But who cares whither a footpath leads? The charm is in the path itself, its promise of something that the high-road cannot yield. Away from habitations, you know that the fisherman, the geologist18, the botanist19 may have been there, or that the cows have been driven home and that somewhere there are bars and a milk-pail. Even in the midst of houses, the path suggests school-children with their luncheon-baskets, or workmen seeking eagerly the noonday interval20 or the twilight21 rest. A footpath cannot be quite spoiled, so long as it remains22 such; you can make a road a mere23 avenue for fast horses or showy women, but this humbler track keeps its simplicity25, and if a queen comes walking through it, she comes but as a village maid. On Sunday, when it is not etiquette26 for our fashionables to drive, but only to walk along the cliffs, they seem to wear a more innocent and wholesome27 aspect in that novel position; I have seen a fine lady pause under such circumstances and pick a wild-flower; she knew how to do it. A footpath has its own character, while that of the high-road is imposed upon it by those who dwell beside it or pass over it; indeed, roads become picturesque28 only when they are called lanes and make believe that they are but paths.
The very irregularity of a footpath makes half its charm. So much of loitering and indolence and impulse have gone to its formation, that all which is stiff and military has been left out. I observed that the very dikes of the Southern rice plantations29 did not succeed in being rectilinear, though the general effect was that of Tennyson's "flowery squares." Even the country road, which is but an enlarged footpath, is never quite straight, as Thoreau long since observed, noting it with his surveyor's eye. I read in his unpublished diary: "The law that plants the rushes in waving lines along the edge of a pond, and that curves the pond shore itself, incessantly30 beats against the straight fences and highways of men, and makes them conform to the line of beauty at last." It is this unintentional adaptation that makes a footpath so indestructible. Instead of striking across the natural lines, it conforms to them, nestles into the hollow, skirts the precipice32, avoids the morass33. An unconscious landscape-gardener, it seeks the most convenient course, never doubting that grace will follow. Mitchell, at his "Edgewood" farm, wishing to decide on the most picturesque avenue to his front door, ordered a heavy load of stone to be hauled across the field, and bade the driver seek the easiest grades, at whatever cost of curvature. The avenue followed the path so made.
When a footpath falls thus unobtrusively into its place, all natural forces seem to sympathize with it, and help it to fulfil its destiny. Once make a well-defined track through a wood, and presently the overflowing34 brooks36 seek it for a channel, the obstructed37 winds draw through it, the fox and woodchuck travel by it, the catbird and robin38 build near it, the bee and swallow make a high-road of its convenient thoroughfare. In winter the first snows mark it with a white line; as you wander through you hear the blue-jay's cry, and see the hurrying flight of the sparrow; the graceful39 outlines of the leafless bushes are revealed, and the clinging bird's-nests, "leaves that do not fall," give happy memories of summer homes. Thus Nature meets man half-way. The paths of the wild forest and of the rural neighborhood are not at all the same thing; indeed, a "spotted40 trail," marked only by the woodman's axe-marks on the trees, is not a footpath. Thoreau, who is sometimes foolishly accused of having sought to be a mere savage41, understood this distinction well. "A man changes by his presence," he says in his unpublished diary, "the very nature of the trees. The poet's is not a logger's path, but a woodman's,—the logger and pioneer have preceded him, and banished43 decaying wood and the spongy mosses45 which feed on it, and built hearths46 and humanized nature for him. For a permanent residence, there can be no comparison between this and the wilderness47. Our woods are sylvan48, and their inhabitants woodsmen and rustics49; that is, a selvaggia and its inhabitants salvages50." What Thoreau loved, like all men of healthy minds, was the occasional experience of untamed wildness. "I love to see occasionally," he adds, "a man from whom the usnea (lichen) hangs as gracefully51 as from a spruce."
