The English novelist would, I imagine, even sometimes be led on to finding that he has practically had to meet such an overhauling8 by a further admission, though an admission still tacit and showing him not a little shy of the whole discussion—principles and formulas being in general, as we know, but little his affair. Would he not, if off his guard, have been in peril9 of lapsing10 into the doctrine—suicidal when reflected upon—that there may be also an a priori rule, a “Thou shalt not,” if not a “Thou shalt,” as to treatable subjects themselves? Then it would be that his alien foe11 might fairly revel12 in the sense of having him in a corner, laughing an evil laugh to hear him plead in explanation that it is exactly most as to the subject to be treated that he feels the need laid upon him to conform. What is he to do when he has an idea to embody13, we might suspect him rashly to inquire, unless, frankly14 to ask himself in the first place of all if it be proper? Not indeed—we catch the reservation—that he is consciously often accessible to ideas for which that virtue15 may not be claimed. Naturally, however, still, such a plea only brings forth16 for his interlocutor a repetition of the original appeal: “Proper to what?” There is only one propriety7 the painter of life can ask of his morsel17 of material: Is it, or is it not, of the stuff of life? So, in simplified terms at any rate, I seem to hear the interchange; to which I need listen no longer than thus to have derived18 from it a word of support for my position. The question of our possible rejoinder to the scorn of societies otherwise affected19 I must leave for some other connection. The point is—if point I may expect to obtain any countenance20 to its being called—that, in spite of our great Dickens and, in a minor21 degree, of our great George Eliot, the limitations of our practice are elsewhere than among ourselves pretty well held to have put us out of court. The thing least conceded to us moreover is that we handle at all frankly—if we put forward such a claim—even our own subject-matter or in other words our own life. “Your own is all we want of you, all we should like to see. But that your system really touches your own is exactly what we deny. Never, never!” For what it really comes to is that practically we, of all people in the world, are accused of a system. Call this system a conspiracy22 of silence, and the whole charge is upon us.
The fact of the silence, whether or no of the system, is fortunately all that at present concerns us. Did this not happen to be the case nothing could be more interesting, I think, than to follow somewhat further several of the bearings of the matter, which would bring us face to face with some wonderful and, I hasten to add, by no means doubtless merely disconcerting truths about ourselves. It has been given us to read a good deal, in these latter days, about l’ame Fran?aise and l’ame Russe—and with the result, in all probability, of our being rather less than more penetrated24 with the desire, in emulation25 of these opportunities, to deliver ourselves upon the English or the American soul. There would appear to be nothing we are totally conscious of that we are less eager to reduce to the mere23 expressible, to hand over to publicity26, current journalistic prose aiding, than either of these fine essence; and yet incontestably there are neighbourhoods in which we feel ourselves within scent27 and reach of them by something of the same sense that in thick forests serves the hunter of great game. He may not quite touch the precious presence, but he knows when it is near. So somehow we know that the “Anglo-Saxon” soul, the modern at least, is not far off when we frankly consider the practice of our race—comparatively recent though it be—in taking for granted the “innocence28” of literature.
Our perhaps a trifle witless way of expressing our conception of this innocence and our desire for it is, characteristically enough, by taking refuge in another vagueness, by invoking29 the allowances that we understand works of imagination and of criticism to make to the “young.” I know not whether it has ever officially been stated for us that, given the young, given literature, and given, under stress, the need of sacrificing one or the other party, it is not certainly by our sense of “style” that our choice would be determined30: no great art in the reading of signs and symptoms is at all events required for a view of our probable instinct in such a case. That instinct, however, has too many deep things in it to be briefly31 or easily disposed of, and there would be no greater mistake than to attempt too simple an account of it. The account most likely to be given by a completely detached critic would be that we are as a race better equipped for action than for thought, and that to let the art of expression go by the board is through that very fact to point to the limits of what we mostly have to express. If we accept such a report we shall do so, I think, rather from a strong than from a weak sense of what may easily be made of it; but I glance at these things only as at objects almost too flooded with light, and come back after my parenthesis32 to what more immediately concerns me: the plain reflection that, if the elements of compromise—compromise with fifty of the “facts of life”—be the common feature of the novel of English speech, so it is mainly indebted for this character to the sex comparatively without a feeling for logic34.
