By a Peaceable Man.
[This article appeared in the “Atlantic Monthly” for July, 1862, and is now first reprinted among Hawthorne’s collected writings. The editor of the magazine objected to sundry1 paragraphs in the manuscript, and these were cancelled with the consent of the author, who himself supplied all the foot-notes that accompanied the article when it was published. It has seemed best to retain them in the present reproduction. One of the suppressed passages, in which President Lincoln is described, has since been printed, and is therefore restored to its proper place in the following pages.—G. P. L.]
Here is no remoteness of life and thought, no hermetically sealed seclusion3, except possibly, that of the grave, into which the disturbing influences of this war do not penetrate4. Of course, the general heart-quake of the country long ago knocked at my cottage-door, and compelled me, reluctantly, to suspend the contemplation of certain fantasies, to which, according to my harmless custom, I was endeavoring to give a sufficiently5 life-like aspect to admit of their figuring in a romance. As I make no pretensions7 to state-craft or soldiership, and could promote the common weal neither by valor8 nor counsel, it seemed, at first, a pity that I should be debarred from such unsubstantial business as I had contrived9 for myself, since nothing more genuine was to be substituted for it. But I magnanimously considered that there is a kind of treason in insulating one’s self from the universal fear and sorrow, and thinking one’s idle thoughts in the dread10 time of civil war; and could a man be so cold and hardhearted, he would better deserve to be sent to Fort Warren than many who have found their way thither11 on the score of violent, but misdirected sympathies. I remembered the touching12 rebuke13 administered by King Charles to that rural squire14 the echo of whose hunting-horn came to the poor monarch’s ear on the morning before a battle, where the sovereignty and constitution of England were to be set at a stake. So I gave myself up to reading newspapers and listening to the click of the telegraph, like other people; until, after a great many months of such pastime, it grew so abominably15 irksome that I determined16 to look a little more closely at matters with my own eyes.
Accordingly we set out—a friend and myself—towards Washington, while it was still the long, dreary17 January of our Northern year, though March in name; nor were we unwilling18 to clip a little margin19 off the five months’ winter, during which there is nothing genial20 in New England save the fireside. It was a clear, frosty morning, when we started. The sun shone brightly on snow-covered hills in the neighborhood of Boston, and burnished21 the surface of frozen ponds; and the wintry weather kept along with us while we trundled through Worcester and Springfield, and all those old, familiar towns, and through the village-cities of Connecticut. In New York the streets were afloat with liquid mud and slosh. Over New Jersey22 there was still a thin covering of snow, with the face of Nature visible through the rents in her white shroud23, though with little or no symptom of reviving life. But when we reached Philadelphia, the air was mild and balmy; there was but a patch or two of dingy24 winter here and there, and the bare, brown fields about the city were ready to be green. We had met the Spring half-way, in her slow progress from the South; and if we kept onward25 at the same pace, and could get through the Rebel lines, we should soon come to fresh grass, fruit-blossoms, green peas, strawberries, and all such delights of early summer.
On our way, we heard many rumors26 of the war, but saw few signs of it. The people were staid and decorous, according to their ordinary fashion; and business seemed about as brisk as usual,—though, I suppose, it was considerably27 diverted from its customary channels into warlike ones. In the cities, especially in New York, there was a rather prominent display of military goods at the shop windows,—such as swords with gilded28 scabbards and trappings, epaulets, carabines, revolvers, and sometimes a great iron cannon29 at the edge of the pavement, as if Mars had dropped one of his pocket-pistols there, while hurrying to the field. As railway-companions, we had now and then a volunteer in his French-gray great-coat, returning from furlough, or a new-made officer travelling to join his regiment30, in his new-made uniform, which was perhaps all of the military character that he had about him,—but proud of his eagle-buttons and likely enough to do them honor before the gilt31 should be wholly dimmed. The country, in short, so far as bustle32 and movement went, was more quiet than in ordinary times, because so large a proportion of its restless elements had been drawn33 towards the seat of the conflict. But the air was full of a vague disturbance34. To me, at least, it seemed so, emerging from such a solitude35 as has been hinted at, and the more impressible by rumors and indefinable presentiments36, since I had not lived, like other men, in an atmosphere of continual talk about the war. A battle was momentarily expected on the Potomac; for, though our army was still on the hither side of the river, all of us were looking towards the mysterious and terrible Manassas, with the idea that somewhere in its neighborhood lay a ghastly battle-field, yet to be fought, but foredoomed of old to be bloodier39 than the one where we had reaped such shame. Of all haunted places, methinks such a destined40 field should be thickest thronged41 with ugly phantoms42, ominous43 of mischief44 through ages beforehand.
Beyond Philadelphia there was a much greater abundance of military people. Between Baltimore and Washington a guard seemed to hold every station along the railroad; and frequently, on the hill-sides, we saw a collection of weather-beaten tents, the peaks of which, blackened with smoke, indicated that they had been made comfortable by stove-heat throughout the winter. At several commanding positions we saw fortifications, with the muzzles45 of cannon protruding46 from the ramparts, the slopes of which were made of the yellow earth of that region, and still unsodded; whereas, till these troublous times, there have been no forts but what were grass-grown with the lapse47 of at least a lifetime of peace. Our stopping-places were thronged with soldiers, some of whom came through the cars asking for newspapers that contained accounts of the battle between the Merrimack and Monitor, which had been fought the day before. A railway-train met us, conveying a regiment out of Washington to some unknown point; and reaching the capital, we filed out of the station between lines of soldiers, with shouldered muskets48, putting us in mind of similar spectacles at the gates of European cities. It was not without sorrow that we saw the free circulation of the nation’s life-blood (at the very heart, moreover) clogged49 with such strictures as these, which have caused chronic50 diseases in almost all countries save our own. Will the time ever come again, in America, when we may live half a score of years without once seeing the likeness51 of a soldier, except it be in the festal march of a company on its summer tour? Not in this generation, I fear, nor in the next, nor till the Millennium52; and even that blessed epoch53, as the prophecies seem to intimate, will advance to the sound of the trumpet54.
One terrible idea occurs in reference to this matter. Even supposing the war should end to-morrow, and the army melt into the mass of the population within the year, what an incalculable preponderance will there be of military titles and pretensions for at least half a century to come! Every country-neighborhood will have its general or two, its three or four colonels, half a dozen majors, and captains without end,—besides non-commissioned officers and privates, more than the recruiting offices ever knew of,—all with their campaign-stories, which will become the staple55 of fireside talk forevermore. Military merit, or rather, since that is not so readily estimated, military notoriety, will be the measure of all claims to civil distinction.—One bullet-headed general will succeed another in the Presidential chair; and veterans will hold the offices at home and abroad, and sit in Congress and the state legislatures, and fill all the avenues of public life. And yet I do not speak of this deprecatingly, since, very likely, it may substitute something more real and genuine, instead of the many shams56 on which men have heretofore founded their claims to public regard; but it behooves57 civilians58 to consider their wretched prospects60 in the future, and assume the military button before it is too late.
We were not in time to see Washington as a camp. On the very day of our arrival sixty thousand men had crossed the Potomac on their march towards Manassas; and almost with their first step into the Virginia mud, the phantasmagory of a countless61 host and impregnable ramparts, before which they had so long remained quiescent62, dissolved quite away. It was as if General McClellan had thrust his sword into a gigantic enemy, and, beholding64 him suddenly collapse65, had discovered to himself and the world that he had merely punctured66 an enormously swollen67 bladder. There are instances of a similar character in old romances, where great armies are long kept at bay by the arts of necromancers, who build airy towers and battlements, and muster68 warriors70 of terrible aspect, and thus feign71 a defence of seeming impregnability, until some bolder champion of the besiegers dashes forward to try an encounter with the foremost foeman, and finds him melt away in the death grapple. With such heroic adventures let the march upon Manassas be hereafter reckoned. The whole business, though connected with the destinies of a nation, takes inevitably72 a tinge73 of the ludicrous. The vast preparation of men and warlike material,—the majestic74 patience and docility75 with which the people waited through those weary and dreary months,—the martial76 skill, courage, and caution, with which our movement was ultimately made,—and, at last, the tremendous shock with which we were brought suddenly up against nothing at all! The Southerners show little sense of humor nowadays, but I think they must have meant to provoke a laugh at our expense, when they planted those Quaker guns. At all events, no other Rebel artillery77 has played upon us with such overwhelming effect.
The troops being gone, we had the better leisure and opportunity to look into other matters. It is natural enough to suppose that the centre and heart of Washington is the Capitol; and certainly, in its outward aspect, the world has not many statelier or more beautiful edifices79, nor any, I should suppose, more skilfully80 adapted to legislative81 purposes, and to all accompanying needs. But, etc., etc. [We omit several paragraphs here, in which the author speaks of some prominent Members of Congress with a freedom that seems to have been not unkindly meant, but might be liable to misconstruction. As he admits that he never listened to an important debate, we can hardly recognize his qualifications to estimate these gentlemen, in their legislative and oratorical83 capacities.]
* * * * * *
We found one man, however, at the Capitol, who was satisfactorily adequate to the business which brought him thither. In quest of him, we went through halls, galleries, and corridors, and ascended84 a noble staircase, balustraded with a dark and beautifully variegated85 marble from Tennessee, the richness of which is quite a sufficient cause for objecting to the secession of that State. At last we came to a barrier of pine boards, built right across the stairs. Knocking at a rough, temporary door, we thrust a card beneath; and in a minute or two it was opened by a person in his shirt-sleeves, a middle-aged86 figure, neither tall nor short, of Teutonic build and aspect, with an ample beard of a ruddy tinge and chestnut87 hair. He looked at us, in the first place, with keen and somewhat guarded eyes, as if it were not his practice to vouchsafe88 any great warmth of greeting, except upon sure ground of observation. Soon, however, his look grew kindly82 and genial (not that it had ever been in the least degree repulsive89, but only reserved), and Leutze allowed us to gaze at the cartoon of his great fresco90, and talked about it unaffectedly, as only a man of true genius can speak of his own works. Meanwhile the noble design spoke92 for itself upon the wall. A sketch93 in color, which we saw afterwards, helped us to form some distant and flickering94 notion of what the picture will be, a few months hence, when these bare outlines, already so rich in thought and suggestiveness, shall glow with a fire of their own,—a fire which, I truly believe, will consume every other pictorial95 decoration of the Capitol, or, at least, will compel us to banish96 those stiff and respectable productions to some less conspicuous97 gallery. The work will be emphatically original and American, embracing characteristics that neither art nor literature have yet dealt with, and producing new forms of artistic98 beauty from the natural features of the Rocky-Mountain region, which Leutze seems to have studied broadly and minutely. The garb99 of the hunters and wanderers of those deserts, too, under his free and natural management, is shown as the most picturesque100 of costumes. But it would be doing this admirable painter no kind office to overlay his picture with any more of my colorless and uncertain words; so I shall merely add that it looked full of energy, hope, progress, irrepressible movement onward, all represented in a momentary101 pause of triumph; and it was most cheering to feel its good augury102 at this dismal103 time, when our country might seem to have arrived at such a deadly stand-still.
It was an absolute comfort, indeed, to find Leutze so quietly busy at this great national work, which is destined to glow for centuries on the walls of the Capitol, if that edifice78 shall stand, or must share its fate, if treason shall succeed in subverting104 it with the union which it represents. It was delightful105 to see him so calmly elaborating his design, while other men doubted and feared, or hoped treacherously106, and whispered to one another that the nation would exist only a little longer, or that, if a remnant still held together, its centre and seat of government would be far northward107 and westward108 of Washington. But the artist keeps right on, firm of heart and hand, drawing his outlines with an unwavering pencil, beautifying and idealizing our rude, material life, and thus manifesting that we have an indefeasible claim to a more enduring national existence. In honest truth, what with the hope-inspiring influence of the design, and what with Leutze’s undisturbed evolvement of it, I was exceedingly encouraged, and allowed these cheerful auguries109 to weigh against a sinister110 omen37 that was pointed111 out to me in another part of the Capitol. The freestone walls of the central edifice are pervaded112 with great cracks, and threaten to come thundering down, under the immense weight of the iron dome,—an appropriate catastrophe113 enough if it should occur on the day when we drop the Southern stars out of our flag.
