It is a strange sensation for us to-day to watch from afar the slow and implacable destruction of one of the greatest works of art in the world, for we must go back more than a century to find any catastrophe4 of a similar nature. What happened then, when half a hundred masterpieces of divinely directed human intelligence and aspiration5 were reduced to scrap-heaps at the hands of revolution, is very far away, and the irreparable loss is as unknown to-day as it was unappreciated then. We can no more reconstruct for our understand{110}ing Cluny, St. Martin of Tours, or Avranches than we can restore the catalogue of the Alexandrian library; mercifully we cannot estimate our loss. Back of this era of annihilation we must go two centuries before we find in England under Henry VIII a similar episode of infamy6. The case of Reims is wholly different; there are tens of thousands who knew it for what it was—the crowning manifestation7 of a crowning civilisation8, and for them the loss is personal, poignant9, and unexampled, a horror that sophistry10 cannot palliate nor time destroy.
Of the two great churches, Amiens could more easily have been spared. The word is ill chosen; Amiens in ruins, its exquisite11 fa?ade with its perfect sculptures seared and shattered by bursting shells and consuming fire, would have been a catastrophe that could only put to the test the most stoical fortitude12, but—it is neither Chartres nor Bourges nor Reims, and simply because the perfect balance between all possible elements in great architecture is here trembling toward its overthrow13. Gothic art had three controlling forces working toward an unattainable perfection; structural15 integrity irradiated by consummate16 invention and an almost divine creative genius;{111} passion for that exalted17 beauty that is unchangeable and eternal, expressed through new forms at once northern and Catholic; the just balance and intimate interplay of these two impulses. Its virtues18, like all virtues, were most easily transmuted19 into vices20, once the controlling balance was overthrown21, and each was, in its stimulating22 possibilities, a constant and irresistible23 temptation toward excess. In Reims, the beginnings of which antedate24 Amiens by only a decade, the balance remains true and firm; in Amiens we see the first fatal steps in the development of a purely25 human (and notably26 French) logic27, toward that intellectual pride, that almost arrogance28 of self-confidence, that found its nemesis29 in the unstable30 marvel31 of Beauvais.
In an admirable but anonymous32 little book called “Some French Cathedrals,” the author says: “French Gothic was most rational and most beautiful while it still remembered its Romanesque origin. At Amiens it was just beginning to forget that and to lose itself in dreams of an impossible romance which changed it from architecture into a very wonderful kind of ornamental34 engineering.” This subtle and significant change you feel everywhere except in the{112} inimitable fa?ade. The interior is too high, the masonry35 too wire-drawn and tenuous36, the chevet too giddy and insecure. It is true that all but the west front has been impossibly restored, so that outwardly little remains of the original work, while the glass is gone from all but the ambulatory windows, leaving the nave37 a cold blaze of intolerable light. Nevertheless, the fundamental fault is there; the architect intrudes39 himself in place of the dévot, the craft of man supplants40 the guiding of God; so we have one of the most technically41 perfect of cathedrals, and one of the least inspired; you must go to the Rhine to find, in Cologne, a more self-conscious and serenely43 satisfied work, and it is well to make this comparison, for by so doing you realise the real greatness of Amiens, and how it fails only in comparison with the three perfect examples of an art that wholly expresses the great concept of medi?val Catholic philosophy, that in life, as we know it, material and spiritual are inseparable, that their just balance is the true end of man in this phase of existence, and that therefore sacramentalism is of the esse of religion, and as well the law of life.
As a whole, both from within and without, Amiens in a measure fails, but this does not hold of its several parts. The west front is still a masterpiece of consummate and wholly original design, though the towers have been incongruously (but engagingly) terminated in later centuries. The three great doors, the first and second arcades45, and the rose-window story contain more brilliant, spirited, ingenious, and withal beautiful design than any similar work in the world, while the ornament33 (there is a wild-rose border around the archivolts of the great porches that finds no rival in Greece) and the sculptures reach a level of decorative46 and emotional significance that marks the time of their production as the crowning moment in human culture and in Christian civilisation.
We turn to Reims—we turn now in reverence47 to the memory of Reims—in a different spirit. Master Robert of Luzarches was a master, and knew it. Master Robert of Coucy was the servant of a Lord who was greater than he, and knew this also, and was proud of his service. He was just as great an architect as his brother of Amiens, but he worked in a godly fear, and so he built the noblest church in Christendom. This is not to say that its nave order is equal to Chartres, its rhythm and composition equal to Bourges.{114} In every great church from 1175 to 1225 there is some one element or more that is final and unexcelled, but at Reims there was a great consistency48, a noble and all-embracing competence49, that placed it in a class by itself.