Nothing is at any rate a priori more natural than to trace a connection between our general mildness, as it may conveniently be called, and the fact that we are likewise so generally feminine. Is the English novel “proper” because it is so much written by women, or is it only so much written by women because its propriety has been so firmly established? The intimate relation is on either determination all that is here pertinent35—effect and cause may be left to themselves. What is further pertinent, as happens, is that on a near view the relation is not constant; by which I mean that, though the ladies are always productive, the fashion of mildness is not always the same. Convention in short has its ups and downs, and these votaries36 have of late years, I think, been as often seen weltering in the hollow of the wave as borne aloft on its crest37. Some of them may even be held positively38 to have distinguished39 themselves most—whether or no in veils of anonymity—on the occasion of the downward movement; making us really wonder if their number might not fairly, under any steadier force of such a movement, be counted on to increase. All sorts of inquiries40 are suggested in truth by the sight. “Emancipations” are in the air, and may it not possibly be that we shall see two of the most striking coincide? If convention has, to the tune41 to which I just invited an ear, blighted42 our fiction, what shall we say of its admitted, its still more deprecated and in so many quarters even deplored43, effect upon the great body under the special patronage44 of which the “output” has none the less insisted on becoming incomparably copious45? Since the general inaptitude of women appears by this time triumphantly46 to have been proved an assumption particularly hollow, despoiled47 more and more each day of the last tatters of its credit, why should not the new force thus liberated48 really, in the connection I indicate, give something of its measure?
It is at any rate keeping within bounds to say that the novel will surely not become less free in proportion as the condition of women becomes more easy. It is more or less in deference49 to their constant concern with it that we have seen it, among ourselves, pick its steps so carefully; but there are indications that the future may reserve us the surprise of having to thank the very class whose supposed sensibilities have most oppressed us for teaching it not only a longer stride, but a healthy indifference50 to an occasional splash. It is for instance only of quite recent years that the type of fiction commonly identified as the “sexual” has achieved—for purposes of reference, so far as notices in newspapers may be held to constitute reference—a salience variously estimated. Now therefore, though it is early to say that all “imaginative work” from the female hand is subject to this description, there is assuredly none markedly so subject that is not from the female hand. The female mind has in fact throughout the competition carried off the prize in the familiar game, known to us all from childhood’s hour, of playing at “grown-up;” finding thus its opportunity, with no small acuteness, in the more and more marked tendency of the mind of the other gender52 to revert53, alike in the grave and the gay, to those simplicities54 which there would appear to be some warrant for pronouncing puerile55. It is the ladies in a word who have lately done most to remind us of man’s relations with himself, that is with woman. His relations with the pistol, the pirate, the police, the wild and the tame beast—are not these prevailingly what the gentlemen have given us? And does not the difference sufficiently56 point my moral?
Let me, however, not seem to have gone too far afield to seek it; for my reflections—general perhaps to excess—closely connect themselves with a subject to which they are quite ready to yield in interest. I have lately been giving a happy extension to an old acquaintance, dating from early in the eighties, with the striking romantic work of Matilde Serao; a writer who, apart from other successes, has the excellent effect, the sign of the stronger few, that the end of her story is, for her reader, never the end of her work. On thus recently returning to her I have found in her something much more to my present purpose than the mere appearance of power and ease. If she is interesting largely because she is, in the light of her free, her extraordinary Neapolitan temperament57, a vivid painter and a rich register of sensations and impressions, she is still more so as an exceptionally compact and suggestive case, a case exempt58 from interference and presenting itself with a beautiful unconsciousness. She has had the good fortune—if it be, after all, not the ill—to develop in an air in which convention, in our invidious sense, has had as little to say to her as possible; and she is accordingly a precious example of the possibilities of free exercise. The questions of the proper and the improper59 are comfortably far from her; and though more than in the line of her sisters of English speech she may have to reckon with prescriptions60 as to form—a burden at which in truth she snaps her fingers with an approach to impertinence—she moves in a circle practically void of all pre-judgment as to subject and matter. Conscious enough, doubtless, of a literary law to be offended, and caring little in fact, I repeat—for it is her weakness—what wrong it may suffer, she has not even the agreeable incentive61 of an ability to calculate the “moral” shocks she may administer.