Footpaths52 bring us nearer both to nature and to man. No high-road, not even a lane, conducts to the deeper recesses53 of the wood, where you hear the wood-thrush. There are a thousand concealed54 fitnesses in nature, rhymed correspondences of bird and blossom, for which you must seek through hidden paths; as when you come upon some black brook35 so palisaded with cardinal-flowers as to seem "a stream of sunsets"; or trace its shadowy course till it spreads into some forest-pool, above which that rare and patrician55 insect, the Agrion dragon-fly, flits and hovers56 perpetually, as if the darkness and the cool had taken wings. The dark brown pellucid58 water sleeps between banks of softest moss44; white stars of twin-flowers creep close to the brink59, delicate sprays of dewberry trail over it, and the emerald tips of drooping61 leaves forever tantalize62 the still surface. Above these the slender, dark-blue insect waves his dusky wings, like a liberated63 ripple64 of the brook, and takes the few stray sunbeams on his lustrous65 form. Whence came the correspondence between this beautiful shy creature and the moist, dark nooks, shot through with stray and transitory sunlight, where it dwells? The analogy is as unmistakable as that between the scorching66 heats of summer and the shrill67 cry of the cicada. They suggest questions that no savant can answer, mysteries that wait, like Goethe's secret of morphology, till a sufficient poet can be born. And we, meanwhile, stand helpless in their presence, as one waits beside the telegraphic wire, while it hums and vibrates, charged with all fascinating secrets, above the heads of a wondering world.
It is by the presence of pathways on the earth that we know it to be the habitation of man; in the barest desert, they open to us a common humanity. It is the absence of these that renders us so lonely on the ocean, and makes us glad to watch even the track of our own vessel68. But on the mountain-top, how eagerly we trace out the "road that brings places together," as Schiller says. It is the first thing we look for; till we have found it, each scattered69 village has an isolated70 and churlish look, but the glimpse of a furlong of road puts them all in friendly relations. The narrower the path, the more domestic and familiar it seems.
The railroad may represent the capitalist or the government; the high-road indicates what the surveyor or the county commissioners71 thought best; but the footpath shows what the people needed. Its associations are with beauty and humble24 life,—the boy with his dog, the little girl with her fagots, the pedler with his pack; cheery companions they are or ought to be.
"Jog on, jog on the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad one tires in a mile-a."
The footpath takes you across the farms and behind the houses; you are admitted to the family secrets and form a personal acquaintance. Even if you take the wrong path, it only leads you "across-lots" to some man ploughing, or some old woman picking berries,—perhaps a very spicy73 acquaintance, whom the road would never have brought to light. If you are led astray in the woods, that only teaches you to observe landmarks74 more closely, or to leave straws and stakes for tokens, like a gypsy's patteran, to show the ways already traversed. There is a healthy vigor75 in the mind of the boy who would like of all things to be lost in the woods, to build a fire out of doors, and sleep under a tree or in a haystack. Civilization is tiresome76 and enfeebling, unless we occasionally give it the relish77 of a little outlawry78, and approach, in imagination at least, the zest79 of a gypsy life. The records of pedestrian journeys, the Wanderjahre and memoirs80 of good-for-noth-ings, and all the delightful81 German forest literature,—these belong to the footpath side of our nature. The passage I best remember in all Bayard Taylor's travels is the ecstasy82 of his Thuringian forester, who said: "I recall the time when just a sunny morning made me so happy that I did not know what to do with myself. One day in spring, as I went through the woods and saw the shadows of the young leaves upon the moss, and smelt83 the buds of the firs and larches84, and thought to myself, 'All thy life is to be spent in the splendid forest,'I actually threw myself down and rolled in the grass like a dog, over and over, crazy with joy."
It is the charm of pedestrian journeys that they convert the grandest avenues to footpaths. Through them alone we gain intimate knowledge of the people, and of nature, and indeed of ourselves. It is easy to hurry too fast for our best reflections, which, as the old monk86 said of perfection, must be sought not by flying, but by walking, "Perfectionis via non pervolanda sed perambulanda." The thoughts that the railway affords us are dusty thoughts; we ask the news, read the journals, question our neighbor, and wish to know what is going on because we are a part of it. It is only in the footpath that our minds, like our bodies, move slowly, and we traverse thought, like space, with a patient thoroughness. Rousseau said that he had never experienced so much, lived so truly, and been so wholly himself, as during his travels on foot.