Everybody seems to be at Washington, and yet there is a singular dearth114 of imperatively115 noticeable people there. I question whether there are half a dozen individuals, in all kinds of eminence116, at whom a stranger, wearied with the contact of a hundred moderate celebrities118, would turn round to snatch a second glance. Secretary Seward, to be sure,—a pale, large-nosed, elderly man, of moderate stature119, with a decided120 originality121 of gait and aspect, and a cigar in his mouth,—etc., etc. [We are again compelled to interfere122 with our friend’s license123 of personal description and criticism. Even Cabinet Ministers (to whom the next few pages of the article were devoted) had their private immunities124, which ought to be conscientiously126 observed,—unless, indeed, the writer chanced to have some very piquant127 motives128 for violating them.]
* * * * * *
Of course, there was one other personage, in the class of statesmen, whom I should have been truly mortified129 to leave Washington without seeing; since (temporarily, at least, and by force of circumstances) he was the man of men. But a private grief had built up a barrier about him, impeding130 the customary free intercourse131 of Americans with their chief magistrate132; so that I might have come away without a glimpse of his very remarkable134 physiognomy, save for a semi-official opportunity of which I was glad to take advantage. The fact is, we were invited to annex135 ourselves, as supernumeraries, to a deputation that was about to wait upon the President, from a Massachusetts whip-factory, with a present of a splendid whip.
Our immediate136 party consisted only of four or five (including Major Ben Perley Poore, with his note-book and pencil), but we were joined by several other persons, who seemed to have been lounging about the precincts of the White House, under the spacious137 porch, or within the hall, and who swarmed138 in with us to take the chances of a presentation. Nine o’clock had been appointed as the time for receiving the deputation, and we were punctual to the moment; but not so the President, who sent us word that he was eating his breakfast, and would come as soon as he could. His appetite, we were glad to think, must have been a pretty fair one; for we waited about half an hour in one of the antechambers, and then were ushered139 into a reception-room, in one corner of which sat the Secretaries of War and of the Treasury140, expecting, like ourselves, the termination of the Presidential breakfast. During this interval141 there were several new additions to our group, one or two of whom were in a working-garb, so that we formed a very miscellaneous collection of people, mostly unknown to each other, and without any common sponsor, but all with an equal right to look our head-servant in the face.
By and by there was a little stir on the staircase and in the passage-way, and in lounged a tall, loose-jointed figure, of an exaggerated Yankee port and demeanor142, whom (as being about the homeliest man I ever saw, yet by no means repulsive or disagreeable) it was impossible not to recognize as Uncle Abe.
Unquestionably, Western man though he be, and Kentuckian by birth, President Lincoln is the essential representative of all Yankees, and the veritable specimen143, physically144, of what the world seems determined to regard as our characteristic qualities. It is the strangest and yet the fittest thing in the jumble145 of human vicissitudes146, that he, out of so many millions, unlooked for, unselected by any intelligible147 process that could be based upon his genuine qualities, unknown to those who chose him, and unsuspected of what endowments may adapt him for his tremendous responsibility, should have found the way open for him to fling his lank148 personality into the chair of state,—where, I presume, it was his first impulse to throw his legs on the council-table, and tell the Cabinet Ministers a story. There is no describing his lengthy149 awkwardness, nor the uncouthness151 of his movement; and yet it seemed as if I had been in the habit of seeing him daily, and had shaken hands with him a thousand times in some village street; so true was he to the aspect of the pattern American, though with a certain extravagance which, possibly, I exaggerated still further by the delighted eagerness with which I took it in. If put to guess his calling and livelihood152, I should have taken him for a country schoolmaster as soon as anything else. He was dressed in a rusty153 black frock-coat and pantaloons, unbrushed, and worn so faithfully that the suit had adapted itself to the curves and angularities of his figure, and had grown to be an outer skin of the man. He had shabby slippers154 on his feet. His hair was black, still unmixed with gray, stiff, somewhat bushy, and had apparently155 been acquainted with neither brush nor comb that morning, after the disarrangement of the pillow; and as to a night-cap, Uncle Abe probably knows nothing of such effeminacies. His complexion156 is dark and sallow, betokening157, I fear, an insalubrious atmosphere around the White House; he has thick black eyebrows158 and an impending159 brow; his nose is large, and the lines about his mouth are very strongly defined.
The whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would meet anywhere in the length and breadth of the States; but, withal, it is redeemed160, illuminated161, softened162, and brightened by a kindly though serious look out of his eyes, and an expression of homely163 sagacity, that seems weighted with rich results of village experience. A great deal of native sense; no bookish cultivation164, no refinement165; honest at heart, and thoroughly166 so, and yet, in some sort, sly,—at least, endowed with a sort of tact117 and wisdom that are akin167 to craft, and would impel168 him, I think, to take an antagonist169 in flank, rather than to make a bull-run at him right in front. But, on the whole, I like this sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely human sympathies that warmed it; and, for my small share in the matter, would as lief have Uncle Abe for a ruler as any man whom it would have been practicable to put in his place.
Immediately on his entrance the President accosted170 our member of Congress, who had us in charge, and, with a comical twist of his face, made some jocular remark about the length of his breakfast. He then greeted us all round, not waiting for an introduction, but shaking and squeezing everybody’s hand with the utmost cordiality, whether the individual’s name was announced to him or not. His manner towards us was wholly without pretence171, but yet had a kind of natural dignity, quite sufficient to keep the forwardest of us from clapping him on the shoulder and asking him for a story. A mutual172 acquaintance being established, our leader took the whip out of its case, and began to read the address of presentation. The whip was an exceedingly long one, its handle wrought173 in ivory (by some artist in the Massachusetts State Prison, I believe), and ornamented174 with a medallion of the President, and other equally beautiful devices; and along its whole length there was a succession of golden bands and ferrules. The address was shorter than the whip, but equally well made, consisting chiefly of an explanatory description of these artistic designs, and closing with a hint that the gift was a suggestive and emblematic176 one, and that the President would recognize the use to which such an instrument should be put.
This suggestion gave Uncle Abe rather a delicate task in his reply, because, slight as the matter seemed, it apparently called for some declaration, or intimation, or faint foreshadowing of policy in reference to the conduct of the war, and the final treatment of the Rebels. But the President’s Yankee aptness and not-to-be-caughtness stood him in good stead, and he jerked or wiggled himself out of the dilemma177 with an uncouth150 dexterity178 that was entirely179 in character; although, without his gesticulation of eye and month,—and especially the flourish of the whip, with which he imagined himself touching up a pair of fat horses,—I doubt whether his words would be worth recording180, even if I could remember them. The gist133 of the reply was, that he accepted the whip as an emblem175 of peace; not punishment; and, this great affair over, we retired181 out of the presence in high good-humor, only regretting that we could not have seen the President sit down and fold up his legs (which is said to be a most extraordinary spectacle), or have heard him tell one of those delectable182 stories for which he is so celebrated183. A good many of them are afloat upon the common talk of Washington, and are certainly the aptest, pithiest184, and funniest little things imaginable; though, to be sure, they smack185 of the frontier freedom, and would not always bear repetition in a drawing-room, or on the immaculate page of the Atlantic.
[The above passage relating to President Lincoln was one of those omitted from the article as originally published, and the following note was appended to explain the omission186, which had been indicated by a line of points:—
We are compelled to omit two or three pages, in which the author describes the interview, and gives his idea of the personal appearance and deportment of the President. The sketch appears to have been written in a benign187 spirit, and perhaps conveys a not inaccurate188 impression of its august subject; but it lacks reverence189, and it pains us to see a gentleman of ripe age, and who has spent years under the corrective influence of foreign institutions, falling into the characteristic and most ominous fault of Young America.]
Good Heavens! what liberties have I been taking with one of the potentates190 of the earth, and the man on whose conduct more important consequences depend than on that of any other historical personage of the century! But with whom is an American citizen entitled to take a liberty, if not with his own chief magistrate? However, lest the above allusions191 to President Lincoln’s little peculiarities192 (already well known to the country and to the world) should be misinterpreted, I deem it proper to say a word or two in regard to him, of unfeigned respect and measurable confidence. He is evidently a man of keen faculties193, and, what is still more to the purpose, of powerful character. As to his integrity, the people have that intuition of it which is never deceived. Before he actually entered upon his great office, and for a considerable time afterwards, there is no reason to suppose that he adequately estimated the gigantic task about to be imposed on him, or, at least, had any distinct idea how it was to be managed; and I presume there may have been more than one veteran politician who proposed to himself to take the power out of President Lincoln’s hands into his own, leaving our honest friend only the public responsibility for the good or ill success of the career. The extremely imperfect development of his statesmanly qualities, at that period, may have justified194 such designs. But the President is teachable by events, and has now spent a year in a very arduous195 course of education; he has a flexible mind, capable of much expansion, and convertible196 towards far loftier studies and activities than those of his early life; and if he came to Washington a backwoods humorist, he has already transformed himself into as good a statesman (to speak moderately) as his prime-minister.
Among other excursions to camps and places of interest in the neighborhood of Washington, we went, one day, to Alexandria. It is a little port on the Potomac, with one or two shabby wharves197 and docks, resembling those of a fishing-village in New England, and the respectable old brick town rising gently behind. In peaceful times it no doubt bore an aspect of decorous quietude and dulness; but it was now thronged with the Northern soldiery, whose stir and bustle contrasted strikingly with the many closed warehouses198, the absence of citizens from their customary haunts, and the lack of any symptom of healthy activity, while army-wagons199 trundled heavily over the pavements, and sentinels paced the sidewalks, and mounted dragoons dashed to and fro on military errands. I tried to imagine how very disagreeable the presence of a Southern army would be in a sober town of Massachusetts; and the thought considerably lessened200 my wonder at the cold and shy regards that are cast upon our troops, the gloom, the sullen201 demeanor, the declared or scarcely hidden sympathy with rebellion, which are so frequent here. It is a strange thing in human life, that the greatest errors both of men and women often spring from their sweetest and most generous qualities; and so, undoubtedly202, thousands of warm-hearted, sympathetic, and impulsive203 persons have joined the Rebels, not from any real zeal204 for the cause, but because, between two conflicting loyalties205, they chose that which necessarily lay nearest the heart. There never existed any other government against which treason was so easy, and could defend itself by such plausible206 arguments, as against that of the United States. The anomaly of two allegiances (of which that of the State comes nearest home to a man’s feelings, and includes the altar and the hearth207, while the General Government claims his devotion only to an airy mode of law, and has no symbol but a flag) is exceedingly mischievous208 in this point of view; for it has converted crowds of honest people into traitors209, who seem to themselves not merely innocent but patriotic211, and who die for a bad cause with as quiet a conscience as if it were the best. In the vast extent of our country,—too vast by far to be taken into one small human heart,—we inevitably limit to our own State, or, at farthest, to our own section, that sentiment of physical love for the soil which renders an Englishman, for example, so intensely sensitive to the dignity and well-being212 of his little island, that one hostile foot, treading anywhere upon it, would make a bruise213 on each individual breast. If a man loves his individual State, therefore, and is content to be ruined with her, let us shoot him if we can, but allow him an honorable burial in the soil he fights for.
[We do not thoroughly comprehend the author’s drift in the foregoing paragraph, but are inclined to think its tone reprehensible214, and its tendency impolitic in the present stage of our national difficulties.]
In Alexandria we visited the tavern215 in which Colonel Ellsworth was killed, and saw the spot where he fell, and saw the stairs below, whence Jackson fired the fatal shot, and where he himself was slain216 a moment afterwards; so that the assassin and his victim must have met on the threshold of the spirit-world, and perhaps came to a better understanding before they had taken many steps on the other side. Ellsworth was too generous to bear an immortal217 grudge218 for a deed like that, done in hot blood, and by no skulking219 enemy. The memorial-hunters have completely cut away the original wood-work around the spot, with their pocket-knives; and the staircase, balustrade, and floor, as well as the adjacent doors and door-frames, have recently been renewed; the walls, moreover, are covered with new paper-hangings, the former having been torn off in tatters; and thus it becomes something like a metaphysical question whether the place of the murder actually exists.
