During all but the hottest months of the year, in the latter part of Grant’s second Administration, men on lower Broadway at about 8:45 every week-day morning might see a venerable figure come rapidly down toward Fulton Street. The aged2 pedestrian was slender and just above the middle height, but was given an impressive aspect by his heavy white beard and the long hoary4 hair that swept his shoulders. As he passed, it could be seen that his brow was bald; that his forehead was projecting, though not massive; that the deep-set eyes which peered from beneath his bushy brows were remarkably5 penetrating6 and observant, and that his features were rugged7 but benignant. He had a scholar’s stoop, but appeared wiry and vigorous far beyond his years. People glanced at him with respectful recognition—his was, as Tennyson said of Wellington, the good gray head that all men knew. On Fulton Street he turned into a tall, new building, and those who watched might see that, disdaining9 the elevator, he began rapidly climbing the stairs. This was William Cullen Bryant, at eighty still devoting four hours daily to the Evening Post.
Bryant had long since become the most distinguished10 resident of the city, referred to and honored as its first citizen. In civic11, charitable, and social movements his name was given precedence over those of men like William M. Evarts or Henry Ward1 Beecher. On every great public occasion an effort was made to obtain his attendance as the representative of all that was choicest in literary, artistic12, and professional life. When the artist Cole, and the authors Cooper, Irving, Verplanck, and Halleck died, he was chosen to deliver memorial discourses13 of that kind in which the French excel; he was339 the chief speaker at the dedication14 of the Morse, Shakespeare, Scott, Goethe, and Mazzini monuments in Central Park; and he presided over the testimonial benefit given Charlotte Cushman when she was about to retire from the stage, which occasioned one of the most notable assemblages ever brought into a modern theater. No New York meeting in behalf of free trade, sound money, or civil service reform was complete without his presence or a message from him. This high position was his because he was not merely a great poet, but a great publicist.
On Nov. 5, 1864, when Bryant had just attained16 his seventieth birthday, a celebration was held at the Century Club, of which he had been one of the earliest members. The historian Bancroft presided, and among the speakers were Emerson, Holmes, R. H. Stoddard, Julia Ward Howe, R. H. Dana, jr., and William M. Evarts; while poems were received from Whittier and Lowell. The editor as well as the poet was honored. Mrs. Howe recited:
On the iron shield of freedom, and the poet’s links of gold.
while Lowell’s well-known verses, “On Board the Seventy-six,” referred to his editorial words of cheer during the gloomy early days of the Civil War. A little more than three years later (Jan. 30, 1868), a dinner was tendered Bryant at Delmonico’s as president of the American Free Trade League. Speeches were made in his honor by David Dudley Field, Parke Godwin, John D. Van Buren, and others, and letters read from Emerson and Gerrit Smith. Again, on Nov. 3, 1874, when Bryant became eighty years old, he was quietly finishing a forenoon’s work in the Evening Post office when a deputation of friends entered to congratulate him. That evening there was another celebration at the Century Club, at which a commemorative vase—now in the Metropolitan18 Museum—was given Bryant, while a simultaneous celebration was held in Chicago by the Literary Club of that city.
340 In the dozen years following Sumter, and especially in the Civil War years when it pressed its demand for energetic prosecution19 of the struggle, the Evening Post was at the height of its influence under Bryant. “The clear and able political leaders have been of more service to the government in this war than some of its armies,” said Littell’s Living Age in 1862. Charles Dudley Warner wrote at the same time in the Hartford Press: “The Evening Post is the most fearless and rigidly20 honest paper in the country, and its ability is equal to its moral worth. Some of its ordinary editorials are magnificent specimens22 of English.” A chorus of praise was aroused by the enlargement of the journal this year. “The Evening Post, we think, is the best newspaper in the United States,” remarked the Elmira Advertiser; the New Bedford Standard spoke23 of “the best paper in the United States, the Evening Post”; the Kennebec Journal said that “All things considered, it comes the nearest to our idea of what a metropolitan journal should be of any publication in the country”; and the Christian24 Enquirer25 testified that “the course of the Evening Post during the war has been above all praise—firm, bold, patriotic26, and wise.”
Similar tributes were paid the newspaper by a remarkable27 array of public men. In 1840 James K. Paulding wrote from Washington to console it for defeat in the Presidential election: “The manner in which the Evening Post is conducted, its stern and sober dignity, and its freedom from the base fury and still baser falsehoods, with which so many newspapers are debauched and disgraced, makes me proud to remember that I have a humble28 claim to be associated with its honors.” Sumner was constant in his praise in the fifties. Judge William Kent, son of the great Chancellor29, not merely thought it the best American daily, but in 1857 proposed that he purchase a share in it and become one of the editors, a proposal which Isaac Henderson discouraged. William Jay in 1862 wrote Bryant, paying tribute to its “powerful and beneficial influence.” Charles Eliot Norton begged the following year “to express my hearty30 sympathy with the341 principles maintained by the Evening Post at this time, and my admiration31 for the ability with which they are sustained.” A little later Lowell wrote Bryant that he was a subscriber32. “I am particularly pleased with the course of the Evening Post on reconstruction33. Firmness equally tempered with good feeling is what we want—not generosity34 with twitches35 of firmness now and then.” W. H. Furness, the noted36 Philadelphia minister, sent another unsolicited tribute in the heat of the war, saying that he valued the Tribune, but was particularly grateful for the sound, calm vision of the Evening Post, and that “it stands in my esteem37 at the head of the American press. It is cheering that there is abroad such an educator of the public mind.” Caleb Cushing wrote (1868):
You may regard it as quite superfluous38 for me to speak in commendation of the Evening Post; but inasmuch as, at one period, I had reason to think and to assert that its language was occasionally overharsh to me, I desire to say, for my own satisfaction, not yours, with how great instruction and pleasure at present I read it every day, and with what daily increasing estimation of its superior dignity, fairness, wisdom, and truth.
Even abroad the paper was well known. Bigelow informed Bryant in 1864 that an Englishman had told him he thought it the best newspaper in the world. John Stuart Mill wrote Parke Godwin the following year that he was a regular reader of it through the kindness of Frederick Barnard, later President of Columbia, who thought it the best American daily, and that he had formed a high opinion of it.