What can Hawthorne mean by saying in his English diary that "an American would never understand the passage in Bunyan about Christian87 and Hopeful going astray along a by-path into the grounds of Giant Despair, from there being no stiles and by-paths in our country"? So much of the charm of American pedestrianism lies in the by-paths! For instance, the whole interior of Cape8 Ann, beyond Gloucester, is a continuous woodland, with granite88 ledges everywhere cropping out, around which the high-road winds, following the curving and indented89 line of the sea, and dotted here and there with fishing hamlets. This whole interior is traversed by a network of footpaths, rarely passable for a wagon90, and not always for a horse, but enabling the pedestrian to go from any one of these villages to any other, in a line almost direct, and always under an agreeable shade. By the longest of these hidden ways, one may go from Pigeon Cove91 to Gloucester, ten miles, without seeing a public road. In the little inn at the former village there used to hang an old map of this whole forest region, giving a chart of some of these paths, which were said to date back to the first settlement of the country. One of them, for instance, was called on the map "Old Road from Sandy Bay to Squam Meeting-house through the Woods"; but the road is now scarcely even a bridle-path, and the most faithful worshipper could not seek Squam Meeting-house in the family chaise. Those woods have been lately devastated92; but when I first knew that region, it was as good as any German forest.
Often we stepped almost from the edge of the sea into some gap in the woods; there seemed hardly more than a rabbit-track, yet presently we met some wayfarer93 who had crossed the Cape by it. A piny dell gave some vista94 of the broad sea we were leaving, and an opening in the woods displayed another blue sea-line before; the encountering breezes interchanged odor of berry-bush and scent95 of brine; penetrating96 farther among oaks and chestnuts97, we came upon some little cottage, quaint72 and sheltered as any Spenser drew; it was built on no high-road, and turned its vine-clad gable away from even the footpath.
Then the ground rose and we were surprised by a breeze from a new quarter; perhaps we climbed trees to look for landmarks, and saw only, still farther in the woods, some great cliff of granite or the derrick of an unseen quarry99. Three miles inland, as I remember, we found the hearthstones of a vanished settlement; then we passed a swamp with cardinal-flowers; then a cathedral of noble pines, topped with crow's-nests. If we had not gone astray by this time, we presently emerged on Dogtown Common, an elevated table-land, over-spread with great boulders100 as with houses, and encircled with a girdle of green woods and an outer girdle of blue sea. I know of nothing more wild than that gray waste of boulders; it is a natural Salisbury Plain, of which icebergs102 and ocean-currents were the Druidic builders; in that multitude of couchant monsters there seems a sense of suspended life; you feel as if they must speak and answer to each other in the silent nights, but by day only the wandering sea-birds seek them, on their way across the Cape, and the sweet-bay and green fern embed103 them in a softer and deeper setting as the years go by. This is the "height of ground" of that wild footpath; but as you recede42 farther from the outer ocean and approach Gloucester, you come among still wilder ledges, unsafe without a guide, and you find in one place a cluster of deserted104 houses, too difficult of access to remove even their materials, so that they are left to moulder105 alone. I used to wander in those woods, summer after summer, till I had made my own chart of their devious106 tracks, and now when I close my eyes in this Oldport midsummer, the soft Italian air takes on something of a Scandinavian vigor; for the incessant31 roll of carriages I hear the tinkle107 of the quarryman's hammer and the veery's song; and I long for those perfumed and breezy pastures, and for those promontories108 of granite where the fresh water is nectar and the salt sea has a regal blue.
I recall another footpath near Worcester, Massachusetts; it leads up from the low meadows into the wildest region of all that vicinity, Tatesset Hill. Leaving behind you the open pastures where the cattle lie beneath the chestnut98-trees or drink from the shallow brook, you pass among the birches and maples109, where the woodsman's shanty110 stands in the clearing, and the raspberry-fields are merry with children's voices. The familiar birds and butterflies linger below with them, and in the upper and more sacred depths the wood-thrush chants his litany and the brown mountain butterflies hover57 among the scented111 vines. Higher yet rises the "Rattlesnake Ledge," spreading over one side of the summit a black avalanche112 of broken rock, now overgrown with reindeer-moss and filled with tufts of the smaller wild geranium. Just below this ledge,—amid a dark, dense113 track of second-growth forest, masked here and there with grape-vines, studded with rare orchises, and pierced by a brook that vanishes suddenly where the ground sinks away and lets the blue distance in,—there is a little monument to which the footpath leads, and which always seemed to me as wild a memorial of forgotten superstition114 as the traveller can find amid the forests of Japan.