Reims was without a fault; perhaps this made its appeal less poignant and searching than that of the eager and sometimes less-perfect efforts of men more human in their inadequacies. Man is the creature that tries, and it is perhaps only human to feel a reverence that lessens50 affection for those who seem to transcend51 the limits that are set to human accomplishment52.
Every other cathedral in France is a splendid chronicle, a record of changing times, changing endeavours, changing impulses. Men of varying personalities53 have wrought54 out their ideals, year after year, and the result is in each case a great sequence, a glorious approximation. Reims was begun in 1211, on the first anniversary of the burning of its predecessor55, and it was finished, manifestly in accordance with an original and predetermined design, within fifty years. The three gables and the upper stories of the western towers are a century later, otherwise the work is consistent and a single conception. The great ideal{115} comprised a crowning group of seven towers, each with its slender spire42, none of which was ever completed, and had this majestic56 scheme been carried out, the church would have been the most complete, as it was the most perfect, of the architectural manifestations57 of Christianity.
It is impossible to analyse Reims, to describe its vital and exquisite organism, to laud58 its impeccable scale, its vivid and stimulating originality59, to explain the almost incredible competence and beauty of its buttressing60, the serene44 delicacy61 of its detail, to dwell once more on the glory of its sculpture that ranked with that of Greece, on the splendour of its glass that was rivalled only at Chartres. It is impossible to do this now, for its passing has been too recent and too grievous. Death brings silence for a time to those that knew the dead.
In another chapter I have tried to say something of the sculpture of Reims, a crowning glory where all was glorious, but sculpture does not mean the human figure alone; it covered in the Middle Ages all forms of beauty chiselled62 out of stone and marble, and the man who wrought the wild-rose design on the archivolts of Amiens was just as great an artist as he who fashioned the{116} Virgin63 of the south transept, or the “Beau Dieu”; perhaps he was the same man. Gothic “ornament” is quite as beautiful as are Gothic saints and angels, and here at Reims the stone carving64 was of the finest. Every space of ornament—capital, crocket, boss, frieze65, and string-course—was a combination of these great elements: architectural self-restraint and identity with the work as a whole, passionate66 love for all the beautiful things in nature, joy in doing everything, even the cutting of unseen surfaces, just as well as man could do the work. It is not better than the ornament of Amiens or Chartres; in some passages Amiens seems to have achieved the highest attainable14 point, but it is of the same quality, and that is enough glory for any church.
Most of this inimitable art already has been blasted and calcined away, and the same fate has overtaken the glass. Here was an achievement of the highest in an art of the best. In the light (literally) of the stained glass of our own times, we had found some difficulty in realising that this was an art at all, but it needed only a visit to Chartres or Reims for enlightenment to come to us. At Chartres, in the very earliest years of the thirteenth century, it reached its culmination67; there is no greater glass anywhere than this, almost no greater art, and Reims, while less complete (the aisle68 windows were wholly removed by eighteenth-century canons on the score of an added “cheerfulness”), was of the same school, though later and just past the cresting69 of the wave. If it lacked the unearthly clarity and divine radiance of the western lancets, and the “Belle Verrière” of Chartres, it had qualities of its own, particularly its most glorious azures and rubies70, that allowed no rival, and it easily ranked with Chartres and Bourges and Poitiers as manifesting the possibilities of a noble art, and a lost art, at its highest point of achievement.
So far as can be learned, all this has perished and it cannot be restored. It lies in shivered heaps where it has fallen and the chapter of the glass of Reims is closed.
Four months ago the ruin already was irreparable, and since then bombardments have been frequent and merciless, nor has the enemy as yet been driven beyond the range of gun-fire. Whether even the shattered and crumbling71 fabric—wherefrom all carving, all detail, all glass, all sculpture has been burned and blasted away—survives in the end, none can foretell72; but one{118} thing is sure, and that is that no “restoration” must ever be attempted. If enough remains so that careful hands may preserve it from disintegration73 and make it available for the worship of God, well and good, so long as no imitations, whether in stone or metal or glass, are intruded74 to mock its vanished glory and obliterate75 for future generations the record of an indelible crime. For seven centuries its beauty and its perfection have spoken to succeeding generations, each less willing to listen than the last. In its ruin and its devastation76 it will speak more clearly and to more willing ears, than in any pretentious77 rehabilitation78.