If we ask what qualities made Bryant a great editor, we must place mere15 industry high on the list. Within a few years after his return to the prostrate39 Post in 1836 he had shaken off his distaste for the profession, and acquired a zest40 for it. From 1836 to 1866 he labored42 as hard upon his journal as if he had never written a line of verse—as the hardworking Greeley and Bennett did upon theirs. Always up in summer at five, in winter at five-thirty, he was frequently at his desk at seven, and342 seldom later than eight. His principal concern, the editorial page, was in itself a day’s work. He took in hand during this period nearly all the leading editorials. They were consistently longer than editorials of to-day, not infrequently in the fifties and sixties reaching 1,600 words, sometimes 1,800; and Bryant, conscious of his reputation, wrote with painful care. “As Dr. Johnson said of his talk,” he once told Bigelow, “I always write my best.”
But in his first forty years as editor Bryant also attended to a multitude of business and executive details. This was of course true in the thirties and forties, when the Evening Post was a struggling journal with a staff of three or four writers; but his unpublished papers show it almost equally true later. In his late fifties we find him carefully discussing by letter with John Bigelow whether the commercial reporter should get more than $900 a year; hiring the foreign correspondents, and resentful when the Tribune stole one of the best, Signora Jesse White Mario; and taking a keen interest in the fluctuations45 of advertising46. We find him complaining of the daily squabble between the editorial room and advertising department, with the sturdy German head of the composing room, Henry Dithmar, parrying all attempts to displace advertisements by reading matter (1860). He was laying plans as the Civil War storm arose to get out a third edition, to occupy the same ground as the third edition of the Express, and considering ways and means of putting the first edition on the street in time to beat the Commercial. He kept a watchful47 eye upon all employees, now meting48 out praise and blame to the Washington and Albany correspondents, and now deciding indulgently what should be done with an office boy who was caught carrying off a dozen review copies of new books. When it grew necessary to enlarge the Post he knew just what it would cost to alter the “turtles,” and just why the importers and wholesalers preferred a journal of four blanket-size pages to one of eight smaller pages.
He had to answer an enormous correspondence, a task343 conscientiously51 performed. A hurried message to Dithmar is preserved: “Enclosed is the lady’s communication. I have looked two hours for it. Put it in and get me out of trouble.” He received a multitude of visitors. A note to his wife in 1851 remarks, “I was run down yesterday”—arriving to write a leader, he had been interrupted by five important and several lesser52 visitors. Sometimes the burden upon him was excessive. It was so after 1836, just before Bigelow came in the late forties, and at intervals53 later, such as early in 1860, when Bigelow was in Europe, Thayer was sick, Godwin was laid up with rheumatic fever, and Bryant had a sty into the bargain.
His industry was made possible by the fact that he had an admirable constitution, which he was at pains to preserve, and by his wise insistence54 upon recreation. In his early manhood he was a vegetarian55. A letter of 1871 describing his mode of life shows by what a careful regimen he preserved his bodily and mental vigor8. He still rose between four-thirty and five-thirty, according to season. While half-dressed, he spent a half hour in calisthenics with a pair of dumbbells, a light pole, a horizontal bar, and a chair. After bathing, he breakfasted on some cereal—hominy, wheat grits56, or oatmeal—and milk, with baked apples in summer, and sometimes buckwheat cakes. He never touched tea or coffee. After breakfast, when in town, he walked three miles down to the Evening Post office, and doing his morning’s work, returned, “always walking, whatever be the weather or the state of the streets.” In the country he divided his time between literary work and outdoor employments. When in the city he made but two meals a day, and in the country three, although the middle meal consisted only of a little bread and butter, with possibly some fruit; the meat or fish that he took at dinner was in very sparing quantities. In later manhood he made it a rule to avoid every kind of literary occupation in the evening, finding that it interfered57 with his sleep; while he went to bed in town as early as ten, and in the country still earlier. A short344 time before his death, when he was eighty-three, Bigelow asked him if he had not reduced his period of morning gymnastics. “Not the width of your thumb-nail,” was his reply.
Bryant found his most congenial recreation not in the theater or society, but country employments. When youth passed into middle age he still liked all-day or week-end rambles58 up the Hudson or in the Catskills. After the purchase of his Roslyn home in 1842 he seldom failed, from April to October, to spend two or three days a week resting, gardening, draining, planning, and writing there. His most charming letters show him visiting his pigs and chickens, picking strawberries, treating children to his cherries, superintending the pruning59, and bathing in the Sound when the tide met the grass.
The editor viewed his calling as a jealous mistress, declining all suggestions of public office or any other diversion from it. In 1861 it was rumored60 that Lincoln wished to appoint him Minister to Spain, and the Post promptly61 disposed of the suggestion that he would accept. “Those who are acquainted with Mr. Bryant know,” it said, “that there is no public office from that of the Presidency62 of the United States downward which he would not regard it as a misfortune to take. They know that he has expected no offer of any post from the government, and would take none if offered.” Grant also would have given him an important diplomatic position had he been ready to receive it. In 1872 it was thought necessary to publish the following tactful
CARD FROM MR. BRYANT
Certain journals of this city have lately spoken of me as one ambitious of being nominated for the Presidency of the United States. The idea is absurd enough, not only on account of my advanced age, but of my unfitness in various respects for the labors63 of so eminent64 a post. I do not, however, object to the discussion of my deficiencies on any other ground than that it is altogether superfluous, since it is impossible that I should receive any formal345 nomination65, and equally impossible, if it were offered, that I should commit the folly66 of accepting it.
WM. C. BRYANT.
New York, July 8, 1872.
He avoided those controversial by-ways into which Greeley, as in his debate with Henry J. Raymond upon Socialism, so eagerly rushed. In 1860 the country’s foremost economist67, Henry C. Carey, challenged him to a joint68 discussion of the tariff69, and the Post replied that Bryant never accepted such invitations. “His duties as a journalist and a commentator70 on the events of the day and the various interesting questions which they suggest, leave him no time for a sparring match with Mr. Carey ...; and he has no ambition to distinguish himself as a public disputant. His business is to enforce important political truths, and to refute what seem to him errors, just as the occasions arise....” A time more malapropos for a long tariff debate could hardly have been selected.