Driving out of Alexandria, we stopped on the edge of the city to inspect an old slave-pen, which is one of the lions of the place, but a very poor one; and a little farther on, we came to a brick church, where Washington used sometimes to attend service,—a pre-Revolutionary edifice, with ivy220 growing over its walls, though not very luxuriantly. Reaching the open country, we saw forts and camps on all sides; some of the tents being placed immediately on the ground, while others were raised over a basement of logs, laid lengthwise, like those of a log-hut, or driven vertically221 into the soil in a circle,—thus forming a solid wall, the chinks closed up with Virginia mud, and above it the pyramidal shelter of the tent. Here were in progress all the occupations, and all the idleness, of the soldier in the tented field: some were cooking the company-rations in pots hung over fires in the open air; some played at ball, or developed their muscular power by gymnastic exercise; some read newspapers; some smoked cigars or pipes; and many were cleaning their arms or accoutrements,—the more carefully, perhaps, because their division was to be reviewed by the Commander-in-Chief that afternoon; others sat on the ground, while their comrades cut their hair,—it being a soldierly fashion (and for excellent reasons) to crop it within an inch of the skull222; others, finally, lay asleep in breast-high tents, with their legs protruding into the open air.
We paid a visit to Fort Ellsworth, and from its ramparts (which have been heaped up out of the muddy soil within the last few months, and will require still a year or two to make them verdant) we had a beautiful view of the Potomac, a truly majestic river, and the surrounding country. The fortifications, so numerous in all this region, and now so unsightly with their bare, precipitous sides, will remain as historic monuments, grass-grown and picturesque memorials of an epoch of terror and suffering: they will serve to make our country dearer and more interesting to us, and afford fit soil for poetry to root itself in: for this is a plant which thrives best in spots where blood has been spilt long ago, and grows in abundant clusters in old ditches, such as the moat around Fort Ellsworth will be a century hence. It may seem to be paying dear for what many will reckon but a worthless weed; but the more historical associations we can link with our localities, the richer will be the daily life that feeds upon the past, and the more valuable the things that have been long established: so that our children will be less prodigal223 than their fathers in sacrificing good institutions to passionate224 impulses and impracticable theories. This herb of grace, let us hope, will be found in the old footprints of the war.
Even in an aesthetic225 point of view, however, the war has done a great deal of enduring mischief, by causing the devastation226 of great tracts227 of woodland scenery, in which this part of Virginia would appear to be very rich. Around all the encampments, and everywhere along the road, we saw the bare sites of what had evidently been tracts of hard-wood forest, indicated by the unsightly stumps228 of well-grown trees, not smoothly229 felled by regular axe-men, but hacked230, haggled231, and unevenly232 amputated, as by a sword or other miserable233 tool, in an unskilful hand. Fifty years will not repair this desolation. An army destroys everything before and around it, even to the very grass; for the sites of the encampments are converted into barren esplanades, like those of the squares in French cities, where not a blade of grass is allowed to grow. As to the other symptoms of devastation and obstruction234, such as deserted235 houses, unfenced fields, and a general aspect of nakedness and ruin, I know not how much may be due to a normal lack of neatness in the rural life of Virginia, which puts a squalid face even upon a prosperous state of things; but undoubtedly the war must have spoilt what was good, and made the bad a great deal worse. The carcasses of horses were scattered236 along the wayside.
One very pregnant token of a social system thoroughly disturbed was presented by a party of contrabands, escaping out of the mysterious depths of Secessia; and its strangeness consisted in the leisurely237 delay with which they trudged238 forward, as dreading239 no pursuer, and encountering nobody to turn them back. They were unlike the specimens240 of their race whom we are accustomed to see at the North, and, in my judgment241, were far more agreeable. So rudely were they attired,—as if their garb had grown upon them spontaneously,—so picturesquely242 natural in manners, and wearing such a crust of primeval simplicity243 (which is quite polished away from the Northern black man), that they seemed a kind of creature by themselves, not altogether human, but perhaps quite as good, and akin to the fawns244 and rustic245 deities246 of olden times. I wonder whether I shall excite anybody’s wrath247 by saying this. It is no great matter. At all events, I felt most kindly towards these poor fugitives248, but knew not precisely250 what to wish in their behalf, nor in the least how to help them. For the sake of the manhood which is latent in them, I would not have turned them back; but I should have felt almost as reluctant, on their own account, to hasten them forward to the stranger’s land; and I think my prevalent idea was, that, whoever may be benefited by the results of this war, it will not be the present generation of negroes, the childhood of whose race is now gone forever, and who must henceforth fight a hard battle with the world, on very unequal terms. On behalf of my own race, I am glad and can only hope that an inscrutable Providence252 means good to both parties.
There is an historical circumstance, known to few, that connects the children of the Puritans with these Africans of Virginia in a very singular way. They are our brethren, as being lineal descendants from the Mayflower, the fated womb of which, in her first voyage, sent forth251 a brood of Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, and, in a subsequent one, spawned253 slaves upon the Southern soil,—a monstrous254 birth, but with which we have an instinctive255 sense of kindred, and so are stirred by an irresistible256 impulse to attempt their rescue, even at the cost of blood and ruin. The character of our sacred ship, I fear, may suffer a little by this revelation; but we must let her white progeny257 offset258 her dark one,—and two such portents260 never sprang from an identical source before.
While we drove onward, a young officer on horseback looked earnestly into the carriage, and recognized some faces that he had seen before; so he rode along by our side, and we pestered261 him with queries262 and observations, to which he responded more civilly than they deserved. He was on General McClellan’s staff; and a gallant263 cavalier, high-booted, with a revolver in his belt, and mounted on a noble horse, which trotted264 hard and high without disturbing the rider in his accustomed seat. His face had a healthy hue265 of exposure and an expression of careless hardihood; and, as I looked at him, it seemed to me that the war had brought good fortune to the youth of this epoch, if to none beside; since they now make it their daily business to ride a horse and handle a sword, instead of lounging listlessly through the duties, occupations, pleasures—all tedious alike—to which the artificial state of society limits a peaceful generation. The atmosphere of the camp and the smoke of the battle-field are morally invigorating; the hardy267 virtues268 flourish in them, the nonsense dies like a wilted269 weed. The enervating270 effects of centuries of civilization vanish at once, and leave these young men to enjoy a life of hardship, and the exhilarating sense of danger,—to kill men blamelessly, or to be killed gloriously,—and to be happy in following out their native instincts of destruction, precisely in the spirit of Homer’s heroes, only with some considerable change of mode. One touch of Nature makes not only the whole world, but all time, akin. Set men face to face, with weapons in their hands, and they are as ready to slaughter271 one another now, after playing at peace and good-will for so many years, as in the rudest ages, that never heard of peace-societies, and thought no wine so delicious as what they quaffed272 from an enemy’s skull. Indeed, if the report of a Congressional committee may be trusted, that old-fashioned kind of goblet274 has again come into use at the expense of our Northern head-pieces,—a costly275 drinking-cup to him that furnishes it! Heaven forgive me for seeming to jest upon such a subject!—only, it is so odd, when we measure our advances from barbarism, and find ourselves just here! [We hardly expected this outbreak in favor of war from the Peaceable Man; but the justness of our cause makes us all soldiers at heart, however quiet in our outward life. We have heard of twenty Quakers in a single company of a Pennsylvania regiment.]
We now approached General McClellan’s head-quarters, which, at that time, were established at Fairfield Seminary. The edifice was situated276 on a gentle elevation277, amid very agreeable scenery, and, at a distance, looked like a gentleman’s seat. Preparations were going forward for reviewing a division of ten or twelve thousand men, the various regiments278 composing which had begun to array themselves on an extensive plain, where, methought, there was a more convenient place for a battle than is usually found in this broken and difficult country. Two thousand cavalry279 made a portion of the troops to be reviewed. By and by we saw a pretty numerous troop of mounted officers, who were congregated280 on a distant part of the plain, and whom we finally ascertained281 to be the Commander-in-Chief’s staff, with McClellan himself at their head. Our party managed to establish itself in a position conveniently close to the General, to whom, moreover, we had the honor of an introduction; and he bowed, on his horseback, with a good deal of dignity and martial courtesy, but no airs nor fuss nor pretension6 beyond what his character and rank inevitably gave him.
Now, at that juncture282, and in fact, up to the present moment, there was, and is, a most fierce and bitter outcry, and detraction283 loud and low, against General McClellan, accusing him of sloth284, imbecility, cowardice285, treasonable purposes, and, in short, utterly286 denying his ability as a soldier, and questioning his integrity as a man. Nor was this to be wondered at; for when before, in all history, do we find a general in command of half a million of men, and in presence of an enemy inferior in numbers and no better disciplined than his own troops, leaving it still debatable, after the better part of a year, whether he is a soldier or no? The question would seem to answer itself in the very asking. Nevertheless, being most profoundly ignorant of the art of war, like the majority of the General’s critics, and, on the other hand, having some considerable impressibility by men’s characters, I was glad of the opportunity to look him in the face, and to feel whatever influence might reach me from his sphere. So I stared at him, as the phrase goes, with all the eyes I had; and the reader shall have the benefit of what I saw, —to which he is the more welcome, because, in writing this article, I feel disposed to be singularly frank, and can scarcely restrain myself from telling truths the utterance287 of which I should get slender thanks for.
The General was dressed in a simple, dark-blue uniform, without epaulets, booted to the knee, and with a cloth cap upon his head; and, at first sight, you might have taken him for a corporal of dragoons, of particularly neat and soldier-like aspect, and in the prime of his age and strength. He is only of middling stature, but his build is very compact and sturdy, with broad shoulders and a look of great physical vigor266, which, in fact, he is said to possess,—he and Beauregard having been rivals in that particular, and both distinguished288 above other men. His complexion is dark and sanguine289, with dark hair. He has a strong, bold, soldierly face, full of decision; a Roman nose, by no means a thin prominence290, but very thick and firm; and if he follows it (which I should think likely), it may be pretty confidently trusted to guide him aright. His profile would make a more effective likeness than the full face, which, however, is much better in the real man than in any photograph that I have seen. His forehead is not remarkably291 large, but comes forward at the eyebrows; it is not the brow nor countenance292 of a prominently intellectual man (not a natural student, I mean, or abstract thinker), but of one whose office it is to handle things practically and to bring about tangible293 results. His face looked capable of being very stern, but wore, in its repose294, when I saw it, an aspect pleasant and dignified295; it is not, in its character, an American face, nor an English one. The man on whom he fixes his eye is conscious of him. In his natural disposition296, he seems calm and self-possessed, sustaining his great responsibilities cheerfully, without shrinking, or weariness, or spasmodic effort, or damage to his health, but all with quiet, deep-drawn breaths; just as his broad shoulders would bear up a heavy burden without aching beneath it.
After we had had sufficient time to peruse297 the man (so far as it could be done with one pair of very attentive298 eyes), the General rode off, followed by his cavalcade299, and was lost to sight among the troops. They received him with loud shouts, by the eager uproar300 of which—now near, now in the centre, now on the outskirts301 of the division, and now sweeping302 back towards us in a great volume of sound—we could trace his progress through the ranks. If he is a coward, or a traitor210, or a humbug303, or anything less than a brave, true, and able man, that mass of intelligent soldiers, whose lives and honor he had in charge, were utterly deceived, and so was this present writer; for they believed in him, and so did I; and had I stood in the ranks, should have shouted with the lustiest of them. Of course I may be mistaken; my opinion on such a point is worth nothing, although my impression may be worth a little more; neither do I consider the General’s antecedents as bearing very decided testimony305 to his practical soldiership. A thorough knowledge of the science of war seems to be conceded to him; he is allowed to be a good military critic; but all this is possible without his possessing any positive qualities of a great general, just as a literary critic may show the profoundest acquaintance with the principles of epic306 poetry without being able to produce a single stanza307 of an epic poem. Nevertheless, I shall not give up my faith in General McClellan’s soldiership until he is defeated, nor in his courage and integrity even then.