Practically chartered then she is further happy—since they both minister to ease—in two substantial facts: she is a daughter of the veritable south and a product of the contemporary newspaper. A Neapolitan by birth and a journalist by circumstance, by marriage and in some degree doubtless also by inclination62, she strikes for us from the first the note of facility and spontaneity and the note of initiation63 and practice. Concerned, through her husband, in the conduct of a Neapolitan morning paper, of a large circulation and a radical64 colour, she has, as I infer, produced her novels and tales mainly in such snatches of time and of inspiration as have been left her by urgent day-to-day journalism65. They distinctly betray, throughout, the conditions of their birth—so little are they to the literary sense children of maturity66 and leisure. On the question of style in a foreign writer it takes many contributive lights to make us sure of our ground; but I feel myself on the safe side in conceiving that this lady, full of perception and vibration67, can not only not figure as a purist, but must be supposed throughout, in spite of an explosive eloquence68, to pretend but little to distinction of form: which for an Italian is a much graver predicament than for one of our shapeless selves. That, however, would perhaps pass for a small quarrel with a writer, or rather with a talker and—for it is what one must most insist on—a feeler, of Matilde Serao’s remarkable69 spontaneity. Her Neapolitan nature is by itself a value, to whatever literary lapses70 it may minister. A torch kindled71 at that flame can be but freely waved, and our author’s arm has a fine action. Loud, loquacious72, abundant, natural, happy, with luxurious73 insistences on the handsome, the costly74 and the fleshly, the fine persons and fine clothes of her characters, their satin and velvet75, their bracelets76, rings, white waistcoats, general appointments and bedroom furniture, with almost as many repetitions and as free a tongue, in short, as Juliet’s nurse, she reflects at every turn the wonderful mixture that surrounds her—the beauty, the misery77, the history, the light and noise and dust, the prolonged paganism and the renewed reactions, the great style of the distant and the past and the generally compromised state of the immediate33 and the near. These things were all in the germ for the reader of her earlier novels—they have since only gathered volume and assurance—so that I well remember the impression made on me, when the book was new (my copy, apparently78 of the first edition, bears the date of 1885), by the rare energy, the immense disinvoltura, of “La Conquista di Roma.” This was my introduction to the author, in consequence of which I immediately read “Fantasia” and the “Vita e Avventure di Riccardo Joanna,” with some smaller pieces; after which, interrupted but not detached, I knew nothing more till, in the course of time, I renewed acquaintance on the ground of “Il Paese di Cuccagna,” then, however, no longer in its first freshness. That work set me straightway to reading everything else I could lay hands on, and I think therefore that, save “Il Ventre di Napoli” and two or three quite recent productions that I have not met, there is nothing from our author that I have not mastered. Such as I find her in everything, she remains79 above all things the signal “case.”