It was erected115 by a man called Solomon Pearson (not to give his name too closely), a quiet, thoughtful farmer, long-bearded, low-voiced, and with that aspect of refinement116 which an ideal life brings forth117 even in quite uninstructed men. At the height of the "Second Advent118" excitement this man resolved to build for himself upon these remote rocks a house which should escape the wrath119 to come, and should endure even amid a burning and transformed earth. Thinking, as he had once said to me, that, "if the First Dispensation had been strong enough to endure, there would have been no need of a Second," he resolved to build for his part something which should possess permanence at least. And there still remains on that high hillside the small beginning that he made.
There are four low stone walls, three feet thick, built solidly together without cement, and without the trace of tools. The end-walls are nine feet high (the sides being lower) and are firmly united by a strong iron ridge-pole, perhaps fifteen feet long, which is imbedded at each end in the stone. Other masses of iron lie around unused, in sheets, bars, and coils, brought with slow labor120 by the builder from far below. The whole building was designed to be made of stone and iron. It is now covered with creeping vines and the debris121 of the hillside; but though its construction had been long discontinued when I saw it, the interior was still kept scrupulously122 clean through the care of this modern Solomon, who often visited his shrine123.
An arch in the terminal wall admits the visitor to the small roofless temple, and he sees before him, imbedded in the centre of the floor, a large smooth block of white marble, where the deed of this spot of land was to be recorded, in the hope to preserve it even after the globe should have been burned and renewed. But not a stroke of this inscription124 was ever cut, and now the young chestnut boughs125 droop60 into the uncovered interior, and shy forest-birds sing fearlessly among them, having learned that this house belongs to God, not man. As if to reassure126 them, and perhaps in allusion127 to his own vegetarian128 habits, the architect has spread some rough plaster at the head of the apartment and marked on it in bold characters, "Thou shalt not kill." Two slabs129 outside, a little way from the walls, bear these inscriptions130, "Peace on Earth," "Good-Will to Men." When I visited it, the path was rough and so obstructed with bushes that it was hard to comprehend how it had afforded passage for these various materials; it seemed more as if some strange architectural boulder101 had drifted from some Runic period and been stranded131 there. It was as apt a confessional as any of Wordsworth's nooks among the Trossachs; and when one thinks how many men are wearing out their souls in trying to conform to the traditional mythologies132 of others, it seems nobler in this man to have reared upon that lonely hill the unfinished memorial of his own.
I recall another path which leads from the Lower Saranac Lake, near "Martin's," to what the guides call, or used to call, "The Philosopher's Camp" at Amperzand. On this oddly named lake, in the Adirondack region, a tract133 of land was bought by Professor Agassiz and his friends, who made there a summer camping-ground, and with one comrade I once sought the spot. I remember with what joy we left the boat,—so delightful at first, so fatiguing134 at last; for I cannot, with Mr. Murray, call it a merit in the Adirondacks that you never have to walk,—and stepped away into the free forest. We passed tangled135 swamps, so dense with upturned trees and trailing mosses that they seemed to give no opening for any living thing to pass, unless it might be the soft and silent owl85 that turned its head almost to dislocation in watching us, ere it flitted vaguely136 away. Farther on, the deep, cool forest was luxurious137 with plumy ferns; we trod on moss-covered roots, finding the emerald steps so soft we scarcely knew that we were ascending138; every breath was aromatic139; there seemed infinite healing in every fragrant140 drop that fell upon our necks from the cedar141 boughs. We had what I think the pleasantest guide for a daylight tramp,—one who has never before passed over that particular route, and can only pilot you on general principles till he gladly, at last, allows you to pilot him. When we once got the lead we took him jubilantly on, and beginning to look for "The Philosopher's Camp," found ourselves confronted by a large cedar-tree on the margin142 of a wooded lake. This was plainly the end of the path. Was the camp then afloat? Our escort was in that state of hopeless ignorance of which only lost guides are capable. We scanned the green horizon and the level water, without glimpse of human abode143. It seemed an enchanted144 lake, and we looked about the tree-trunk for some fairy horn, that we might blow it. That failing, we tried three rifle-shots, and out from the shadow of an island, on the instant, there glided145 a boat, which bore no lady of the lake, but a red-shirted woodsman. The artist whom we sought was on that very island, it seemed, sketching146 patiently while his guides were driving the deer.