Another of our excursions was to Harper’s Ferry,—the Directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad having kindly invited us to accompany them on the first trip over the newly laid track, after its breaking up by the Rebels. It began to rain, in the early morning, pretty soon after we left Washington, and continued to pour a cataract308 throughout the day; so that the aspect of the country was dreary, where it would otherwise have been delightful, as we entered among the hill-scenery that is formed by the subsiding309 swells310 of the Alleghanies. The latter part of our journey lay along the shore of the Potomac, in its upper course, where the margin of that noble river is bordered by gray, over-hanging crags, beneath which—and sometimes right through them—the railroad takes its way. In one place the Rebels had attempted to arrest a train by precipitating312 an immense mass of rock down upon the track, by the side of which it still lay, deeply imbedded in the ground, and looking as if it might have lain there since the Deluge313. The scenery grew even more picturesque as we proceeded, the bluffs314 becoming very bold in their descent upon the river, which, at Harper’s Ferry, presents as striking a vista315 among the hills as a painter could desire to see. But a beautiful landscape is a luxury, and luxuries are thrown away amid discomfort316; and when we alighted in the tenacious317 mud and almost fathomless318 puddle319, on the hither side of the Ferry (the ultimate point to which the cars proceeded, since the railroad bridge had been destroyed by the Rebels), I cannot remember that any very rapturous emotions were awakened320 by the scenery.
We paddled and floundered over the ruins of the track, and, scrambling321 down an embankment, crossed the Potomac by a pontoon-bridge, a thousand feet in length, over the narrow line of which—level with the river, and rising and subsiding with it—General Banks had recently led his whole army, with its ponderous322 artillery and heavy laden323 wagons. Yet our own tread made it vibrate. The broken bridge of the railroad was a little below us, and at the base of one of its massive piers324, in the rocky bed of the river, lay a locomotive, which the Rebels had precipitated325 there.
As we passed over, we looked towards the Virginia shore, and beheld326 the little town of Harper’s Ferry, gathered about the base of a round hill and climbing up its steep acclivity; so that it somewhat resembled the Etruscan cities which I have seen among the Apennines, rushing, as it were, down an apparently breakneck height. About midway of the ascent327 stood a shabby brick church, towards which a difficult path went scrambling up the precipice328, indicating, one would say; a very fervent329 aspiration330 on the part of the worshippers, unless there was some easier mode of access in another direction. Immediately on the shore of the Potomac, and extending back towards the town, lay the dismal ruins of the United States arsenal331 and armory332, consisting of piles of broken bricks and a waste of shapeless demolition333, amid which we saw gun-barrels in heaps of hundreds together. They were the relics334 of the conflagration335, bent336 with the heat of the fire, and rusted273 with the wintry rain to which they had since been exposed. The brightest sunshine could not have made the scene cheerful, nor have taken away the gloom from the dilapidated town; for, besides the natural shabbiness, and decayed, unthrifty look of a Virginian village, it has an inexpressible forlornness resulting from the devastations of war and its occupation by both armies alternately. Yet there would be a less striking contrast between Southern and New England villages, if the former were as much in the habit of using white paint as we are. It is prodigiously337 efficacious in putting a bright face upon a bad matter.
There was one small shop which appeared to have nothing for sale. A single man and one or two boys were all the inhabitants in view, except the Yankee sentinels and soldiers, belonging to Massachusetts regiments, who were scattered about pretty numerously. A guard-house stood on the slope of the hill; and in the level street at its base were the offices of the Provost-Marshal and other military authorities, to whom we forthwith reported ourselves. The Provost-Marshal kindly sent a corporal to guide us to the little building which John Brown seized upon as his fortress338, and which, after it was stormed by the United States marines, became his temporary prison. It is an old engine-house, rusty and shabby, like every other work of man’s hands in this God-forsaken town, and stands fronting upon the river, only a short distance from the bank, nearly at the point where the pontoon-bridge touches the Virginia shore. In its front wall, on each side of the door, are two or three ragged339 loop-holes, which John Brown perforated for his defence, knocking out merely a brick or two, so as to give himself and his garrison340 a sight over their rifles. Through these orifices the sturdy old man dealt a good deal of deadly mischief among his assailants, until they broke down the door by thrusting against it with a ladder, and tumbled headlong in upon him. I shall not pretend to be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy with Whittier’s excellent ballad341 about him may go; nor did I expect ever to shrink so unutterably from any apophthegm of a sage2, whose happy lips have uttered a hundred golden sentences, as from that saying (perhaps falsely attributed to so honored a source), that the death of this blood-stained fanatic342 has “made the Gallows343 as venerable as the Cross!” Nobody was ever more justly hanged. He won his martyrdom fairly, and took it firmly. He himself, I am persuaded (such was his natural integrity), would have acknowledged that Virginia had a right to take the life which he had staked and lost; although it would have been better for her, in the hour that is fast coming, if she could generously have forgotten the criminality of his attempt in its enormous folly344. On the other hand, any common-sensible man, looking at the matter unsentimentally, must have felt a certain intellectual satisfaction in seeing him hanged, if it were only in requittal of his preposterous345 miscalculation of possibilities. [Can it be a son of old Massachusetts who utters this abominable346 sentiment? For shame.]
But, coolly as I seem to say these things, my Yankee heart stirred triumphantly347 when I saw the use to which John Brown’s fortress and prison-house has now been put. What right have I to complain of any other man’s foolish impulses, when I cannot possibly control my own? The engine-house is now a place of confinement348 for Rebel prisoners.
A Massachusetts soldier stood on guard, but readily permitted our whole party to enter. It was a wretched place. A room of perhaps twenty-five feet square occupied the whole interior of the building, having an iron stove in its centre, whence a rusty funnel349 ascended towards a hole in the roof, which served the purposes of ventilation, as well as for the exit of smoke. We found ourselves right in the midst of the Rebels, some of whom lay on heaps of straw, asleep, or, at all events, giving no sign of consciousness; others sat in the corners of the room, huddled350 close together, and staring with a lazy kind of interest at the visitors; two were astride of some planks351, playing with the dirtiest pack of cards that I ever happened to see. There was only one figure in the least military among all these twenty prisoners of war,—a man with a dark, intelligent, moustached face, wearing a shabby cotton uniform, which he had contrived to arrange with a degree of soldierly smartness, though it had evidently borne the brunt of a very filthy352 campaign. He stood erect353, and talked freely with those who addressed him, telling them his place of residence, the number of his regiment, the circumstances of his capture, and such other particulars as their Northern inquisitiveness354 prompted them to ask. I liked the manliness355 of his deportment; he was neither ashamed, nor afraid, nor in the slightest degree sullen, peppery, or contumacious356, but bore himself as if whatever animosity he had felt towards his enemies was left upon the battle-field, and would not be resumed till he had again a weapon in his hand.
Neither could I detect a trace of hostile feeling in the countenance, words, or manner of any prisoner there. Almost to a man, they were simple, bumpkin-like fellows, dressed in homespun clothes, with faces singularly vacant of meaning, but sufficiently good-humored: a breed of men, in short, such as I did not suppose to exist in this country, although I have seen their like in some other parts of the world. They were peasants, and of a very low order; a class of people with whom our Northern rural population has not a single trait in common. They were exceedingly respectful,—more so than a rustic New-Englander ever dreams of being towards anybody, except perhaps his minister; and had they worn any hats they would probably have been self-constrained to take them off, under the unusual circumstance of being permitted to hold conversation with well-dressed persons. It is my belief that not a single bumpkin of them all (the moustached soldier always excepted) had the remotest comprehension of what they had been fighting for, or how they had deserved to be shut up in that dreary hole; nor, possibly, did they care to inquire into this latter mystery, but took it as a godsend to be suffered to lie here in a heap of unwashed human bodies, well warmed and well foddered to-day, and without the necessity of bothering themselves about the possible hunger and cold of to-morrow. Their dark prison-life may have seemed to them the sunshine of all their lifetime.
There was one poor wretch59, a wild-beast of a man, at whom I gazed with greater interest than at his fellows; although I know not that each one of them, in their semi-barbarous moral state, might not have been capable of the same savage357 impulse that had made this particular individual a horror to all beholders. At the close of some battle or skirmish, a wounded union soldier had crept on hands and knees to his feet, and besought358 his assistance,—not dreaming that any creature in human shape, in the Christian359 land where they had so recently been brethren, could refuse it. But this man (this fiend, if you prefer to call him so, though I would not advise it) flung a bitter curse at the poor Northerner, and absolutely trampled360 the soul out of his body, as he lay writhing361 beneath his feet. The fellow’s face was horribly ugly; but I am not quite sure that I should have noticed it if I had not known his story. He spoke not a word, and met nobody’s eye, but kept staring upward into the smoky vacancy362 towards the ceiling, where, it might be, he beheld a continual portraiture363 of his victim’s horror-stricken agonies. I rather fancy, however, that his moral sense was yet too torpid364 to trouble him with such remorseful365 visions, and that, for his own part, he might have had very agreeable reminiscences of the soldier’s death, if other eyes had not been bent reproachfully upon him and warned him that something was amiss. It was this reproach in other men’s eyes that made him look aside. He was a wild-beast, as I began with saying,—an unsophisticated wild-beast,—while the rest of us are partially366 tamed, though still the scent63 of blood excites some of the savage instincts of our nature. What this wretch needed, in order to make him capable of the degree of mercy and benevolence367 that exists in us, was simply such a measure of moral and intellectual development as we have received; and, in my mind, the present war is so well justified by no other consideration as by the probability that it will free this class of Southern whites from a thraldom368 in which they scarcely begin to be responsible beings. So far as the education of the heart is concerned, the negroes have apparently the advantage of them; and as to other schooling369, it is practically unattainable by black or white.
Looking round at these poor prisoners, therefore, it struck me as an immense absurdity370 that they should fancy us their enemies; since, whether we intend it so or no, they have a far greater stake on our success than we can possibly have. For ourselves, the balance of advantages between defeat and triumph may admit of question. For them, all truly valuable things are dependent on our complete success; for thence would come the regeneration of a people,—the removal of a foul371 scurf that has overgrown their life, and keeps then in a state of disease and decrepitude372, one of the chief symptoms of which is, that, the more they suffer and are debased, the more they imagine themselves strong and beautiful. No human effort, on a grand scale, has ever yet resulted according to the purpose, of its projectors373. The advantages are always incidental. Man’s accidents are God’s purposes. We miss the good we sought, and do the good we little cared for. [The author seems to imagine that he has compressed a great deal of meaning into these little, hard, dry pellets of aphoristic374 wisdom. We disagree with him. The counsels of wise and good men are often coincident with the purposes of Providence; and the present war promises to illustrate375 our remark.]
Our Government evidently knows when and where to lay its finger upon its most available citizens; for, quite unexpectedly, we were joined by some other gentlemen, scarcely less competent than ourselves, in a commission to proceed to Fortress Monroe and examine into things in general. Of course, official propriety376 compels us to be extremely guarded in our description of the interesting objects which this expedition opened to our view. There can be no harm, however, in stating that we were received by the commander of the fortress with a kind of acid good-nature, or mild cynicism, that indicated him to be a humorist, characterized by certain rather pungent377 peculiarities, yet of no unamiable cast. He is a small, thin, old gentleman, set off by a large pair of brilliant epaulets,—the only pair, so far as my observation went, that adorn378 the shoulders of any officer in the union army. Either for our inspection379, or because the matter had already been arranged, he drew out a regiment of Zouaves that formed the principal part of his garrison, and appeared at their head, sitting on horseback with rigid380 perpendicularity381, and affording us a vivid idea of the disciplinarian of Baron382 Steuben’s school.