If, however, she appears, as I am bound to note, not to have kept the full promise of her early energy, this is because it has suited her to move less in the direction—where so much might have awaited her—of “Riccardo Joanna” and “La Conquista” than in that, on the whole less happily symptomatic, of “Fantasia.” “Fantasia” is, before all else, a study of “passion,” or rather of the intenser form of that mystery which the Italian passione better expresses; and I hasten to confess that had she not so marked herself an exponent of this specialty81 I should probably not now be writing of her. I conceive none the less that it would have been open to her to favour more that side of her great talent of which the so powerful “Paese di Cuccagna” is the strongest example. There is by good fortune in this large miscellaneous picture of Neapolitan life no passione save that of the observer curiously82 and pityingly intent upon it, that of the artist resolute83 at any cost to embrace and reproduce it. Admirably, easily, convincingly objective, the thing is a sustained panorama84, a chronicle of manners finding its unity51 in one recurrent note, that of the consuming lottery-hunger which constitutes the joy, the curse, the obsession85 and the ruin, according to Matilde Serao, of her fellow-citizens. Her works are thus divided by a somewhat unequal line, those on one side of which the critic is tempted86 to accuse her of having not altogether happily sacrificed to those on the other. When she for the most part invokes87 under the name of passione the main explanation of the mortal lot it is to follow the windings88 of this clue in the upper walks of life, to haunt the aristocracy, to embrace the world of fashion, to overflow89 with clothes, jewels and promiscuous90 intercourse91, all to the proportionate eclipse of her strong, full vision of the more usually vulgar. “La Conquista” is the story of a young deputy who comes up to the Chamber92, from the Basilicata, with a touching93 candour of ambition and a perilous94 ignorance of the pitfalls95 of capitals. His dream is to conquer Rome, but it is by Rome naturally that he is conquered. He alights on his political twig96 with a flutter of wings, but has reckoned in his innocence without the strong taste in so many quarters for sport; and it is with a charge of shot in his breast and a drag of his pinions97 in the dust that he takes his way back to mediocrity, obscurity and the parent nest. It is from the ladies—as was indeed even from the first to be expected with Serao—that he receives his doom98; passione is in these pages already at the door and soon arrives; passione rapidly enough passes its sponge over everything not itself.
In “Cuore Infermo,” in “Addio Amore,” in “Il Castigo,” in the two volumes of “Gli Amanti” and in various other pieces this effacement99 is so complete that we see the persons concerned but in the one relation, with every other circumstance, those of concurrent100 profession, possession, occupation, connection, interest, amusement, kinship, utterly102 superseded103 and obscured. Save in the three or four books I have named as exceptional the figures evoked104 are literally105 professional lovers, “available,” as the term is, for passione alone: which is the striking sign, as I shall presently indicate, of the extremity106 in which her enjoyment107 of the freedom we so often have to envy has strangely landed our author. “Riccardo Joanna,” which, like “La Conquista,” has force, humour and charm, sounding with freshness the note of the general life, is such a picture of certain of the sordid108 conditions of Italian journalism as, if I may trust my memory without re-perusal, sharply and pathetically imposes itself. I recall “Fantasia” on the other hand as wholly passione—all concentration and erotics, the latter practised in this instance, as in “Addio Amore,” with extreme cruelty to the “good” heroine, the person innocent and sacrificed; yet this volume too contributes its part in the retrospect109 to that appearance of marked discipleship110 which was one of the original sources of my interest. Nothing could more have engaged one’s attention in these matters at that moment than the fresh phenomenon of a lady-novelist so confessedly flushed with the influence of émile Zola. Passing among ourselves as a lurid111 warning even to workers of his own sex, he drew a new grace from the candid112 homage—all implied and indirect, but, as I refigure my impression, not the less unmistakable—of that half of humanity which, let alone attempting to follow in his footsteps, was not supposed even to turn his pages. There is an episode in “Fantasia”—a scene in which the relations of the hero and the “bad” heroine are strangely consolidated113 by a visit together to a cattle-show—in which the courage of the pupil has but little to envy the breadth of the master. The hot day and hot hour, the heavy air and the strong smells, the great and small beasts, the action on the sensibilities of the lady and the gentleman of the rich animal life, the collapse114 indeed of the lady in the presence of the prize bull—all these are touches for which luckily our author has the warrant of a greater name. The general picture, in “Fantasia,” of the agricultural exhibition at Caserta is in fact not the worse at any point for a noticeable echo of more than one French model. Would the author have found so full an occasion in it without a fond memory of the immortal115 Cornices of “Madame Bovary”?