It was part of Bryant’s creed71 that the profession to which he devoted72 his life should be treated as one of elevated dignity. When he died the Associated Press declared, in the preamble73 to its resolutions of respect, that “he redeemed74, as far as one man could do so, the journalism75 of his early days from the offensive practice of personal discussion, often ending in duels76, and at times in death, and placed it upon the broad foundation of that tolerance78 for others which is inseparable from free discussion and true self-respect.” In 1837 a hare-brained fellow named Holland, connected with a short-lived journal called the Times, challenged him to a duel77 because he had asserted that the Times was a mere tool in the hands of Senator Nathaniel P. Tallmadge. Bryant pocketed the challenge, and told its bearer that everything must take its turn; that Holland had already been termed a scoundrel by Leggett, and he could not take up the new quarrel till the old one was settled. Year by year the Evening Post refused to be drawn79 into offensive personalities80. In 1832, when the Courier and Enquirer assailed81 it, Bryant wrote that “we shall never so far lose346 sight of a proper sense of our own dignity, or of respect for our readers, as to make incidents in the private life of any political opponent a subject of discussion or reproach.” Ten years later he was about to reply to an article in the Plebeian82, but on looking at it a second time, “we were repelled83 from our purpose by the personalities which it contains.” In 1863 a scurrilous84 attack on Bigelow and Thayer by the World drew the same curt85 statement.
How scrupulous86 Bryant was in his fifty years’ editorship two incidents will illustrate87. In the spring of 1859 a bill was pending88 at Albany to increase the compensation paid for legal advertisements, which was unfairly low. All the newspapers urged it, and the Evening Post’s correspondent, one Wilder, proved a perfect Hercules of a lobbyist. “Yet,” Bryant wrote Bigelow, “I was uncomfortable all the while at the idea of having a bill before the Legislature from which, if it passed, I would derive89 a personal advantage, and I was quite relieved when I saw that it was defeated.” Some years earlier the London Examiner published a complimentary90 article regarding Bigelow’s book upon Jamaica, of which he had about a hundred copies that he was eager to sell. He asked Bryant if he would be guilty of an impropriety in republishing the notice. “No,” Bryant said hesitatingly, looking up from his desk, “no, not as the world goes.” “But,” persisted Bigelow, “how as the Evening Post goes?” “Why,” rejoined the poet, “I never did such a thing. I have had a good many pleasant things said about me, but I never republished one of them in the Evening Post.” It need not be said that Bigelow abandoned his plan.
Bryant brought to his editorship a culture such as American journalism had not seen before, and has not since seen surpassed. A writer in Fraser’s Magazine in 1855 made sport of the ignorance of American newspapers. He cited the Herald91’s statement, in a criticism of Racine’s “Phedre,” that “the language is written in what we call blank verse”; and its translation of a tag347 from Virgil: “Adsum qui feci; he or me must perish.” His sweeping92 criticism was unjust to a profession which already enlisted93 men like Richard Hildreth, Richard Grant White, and George Ripley, but Bryant, with his international reputation, was the most shining exception to it. His readers thought nothing of seeing an editorial on the United States Bank begin with an allusion94 to the episode of Nisus and Euryalus in Virgil, some story drawn from the legal lore95 he had mastered at the bar, or an apt quotation96 from the wide range of English poetry. His allusions97 and illustrations were always deft98. “Like the misshapen dwarf99 in the ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel,’” he said of the anti-Jacksonians in 1833, “they wave their lean arms on high and run to and fro crying, ‘Lost! Lost! Lost!’” When Cass objected to any “temporary” measures regarding slavery in the territories, Bryant simply retold the story of Swift’s servant, who did not clean his master’s shoes because they would soon be dirty again; whereupon the Dean punished him by making him go without breakfast, because he would soon be hungry again.
The editor read assiduously. His wide acquaintance with the most intellectual men of New York kept him conversant100 with the latest ideas in every field. Above all, at a time when few journalists went abroad, his many trips to Europe supplied him with a constant fund of suggestions for civic and other improvements. These ranged from penny postage to street cleaning machines, from apartment houses to police uniforms, and from Central Park to the nickel five-cent piece, which, in imitation of a German coin, he was one of the first to advocate.
Bryant’s insistence upon purity of diction was such that John Bigelow believed that in all his writings for the Post fewer blemishes101 could be found than in the first ten numbers of the Spectator. His sensitiveness as to literary form was fully43 developed when he joined the paper. On May 11, 1827, he published in it a paragraph on affectations of expression, condemning102 such barbarisms in current newspapers as “consolate.” The most famous348 evidence of his love of precision was his index expurgatorius. This was less extensive than it was sometimes represented to be, containing but eighty-six words or phrases; and as Bryant told George Cary Eggleston, it was for the guidance only of immature103 staff writers, and might sometimes be overstepped. It includes inflated104 words like inaugurate for begin, misemployed words like mutual105 for common, and along with some terms now used without hesitation106, others universally condemned107:
Above and over (for more than); Artiste (for artist); Aspirant108; Authoress; Beat (for defeat); Bagging (for capturing); Balance (for remainder); Banquet (for dinner or supper); Bogus; Casket (for coffin); Claimed (for asserted); Commence (for begin); Collided; Compete; Cortege (for procession); Cotemporary (for contemporary); Couple (for two); Darkey (for negro); Day before yesterday (for the day before yesterday); Début; Decease; Democracy (applied to a political party); Develop (for expose); Devouring109 element (for fire); Donate; Employee; Enacted110 (for acted); Endorse111 (for approve); En Route; “Esq.”; Graduate (for is graduated); Gents (for gentlemen); Hon. House (for House of Representatives); Humbug112; Inaugurate (for begin); In our midst; Item (for particle, extract, or paragraph); Is being done, and all passives of this form; Jeopardise; Jubilant (for rejoicing); Juvenile113 (for boy); Lady (for wife); Last (for latest); Lengthy115 (for long); Leniency116 (for lenity); Loafer; Loan or loaned (for lend or lent); Located; Majority (relating to places or circumstances, for most); Mrs. President, Mrs. Governor, Mrs. General, and all similar titles; Mutual (for common); Official (for officer); Ovation117; On yesterday; Over his signature; Pants (for pantaloons); Parties (for persons); Partially118 (for partly); Past two weeks (for last two weeks, and all similar expressions relating to a definite time); Poetess; Portion (for part); Posted (for informed); Progress (for advance); Quite (prefixed to good, large, etc.); Raid (for attack); Realized (for obtained); Reliable (for trustworthy); Rendition (for performance); Repudiate121 (for reject); Retire (as an active verb); Rev49. (for the Rev.); Role (for part); Roughs; Rowdies; Secesh; Sensation (for noteworthy event); Standpoint (for point of view); Start (in the sense of setting out); State (for say); Talent (for talents or ability); Talented; Tapis; The deceased; War (for dispute).