There can be no question of the General’s military qualities; he must have been especially useful in converting raw recruits into trained and efficient soldiers. But valor and martial skill are of so evanescent a character (hardly less fleeting383 than a woman’s beauty), that Government has perhaps taken the safer course in assigning to this gallant officer, though distinguished in former wars, no more active duty than the guardianship384 of an apparently impregnable fortress. The ideas of military men solidify385 and fossilize so fast, while military science makes such rapid advances, that even here there might be a difficulty. An active, diversified386, and therefore a youthful, ingenuity387 is required by the quick exigencies388 of this singular war. Fortress Monroe, for example, in spite of the massive solidity of its ramparts, its broad and deep moat, and all the contrivances of defence that were known at the not very remote epoch of its construction, is now pronounced absolutely incapable389 of resisting the novel modes of assault which may be brought to bear upon it. It can only be the flexible talent of a young man that will evolve a new efficiency out of its obsolete390 strength.
It is a pity that old men grow unfit for war, not only by their incapacity for new ideas, but by the peaceful and unadventurous tendencies that gradually possess themselves of the once turbulent disposition, which used to snuff the battle-smoke as its congenial atmosphere. It is a pity; because it would be such an economy of human existence, if time-stricken people (whose value I have the better right to estimate, as reckoning myself one of them) could snatch from their juniors the exclusive privilege of carrying on the war. In case of death upon the battle-field, how unequal would be the comparative sacrifice! On one part, a few unenjoyable years, the little remnant of a life grown torpid; on the other, the many fervent summers of manhood in its spring and prime, with all that they include of possible benefit to mankind. Then, too, a bullet offers such a brief and easy way, such a pretty little orifice, through which the weary spirit might seize the opportunity to be exhaled391! If I had the ordering of these matters, fifty should be the tenderest age at which a recruit might be accepted for training; at fifty-five or sixty, I would consider him eligible392 for most kinds of military duty and exposure, excluding that of a forlorn hope, which no soldier should be permitted to volunteer upon, short of the ripe age of seventy. As a general rule, these venerable combatants should have the preference for all dangerous and honorable service in the order of their seniority, with a distinction in favor of those whose infirmities might render their lives less worth the keeping. Methinks there would be no more Bull Runs; a warrior69 with gout in his toe, or rheumatism393 in his joints394, or with one foot in the grave, would make a sorry fugitive249!
On this admirable system, the productive part of the population would be undisturbed even by the bloodiest395 war; and, best of all, those thousands upon thousands of our Northern girls, whose proper mates will perish in camp-hospitals or on Southern battle-fields, would avoid their doom38 of forlorn old-maidenhood. But, no doubt, the plan will be pooh-poohed down by the War Department; though it could scarcely be more disastrous396 than the one on which we began the war, when a young army was struck with paralysis397 through the age of its commander.
The waters around Fortress Monroe were thronged with a gallant array of ships of war and transports, wearing the union flag,—“Old Glory,” as I hear it called in these days. A little withdrawn398 from our national fleet lay two French frigates400, and, in another direction, an English sloop401, under that banner which always makes itself visible, like a red portent259 in the air, wherever there is strife402. In pursuance of our official duty (which had no ascertainable403 limits), we went on board the flag-ship, and were shown over every part of her, and down into her depths, inspecting her gallant crew, her powerful armament, her mighty404 engines, and her furnaces, where the fires are always kept burning, as well at midnight as at noon, so that it would require only five minutes to put the vessel405 under full steam. This vigilance has been felt necessary ever since the Merrimack made that terrible dash from Norfolk. Splendid as she is, however, and provided with all but the very latest improvements in naval406 armament, the Minnesota belongs to a class of vessels407 that will be built no more, nor ever fight another battle,—being as much a thing of the past as any of the ships of Queen Elizabeth’s time, which grappled with the galleons408 of the Spanish Armada.
On her quarter-deck, an elderly flag-officer was pacing to and fro, with a self-conscious dignity to which a touch of the gout or rheumatism perhaps contributed a little additional stiffness. He seemed to be a gallant gentleman, but of the old, slow, and pompous409 school of naval worthies410, who have grown up amid rules, forms, and etiquette411 which were adopted full-blown from the British navy into ours, and are somewhat too cumbrous for the quick spirit of to-day. This order of nautical412 heroes will probably go down, along with the ships in which they fought valorously and strutted413 most intolerably. How can an admiral condescend414 to go to sea in an iron pot? What space and elbow-room can be found for quarter-deck dignity in the cramped415 lookout416 of the Monitor, or even in the twenty-feet diameter of her cheese-box? All the pomp and splendor417 of naval warfare418 are gone by. Henceforth there must come up a race of enginemen and smoke-blackened cannoneers, who will hammer away at their enemies under the direction of a single pair of eyes; and even heroism— so deadly a gripe is Science laying on our noble possibilities—will become a quality of very minor419 importance, when its possessor cannot break through the iron crust of his own armament and give the world a glimpse of it.
At no great distance from the Minnesota lay the strangest-looking craft I ever saw. It was a platform of iron, so nearly on a level with the water that the swash of the waves broke over it, under the impulse of a very moderate breeze; and on this platform was raised a circular structure, likewise of iron, and rather broad and capacious, but of no great height. It could not be called a vessel at all; it was a machine,—and I have seen one of somewhat similar appearance employed in cleaning out the docks; or, for lack of a better similitude, it looked like a gigantic rat-trap. It was ugly, questionable420, suspicious, evidently mischievous, —nay, I will allow myself to call it devilish; for this was the new war-fiend, destined, along with others of the same breed, to annihilate421 whole navies and batter422 down old supremacies. The wooden walls of Old England cease to exist, and a whole history of naval renown423 reaches its period, now that the Monitor comes smoking into view; while the billows dash over what seems her deck, and storms bury even her turret424 in green water, as she burrows425 and snorts along, oftener under the surface than above. The singularity of the object has betrayed me into a more ambitious vein426 of description than I often indulge; and, after all, I might as well have contented427 myself with simply saying that she looked very queer.
Going on board, we were surprised at the extent and convenience of her interior accommodations. There is a spacious ward-room, nine or ten feet in height, besides a private cabin for the commander, and sleeping accommodations on an ample scale; the whole well lighted and ventilated, though beneath the surface of the water. Forward, or aft (for it is impossible to tell stem from stern), the crew are relatively428 quite as well provided for as the officers. It was like finding a palace, with all its conveniences, under the sea. The inaccessibility429, the apparent impregnability, of this submerged iron fortress are most satisfactory; the officers and crew get down through a little hole in the deck, hermetically seal themselves, and go below; and until they see fit to reappear, there would seem to be no power given to man whereby they can be brought to light. A storm of cannon-shot damages them no more than a handful of dried peas. We saw the shot-marks made by the great artillery of the Merrimack on the outer casing of the iron tower; they were about the breadth and depth of shallow saucers, almost imperceptible dents304, with no corresponding bulge430 on the interior surface. In fact, the thing looked altogether too safe; though it may not prove quite an agreeable predicament to be thus boxed up in impenetrable iron, with the possibility, one would imagine, of being sent to the bottom of the sea, and, even there, not drowned, but stifled431. Nothing, however, can exceed the confidence of the officers in this new craft. It was pleasant to see their benign exultation432 in her powers of mischief, and the delight with which they exhibited the circumvolutory movement of the tower, the quick thrusting forth of the immense guns to deliver their ponderous missiles, and then the immediate recoil433, and the security behind the closed port-holes. Yet even this will not long be the last and most terrible improvement in the science of war. Already we hear of vessels the armament of which is to act entirely beneath the surface of the water; so that, with no other external symptoms than a great bubbling and foaming434, and gush435 of smoke, and belch436 of smothered437 thunder out of the yeasty waves, there shall be a deadly fight going on below,—and, by and by, a sucking whirlpool, as one of the ships goes down.
The Monitor was certainly an object of great interest; but on our way to Newport News, whither we next went, we saw a spectacle that affected91 us with far profounder emotion. It was the sight of the few sticks that are left of the frigate399 Congress, stranded438 near the shore,—and still more, the masts of the Cumberland rising midway out of the water, with a tattered439 rag of a pennant440 fluttering from one of them. The invisible hull441 of the latter ship seems to be careened over, so that the three masts stand slantwise; the rigging looks quite unimpaired, except that a few ropes dangle442 loosely from the yards. The flag (which never was struck, thank Heaven!) is entirely hidden under the waters of the bay, but is still doubtless waving in its old place, although it floats to and fro with the swell311 and reflex of the tide, instead of rustling443 on the breeze. A remnant of the dead crew still man the sunken ship, and sometimes a drowned body floats up to the surface.
That was a noble fight. When was ever a better word spoken than that of Commodore Smith, the father of the commander of the Congress, when he heard that his son’s ship was surrendered? “Then Joe’s dead!” said he; and so it proved. Nor can any warrior be more certain of enduring renown than the gallant Morris, who fought so well the final battle of the old system of naval warfare, and won glory for his country and himself out of inevitable444 disaster and defeat. That last gun from the Cumberland, when her deck was half submerged, sounded the requiem445 of many sinking ships. Then went down all the navies of Europe and our own, Old Ironsides and all, and Trafalgar and a thousand other fights became only a memory, never to be acted over again; and thus our brave countrymen come last in the long procession of heroic sailors that includes Blake and Nelson, and so many mariners446 of England, and other mariners as brave as they, whose renown is our native inheritance. There will be other battles, but no more such tests of seamanship and manhood as the battles of the past; and, moreover, the Millennium is certainly approaching, because human strife is to be transferred from the heart and personality of man into cunning contrivances of machinery447, which by and by will fight out our wars with only the clank and smash of iron, strewing448 the field with broken engines, but damaging nobody’s little finger except by accident. Such is obviously the tendency of modern improvement. But, in the mean while, so long as manhood retains any part of its pristine449 value, no country can afford to let gallantry like that of Morris and his crew, any more than that of the brave Worden, pass unhonored and unrewarded. If the Government do nothing, let the people take the matter into their own hands, and cities give him swords, gold boxes, festivals of triumph, and, if he needs it, heaps of gold. Let poets brood upon the theme, and make themselves sensible how much of the past and future is contained within its compass, till its spirit shall flash forth in the lightning of a song!
From these various excursions, and a good many others (including one to Manassas), we gained a pretty lively idea of what was going on; but, after all, if compelled to pass a rainy day in the hall and parlors450 of Willard’s Hotel, it proved about as profitably spent as if we had floundered through miles of Virginia mud, in quest of interesting matter. This hotel, in fact, may be much more justly called the centre of Washington and the union than either the Capitol, the White House, or the State Department. Everybody may be seen there. It is the meeting-place of the true representatives of the country,—not such as are chosen blindly and amiss by electors who take a folded ballot451 from the hand of a local politician, and thrust it into the ballot-box unread, but men who gravitate or are attracted hither by real business, or a native impulse to breathe the intensest atmosphere of the nation’s life, or a genuine anxiety to see how this life-and-death struggle is going to deal with us. Nor these only, but all manner of loafers. Never, in any other spot, was there such a miscellany of people. You exchange nods with governors of sovereign States; you elbow illustrious men, and tread on the toes of generals; you hear statesmen and orators452 speaking in their familiar tones. You are mixed up with office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, poets, prosers (including editors, army-correspondents, attaches of foreign journals, and long-winded talkers), clerks, diplomatists, mail-contractors, railway-directors, until your own identity is lost among them. Occasionally you talk with a man whom you have never before heard of, and are struck with the brightness of a thought, and fancy that there is more wisdom hidden among the obscure than is anywhere revealed among the famous. You adopt the universal habit of the place, and call for mint-julep, a whiskey-skin, a gin-cocktail, a brandy smash, or a glass of pure Old Rye; for the conviviality453 of Washington sets in at an early hour, and, so far as I had opportunity of observing, never terminates at any hour, and all these drinks are continually in request by almost all these people. A constant atmosphere of cigar-smoke, too, envelops454 the motley crowd, and forms a sympathetic medium, in which men meet more closely and talk more frankly455 than in any other kind of air. If legislators would smoke in session, they might speak truer words, and fewer of them, and bring about more valuable results.
