
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120
complaisance
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| n.彬彬有礼，殷勤，柔顺 | |
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121
chronically
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| ad.长期地 | |
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122
insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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123
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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124
physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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125
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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126
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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127
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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128
gastric
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| adj.胃的 | |
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129
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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130
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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131
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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132
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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133
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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134
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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135
engraving
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| n.版画；雕刻（作品）；雕刻艺术；镌版术v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的现在分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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136
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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137
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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138
enthralled
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| 迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快 | |
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139
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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140
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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141
lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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142
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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143
cadences
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| n.（声音的）抑扬顿挫( cadence的名词复数 )；节奏；韵律；调子 | |
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144
precocity
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| n.早熟，早成 | |
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145
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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146
improvise
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| v.即兴创作；临时准备，临时凑成 | |
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147
stanzas
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| 节，段( stanza的名词复数 ) | |
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148
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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149
precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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150
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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151
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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152
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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153
yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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154
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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155
quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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156
entrust
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| v.信赖，信托，交托 | |
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157
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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158
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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159
shafts
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| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
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160
emanating
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| v.从…处传出，传出( emanate的现在分词 )；产生，表现，显示 | |
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161
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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162
shrouding
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| n.覆盖v.隐瞒( shroud的现在分词 )；保密 | |
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163
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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164
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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165
dross
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| n.渣滓；无用之物 | |
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166
sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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167
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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168
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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169
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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170
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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171
pulsating
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| adj.搏动的，脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动 | |
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172
waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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173
masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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174
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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175
crests
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| v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的第三人称单数 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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176
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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177
awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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