349 Bryant was frequently called upon to decide nice questions of English, which he did with care; during the Civil War he took time, in answer to a query122 regarding the superlative, to dig up ancient instances like Milton’s “virtuousest, discreetest, best.” He has recorded his judgment123 that from newspaper writing a man’s style gains in clearness and fluency124, but is likely to become loose, diffuse125, and stuffed with bad diction. He always insisted upon simplicity126 as the sole foundation of a fine style. Once the Post received a letter from a servant girl so clear and precise that Bryant had her sought out to learn how she could write so well. She explained that she used no expression of whose meaning she was not certain; that if at first she did so, she later struck it out and substituted a simpler word or phrase. Bryant held this procedure to be a model for reporters.
Parke Godwin, writing Charles A. Dana in 1845 that the best all-round editor in America was Greeley, added that Bryant “is by all odds127 the most varied128 and beautiful writer.” He here touched one of Bryant’s most distinctive129 merits as an editor. Bryant could not argue with more force than Greeley, or with the incisiveness130 and point of E. L. Godkin; but when moved by a great event, he wrote with an eloquence131 which no other editor ever attempted. The springs that fed his poetry fed this mastery of elevated prose. Any one who will study the fine rhetorical effects of his first great poem, “Thanatopsis,” or of one of his last, “The Flood of Years,” will understand what effects he sometimes wrought in the editorial columns of the Evening Post. Opening soberly though on a high plane, his more impassioned editorials would rise to a splendid climax132. He did not use his grand style too frequently, but during the Civil War he employed it again and again. Thus he wrote July 6, 1863, upon the “three glorious days” at Vicksburg and Gettysburg:
Many a gallant133 spirit lies silent forever on the bloody134 field; many peaceful homes are instantly made desolate135; our hearts go forth136 in sorrow to the fallen and in condolence to the bereaved137; but this is the eternal glory of those who have perished, as of350 those who mourn their deaths, that they have given their lives in the noblest cause in which man was ever called to suffer. They have died for a country which is worthy120 of the blood of its citizens; for the integrity and honor of a government in which the dearest rights of millions are involved; and for the great principles of human freedom and human justice, in which the world and ages to come are deeply interested. Nowhere else could they have earned a more glorious renown138, for nowhere else could they have contributed a better service to humanity.
In the tone of that pristine140 rebel whom the great poet makes to exclaim, “Better to reign44 in hell than serve in heaven,” these proud and insolent141 spirits disdained142 to brook143 their fate, and flew to revolt. A new slave empire, a new semi-tropical nation, a grand aristocracy of white masters, was to be built around the Gulf144 of Mexico, our western Mediterranean145, but alas146 for these dreams of ambition, the throne of Maximilian casts its shadow over one end of their prospective147 dominion148, and the tread of Sherman’s soldiers shakes the other into dust.
But the foundation of Bryant’s power as an editor lay simply in his soundness of judgment, and his unwavering courage in maintaining it. The greatest peril149 of the profession, he wrote in 1851, “is the strong temptation which it sets before men, to betray the cause of truth to public opinion, and to fall in with what are supposed to be the views held by a contemporaneous majority, which are sometimes perfectly150 right and sometimes grossly wrong.” That peril was greater in Bryant’s day than now, for the comparative smallness and homogeneity of the reading public made it more dangerous to incur151 the general displeasure. He never yielded in the slightest degree to it; and the number of instances in which his view of public questions became the view taken by history is remarkable. The Evening Post’s defense152 of trade unions, and of the abolitionists’ right to free use of the mails and to free speech, are memorable153 illustrations. Just before the Civil War began Bryant ran over in the Post a list of its measures, at first opposed by the majority, but later accepted351 as sound. It was for many years the only powerful journal north of the Potomac which pleaded for a low tariff. It resisted the internal improvement system, advocated the sub-treasury system, and defended the right of petition. It successfully opposed the assumption of State debts by the national government. It was one of the earliest and most earnest advocates of cheaper postage rates, already partly realized. When the Fugitive154 Slave law had been proposed, it had denounced it as an infringement155 of the rights of the States, though most Northerners regarded it with indifference156 or approbation157. As for the great slavery question in general, Bryant had already written just after Lincoln’s election:
We take this occasion to congratulate the old friends of the Evening Post, who have read it for the last score of years or thereabouts, on this new triumph of the principles which it maintains. The Wilmot Proviso is now consecrated158 as a part of the national public policy by this election; but earlier than the Wilmot Proviso was the opposition159 of our journal to the enlargement of slavery. It began with the first whisper of the scheme to annex160 Texas to the American union, and it has been steadily161 maintained from that moment till now, when the right and justice of our cause is proclaimed in a general election by the mighty162 voice of a larger part of thirty millions of people.
Freedom, democracy—to these two principles every utterance163 of the Evening Post in its fifty years under Bryant was referred. Other journals might think of the day only and let the morrow take care of itself, but he was solicitous164 that each issue should fit into the exposition of a policy good for the year and the decade. “He looked upon the journal which he conducted,” wrote his last managing editor, Robert Burch, “as a conscientious50 statesman looks upon the official trust which has been committed to him, or the work which he has undertaken—not with a view to do what is to be done to-day in the easiest or most brilliant way, but so to do it that it may tell upon what is to be done to-morrow, and all other days, until the worthiest165 object of journalism is achieved. This352 is the most useful journalism; and first and last, it is the most effective and influential166.”
In his method of work, combining remarkable efficiency with a remarkable amount of disorder167, Bryant was a true newspaper man. His desk, a large one used after him by Parke Godwin and Carl Schurz, was kept piled with litter—books, manuscripts, pamphlets, documents, and stranded168 memoranda169; a little square being left in the middle where he could place writing materials and do his work. Once when Bryant went to Europe, says Bigelow, “I thought, I am going to clean house, and I did, and found all sorts of old newspapers, old contributions, letters, etc., etc.” When the poet returned and saw his desk cleared, he demanded an explanation. Bigelow, giving it, perceived instantly that his little housecleaning had been an error. “I saw by his expression that I was trespassing170. He did not make any remark, but his silence was a very severe rebuke171. He did not like it at all that he could not have his old papers just as he had left them.” Indeed, he was attached to a large number of homely172 but familiar objects. Among these was a pen-knife with which he used to trim both his quill173 pen and his finger nails. He owned an old blue cotton umbrella that he always insisted upon carrying. When he was departing for Mexico, his daughter replaced it with a handsome new one, but he missed it and refused the exchange.