These, however, are minor questions—pertinent only as connecting themselves with the more serious side of her talent. We may rejoice in such a specimen116 of it as is offered by the too brief series of episodes of “The Romance of the Maiden117.” These things, dealing118 mainly with the small miseries119 of small folk, have a palpable truth, and it is striking that, to put the matter simply, Madame Serao is at her best almost in direct proportion as her characters are poor. By poor I mean literally the reverse of rich; for directly they are rich and begin, as the phrase is, to keep their carriage, her taste totters120 and lapses, her style approximates at moments to that of the ladies who do the fashions and the letters from the watering-places in the society papers. She has acutely and she renders with excellent breadth the sense of benighted121 lives, of small sordid troubles, of the general unhappy youthful (on the part of her own sex at least) and the general more or less starved plebeian122 consciousness. The degree to which it testifies to all this is one of the great beauties of “Il Paese di Cuccagna,” even if the moral of that dire80 picture be simply that in respect to the gaming-passion, the madness of “numbers,” no walk of life at Naples is too high or too low to be ravaged123. Beautiful, in “Il Romanzo della Fanciulla,” are the exhibitions of grinding girl-life in the big telegraph office and in the State normal school. The gem125 of “Gli Amanti” is the tiny tale of “Vicenzella,” a masterpiece in twenty small pages—the vision of what three or four afternoon hours could contain for a slip of a creature of the Naples waterside, a poor girl who picks up a living by the cookery and sale, on the edge of a parapet, of various rank dismembered polyps of the southern sea, and who is from stage to stage despoiled of the pence she patiently pockets for them by the successive small emissaries of her artful, absent lover, constantly faithless, occupied, not too far off, in regaling a lady of his temporary preference, and proportionately clamorous126 for fresh remittances127. The moment and the picture are but a scrap128, yet they are as large as life.
“Canituccia,” in “Piccole Anime,” may happily pair with “Vicenzella,” Canituccia being simply the humble129 rustic130 guardian131, in field and wood—scarce more than a child—of the still more tender Ciccotto; and Ciccotto being a fine young pink-and-white pig, an animal of endowments that lead, after he has had time to render infatuated his otherwise quite solitary132 and joyless friend, to his premature133 conversion134 into bacon. She assists, helplessly silent, staring, almost idiotic135, from a corner of the cabin-yard, by night and lamplight, in the presence of gleaming knives and steaming pots and bloody136 tubs, at the sacrifice that deprives her of all company, and nothing can exceed the homely137 truth of the touch that finally rounds off the scene and for which I must refer my reader to the volume. Let me further not fail to register my admiration138 for the curious cluster of scenes that, in “Il Romanzo,” bears the title of “Nella Lava139.” Here frankly, I take it, we have the real principle of “naturalism”—a consistent presentment of the famous “slice of life.” The slices given us—slices of shabby hungry maidenhood140 in small cockney circles—are but sketchily141 related to the volcanic142 catastrophe143 we hear rumbling144 behind them, the undertone of all the noise of Naples; but they have the real artistic145 importance of showing us how little “story” is required to hold us when we get, before the object evoked and in the air created, the impression of the real thing. Whatever thing—interesting inference—has but effectively to be real to constitute in itself story enough. There is no story without it, none that is not rank humbug146; whereas with it the very desert blooms.
This last-named phenomenon takes place, I fear, but in a minor degree in such of our author’s productions as “Cuore Infermo,” “Addio Amore,” “Il Castigo” and the double series of “Gli Amanti”; and for a reason that I the more promptly147 indicate as it not only explains, I think, the comparative inanity148 of these pictures, but does more than anything else to reward our inquiry149. The very first reflection suggested by Serao’s novels of “passion” is that they perfectly150 meet our speculation151 as to what might with a little time become of our own fiction were our particular convention suspended. We see so what, on its actual lines, does, what has, become of it, and are so sated with the vision that a little consideration of the latent other chance will surely but refresh us. The effect then, we discover, of the undertaking152 to give passione its whole place is that by the operation of a singular law no place speedily appears to be left for anything else; and the effect of that in turn is greatly to modify, first, the truth of things, and second, with small delay, what may be left them of their beauty. We find ourselves wondering after a little whether there may not really be more truth in the world misrepresented according to our own familiar fashion than in such a world as that of Madame Serao’s exuberant153 victims of Venus. It is not only that if Venus herself is notoriously beautiful her altar, as happens, is by no means always proportionately august; it is also that we draw, in the long run, small comfort from the virtual suppression, by any painter, of whatever skill—and the skill of this particular one fails to rise to the height—of every relation in life but that over which Venus presides. In “Fior di Passione” and the several others of a like connection that I have named the suppression is really complete; the common humanities and sociabilities are wholly absent from the picture.