It is curious to observe what antiquated456 figures and costumes sometimes make their appearance at Willard’s. You meet elderly men with frilled shirt-fronts, for example, the fashion of which adornment457 passed away from among the people of this world half a century ago. It is as if one of Stuart’s portraits were walking abroad. I see no way of accounting458 for this, except that the trouble of the times, the impiety459 of traitors, and the peril460 of our sacred union and Constitution have disturbed, in their honored graves, some of the venerable fathers of the country, and summoned them forth to protest against the meditated461 and half-accomplished sacrilege. If it be so, their wonted fires are not altogether extinguished in their ashes,—in their throats, I might rather say,—for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing462 such a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be loath463 to venture upon. But, really, one would be glad to know where these strange figures come from. It shows, at any rate, how many remote, decaying villages and country-neighborhoods of the North, and forest-nooks of the West, and old mansion-houses in cities, are shaken by the tremor464 of our native soil, so that men long hidden in retirement465 put on the garments of their youth and hurry out to inquire what is the matter. The old men whom we see here have generally more marked faces than the young ones, and naturally enough; since it must be an extraordinary vigor and renewability of life that can overcome the rusty sloth of age, and keep the senior flexible enough to take an interest in new things; whereas hundreds of commonplace young men come hither to stare with eyes of vacant wonder, and with vague hopes of finding out what they are fit for. And this war (we may say so much in its favor) has been the means of discovering that important secret to not a few.
We saw at Willard’s many who had thus found out for themselves, that, when Nature gives a young man no other utilizable466 faculty467, she must be understood as intending him for a soldier. The bulk of the army had moved out of Washington before we reached the city; yet it seemed to me that at least two thirds of the guests and idlers at the hotel were one or another token of the military profession. Many of them, no doubt, were self-commissioned officers, and had put on the buttons and the shoulder-straps, and booted themselves to the knees, merely because captain, in these days, is so good a travelling-name. The majority, however, had been duly appointed by the President, but might be none the better warriors for that. It was pleasant, occasionally, to distinguish a grizzly468 veteran among this crowd of carpet-knights,—the trained soldier of a lifetime, long ago from West Point, who had spent his prime upon the frontier, and very likely could show an Indian bullet-mark on his breast,—if such decorations, won in an obscure warfare, were worth the showing now.
The question often occurred to me,—and, to say the truth, it added an indefinable piquancy469 to the scene,—what proportion of all these people, whether soldiers or civilians, were true at heart to the union, and what part were tainted470, more or less, with treasonable sympathies and wishes, even if such had never blossomed into purpose. Traitors there were among them,—no doubt of that,—civil servants of the public, very reputable persons, who yet deserved to dangle from a cord; or men who buttoned military coats over their breasts, hiding perilous471 secrets there, which might bring the gallant officer to stand pale-faced before a file of musketeers, with his open grave behind him. But, without insisting upon such picturesque criminality and punishment as this, an observer, who kept both his eyes and heart open, would find it by no means difficult to discern that many residents and visitors of Washington so far sided with the South as to desire nothing more nor better than to see everything reestablished a little worse than its former basis. If the cabinet of Richmond were transferred to the Federal city, and the North awfully472 snubbed, at least, and driven back within its old political limits, they would deem it a happy day. It is no wonder, and, if we look at the matter generously, no unpardonable crime. Very excellent people hereabouts remember the many dynasties in which the Southern character has been predominant, and contrast the genial courtesy, the warm and graceful473 freedom of that region, with what they call (though I utterly disagree with them) the frigidity474 of our Northern manners, and the Western plainness of the President. They have a conscientious125, though mistaken belief, that the South was driven out of the union by intolerable wrong on our part, and that we are responsible for having compelled true patriots475 to love only half their country instead of the whole, and brave soldiers to draw their swords against the Constitution which they would once have died for,—to draw them, too, with a bitterness of animosity which is the only symptom of brotherhood476 (since brothers hate each other best) that any longer exists. They whisper these things with tears in their eyes, and shake their heads, and stoop their poor old shoulders, at the tidings of another and another Northern victory, which, in their opinion, puts farther off the remote, the already impossible, chance of a reunion.
I am sorry for them, though it is by no means a sorrow without hope. Since the matter has gone so far, there seems to be no way but to go on winning victories, and establishing peace and a truer union in another generation, at the expense, probably, of greater trouble, in the present one, than any other people ever voluntarily suffered. We woo the South “as the Lion wooes his bride;” it is a rough courtship, but perhaps love and a quiet household may come of it at last. Or, if we stop short of that blessed consummation, heaven was heaven still, as Milton sings, after Lucifer and a third part of the angels had seceded477 from its golden palaces,—and perhaps all the more heavenly, because so many gloomy brows, and soured, vindictive478 hearts, had gone to plot ineffectual schemes of mischief elsewhere.
[We regret the innuendo479 in the concluding sentence. The war can never be allowed to terminate, except in the complete triumph of Northern principles. We hold the event in our own hands, and may choose whether to terminate it by the methods already so successfully used, or by other means equally within our control, and calculated to be still more speedily efficacious. In truth, the work is already done.
We should be sorry to cast a doubt on the Peaceable Man’s loyalty480, but he will allow us to say that we consider him premature481 in his kindly feelings towards traitors and sympathizers with treason. As the author himself says of John Brown (and, so applied482, we thought it an atrociously cold-blooded dictum), “any common-sensible man would feel an intellectual satisfaction in seeing them hanged, were it only for their preposterous miscalculation of possibilities.” There are some degrees of absurdity that put Reason herself into a rage, and affect us like an intolerable crime,—which this Rebellion is, into the bargain.]
点击收听单词发音
1 sundry | |
adj.各式各样的,种种的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 sage | |
n.圣人,哲人;adj.贤明的,明智的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 seclusion | |
n.隐遁,隔离 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 penetrate | |
v.透(渗)入;刺入,刺穿;洞察,了解 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 pretension | |
n.要求;自命,自称;自负 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 pretensions | |
自称( pretension的名词复数 ); 自命不凡; 要求; 权力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 valor | |
n.勇气,英勇 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 contrived | |
adj.不自然的,做作的;虚构的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 thither | |
adv.向那里;adj.在那边的,对岸的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 rebuke | |
v.指责,非难,斥责 [反]praise | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 squire | |
n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 abominably | |
adv. 可恶地,可恨地,恶劣地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 unwilling | |
adj.不情愿的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 margin | |
n.页边空白;差额;余地,余裕;边,边缘 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 genial | |
adj.亲切的,和蔼的,愉快的,脾气好的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 burnished | |
adj.抛光的,光亮的v.擦亮(金属等),磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 );被擦亮,磨光 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 jersey | |
n.运动衫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 shroud | |
n.裹尸布,寿衣;罩,幕;vt.覆盖,隐藏 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 dingy | |
adj.昏暗的,肮脏的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 onward | |
adj.向前的,前进的;adv.向前,前进,在先 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 rumors | |
n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 );[古]名誉;咕哝;[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 );[古]名誉;咕哝;[古]喧嚷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 gilded | |
a.镀金的,富有的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 cannon | |
n.大炮,火炮;飞机上的机关炮 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 regiment | |
n.团,多数,管理;v.组织,编成团,统制 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 gilt | |
adj.镀金的;n.金边证券 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 bustle | |
v.喧扰地忙乱,匆忙,奔忙;n.忙碌;喧闹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 disturbance | |
n.动乱,骚动;打扰,干扰;(身心)失调 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 solitude | |
n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 presentiments | |
n.(对不祥事物的)预感( presentiment的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 omen | |
n.征兆,预兆;vt.预示 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 bloodier | |
adj.血污的( bloody的比较级 );流血的;屠杀的;残忍的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 destined | |
adj.命中注定的;(for)以…为目的地的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 thronged | |
v.成群,挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 phantoms | |
n.鬼怪,幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 ominous | |
adj.不祥的,不吉的,预兆的,预示的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 mischief | |
n.损害,伤害,危害;恶作剧,捣蛋,胡闹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 muzzles | |
枪口( muzzle的名词复数 ); (防止动物咬人的)口套; (四足动物的)鼻口部; (狗)等凸出的鼻子和口 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 protruding | |
v.(使某物)伸出,(使某物)突出( protrude的现在分词 );凸 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 lapse | |
n.过失,流逝,失效,抛弃信仰,间隔;vi.堕落,停止,失效,流逝;vt.使失效 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 muskets | |
n.火枪,(尤指)滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 clogged | |
(使)阻碍( clog的过去式和过去分词 ); 淤滞 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 chronic | |
adj.(疾病)长期未愈的,慢性的;极坏的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 likeness | |
n.相像,相似(之处) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 millennium | |
n.一千年,千禧年;太平盛世 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 epoch | |
n.(新)时代;历元 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 trumpet | |
n.喇叭,喇叭声;v.吹喇叭,吹嘘 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 staple | |
n.主要产物,常用品,主要要素,原料,订书钉,钩环;adj.主要的,重要的;vt.分类 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 shams | |
假象( sham的名词复数 ); 假货; 虚假的行为(或感情、言语等); 假装…的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 behooves | |
n.利益,好处( behoof的名词复数 )v.适宜( behoove的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 civilians | |
平民,百姓( civilian的名词复数 ); 老百姓 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 wretch | |
n.可怜的人,不幸的人;卑鄙的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 prospects | |
n.希望,前途(恒为复数) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 countless | |
adj.无数的,多得不计其数的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
62 quiescent | |
adj.静止的,不活动的,寂静的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
63 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
64 beholding | |
v.看,注视( behold的现在分词 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
65 collapse | |
vi.累倒;昏倒;倒塌;塌陷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
66 punctured | |
v.在(某物)上穿孔( puncture的过去式和过去分词 );刺穿(某物);削弱(某人的傲气、信心等);泄某人的气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
67 swollen | |
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
68 muster | |
v.集合,收集,鼓起,激起;n.集合,检阅,集合人员,点名册 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
69 warrior | |
n.勇士,武士,斗士 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
70 warriors | |
武士,勇士,战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
71 feign | |
vt.假装,佯作 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
72 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
73 tinge | |
vt.(较淡)着色于,染色;使带有…气息;n.淡淡色彩,些微的气息 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
74 majestic | |
adj.雄伟的,壮丽的,庄严的,威严的,崇高的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
75 docility | |
n.容易教,易驾驶,驯服 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
76 martial | |
adj.战争的,军事的,尚武的,威武的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
77 artillery | |
n.(军)火炮,大炮;炮兵(部队) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
78 edifice | |
n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿,教室) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
79 edifices | |
n.大建筑物( edifice的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
80 skilfully | |
adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
81 legislative | |
n.立法机构,立法权;adj.立法的,有立法权的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
82 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
83 oratorical | |
adj.演说的,雄辩的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
84 ascended | |
v.上升,攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
85 variegated | |
adj.斑驳的,杂色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
86 middle-aged | |
adj.中年的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
87 chestnut | |
n.栗树,栗子 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
88 vouchsafe | |
v.惠予,准许 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
89 repulsive | |
adj.排斥的,使人反感的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
90 fresco | |
n.壁画;vt.作壁画于 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
91 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
92 spoke | |
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 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
93 sketch | |
n.草图;梗概;素描;v.素描;概述 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
94 flickering | |
adj.闪烁的,摇曳的,一闪一闪的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
95 pictorial | |
adj.绘画的;图片的;n.画报 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
96 banish | |
vt.放逐,驱逐;消除,排除 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
97 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
98 artistic | |
adj.艺术(家)的,美术(家)的;善于艺术创作的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
99 garb | |
n.服装,装束 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
100 picturesque | |
adj.美丽如画的,(语言)生动的,绘声绘色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
101 momentary | |
adj.片刻的,瞬息的;短暂的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
102 augury | |
n.预言,征兆,占卦 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
103 dismal | |
adj.阴沉的,凄凉的,令人忧郁的,差劲的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
104 subverting | |
v.颠覆,破坏(政治制度、宗教信仰等)( subvert的现在分词 );使(某人)道德败坏或不忠 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
105 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
106 treacherously | |
背信弃义地; 背叛地; 靠不住地; 危险地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
107 northward | |
adv.向北;n.北方的地区 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
108 westward | |
n.西方,西部;adj.西方的,向西的;adv.向西 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
109 auguries | |
n.(古罗马)占卜术,占卜仪式( augury的名词复数 );预兆 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
110 sinister | |
adj.不吉利的,凶恶的,左边的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
111 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