It was Bryant’s habit to write for the Post on the backs of circulars, letters received, and rejected manuscripts, for he held that it was shameful174 to waste the least scrap175 of useful material, since it represented men’s time and labor41. It is curious, in looking over his papers, to find what these scraps176 were; a letter to Lincoln, for example, was copied off from the back of a wine merchant’s circular, offering Mo?t champagne177 at $12 the case. Yet he was really the soul of carefulness. His copy often went up to the printer a mass of interlineations and corrections; he never sent a letter away without first making a rough draft. Throughout his life he made it a rule to write everything for the Post in the office, never at home, and353 even when an additional task was laid upon him, as when he wrote a sketch178 of the journal’s history in 1851, he refused to do it elsewhere. This was a wise husbanding of his nervous energy; but his family recalls that he and Parke Godwin often discussed the paper’s affairs at night.
No head of a newspaper was ever more considerate of his subordinates than Bryant, who had but one serious quarrel with an associate, and that was soon bridged over. Bigelow tells us that “he never rebuked179 me; he never criticized me.” In looking over Bigelow’s proofs, he would sometimes say, “Had not this word better be changed for that or the other? Does that phrase express all or more than you mean, or as clearly as you wish it to?” Even this gentle correction was rare. Another worker tells us that it was Bryant’s habit, whenever he wished to speak to any one in the office, to go to the desk of the man rather than call him in. When John R. Thompson, the Southern poet, became literary editor just after the Civil War, Bryant knew how ardently180 he had sympathized with the Confederacy, and personally saw that he was given no book to review that would hurt his feelings. We have noted how he refused to say a word against the inefficient181 business manager of the Post early in the fifties, though recognizing his incompetence182. He never wavered in his loyalty184 to Isaac Henderson when the latter was under fire in connection with Civil War contracts, and beyond doubt remained sincerely convinced that Henderson had done no wrong.
In the office, as outside of it, in fact, Bryant was a thorough democrat185. During his travels in England, while staying at the home of a business man, he was once invited to dine with a country gentleman near by, and accepted in the belief that, as a matter of course, his host had also been invited. When he learned that this was not true, and that his host, being in trade, never thought of entering the gentleman’s house, Bryant angrily canceled his acceptance. The incident made so disagreeable an impression upon him that be shortened his stay in the country. Similarly, when Dickens first visited New York,354 a rich old Knickerbocker who had never theretofore taken the slightest notice of Bryant asked him to his house to meet the young novelist; and Bryant declined; telling a friend that he would never be a stool-pigeon to attract fine birds of passage. In all relations with others Bryant thought of the man, not of his rank, money, or reputation. The poverty-stricken, invalid186 Thompson became one of the intimates of his home soon after he joined the Post, and the editor showed a much higher regard for the rugged head of the composing-room, Dithmar, than for many a general or millionaire. When the Post moved to its new building in 1875, Bryant rarely occupied the handsome office fitted up for him there, with its fine view of the harbor, preferring a humble chair and desk in a corner of the composing room upstairs, where he was free from boresome callers.
“In his intercourse187 with his co-laborers and subordinates,” wrote Parke Godwin, “the impression produced by Mr. Bryant, after a certain reticence188, which diffused189 an atmosphere of coldness about him, was broken through, was that of his extreme simplicity and sincerity190 of character. He was as transparent191 as the day, as guileless as a child, and as clear in his integrity as the crystal that has no flaw nor crack.” The coldness was but a mask, and Bryant’s own feelings often threw it off. Entering the office one day, he told in a self-accusing way how, walking down-town, he had smashed a kite that a small boy dragged across his face, without paying the urchin192 for it; he reproached himself deeply. George Cary Eggleston, who worked beside him three or four years, says that “I found him not only warm in his human sympathies, but even passionate193.” Sometimes he would do something almost boyish. Once he was standing194 by a form around which the printers were gathered, hurriedly preparing it for the press. A word was spoken which suggested some stanzas195 from Cowley, and Bryant, locking his hands before him, repeated the verses with remarkable force and expression, while the printers paused and listened. Then he recovered himself with a start, a355 look of embarrassment196 overspread his face, and—to change the subject—he turned to the casement197 around the elevator, tapped it, and said: “There is very little wood there to make trouble in case of fire.”
He was wont198 to impress upon his associates the desirability of acting199 as courteously200 toward men and women of the outside world as possible. Bigelow says that he used to cite the example of Dr. Bartlett, editor of the Albion, whose rule was “never to write anything of any one which would make it unpleasant to meet him the following day at dinner.” When Martin F. Tupper was about to visit the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, Eggleston wrote a playful editorial about him, which the managing editor received with some apprehension201, for he knew that Tupper had once entertained Bryant in England. It was decided202 to show Bryant the manuscript. The editor read it with evident amusement, but remarked: “I heartily203 wish you had printed this without saying a word to me about it, for then, when Mr. Tupper becomes my guest, as he will if he comes to America, I could have explained to him that the thing was done without my knowledge by one of the flippant young men of my staff. Now that you have brought the matter to my attention, I can make no excuse.” The article was not published.
He disliked to rebuff unwelcome visitors. “It is a positive fact,” writes the veteran dramatic editor of the Evening Post, Mr. J. Ranken Towse, “that he not infrequently preferred to escape them by passing through a back door opening into the composing room, and descending204 thence to the ground floor by means of the freight elevator. Sometimes he sent for me and asked me to rid him of the visitors. This I did easily and unscrupulously. Thus, in addition to my regular duties—I was then city editor—I became a sort of amateur Cerberus.” When the widow of John Hackett, a young woman of striking beauty but no stage experience, resolved to play Lady Macbeth, she visited the Post, and although Mr. Towse tried to dissuade205 her, she induced Bryant to make a half-promise to deliver an introductory speech at her first356 appearance. Bryant uneasily confessed this to Mr. Towse, who warned him plainly of the false position in which he would be left when her début proved a failure, as it was certain to do. When Mr. Towse offered to extricate206 him by dismissing Mrs. Hackett upon her next call, the poet eagerly assented207.