To the sordid79 wickedness of its destruction has been added the insult of Prussian promises of complete restoration—a catastrophe that would crown the first with a greater and more contemptible80 indignity81. Instead, let Reims remain as it is left, and then, in Paris, let France, regenerated82 and redeemed83, as already has gloriously happened, make for ever visible her restoration, through blood and suffering, to her old ideals, by carrying out her vow84 to build in honour of Ste. Jeanne d’Arc a great new church, raise a new Reims, like the old in plan and form and dimensions. Not a copy,{119} but a revival85, with the old ideals, the old motives86, the old self-consecration87; different, as the new must differ from the old, but akin88 in spirit and in truth.
If one only knew how to interpret it, there is some mysterious significance in the centring of the war of the world around Reims and in the persistent89 and successful efforts of the Prussians to raze90 it to the ground. Seven centuries ago the mystics of St. Victor would have read the riddle91, but for too long now we have been out of temper with symbolism and too averse92 to the acceptance of signs and portents93 to be able to see even dimly the correspondences and the significance of those human happenings that are actually outside human control. In a way Reims was the ancient heart of France, as Paris is not, and it always was a sacred city above all others—and sacred it is now as never before. It was here that the Christianising of the Franks was sealed by the baptism of Clovis, A. D. 496, by St. Remi, the canonised bishop94 who occupied the see for seventy-five years. The crowning of kings (every sovereign but four for a period of fifteen hundred years came here for his coronation), the assembling of great councils of the Church, the beneficent ac{120}tivities of universities and schools of philosophy were all commonplaces of the life of the city, while it was here that Ste. Jeanne d’Arc finally discomfited95 the English and led her King to his crowning in the church that is now destroyed.
Time and again the city has been devastated96, from the Vandals of 392 to those of 1914. During the Revolution its churches suffered bitterly; the cathedral and St. Remi, until then, were rich with unnumbered shrines97, altars, statues, tombs, while cloisters98 and religious buildings of many kinds surrounded them on all sides. All this wealth of hoarded99 art that expressed the piety100 and culture of centuries was swept away, even to the sacred ampulla of holy oil, piously101 believed to have been brought by a dove for the consecration of Clovis and ever after miraculously103 replenished104 for each succeeding coronation. To this irreparable devastation was added the indignity of official “restoration,” though in the case of the cathedral at the able and scrupulous105 hands of Viollet-le-Duc, and in the nineteenth century the picturesque106 and beautiful old streets gave place to boulevards and a general Hausmanising on approved Parisian lines, so that in 1914 the city had become dull and somewhat pretentious, framing the two priceless{121} jewels, the Church of Our Lady of Reims and that of the holy St. Remi.
All is now gone, the glorious and the insignificant107 alike overwhelmed in indiscriminating ruin. The glass and the statues that had survived war, revolution, and stupidity are shattered in fragments, the roofs consumed by fire, the vaults108 burst asunder109, the carved stones calcined and flaking110 hourly in a dreary111 rain on blood-stained pavements where a hundred kings have trod and into deserted112 streets that have echoed to the footsteps of threescore generations. The city has passed; deleta est Carthago, but it has left a memory, a tradition, and an inspiration that may yet play a greater part in the rebuilding of civilisation than could have been achieved by its remaining monuments as they stood making their unheeded appeal on the day the first shell was fired from the Prussian batteries on the eastern hills.
The tendency I have spoken of which showed itself in Amiens, the breaking up of the medi?val integrity and a consequent inclination113 toward undue114 emphasis on structural and intellectual arrogance, never went very far because of the ill days that fell on France. The victory of the{122} French crown over the Papacy, with the resulting transfer of the Holy See to Avignon, was the ruin of Catholic civilisation in France, as well as in Italy and the rest of Christendom. The Church became subservient115 to the state and progressively corrupt116 in root and branch. The wars with England resulted in nothing less than ruin, and culture and art came to an end. By 1370 building had become thin, poor, uninspired, and yet, within the next ten years flamboyant117 architecture appeared, and the fifteenth century opened with a sudden burst of artistic118 splendour. Heaven knows what it all means; France was at her lowest depth, and yet, without warning, a regeneration took place. The Blessed Jeanne d’Arc appears like a miraculous102 vision, Orleans is saved, the rightful king is crowned, and though the martyrdom of the saviour119 of France takes place in 1430, the English are driven out in 1456, and a new day begins.