112 pervaded | |
v.遍及,弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
113 catastrophe | |
n.大灾难,大祸 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
114 dearth | |
n.缺乏,粮食不足,饥谨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
115 imperatively | |
adv.命令式地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
116 eminence | |
n.卓越,显赫;高地,高处;名家 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
117 tact | |
n.机敏,圆滑,得体 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
118 celebrities | |
n.(尤指娱乐界的)名人( celebrity的名词复数 );名流;名声;名誉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
119 stature | |
n.(高度)水平,(高度)境界,身高,身材 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
120 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
121 originality | |
n.创造力,独创性;新颖 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
122 interfere | |
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
123 license | |
n.执照,许可证,特许;v.许可,特许 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
124 immunities | |
免除,豁免( immunity的名词复数 ); 免疫力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
125 conscientious | |
adj.审慎正直的,认真的,本着良心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
126 conscientiously | |
adv.凭良心地;认真地,负责尽职地;老老实实 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
127 piquant | |
adj.辛辣的,开胃的,令人兴奋的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
128 motives | |
n.动机,目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
129 mortified | |
v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 );伤害(人的感情);克制;抑制(肉体、情感等) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
130 impeding | |
a.(尤指坏事)即将发生的,临近的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
131 intercourse | |
n.性交;交流,交往,交际 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
132 magistrate | |
n.地方行政官,地方法官,治安官 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
133 gist | |
n.要旨;梗概 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
134 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
135 annex | |
vt.兼并,吞并;n.附属建筑物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
136 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
137 spacious | |
adj.广阔的,宽敞的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
138 swarmed | |
密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 ); 云集; 成群地移动; 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
139 ushered | |
v.引,领,陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
140 treasury | |
n.宝库;国库,金库;文库 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
141 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
142 demeanor | |
n.行为;风度 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
143 specimen | |
n.样本,标本 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
144 physically | |
adj.物质上,体格上,身体上,按自然规律 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
145 jumble | |
vt.使混乱,混杂;n.混乱;杂乱的一堆 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
146 vicissitudes | |
n.变迁,世事变化;变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 );盛衰兴废 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
147 intelligible | |
adj.可理解的,明白易懂的,清楚的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
148 lank | |
adj.瘦削的;稀疏的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
149 lengthy | |
adj.漫长的,冗长的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
150 uncouth | |
adj.无教养的,粗鲁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
151 uncouthness | |
参考例句: |
|
|
152 livelihood | |
n.生计,谋生之道 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
153 rusty | |
adj.生锈的;锈色的;荒废了的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
154 slippers | |
n. 拖鞋 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
155 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
156 complexion | |
n.肤色;情况,局面;气质,性格 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
157 betokening | |
v.预示,表示( betoken的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
158 eyebrows | |
眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
159 impending | |
a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
参考例句: |
|
|
160 redeemed | |
adj. 可赎回的,可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
161 illuminated | |
adj.被照明的;受启迪的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
162 softened | |
(使)变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 ); 缓解打击; 缓和; 安慰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
163 homely | |
adj.家常的,简朴的;不漂亮的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
164 cultivation | |
n.耕作,培养,栽培(法),养成 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
165 refinement | |
n.文雅;高尚;精美;精制;精炼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
166 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
167 akin | |
adj.同族的,类似的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
168 impel | |
v.推动;激励,迫使 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
169 antagonist | |
n.敌人,对抗者,对手 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
170 accosted | |
v.走过去跟…讲话( accost的过去式和过去分词 );跟…搭讪;(乞丐等)上前向…乞讨;(妓女等)勾搭 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
171 pretence | |
n.假装,作假;借口,口实;虚伪;虚饰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
172 mutual | |
adj.相互的,彼此的;共同的,共有的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
173 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
174 ornamented | |
adj.花式字体的v.装饰,点缀,美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
175 emblem | |
n.象征,标志;徽章 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
176 emblematic | |
adj.象征的,可当标志的;象征性 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
177 dilemma | |
n.困境,进退两难的局面 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
178 dexterity | |
n.(手的)灵巧,灵活 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
179 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
180 recording | |
n.录音,记录 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
181 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
182 delectable | |
adj.使人愉快的;美味的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
183 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
184 pithiest | |
adj.简练的,精辟的,简洁扼要的( pithy的最高级 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
185 smack | |
vt.拍,打,掴;咂嘴;vi.含有…意味;n.拍 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
186 omission | |
n.省略,删节;遗漏或省略的事物,冗长 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
187 benign | |
adj.善良的,慈祥的;良性的,无危险的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
188 inaccurate | |
adj.错误的,不正确的,不准确的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
189 reverence | |
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 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
190 potentates | |
n.君主,统治者( potentate的名词复数 );有权势的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
191 allusions | |
暗指,间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
192 peculiarities | |
n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
193 faculties | |
n.能力( faculty的名词复数 );全体教职员;技巧;院 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
194 justified | |
a.正当的,有理的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
195 arduous | |
adj.艰苦的,费力的,陡峭的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
196 convertible | |
adj.可改变的,可交换,同意义的;n.有活动摺篷的汽车 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
197 wharves | |
n.码头,停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
198 warehouses | |
仓库,货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
199 wagons | |
n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 );铁路货车;小手推车 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
200 lessened | |
减少的,减弱的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
201 sullen | |
adj.愠怒的,闷闷不乐的,(天气等)阴沉的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
202 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
203 impulsive | |
adj.冲动的,刺激的;有推动力的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
204 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
205 loyalties | |
n.忠诚( loyalty的名词复数 );忠心;忠于…感情;要忠于…的强烈感情 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
206 plausible | |
adj.似真实的,似乎有理的,似乎可信的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
207 hearth | |
n.壁炉炉床,壁炉地面 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
208 mischievous | |
adj.调皮的,恶作剧的,有害的,伤人的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
209 traitors | |
卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 ); 叛徒; 背叛者; 背信弃义的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
210 traitor | |
n.叛徒,卖国贼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
211 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
212 well-being | |
n.安康,安乐,幸福 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
213 bruise | |
n.青肿,挫伤;伤痕;vt.打青;挫伤 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
214 reprehensible | |
adj.该受责备的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
215 tavern | |
n.小旅馆,客栈;小酒店 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
216 slain | |
杀死,宰杀,杀戮( slay的过去分词 ); (slay的过去分词) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
217 immortal | |
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
218 grudge | |
n.不满,怨恨,妒嫉;vt.勉强给,不情愿做 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
219 skulking | |
v.潜伏,偷偷摸摸地走动,鬼鬼祟祟地活动( skulk的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
220 ivy | |
n.常青藤,常春藤 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
221 vertically | |
adv.垂直地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
222 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
223 prodigal | |
adj.浪费的,挥霍的,放荡的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
224 passionate | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,激昂的,易动情的,易怒的,性情暴躁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
225 aesthetic | |
adj.美学的,审美的,有美感 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
226 devastation | |
n.毁坏;荒废;极度震惊或悲伤 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
227 tracts | |
大片土地( tract的名词复数 ); 地带; (体内的)道; (尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的)短文 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
228 stumps | |
(被砍下的树的)树桩( stump的名词复数 ); 残肢; (板球三柱门的)柱; 残余部分 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
229 smoothly | |
adv.平滑地,顺利地,流利地,流畅地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
230 hacked | |
生气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
231 haggled | |
v.讨价还价( haggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
232 unevenly | |
adv.不均匀的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
233 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
234 obstruction | |
n.阻塞,堵塞;障碍物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
235 deserted | |
adj.荒芜的,荒废的,无人的,被遗弃的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
236 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
237 leisurely | |
adj.悠闲的;从容的,慢慢的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
238 trudged | |
vt.& vi.跋涉,吃力地走(trudge的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
239 dreading | |
v.害怕,恐惧,担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
240 specimens | |
n.样品( specimen的名词复数 );范例;(化验的)抽样;某种类型的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
241 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
242 picturesquely | |
参考例句: |
|
|
243 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
244 fawns | |
n.(未满一岁的)幼鹿( fawn的名词复数 );浅黄褐色;乞怜者;奉承者v.(尤指狗等)跳过来往人身上蹭以示亲热( fawn的第三人称单数 );巴结;讨好 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
245 rustic | |
adj.乡村的,有乡村特色的;n.乡下人,乡巴佬 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
246 deities | |
n.神,女神( deity的名词复数 );神祗;神灵;神明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
247 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
248 fugitives | |
n.亡命者,逃命者( fugitive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
249 fugitive | |
adj.逃亡的,易逝的;n.逃犯,逃亡者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
250 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
251 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
252 providence | |
n.深谋远虑,天道,天意;远见;节约;上帝 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
253 spawned | |
(鱼、蛙等)大量产(卵)( spawn的过去式和过去分词 ); 大量生产 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
254 monstrous | |
adj.巨大的;恐怖的;可耻的,丢脸的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
255 instinctive | |
adj.(出于)本能的;直觉的;(出于)天性的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
256 irresistible | |
adj.非常诱人的,无法拒绝的,无法抗拒的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
257 progeny | |
n.后代,子孙;结果 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
258 offset | |
n.分支,补偿;v.抵消,补偿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
259 portent | |
n.预兆;恶兆;怪事 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
260 portents | |
n.预兆( portent的名词复数 );征兆;怪事;奇物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
261 pestered | |
使烦恼,纠缠( pester的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
262 queries | |
n.问题( query的名词复数 );疑问;询问;问号v.质疑,对…表示疑问( query的第三人称单数 );询问 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
263 gallant | |
adj.英勇的,豪侠的;(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
264 trotted | |
小跑,急走( trot的过去分词 ); 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
265 hue | |
n.色度;色调;样子 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
266 vigor | |
n.活力,精力,元气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
267 hardy | |
adj.勇敢的,果断的,吃苦的;耐寒的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
268 virtues | |
美德( virtue的名词复数 ); 德行; 优点; 长处 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
269 wilted | |
(使)凋谢,枯萎( wilt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
270 enervating | |
v.使衰弱,使失去活力( enervate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
271 slaughter | |
n.屠杀,屠宰;vt.屠杀,宰杀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
272 quaffed | |
v.痛饮( quaff的过去式和过去分词 );畅饮;大口大口将…喝干;一饮而尽 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
273 rusted | |
v.(使)生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
274 goblet | |
n.高脚酒杯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
275 costly | |
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
276 situated | |
adj.坐落在...的,处于某种境地的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
277 elevation | |
n.高度;海拔;高地;上升;提高 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
278 regiments | |
(军队的)团( regiment的名词复数 ); 大量的人或物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
279 cavalry | |
n.骑兵;轻装甲部队 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
280 congregated | |
(使)集合,聚集( congregate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
281 ascertained | |
v.弄清,确定,查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
282 juncture | |
n.时刻,关键时刻,紧要关头 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
283 detraction | |
n.减损;诽谤 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
284 sloth | |
n.[动]树懒;懒惰,懒散 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
285 cowardice | |
n.胆小,怯懦 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
286 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
287 utterance | |
n.用言语表达,话语,言语 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
288 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
289 sanguine | |
adj.充满希望的,乐观的,血红色的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
290 prominence | |
n.突出;显著;杰出;重要 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
291 remarkably | |
ad.不同寻常地,相当地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
292 countenance | |
n.脸色,面容;面部表情;vt.支持,赞同 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
293 tangible | |
adj.有形的,可触摸的,确凿的,实际的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
294 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
295 dignified | |
a.可敬的,高贵的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
296 disposition | |
n.性情,性格;意向,倾向;排列,部署 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
297 peruse | |
v.细读,精读 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
298 attentive | |
adj.注意的,专心的;关心(别人)的,殷勤的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
299 cavalcade | |
n.车队等的行列 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
300 uproar | |
n.骚动,喧嚣,鼎沸 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