It should be said that Bryant could be very blunt on occasion, and had no hesitancy in offending those he disliked. There were some men to whom he would never speak. Thurlow Weed, who for a time edited the World, was one. Once when they were together at an evening party a friend insisted that he must be allowed to introduce them; finally Bryant half arose from his chair, and then sank back, saying, “Not yet—not yet!” When he concluded that a man in public life had done wrong, he followed him to the end of his career with unbending aversion. In the warfare208 over the United States Bank, he conceived a fierce hatred209 of Nicholas Biddle; and when Biddle died, far from taking a nil114 nisi bonum attitude, he expressed deep regret that he had not died in jail. His judgment so angered Philip Hone that he wrote of Bryant in his famous Diary as a “black-hearted misanthrope,” saying: “This is the first instance I have known of the vampire210 of party spirit seizing the lifeless body of its victim before its interment, and exhibiting its bloody claws to the view of mourning relatives.” As well expect honey from the rattle-snake as poetry from such a man, he added.
It must also be remembered that Bryant was always severely211 dignified212. If he never commanded a subordinate to do anything, but always requested it, he knew that his request was a command. He always addressed others with the prefix119 “Mr.,” and no one, not even Bigelow or his son-in-law Parke Godwin, omitted the word in addressing him. When Dom Pedro of Brazil visited the Evening Post, Bryant did not greet the popular Emperor in the hall, but waited to receive him at his desk; and he called a junior to show Dom Pedro the press room.
A certain testiness213 grew upon the editor in his later357 years, though it was never more than momentary214. He was especially sensitive to any suggestion that he was losing his bodily vigor. Not only would he climb the stairs to his ninth-floor office, but he would now and then seize the frame of his door, and show his ability to “chin” it repeatedly. Once, when he fell in Broadway, he sharply rebuffed a gentleman who stepped up and asked, “Are you hurt, Mr. Bryant?”—and he was a little ashamed of it later. Mr. Towse once saw him consulting the city directory, his face showing plainly that the print was too fine for his eyes. Forgetting Bryant’s pride in using no spectacles, he inquired, “Cannot I help you, Mr. Bryant?” The poet instantly rejoined, “No, sir!” with the angry tone of an insulted man, flung the book on a table, and walked swiftly from the room. Mr. Towse also tells us that if you asked Bryant a question, you were wise to accept his answer as final. “I was not long in finding that out. There had been an argument over the correct spelling of the word ‘peddler.’ As he was at his desk, I referred the matter to him. ‘I shall have to write it,’ he said, ‘to make sure. It is often only by the look of it that I can decide whether a word is rightly spelled.’ He wrote the word in several ways and finally selected the form in which I have given it. I thanked him and asked him whether either of the other spellings was permissible215. He turned on me like a flash and said angrily, ‘I thought you asked me how to spell it?’”
Such incidents were an evidence of Bryant’s increasing age. Though he lived to be eighty-three, he gave his strength to the Evening Post till the very day he was stricken down. The only sustained series of editorials which he wrote after his final visit to Europe in 1867 was a series upon reciprocity in trade, but he still contributed many occasional leaders upon questions of the day. He was accustomed to come down in the morning, and whether he wrote an editorial or not, to read all the proofs with care and frequently to make heavy corrections. “He would pass through the editorial rooms with358 a cheery good morning,” says Eggleston; “he would sit down by one’s desk and talk if there was aught to talk about; or, if asked a question while passing, would stand while answering it, and frequently would relate some anecdote216 suggested by the question or offer some apt quotation.” Hawthorne, who had seen him abroad, spoke of him as “at once alert and infirm,” and with “a weary look upon his face, as if he were tired of seeing things and doing things, though with certainly enough energy still to see and do, if need were.” Yet the vigor and fire with which he treated topics of the day, if they seemed really pressing topics to him, was not a whit3 abated217.
It is the testimony218 of more than one co-worker that his last day in the office, the day he delivered the address at the unveiling of the Mazzini statue, showed him worn and depressed219. He went into Eggleston’s room, and asked the latter’s opinion upon two poems sent him by an acquaintance. Eggleston said they were poor stuff. “I supposed so,” Bryant said sadly; “and now I suppose I shall have to write to her on the subject. People expect too much of me—altogether too much.” He chatted also with Watson R. Sperry, the managing editor, who procured220 a book of reference from the Evening Post library for him. He was as tranquil221 and physically222 as strong as ever, but there was a tension in his voice. Finally, says Sperry, “he said to me that it was quite unfair to ask a man of his age to make a public address. There was a petulance223 and a pathos224 in his tone which I had never heard before.” A few hours later, after speaking bareheaded in the sun, he collapsed225 on the steps of Gen. James Wilson’s home.
Bryant’s work for the Post must not be thought of as consisting wholly of editorial writing and management. He filled literally226 hundreds of its columns with his letters of travel, which covered each of his six trips to Europe, and his tours to the South and the Northwest, and which ultimately were collected into three volumes. The letters are not literature, but good journalism. Bigelow once wrote Bryant that “they are very much liked by the class—of359 course, not the largest—who can appreciate them, and are of great value to the paper. I like them none the less because they are very different from the style of correspondence which ordinarily finds its way into newspapers from abroad.” By this Bigelow meant that they did not depend upon important events, adventure, or gossip. Their interest lay in a careful observation of scenery and society which often caused them to be widely copied. In the early days the poet wrote reviews and reports of important lectures. His signed poems in the Post did not aggregate227 a dozen, but they were supplemented by unsigned light verse, of which a good specimen21 is the poem on “Bully228” Brooks229, Sumner’s assailant, to be found in Godwin’s biography (II, 92). Brooks had been challenged to a duel in Canada by Anson Burlingame:
To Canada, Brooks was asked to go;
To waste of powder a pound or so;
He sighed as he answered, No, no, no,
They might take my life on the way, you know.
For I am afraid, afraid, afraid,
Bully Brooks is afraid....
Bryant reaped a generous material reward for his labors—the Evening Post made him by far the richest poet the country has had. He possessed230 a competence183 and more by 1860, for he had shared equally with Bigelow in profits that enabled the latter, after only twelve years with the paper, to retire worth more than $175,000. The Post’s business history in the Civil War is summarized in the statement that its dividends231 reached 80 per cent. upon the capital invested, and that at the close of the struggle its value was commonly estimated at $1,000,000.