Was Jeanne d’Arc a single manifestation of a new spirit that had entered society, or was this itself a continuation of what she had initiated120 under God? The answer does not really matter, the important fact is that a great regeneration took place, and a new type of art followed in its{123} wake. Now the tendency was away from the proud efficiency of a glorified121 architectural engineering and toward the other element in architecture, beauty of form and splendour of ornament. It was almost as though the French had turned to religion and beauty as their only refuge from the miseries122 of their estate. In the very first years of the fifteenth century, at the darkest hours of France, Notre Dame38 de l’Epine, close by Chalons on the Marne, was built in 1419. Caudebec in 1426, St. Maclou, Rouen, in 1432, and after these for more than a century France abandoned herself to the creation of works of architectural art that, whatever they may lack of the splendid consistency and the divine serenity123 of the thirteenth century, are nevertheless amongst the loveliest works of man. Beauvais is an admirable example of the two tendencies; begun in 1225, its impossible choir124 was finished in 1272, only to collapse125 twelve years later, paying the penalty of its structural arrogance. For forty years it was in process of reconstruction126, after a more conservative fashion though of its original dimensions, and in 1500 the transepts were begun and finished fifty years later. In beauty and in an almost riotous127 richness, they are the{124} crowning work of this phase of design, while the choir itself, with its marvellously articulated system of buttresses128, is a creation of sheer architectural power almost unrivalled. Ambitious and defiant129, the canons now, in 1550, reared a vast spire over the crossing, nearly 450 feet high, and of the same sumptuous130 design as the transepts. The whole stupendous erection fell twenty-five years later, and has never been rebuilt, while the nave was never even begun; so Beauvais remains a vast fragment, and a living commentary on the excesses and the penalties of that pride of life that succeeded to the spiritual humility131 of the Middle Ages.
The new style, however, was perfectly132 adapted to the new life of secular133 supremacy134, and, with few exceptions, both here in eastern France and in Flanders and Brabant and the Netherlands, the great civic135 monuments and the innumerable chateaux of an expanding and ripening136 society are couched in its beautiful and elaborate terms. Essentially137 it is a mode of ornament, containing no new element in organism, but always beautiful and, in France at all events, marked always by delicate and admirable taste. With its flame-like tracery, its complicated pinnacles138, its scaf{125}foldings of intricate latticework; with its curved and aspiring139 lines, glimmering140 niches141, pierced parapets, open-work spires142, and its tangled143 foliage144, dainty filigree-work and sculptured lace, it is a marvel of imagination, dramatic sense, and consummate craftsmanship145. Sometimes it is strikingly competent in its composition, as in the transepts of Beauvais and the front of Troyes, the latter being in its unfulfilled promise (it is only a beginning) one of the great fa?ades of France, but frequently its greatest weakness is forgetfulness of consistency in a passion for beauty of line and light and shade that became almost insane. With the beginning of the sixteenth century the new art began slowly to decay in ecclesiastical buildings, but it continued for at least another hundred years in chateaux and civic work, and it is this in particular that is now disappearing through a war waged by unprecedented146 methods and in accordance with principles (if we may call them such) which hitherto have been found associated only with barbarian147 invasions or the frenzies148 of a mad anarchy149 that has called itself Revolution.
For the more distinguished150 chateaux we must go outside our chosen field, to the Loire, Touraine, or to other parts of France where the devastation{126} of past wars and revolutions is less complete. There is Pierrefonds, of course, if one cares for that sort of thing, but of authentic151 castles of the sixteenth century there are few of notable quality, though many minor152 farms and manors153 still remained in August, 1914. Ecouen and Chantilly are exceptions, and the latter, given to the nation by the Duc d’Aumale when he was exiled by the republic for the crime of belonging to the legitimate154 line of kings, is a good example of the princely buildings of the Renaissance155 when the last fires of Gothic spirit were dying away.
It is not so long ago that half the towns in France between the Seine and the Belgian frontier were threaded by wonderful little streets of stone-built and half-timber houses three centuries old, and bright with squares and market-places framed in old architecture of Francis I and Henri II. Their quaint156 and delicate beauty was too much for the nineteenth century, however, which revolted against an old art as it revolted against an old culture and an older religion, so nearly all are gone, their place being taken by substitutes, the destruction of which could hardly be counted against the Prussians for unrighteousness, if one considered ?sthetic questions alone, which is, for{127}tunately, impossible. For these dim old streets and sunny silent squares one could, until a few months ago, go confidently across the border, finding in Flanders, Brabant, Liége, and Luxembourg relief from the appalling157 sophistication that had taken possession of the old cities of Champagne158. Even in France, until last year, were Douai, Pont-à-Mousson, Meaux, and of course Arras, though now of some of these worse than nothing remains. In the latter city was once, also, a particularly splendid example of those great civic halls that showed forth159 the pride and the independence of the industrial cities of the later Middle Ages, and another stood in Douai. As Flanders and Brabant are, however, the chosen places for this particular manifestation of an industrial civilisation, so different to our own in spirit and in expression, we may include them therewith, where they racially and historically belong; and having followed the development of an essentially religious art in France from Jumièges to Beauvais, note its translation in later years into civic forms, in the little and heroic Kingdom with so great and heroic a history, now and for many months shut off from the world still free, by the veil of smoke and poisoned gases.