The effect of this is extraordinarily154 to falsify the total show and to present the particular affair—the intimacy155 in hand for the moment, though the moment be but brief—as taking place in a strange false perspective, a denuded156 desert which experience surely fails ever to give us the like of and the action of which on the faculty157 of observation in the painter is anything but favourable158. It strikes at the root, in the impression producible and produced, of discrimination and irony159, of humour and pathos160. Our present author would doubtless contend on behalf of the works I have mentioned that pathos at least does abound161 in them—the particular bitterness, the inevitable162 despair that she again and again shows to be the final savour of the cup of passione. It would be quite open to her to urge—and she would be sure to do so with eloquence—that if we pusillanimously163 pant for a moral, no moral really can have the force of her almost inveterate164 evocation165 of the absolute ravage124 of Venus, the dry desolation that in nine cases out of ten Venus may be perceived to leave behind her. That, however, but half meets our argument—which bears by no means merely on the desolation behind, but on the desolation before, beside and generally roundabout. It is not in short at all the moral but the fable166 itself that in the exclusively sexual light breaks down and fails us. Love, at Naples and in Rome, as Madame Serao exhibits it, is simply unaccompanied with any interplay of our usual conditions—with affection, with duration, with circumstances or consequences, with friends, enemies, husbands, wives, children, parents, interests, occupations, the manifestation167 of tastes. Who are these people, we presently ask ourselves, who love indeed with fury—though for the most part with astonishing brevity—but who are so without any suggested situation in life that they can only strike us as loving for nothing and in the void, to no gain of experience and no effect of a felt medium or a breathed air. We know them by nothing but their convulsions and spasms168, and we feel once again that it is not the passion of hero and heroine that gives, that can ever give, the heroine and the hero interest, but that it is they themselves, with the ground they stand on and the objects enclosing them, who give interest to their passion. This element touches us just in proportion as we see it mixed with other things, with all the things with which it has to reckon and struggle. There is moreover another reflection with which the pathetic in this connection has to count, even though it undermine not a little the whole of the tragic169 effect of the agitations170 of passione. Is it, ruthlessly speaking, certain that the effect most consonant171, for the spectator, with truth is half as tragic as it is something else? Should not the moral be sought in the very different quarter where the muse101 of comedy rather would have the last word? The ambiguity172 and the difficulty are, it strikes me, of a new growth, and spring from a perverse173 desire on the part of the erotic novelist to secure for the adventures he depicts174 a dignity that is not of the essence. To compass this dignity he has to cultivate the high pitch and beat the big drum, but when he has done so he has given everything the wrong accent and the whole the wrong extravagance. Why see it all, we ask him, as an extravagance of the solemn and the strained? Why make such an erotic a matter of tears and imprecations, and by so doing render so poor a service both to pleasure and to pain? Since by your own free showing it is pre-eminently a matter of folly176, let us at least have folly with her bells, or when these must—since they must—sound knells177 and dirges178, leave them only to the light hand of the lyric179 poet, who turns them at the worst to music. Matilde Serao is in this connection constantly lugubrious180; even from the little so-called pastels of “Gli Amanti” she manages, with an ingenuity181 worthy182 of a better cause, to expunge183 the note of gaiety.