This artist was he whose "Procession of the Pines" had identified his fame with that delightful forest region. He it was who had laid out with artistic147 taste "The Philosopher's Camp," and who was that season still awaiting philosophers as well as deer. He had been there for a month, alone with the guides, and declared that Nature was pressing upon him to an extent that almost drove him wild. His eyes had a certain remote and questioning look that belongs to imaginative men who dwell alone. It seemed an impertinence to ask him to come out of his dream and offer us dinner; but his instincts of hospitality failed not, and the red-shirted guide was sent to the camp, which was, it seemed, on the other side of the lake, to prepare our meal, while we bathed. I am thus particular in speaking of the dinner, not only because such is the custom of travellers, but also because it was the occasion of an interlude which I shall never forget. As we were undressing for our bath upon the lonely island, where the soft, pale water almost lapped our feet, and the deep, wooded hills made a great amphitheatre for the lake, our host bethought himself of something neglected in his instructions.
"Remember to bo-o-oil the venison, Ben!" shouted the pensive150 artist, while all the slumbering151 echoes arose to applaud this culinary confidence.
"And, Ben!" he added, imploringly152, "don't forget the dumplings!" Upon this, the loons, all down the lake, who had hitherto been silent, took up the strain with vehemence153, hurling154 their wild laughter at the presumptuous155 mortal who thus dared to invade their solitudes156 with details as trivial as Mr. Pickwick's tomato-sauce. They repeated it over and over to each other, till ten square miles of loons must have heard the news, and all laughed together; never was there such an audience; they could not get over it, and two hours after, when we had rowed over to the camp and dinner had been served, this irreverent and invisible chorus kept bursting out, at all points of the compass, with scattered chuckles158 of delight over this extraordinary bill of fare. Justice compels me to add that the dumplings were made of Indian-meal, upon a recipe devised by our artist; the guests preferred the venison, but the host showed a fidelity to his invention that proved him to be indeed a dweller159 in an ideal world.
Another path that comes back to memory is the bare trail that we followed over the prairies of Nebraska, in 1856, when the Missouri River was held by roving bands from the Slave States, and Freedom had to seek an overland route into Kansas. All day and all night we rode between distant prairie-fires, pillars of evening light and of morning cloud, while sometimes the low grass would burn to the very edge of the trail, so that we had to hold our breath as we galloped160 through. Parties of armed Missourians were sometimes seen over the prairie swells161, so that we had to mount guard at nightfall; Free-State emigrants162, fleeing from persecution163, continually met us; and we sometimes saw parties of wandering Sioux, or passed their great irregular huts and houses of worship. I remember one desolate164 prairie summit on which an Indian boy sat motionless on horseback; his bare red legs clung closely to the white sides of his horse; a gorgeous sunset was unrolled behind him, and he might have seemed the last of his race, just departing for the hunting-grounds of the blest. More often the horizon showed no human outline, and the sun set cloudless, and elongated165 into pear-shaped outlines, as behind ocean-waves. But I remember best the excitement that filled our breasts when we approached spots where the contest for a free soil had already been sealed with blood. In those days, as one went to Pennsylvania to study coal formations, or to Lake Superior for copper166, so one went to Kansas for men. "Every footpath on this planet," said a rare thinker, "may lead to the door of a hero," and that trail into Kansas ended rightly at the tent-door of John Brown.
And later, who that knew them can forget the picket167-paths that were worn throughout the Sea Islands of South Carolina,—paths that wound along the shores of creeks168 or through the depths of woods, where the great wild roses tossed their airy festoons above your head, and the brilliant lizards169 glanced across your track, and your horse's ears suddenly pointed170 forward and his pace grew uneasy as he snuffed the presence of something you could not see. At night you had often to ride from picket to picket in dense darkness, trusting to the horse to find his way, or sometimes dismounting to feel with your hands for the track, while the great Southern fire-flies offered their floating lanterns for guidance, and the hoarse171 "Chuck-will's-widow" croaked172 ominously173 from the trees, and the great guns of the siege of Charleston throbbed174 more faintly than the drumming of a partridge, far away. Those islands are everywhere so intersected by dikes and ledges and winding creeks as to form a natural military region, like La Vendee and yet two plantations that are twenty miles asunder175 by the road will sometimes be united by a footpath which a negro can traverse in two hours. These tracks are limited in distance by the island formation, but they assume a greater importance as you penetrate176 the mainland; they then join great States instead of mere plantations, and if you ask whither one of them leads, you are told "To Alabama," or "To Tennessee."