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1
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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infamy
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| n.声名狼藉，出丑，恶行 | |
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manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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sophistry
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| n.诡辩 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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attainable
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| a.可达到的，可获得的 | |
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structural
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| adj.构造的，组织的，建筑（用）的 | |
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consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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transmuted
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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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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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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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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antedate
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| vt.填早...的日期，早干，先干 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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nemesis
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| n.给以报应者，复仇者，难以对付的敌手 | |
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unstable
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| adj.不稳定的，易变的 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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masonry
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| n.砖土建筑；砖石 | |
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tenuous
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| adj.细薄的，稀薄的，空洞的 | |
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nave
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| n.教堂的中部；本堂 | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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intrudes
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| v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的第三人称单数 )；把…强加于 | |
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supplants
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| 把…排挤掉，取代( supplant的第三人称单数 ) | |
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technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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45
arcades
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| n.商场( arcade的名词复数 )；拱形走道（两旁有商店或娱乐设施）；连拱廊；拱形建筑物 | |
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decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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47
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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48
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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49
competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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50
lessens
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| 变少( lessen的第三人称单数 )； 减少（某事物） | |
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51
transcend
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| vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围 | |
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52
accomplishment
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| n.完成，成就，（pl.）造诣，技能 | |
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53
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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54
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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55
predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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56
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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57
manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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58
laud
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| n.颂歌；v.赞美 | |
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59
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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60
buttressing
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| v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的现在分词 ) | |
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61
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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62
chiselled
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| adj.凿过的，凿光的； （文章等）精心雕琢的v.凿，雕，镌( chisel的过去式 ) | |
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63
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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64
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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65
frieze
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| n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带 | |
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66
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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67
culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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68
aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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69
cresting
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| n.顶饰v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的现在分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点 | |
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70
rubies
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| 红宝石( ruby的名词复数 )； 红宝石色，深红色 | |
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71
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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72
foretell
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| v.预言，预告，预示 | |
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73
disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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74
intruded
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| n.侵入的，推进的v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的过去式和过去分词 )；把…强加于 | |
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75
obliterate
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| v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去 | |
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76
devastation
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| n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤 | |
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77
pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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78
rehabilitation
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| n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位 | |
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79
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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80
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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81
indignity
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| n.侮辱，伤害尊严，轻蔑 | |
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82
regenerated
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| v.新生，再生( regenerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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83
redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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84
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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85
revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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86
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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87
consecration
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| n.供献，奉献，献祭仪式 | |
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88
akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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89
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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90
raze
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| vt.铲平，把(城市、房屋等)夷为平地，拆毁 | |
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91
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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92
averse
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| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
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93
portents
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| n.预兆( portent的名词复数 )；征兆；怪事；奇物 | |
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94
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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95
discomfited
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| v.使为难( discomfit的过去式和过去分词)；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
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96
devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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97
shrines
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| 圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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98
cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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99
hoarded
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| v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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100
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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101
piously
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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102
miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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103
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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104
replenished
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| 补充( replenish的过去式和过去分词 )； 重新装满 | |
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105
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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106
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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107
insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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108
vaults
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| n.拱顶( vault的名词复数 )；地下室；撑物跳高；墓穴 | |
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109
asunder
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| adj.分离的，化为碎片 | |
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110
flaking
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| 刨成片，压成片； 盘网 | |
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111
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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112
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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113
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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114
undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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115
subservient
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| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
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116
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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117
flamboyant
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| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
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118
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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119
saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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120
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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121
glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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122
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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123
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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124
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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125
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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126
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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127
riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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128
buttresses
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| n.扶壁，扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑，加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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129
defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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130
sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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131
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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132
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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133
secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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134
supremacy
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| n.至上；至高权力 | |
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135
civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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136
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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137
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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138
pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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139
aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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140
glimmering
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| n.微光，隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光，发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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141
niches
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| 壁龛( niche的名词复数 )； 合适的位置[工作等]； （产品的）商机； 生态位（一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位） | |
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142
spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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143
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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144
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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145
craftsmanship
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| n.手艺 | |
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146
unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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147
barbarian
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| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
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148
frenzies
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| 狂乱( frenzy的名词复数 )； 极度的激动 | |
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149
anarchy
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| n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序 | |
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150
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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151
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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152
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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153
manors
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| n.庄园（manor的复数形式） | |
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154
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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155
renaissance
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| n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴 | |
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156
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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157
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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158
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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159
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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