This dismal184 parti pris indeed will inevitably185, it is to be feared, when all the emancipations shall have said their last word, be that of the ladies. Yet perhaps too, whatever such a probability, the tone scarce signifies—in the presence, I mean, of the fundamental mistake from which the author before us warns us off. That mistake, we gather from her warning, would be to encourage, after all, any considerable lowering of the level of our precious fund of reserve. When we come to analyse we arrive at a final impression of what we pay, as lovers of the novel, for such a chartered state as we have here a glimpse of; and we find it to be an exposure, on the intervention186 at least of such a literary temperament as the one before us, to a new kind of vulgarity. We have surely as it is kinds enough. The absence of the convention throws the writer back on tact187, taste, delicacy188, discretion189, subjecting these principles to a strain from which the happy office of its presence is, in a considerable degree and for performers of the mere usual endowment, to relieve him. When we have not a very fine sense the convention appears in a manner to have it on our behalf. And how frequent to-day, in the hurrying herd190 of brothers and sisters of the pen, is a fine sense—of any side of their affair? Do we not approach the truth in divining that only an eminent175 individual here and there may be trusted for it? Here—for the case is our very lesson—is this robust191 and wonderful Serao who is yet not to be trusted at all. Does not the dim religious light with which we surround its shrine192 do more, on the whole, for the poetry of passione than the flood of flaring193 gas with which, in her pages, and at her touch, it is drenched194? Does it not shrink, as a subject under treatment, from such expert recognitions and easy discussions, from its so pitiless reduction to the category of the familiar? It issues from the ordeal195 with the aspect with which it might escape from a noisy family party or alight from a crowded omnibus. It is at the category of the familiar that vulgarity begins. There may be a cool virtue therefore even for “art,” and an appreciable196 distinction even for truth, in the grace of hanging back and the choice of standing197 off, in that shade of the superficial which we best defend by simply practising it in season. A feeling revives at last, after a timed intermission, that we may not immediately be quite able, quite assured enough, to name, but which, gradually clearing up, soon defines itself almost as a yearning198. We turn round in obedience199 to it—unmistakably we turn round again to the opposite pole, and there before we know it have positively laid a clinging hand on dear old Jane Austen.
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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admonished
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| v.劝告( admonish的过去式和过去分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责 | |
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subscribes
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| v.捐助( subscribe的第三人称单数 )；签署，题词；订阅；同意 | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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overhauling
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| n.大修；拆修；卸修；翻修v.彻底检查( overhaul的现在分词 )；大修；赶上；超越 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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lapsing
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| v.退步( lapse的现在分词 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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revel
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| vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢 | |
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embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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14
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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15
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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16
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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17
morsel
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| n.一口，一点点 | |
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18
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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19
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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20
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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21
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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22
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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23
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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24
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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25
emulation
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| n.竞争；仿效 | |
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26
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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27
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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28
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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29
invoking
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| v.援引( invoke的现在分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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30
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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31
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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32
parenthesis
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| n.圆括号，插入语，插曲，间歇，停歇 | |
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33
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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34
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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35
pertinent
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| adj.恰当的；贴切的；中肯的；有关的；相干的 | |
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36
votaries
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| n.信徒( votary的名词复数 )；追随者；（天主教）修士；修女 | |
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37
crest
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|
| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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38
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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39
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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40
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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41
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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42
blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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43
deplored
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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45
copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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46
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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47
despoiled
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| v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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48
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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49
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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50
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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51
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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52
gender
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| n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性 | |
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53
revert
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| v.恢复，复归，回到 | |
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54
simplicities
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| n.简单，朴素，率直( simplicity的名词复数 ) | |
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55
puerile
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| adj.幼稚的，儿童的 | |
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56
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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57
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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58
exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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59
improper
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| adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的 | |
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60
prescriptions
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| 药( prescription的名词复数 )； 处方； 开处方； 计划 | |
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61
incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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62
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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63
initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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64
radical
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|
| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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65
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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66
maturity
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|
| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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67
vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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68
eloquence
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|
| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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69
remarkable
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|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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70
lapses
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|
| n.失误，过失( lapse的名词复数 )；小毛病；行为失检；偏离正道v.退步( lapse的第三人称单数 )；陷入；倒退；丧失 | |
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71
kindled
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|
| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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72
loquacious
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|
| adj.多嘴的，饶舌的 | |
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73
luxurious
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|
| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
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74
costly
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|
| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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75
velvet
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|
| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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76
bracelets
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|
| n.手镯，臂镯( bracelet的名词复数 ) | |
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77
misery
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|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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78
apparently
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|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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79
remains
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|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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80
dire
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|
| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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81
specialty
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|
| n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长 | |
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82
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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83
resolute
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|
| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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84
panorama
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|
| n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置] | |
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85
obsession
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|
| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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86
tempted
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|
| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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87
invokes
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|
| v.援引( invoke的第三人称单数 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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88
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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89
overflow
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|
| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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90
promiscuous
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|
| adj.杂乱的，随便的 | |
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91
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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92
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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93
touching
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|
| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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94
perilous
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|
| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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95
pitfalls
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|
| （捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误 | |
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96
twig
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|
| n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解 | |
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97
pinions
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| v.抓住[捆住]（双臂）( pinion的第三人称单数 ) | |
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98
doom
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|
| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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99
effacement
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| n.抹消，抹杀 | |
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100
concurrent
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| adj.同时发生的，一致的 | |
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101
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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102
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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103
superseded
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| [医]被代替的，废弃的 | |
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104
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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105
literally
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|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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106
extremity
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|
| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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107
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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108
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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109
retrospect
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|
| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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110
discipleship
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| n.做弟子的身份（期间） | |
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111
lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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112
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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113
consolidated
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| a.联合的 | |
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114
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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115
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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116
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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117
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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118
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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119
miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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120
totters
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| v.走得或动得不稳( totter的第三人称单数 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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121
benighted
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| adj.蒙昧的 | |
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122
plebeian
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| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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123
ravaged
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| 毁坏( ravage的过去式和过去分词 )； 蹂躏； 劫掠； 抢劫 | |
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124
ravage
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| vt.使...荒废，破坏...；n.破坏，掠夺，荒废 | |
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125
gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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126
clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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127
remittances
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| n.汇寄( remittance的名词复数 )；汇款，汇款额 | |
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128
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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129
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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130
rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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131
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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132
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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133
premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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134
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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135
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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136
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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137
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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138
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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139
lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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140
maidenhood
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|
| n. 处女性, 处女时代 | |
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141
sketchily
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| adv.写生风格地，大略地 | |
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142
volcanic
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|
| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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143
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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144
rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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145
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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146
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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147
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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148
inanity
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| n.无意义，无聊 | |
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149
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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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
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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152
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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153
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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154
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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155
intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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156
denuded
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| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
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157
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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158
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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159
irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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160
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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161
abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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162
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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163
pusillanimously
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| adv.胆怯地，优柔寡断地 | |
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164
inveterate
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| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
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165
evocation
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| n. 引起，唤起 n. <古> 召唤，招魂 | |
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166
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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167
manifestation
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| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
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168
spasms
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| n.痉挛( spasm的名词复数 )；抽搐；（能量、行为等的）突发；发作 | |
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169
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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170
agitations
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| （液体等的）摇动( agitation的名词复数 )； 鼓动； 激烈争论； （情绪等的）纷乱 | |
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171
consonant
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| n.辅音；adj.[音]符合的 | |
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172
ambiguity
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| n.模棱两可；意义不明确 | |
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173
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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174
depicts
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| 描绘，描画( depict的第三人称单数 )； 描述 | |
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175
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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176
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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177
knells
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| n.丧钟声( knell的名词复数 )；某事物结束的象征 | |
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178
dirges
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| n.挽歌( dirge的名词复数 )；忧伤的歌，哀歌 | |
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179
lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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180
lugubrious
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| adj.悲哀的，忧郁的 | |
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181
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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182
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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183
expunge
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| v.除去，删掉 | |
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184
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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185
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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186
intervention
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| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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187
tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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188
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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189
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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190
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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191
robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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192
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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193
flaring
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| a.火焰摇曳的，过份艳丽的 | |
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194
drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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195
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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196
appreciable
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| adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的 | |
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197
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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198
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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199
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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