Time would fail to tell of that wandering path which leads to the Mine Mountain near Brattleborough, where you climb the high peak at last, and perhaps see the showers come up the Connecticut till they patter on the leaves beneath you, and then, swerving177, pass up the black ravine and leave you unwet. Or of those among the White Mountains, gorgeous with great red lilies which presently seem to take flight in a cloud of butterflies that match their tints,—paths where the balsamic air caresses178 you in light breezes, and masses of alder-berries rise above the waving ferns. Or of the paths that lead beside many a little New England stream, whose bank is lost to sight in a smooth green slope of grape-vine: the lower shoots rest upon the quiet water, but the upper masses are crowned by a white wreath of alder-blooms; beside them grow great masses of wild-roses, and the simultaneous blossoms and berries of the gaudy179 nightshade. Or of those winding tracks that lead here and there among the flat stones of peaceful old graveyards180, so entwined with grass and flowers that every spray of sweetbrier seems to tell more of life than all the accumulated epitaphs can tell of death.
And when the paths that one has personally traversed are exhausted181, memory holds almost as clearly those which the poets have trodden for us,—those innumerable by-ways of Shakespeare, each more real than any high-road in England; or Chaucer's
"Little path I found
Of mintes full and fennell greene";
or Spenser's
"Pathes and alleies wide
With footing worne";
or the path of Browning's "Pippa"
"Down the hillside, up the glen,
Love me as I love!"
or the weary tracks by which "Little Nell" wandered; or the haunted way in Sydney Dobell's ballad182,
"Ravelstone, Ravelstone,
The merry path that leads
Down the golden morning hills,
And through the silver meads";
or the few American paths that genius has yet idealized; that where Hawthorne's "David Swan" slept, or that which Thoreau found upon the banks of Walden Pond, or where Whittier parted with his childhood's playmate on Ramoth Hill. It is not heights, or depths, or spaces that make the world worth living in; for the fairest landscape needs still to be garlanded by the imagination,—to become classic with noble deeds and romantic with dreams.
Go where we please in nature, we receive in proportion as we give. Ivo, the old Bishop183 of Chartres, wrote, that "neither the secret depth of woods nor the tops of mountains make man blessed, if he has not with him solitude157 of mind, the sabbath of the heart, and tranquillity184 of conscience." There are many roads, but one termination; and Plato says, in his "Republic," that the point where all paths meet is the soul's true resting-place and the journey's end.
The End.
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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pertinacious
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| adj.顽固的 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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usurped
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| 篡夺，霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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footpath
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| n.小路，人行道 | |
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ramifications
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| n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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ledges
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| n.（墙壁，悬崖等）突出的狭长部分( ledge的名词复数 )；（平窄的）壁架；横档；（尤指）窗台 | |
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ramble
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| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
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inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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gulls
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| n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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plaintive
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| adj.可怜的，伤心的 | |
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geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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botanist
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| n.植物学家 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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24
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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25
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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26
etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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27
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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28
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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29
plantations
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| n.种植园，大农场( plantation的名词复数 ) | |
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30
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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31
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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32
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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33
morass
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| n.沼泽，困境 | |
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34
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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35
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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36
brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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37
obstructed
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| 阻塞( obstruct的过去式和过去分词 )； 堵塞； 阻碍； 阻止 | |
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38
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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39
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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40
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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41
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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42
recede
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| vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进 | |
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43
banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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45
mosses
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| n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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46
hearths
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| 壁炉前的地板，炉床，壁炉边( hearth的名词复数 ) | |
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47
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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48
sylvan
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| adj.森林的 | |
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49
rustics
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| n.有农村或村民特色的( rustic的名词复数 )；粗野的；不雅的；用粗糙的木材或树枝制作的 | |
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50
salvages
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| 海上营救( salvage的名词复数 )； 抢救出的财产； 救援费； 经加工后重新利用的废物 | |
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51
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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52
footpaths
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| 人行小径，人行道( footpath的名词复数 ) | |
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53
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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54
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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55
patrician
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|
| adj.贵族的，显贵的；n.贵族；有教养的人；罗马帝国的地方官 | |
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56
hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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57
hover
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| vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫 | |
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58
pellucid
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| adj.透明的，简单的 | |
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59
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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60
droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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61
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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62
tantalize
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| vt.使干着急，逗弄 | |
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63
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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64
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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65
lustrous
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| adj.有光泽的；光辉的 | |
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66
scorching
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| adj. 灼热的 | |
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67
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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68
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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69
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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70
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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71
commissioners
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| n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 )；长官；委员；政府部门的长官 | |
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72
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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73
spicy
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| adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的 | |
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74
landmarks
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| n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址） | |
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75
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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76
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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77
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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78
outlawry
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| 宣布非法，非法化，放逐 | |
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79
zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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80
memoirs
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| n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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81
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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82
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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83
smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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84
larches
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| n.落叶松（木材）( larch的名词复数 ) | |
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85
owl
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| n.猫头鹰，枭 | |
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86
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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87
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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88
granite
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| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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89
indented
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| adj.锯齿状的，高低不平的；缩进排版 | |
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90
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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91
cove
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| n.小海湾，小峡谷 | |
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92
devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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93
wayfarer
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| n.旅人 | |
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94
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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95
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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96
penetrating
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|
| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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97
chestnuts
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| n.栗子( chestnut的名词复数 )；栗色；栗树；栗色马 | |
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98
chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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99
quarry
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|
| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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100
boulders
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|
| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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101
boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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102
icebergs
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|
| n.冰山，流冰( iceberg的名词复数 ) | |
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103
embed
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| vt.把…嵌(埋、插)入，扎牢；使深留脑中 | |
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104
deserted
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|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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105
moulder
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| v.腐朽，崩碎 | |
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106
devious
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| adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的 | |
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107
tinkle
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| vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声 | |
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108
promontories
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| n.岬，隆起，海角( promontory的名词复数 ) | |
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109
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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110
shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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111
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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112
avalanche
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| n.雪崩，大量涌来 | |
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113
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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114
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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115
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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116
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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117
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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118
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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119
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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120
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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121
debris
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| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
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122
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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123
shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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124
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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125
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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126
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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127
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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128
vegetarian
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| n.素食者；adj.素食的 | |
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129
slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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130
inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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131
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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132
mythologies
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| 神话学( mythology的名词复数 )； 神话（总称）； 虚构的事实； 错误的观点 | |
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133
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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134
fatiguing
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| a.使人劳累的 | |
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135
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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136
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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137
luxurious
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| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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138
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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139
aromatic
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| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
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140
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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141
cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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142
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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143
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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144
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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145
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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146
sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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147
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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148
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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149
oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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151
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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152
imploringly
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| adv. 恳求地, 哀求地 | |
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153
vehemence
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| n.热切；激烈；愤怒 | |
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154
hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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155
presumptuous
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| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
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156
solitudes
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| n.独居( solitude的名词复数 )；孤独；荒僻的地方；人迹罕至的地方 | |
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157
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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158
chuckles
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的名词复数 ) | |
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159
dweller
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| n.居住者，住客 | |
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160
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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161
swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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162
emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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163
persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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164
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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165
elongated
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| v.延长，加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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166
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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167
picket
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| n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫 | |
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168
creeks
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| n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪 | |
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169
lizards
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| n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
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170
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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171
hoarse
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| adj.嘶哑的，沙哑的 | |
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172
croaked
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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173
ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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174
throbbed
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| 抽痛( throb的过去式和过去分词 )； （心脏、脉搏等）跳动 | |
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175
asunder
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| adj.分离的，化为碎片 | |
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176
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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177
swerving
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| v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的现在分词 ) | |
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178
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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179
gaudy
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| adj.华而不实的；俗丽的 | |
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180
graveyards
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| 墓地( graveyard的名词复数 )； 垃圾场； 废物堆积处； 收容所 | |
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181
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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182
ballad
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| n.歌谣，民谣，流行爱情歌曲 | |
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183
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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184
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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