It made Bryant, with Parke Godwin and Isaac Henderson, wealthy while some other New York journals were scarcely paying expenses. The Tribune in October, 1861, said that the circulation of American dailies was larger than ever, but many had been forced into bankruptcy232. “We doubt that a single daily in this city has paid its360 expenses throughout the last four months, or that a dozen in the union have done so.” The receipts of the Tribune in 1864 were $747,501, and its expenses were $735,751, the nominal233 profit not sufficing to pay for the depreciation234 of the plant. The chief reason for the embarrassment of the morning papers was the enormous cost of paper, especially as the war neared its close. The Tribune’s paper bill during 1864 was $426,000, whereas in 1861 it would not have been more than $200,000 for the same circulation. In the space of only four months, April to July, 1864, the combination of paper-makers in the Eastern States advanced the price from fifteen cents a pound to twenty-seven cents. The Times in 1863 imported paper from Belgium at seven and a half cents. The position of the Post was fortunate in that it used much less paper than the Herald or Tribune—it was still a four-page paper, while they had eight or twelve pages, though of course smaller—while at the beginning of the war it charged three cents a copy, and they only two. Later the prices of all the journals advanced; the Evening Post in 1862 going to four cents a copy and from $9 a year to $10, and in 1864 to five cents a copy and $12 a year.
Just how high the war-time circulation became we do not know. In April, 1861, it exceeded 20,000, and it steadily increased, the demand growing so heavy the first battle summer that whenever important news came it was necessary to issue many copies printed on one side of the sheet alone. To obviate235 this, in 1862 the journal installed “the largest and most efficient eight-cylinder newspaper press that has ever been constructed,” at a cost of nearly $50,000. We know that in 1864 the total revenue from sales and subscriptions236 of the daily reached $250,000. Advertising, moreover, had become so extensive that frequently six pages instead of four had to be printed, and they had swollen237 to enormous size. All of the evening papers were still “blanket sheets,” and one or two morning papers, the most prominent being the Sun, long remained so. At the close of the war the dimensions of361 the unfolded Evening Post were 30? by 52 inches—it was not a journal for use in such subways as the Evening Post was already advocating. No newspaper so large, the Post boasted, had ever attained so wide a circulation. Huge as it was, and devoting from 20 to 25 of its 40 columns to advertising, it had constantly to exclude advertisements. The advertising receipts of the Herald in 1865 reached $662,192; of the Tribune, $301,841; of the Times, $284,412; and of the Evening Post, which stood high above the World or Sun, and easily led the evening papers, $222,715.
Bryant, who in the late thirties would probably have sold his interest in the Post for a few thousands clear, thus by 1866 had grown rich far beyond any wish or expectation on his part. He lived very simply; a man who would rather walk than drive, who preferred oatmeal to any procurable238 dainty, and whose most lavish239 entertainment was to have the Rev. Dr. Henry Bellows240 or some other well-loved friend spend a week-end at Roslyn, could not do otherwise. The chief outward signs of his wealth were that he acquired, besides his little estate at Roslyn, a town house, and the ancestral homestead at Cummington, Mass.; while he unostentatiously gave large sums in charity. President Mark Hopkins of Williams College, acknowledging a check from Bryant, wrote that it was a queer world in which poets were able to be lavish philanthropists. It was because of his large gifts that he was able to contradict with some asperity241 a stranger who wrote him criticizing his tariff views, and denouncing him as a plutocrat because he was said to be worth more than $500,000. Bryant replied, in a hitherto unpublished note:
I am as much for free trade as yourself. The Evening Post has been all along known as an advocate for absolute free trade between nations, and for the support of government by direct taxation242. But as the state of public opinion leaves no hope of this, the Evening Post for the present co?perates with those who seek a reduction of the tariff to a simple revenue standard with no view leading to protection. That is as much as we can now get and362 the Evening Post is for taking it. As we cannot go by a single jump from the bottom of the stairs to the top, we take the first step.
Your estimate of the property I possess is greatly exaggerated. You intimate that I ought to be a second Zaccheus. How do you know I am not? You have no knowledge of how much of my income, such as it is, goes to public objects, and to the poor. Nor is it my business to inform you. I have for the greater part of my life been in narrow circumstances, yet never repined on that account, and although I have been prospering243 of late, it is not my fault, for I never made haste to be rich. You see therefore that you have administered reproof244 without knowing, or probably caring, whether there was any occasion for it or not. (Dec. 14, 1870.)
Bryant began his journalistic career in poverty and discouragement, his literary friends jeering245 at him for exchanging the dignified profession of the law for the jangling, vulgar newspaper calling. He made it pay richly in money, and above all in honor and influence. No man of his time did more, and only three, Greeley, Raymond, and the elder Bowles, did so much, to elevate the press in public esteem. “If our newspapers have risen above the level on which they stood when Dickens and Trollope held them up to the scorn of Europe,” said the Brooklyn Times when he died, “it is because they have been wise enough to profit by the lesson set by William Cullen Bryant.” He had often crossed pens with the Journal of Commerce and the World. The former spoke of him as “an editor whose example has been uniformly ennobling,” and said that “journalism will never improve so much that it may not safely pattern by Bryant.” “His long and honorable career,” said the latter, “had put into his hands that mysterious influence called weight of character.” Not a few journals, like the Philadelphia Ledger246, and some individuals, like John D. Van Buren, ranked the editor above the poet.
When George W. Curtis delivered his commemorative address in New York before an audience which included President Hayes and members of his Cabinet, he paid his warmest tribute to Bryant as the journalist. “The fact363 is no such man ever sat before or since in the editorial chair,” a critic has just written in the Cambridge History of American Literature; “in no other has there been such culture, scholarship, wisdom, dignity, moral idealism. Was it all in Greeley? In Dana? What those fifty years may have meant as an influence on the American press ... the layman247 may only guess.”
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ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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hoary
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| adj.古老的；鬓发斑白的 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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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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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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disdaining
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| 鄙视( disdain的现在分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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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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discourses
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| 论文( discourse的名词复数 )； 演说； 讲道； 话语 | |
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dedication
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| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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enquirer
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| 寻问者，追究者 | |
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patriotic
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| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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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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chancellor
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| n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长 | |
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hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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subscriber
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| n.用户，订户；（慈善机关等的）定期捐款者；预约者；签署者 | |
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reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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twitches
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| n.（使）抽动， （使）颤动， （使）抽搐( twitch的名词复数 ) | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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prostrate
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| v.拜倒，平卧，衰竭；adj.拜倒的，平卧的，衰竭的 | |
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zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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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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42
labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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fluctuations
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| 波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 ) | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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meting
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| v.（对某人）施以，给予（处罚等）( mete的现在分词 ) | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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vegetarian
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| n.素食者；adj.素食的 | |
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56
grits
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| n.粗磨粉；粗面粉；粗燕麦粉；粗玉米粉；细石子，砂粒等( grit的名词复数 )；勇气和毅力v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的第三人称单数 )；咬紧牙关 | |
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57
interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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58
rambles
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| （无目的地）漫游( ramble的第三人称单数 )； （喻）漫谈； 扯淡； 长篇大论 | |
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59
pruning
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| n.修枝，剪枝，修剪v.修剪（树木等）( prune的现在分词 )；精简某事物，除去某事物多余的部分 | |
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60
rumored
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| adj.传说的，谣传的v.传闻( rumor的过去式和过去分词 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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61
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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62
presidency
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| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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63
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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64
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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65
nomination
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| n.提名，任命，提名权 | |
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66
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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67
economist
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| n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人 | |
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68
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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69
tariff
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| n.关税，税率；(旅馆、饭店等)价目表，收费表 | |
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70
commentator
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| n.注释者，解说者；实况广播评论员 | |
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71
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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72
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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73
preamble
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| n.前言；序文 | |
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74
redeemed
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| adj. 可赎回的，可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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75
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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76
duels
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| n.两男子的决斗( duel的名词复数 )；竞争，斗争 | |
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77
duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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78
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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79
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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80
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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81
assailed
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| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
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82
plebeian
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| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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83
repelled
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| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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84
scurrilous
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| adj.下流的，恶意诽谤的 | |
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85
curt
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| adj.简短的，草率的 | |
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86
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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87
illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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88
pending
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| prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的 | |
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89
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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90
complimentary
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| adj.赠送的，免费的，赞美的，恭维的 | |
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91
herald
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| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
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92
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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93
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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94
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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95
lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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96
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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97
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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98
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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99
dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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100
conversant
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| adj.亲近的，有交情的，熟悉的 | |
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101
blemishes
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| n.（身体的）瘢点( blemish的名词复数 )；伤疤；瑕疵；污点 | |
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102
condemning
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的现在分词 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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103
immature
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| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
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104
inflated
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| adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨 | |
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105
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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106
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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107
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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108
aspirant
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| n.热望者；adj.渴望的 | |
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109
devouring
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| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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110
enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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111
endorse
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| vt.(支票、汇票等)背书，背署；批注；同意 | |
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112
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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113
juvenile
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| n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的 | |
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114
nil
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| n.无，全无，零 | |
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115
lengthy
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| adj.漫长的，冗长的 | |
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116
leniency
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| n.宽大（不严厉） | |
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117
ovation
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| n.欢呼，热烈欢迎，热烈鼓掌 | |
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118
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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119
prefix
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| n.前缀；vt.加…作为前缀；置于前面 | |
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120
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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121
repudiate
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| v.拒绝，拒付，拒绝履行 | |
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122
query
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| n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑 | |
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123
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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124
fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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125
diffuse
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| v.扩散；传播；adj.冗长的；四散的，弥漫的 | |
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126
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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127
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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128
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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129
distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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130
incisiveness
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| n.敏锐，深刻 | |
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131
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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132
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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133
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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134
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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135
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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136
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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137
bereaved
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| adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物） | |
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138
renown
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| n.声誉，名望 | |
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139
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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140
pristine
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| adj.原来的，古时的，原始的，纯净的，无垢的 | |
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141
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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142
disdained
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| 鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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143
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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144
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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145
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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146
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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147
prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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148
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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149
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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150
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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151
incur
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| vt.招致，蒙受，遭遇 | |
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152
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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153
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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154
fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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155
infringement
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| n.违反；侵权 | |
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156
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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157
approbation
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| n.称赞；认可 | |
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158
consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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159
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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160
annex
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| vt.兼并，吞并；n.附属建筑物 | |
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161
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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162
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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163
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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164
solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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165
worthiest
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| 应得某事物( worthy的最高级 )； 值得做某事； 可尊敬的； 有（某人或事物）的典型特征 | |
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166
influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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167
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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168
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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169
memoranda
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| n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式 | |
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170
trespassing
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| [法]非法入侵 | |
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171
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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172
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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173
quill
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| n.羽毛管；v.给（织物或衣服）作皱褶 | |
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174
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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175
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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176
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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177
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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178
sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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179
rebuked
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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180
ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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181
inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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182
incompetence
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| n.不胜任，不称职 | |
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competence
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| n.能力，胜任，称职 | |
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184
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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185
democrat
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
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186
invalid
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| n.病人，伤残人；adj.有病的，伤残的；无效的 | |
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187
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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188
reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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189
diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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190
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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191
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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urchin
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| n.顽童；海胆 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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194
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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195
stanzas
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| 节，段( stanza的名词复数 ) | |
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196
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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197
casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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198
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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199
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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200
courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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201
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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203
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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204
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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205
dissuade
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| v.劝阻，阻止 | |
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206
extricate
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| v.拯救，救出；解脱 | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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208
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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vampire
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| n.吸血鬼 | |
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211
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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testiness
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| n.易怒，暴躁 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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218
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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petulance
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| n.发脾气，生气，易怒，暴躁，性急 | |
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224
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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225
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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226
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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227
aggregate
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| adj.总计的，集合的；n.总数；v.合计；集合 | |
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228
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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230
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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231
dividends
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| 红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金 | |
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232
bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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233
nominal
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| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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234
depreciation
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| n.价值低落，贬值，蔑视，贬低 | |
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235
obviate
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| v.除去，排除，避免，预防 | |
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236
subscriptions
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| n.（报刊等的）订阅费( subscription的名词复数 )；捐款；（俱乐部的）会员费；捐助 | |
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237
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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238
procurable
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| adj.可得到的，得手的 | |
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239
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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240
bellows
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| n.风箱；发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的名词复数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的第三人称单数 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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241
asperity
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| n.粗鲁，艰苦 | |
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242
taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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243
prospering
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的现在分词 ) | |
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244
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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245
jeering
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| adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 ) | |
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246
ledger
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| n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿 | |
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247
layman
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| n.俗人，门外汉，凡人 | |
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