301 outskirts | |
n.郊外,郊区 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
302 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
303 humbug | |
n.花招,谎话,欺骗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
304 dents | |
n.花边边饰;凹痕( dent的名词复数 );凹部;减少;削弱v.使产生凹痕( dent的第三人称单数 );损害;伤害;挫伤(信心、名誉等) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
305 testimony | |
n.证词;见证,证明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
306 epic | |
n.史诗,叙事诗;adj.史诗般的,壮丽的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
307 stanza | |
n.(诗)节,段 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
308 cataract | |
n.大瀑布,奔流,洪水,白内障 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
309 subsiding | |
v.(土地)下陷(因在地下采矿)( subside的现在分词 );减弱;下降至较低或正常水平;一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
310 swells | |
增强( swell的第三人称单数 ); 肿胀; (使)凸出; 充满(激情) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
311 swell | |
vi.膨胀,肿胀;增长,增强 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
312 precipitating | |
adj.急落的,猛冲的v.(突如其来地)使发生( precipitate的现在分词 );促成;猛然摔下;使沉淀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
313 deluge | |
n./vt.洪水,暴雨,使泛滥 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
314 bluffs | |
恐吓( bluff的名词复数 ); 悬崖; 峭壁 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
315 vista | |
n.远景,深景,展望,回想 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
316 discomfort | |
n.不舒服,不安,难过,困难,不方便 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
317 tenacious | |
adj.顽强的,固执的,记忆力强的,粘的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
318 fathomless | |
a.深不可测的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
319 puddle | |
n.(雨)水坑,泥潭 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
320 awakened | |
v.(使)醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 );(使)觉醒;弄醒;(使)意识到 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
321 scrambling | |
v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 );攀登;争夺;(军事飞机)紧急起飞 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
322 ponderous | |
adj.沉重的,笨重的,(文章)冗长的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
323 laden | |
adj.装满了的;充满了的;负了重担的;苦恼的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
324 piers | |
n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 );(常设有娱乐场所的)突堤;柱子;墙墩 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
325 precipitated | |
v.(突如其来地)使发生( precipitate的过去式和过去分词 );促成;猛然摔下;使沉淀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
326 beheld | |
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 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
327 ascent | |
n.(声望或地位)提高;上升,升高;登高 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
328 precipice | |
n.悬崖,危急的处境 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
329 fervent | |
adj.热的,热烈的,热情的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
330 aspiration | |
n.志向,志趣抱负;渴望;(语)送气音;吸出 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
331 arsenal | |
n.兵工厂,军械库 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
332 armory | |
n.纹章,兵工厂,军械库 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
333 demolition | |
n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
334 relics | |
[pl.]n.遗物,遗迹,遗产;遗体,尸骸 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
335 conflagration | |
n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
336 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
337 prodigiously | |
adv.异常地,惊人地,巨大地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
338 fortress | |
n.堡垒,防御工事 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
339 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
340 garrison | |
n.卫戍部队;驻地,卫戍区;vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
341 ballad | |
n.歌谣,民谣,流行爱情歌曲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
342 fanatic | |
n.狂热者,入迷者;adj.狂热入迷的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
343 gallows | |
n.绞刑架,绞台 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
344 folly | |
n.愚笨,愚蠢,蠢事,蠢行,傻话 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
345 preposterous | |
adj.荒谬的,可笑的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
346 abominable | |
adj.可厌的,令人憎恶的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
347 triumphantly | |
ad.得意洋洋地;得胜地;成功地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
348 confinement | |
n.幽禁,拘留,监禁;分娩;限制,局限 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
349 funnel | |
n.漏斗;烟囱;v.汇集 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
350 huddled | |
挤在一起(huddle的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
351 planks | |
(厚)木板( plank的名词复数 ); 政纲条目,政策要点 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
352 filthy | |
adj.卑劣的;恶劣的,肮脏的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
353 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
354 inquisitiveness | |
好奇,求知欲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
355 manliness | |
刚毅 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
356 contumacious | |
adj.拒不服从的,违抗的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
357 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
358 besought | |
v.恳求,乞求(某事物)( beseech的过去式和过去分词 );(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
359 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
360 trampled | |
踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 ); 践踏; 无视; 侵犯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
361 writhing | |
(因极度痛苦而)扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
362 vacancy | |
n.(旅馆的)空位,空房,(职务的)空缺 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
363 portraiture | |
n.肖像画法 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
364 torpid | |
adj.麻痹的,麻木的,迟钝的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
365 remorseful | |
adj.悔恨的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
366 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
367 benevolence | |
n.慈悲,捐助 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
368 thraldom | |
n.奴隶的身份,奴役,束缚 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
369 schooling | |
n.教育;正规学校教育 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
370 absurdity | |
n.荒谬,愚蠢;谬论 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
371 foul | |
adj.污秽的;邪恶的;v.弄脏;妨害;犯规;n.犯规 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
372 decrepitude | |
n.衰老;破旧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
373 projectors | |
电影放映机,幻灯机( projector的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
374 aphoristic | |
警句(似)的,格言(似)的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
375 illustrate | |
v.举例说明,阐明;图解,加插图 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
376 propriety | |
n.正当行为;正当;适当 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
377 pungent | |
adj.(气味、味道)刺激性的,辛辣的;尖锐的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
378 adorn | |
vt.使美化,装饰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
379 inspection | |
n.检查,审查,检阅 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
380 rigid | |
adj.严格的,死板的;刚硬的,僵硬的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
381 perpendicularity | |
n.垂直,直立;垂直度 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
382 baron | |
n.男爵;(商业界等)巨头,大王 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
383 fleeting | |
adj.短暂的,飞逝的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
384 guardianship | |
n. 监护, 保护, 守护 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
385 solidify | |
v.(使)凝固,(使)固化,(使)团结 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
386 diversified | |
adj.多样化的,多种经营的v.使多样化,多样化( diversify的过去式和过去分词 );进入新的商业领域 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
387 ingenuity | |
n.别出心裁;善于发明创造 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
388 exigencies | |
n.急切需要 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
389 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
390 obsolete | |
adj.已废弃的,过时的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
391 exhaled | |
v.呼出,发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 );吐出(肺中的空气、烟等),呼气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
392 eligible | |
adj.有条件被选中的;(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
393 rheumatism | |
n.风湿病 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
394 joints | |
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) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
395 bloodiest | |
adj.血污的( bloody的最高级 );流血的;屠杀的;残忍的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
396 disastrous | |
adj.灾难性的,造成灾害的;极坏的,很糟的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
397 paralysis | |
n.麻痹(症);瘫痪(症) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
398 withdrawn | |
vt.收回;使退出;vi.撤退,退出 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
399 frigate | |
n.护航舰,大型驱逐舰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
400 frigates | |
n.快速军舰( frigate的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
401 sloop | |
n.单桅帆船 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
402 strife | |
n.争吵,冲突,倾轧,竞争 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
403 ascertainable | |
adj.可确定(探知),可发现的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
404 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
405 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
406 naval | |
adj.海军的,军舰的,船的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
407 vessels | |
n.血管( vessel的名词复数 );船;容器;(具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的)人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
408 galleons | |
n.大型帆船( galleon的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
409 pompous | |
adj.傲慢的,自大的;夸大的;豪华的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
410 worthies | |
应得某事物( worthy的名词复数 ); 值得做某事; 可尊敬的; 有(某人或事物)的典型特征 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
411 etiquette | |
n.礼仪,礼节;规矩 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
412 nautical | |
adj.海上的,航海的,船员的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
413 strutted | |
趾高气扬地走,高视阔步( strut的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
414 condescend | |
v.俯就,屈尊;堕落,丢丑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
415 cramped | |
a.狭窄的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
416 lookout | |
n.注意,前途,瞭望台 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
417 splendor | |
n.光彩;壮丽,华丽;显赫,辉煌 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
418 warfare | |
n.战争(状态);斗争;冲突 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
419 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
420 questionable | |
adj.可疑的,有问题的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
421 annihilate | |
v.使无效;毁灭;取消 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
422 batter | |
v.接连重击;磨损;n.牛奶面糊;击球员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
423 renown | |
n.声誉,名望 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
424 turret | |
n.塔楼,角塔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
425 burrows | |
n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘(洞穴),挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 );翻寻 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
426 vein | |
n.血管,静脉;叶脉,纹理;情绪;vt.使成脉络 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
427 contented | |
adj.满意的,安心的,知足的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
428 relatively | |
adv.比较...地,相对地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
429 inaccessibility | |
n. 难接近, 难达到, 难达成 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
430 bulge | |
n.突出,膨胀,激增;vt.突出,膨胀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
431 stifled | |
(使)窒息, (使)窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 ); 镇压,遏制; 堵 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
432 exultation | |
n.狂喜,得意 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
433 recoil | |
vi.退却,退缩,畏缩 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
434 foaming | |
adj.布满泡沫的;发泡 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
435 gush | |
v.喷,涌;滔滔不绝(说话);n.喷,涌流;迸发 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
436 belch | |
v.打嗝,喷出 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
437 smothered | |
(使)窒息, (使)透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 ); 覆盖; 忍住; 抑制 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
438 stranded | |
a.搁浅的,进退两难的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
439 tattered | |
adj.破旧的,衣衫破的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
440 pennant | |
n.三角旗;锦标旗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
441 hull | |
n.船身;(果、实等的)外壳;vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
442 dangle | |
v.(使)悬荡,(使)悬垂 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
443 rustling | |
n. 瑟瑟声,沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
444 inevitable | |
adj.不可避免的,必然发生的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
445 requiem | |
n.安魂曲,安灵曲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
446 mariners | |
海员,水手(mariner的复数形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
447 machinery | |
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
448 strewing | |
v.撒在…上( strew的现在分词 );散落于;点缀;撒满 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
449 pristine | |
adj.原来的,古时的,原始的,纯净的,无垢的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
450 parlors | |
客厅( parlor的名词复数 ); 起居室; (旅馆中的)休息室; (通常用来构成合成词)店 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
451 ballot | |
n.(不记名)投票,投票总数,投票权;vi.投票 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
452 orators | |
n.演说者,演讲家( orator的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
453 conviviality | |
n.欢宴,高兴,欢乐 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
454 envelops | |
v.包围,笼罩,包住( envelop的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
455 frankly | |
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
456 antiquated | |
adj.陈旧的,过时的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
457 adornment | |
n.装饰;装饰品 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
458 accounting | |
n.会计,会计学,借贷对照表 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
459 impiety | |
n.不敬;不孝 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
460 peril | |
n.(严重的)危险;危险的事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
461 meditated | |
深思,沉思,冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 ); 内心策划,考虑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
462 quaffing | |
v.痛饮( quaff的现在分词 );畅饮;大口大口将…喝干;一饮而尽 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
463 loath | |
adj.不愿意的;勉强的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
464 tremor | |
n.震动,颤动,战栗,兴奋,地震 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
465 retirement | |
n.退休,退职 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
466 utilizable | |
adj.可利用的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
467 faculty | |
n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
468 grizzly | |
adj.略为灰色的,呈灰色的;n.灰色大熊 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
469 piquancy | |
n.辛辣,辣味,痛快 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
470 tainted | |
adj.腐坏的;污染的;沾污的;感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 );使污染;败坏;被污染,腐坏,败坏 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
471 perilous | |
adj.危险的,冒险的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
472 awfully | |
adv.可怕地,非常地,极端地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
473 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
474 frigidity | |
n.寒冷;冷淡;索然无味;(尤指妇女的)性感缺失 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
475 patriots | |
爱国者,爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
476 brotherhood | |
n.兄弟般的关系,手中情谊 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
477 seceded | |
v.脱离,退出( secede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
478 vindictive | |
adj.有报仇心的,怀恨的,惩罚的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
479 innuendo | |
n.暗指,讽刺 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
480 loyalty | |
n.忠诚,忠心 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
481 premature | |
adj.比预期时间早的;不成熟的,仓促的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
482 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |