From far back, from my first reading of these volumes, which took place at the time of their disclosure to the world, when I was a fairly young person, the sense, almost the pang16, of the novel they might have constituted sprang sharply from them; so that I was to go on through the years almost irreverently, all but quite profanely17 if you will, thinking of the great loose and uncontrolled composition, the great heavy-hanging cluster of related but unreconciled parts, as a fiction of the so-called historic type, that is as a suggested study of the manners and conditions from which our own have more or less traceably issued, just tragically18 spoiled—or as a work of art, in other words, smothered19 in the producing. To which I hasten to add my consciousness of the scant20 degree in which such a fresh start from our author’s documents, such a reprojection of them, wonderful documents as they can only have been, may claim a critical basis. Conceive me as simply astride of my different fancy, my other dream, of the matter—which bolted with me, as I have said, at the first alarm.
Browning worked in this connection literally22 upon documents; no page of his long story is more vivid and splendid than that of his find of the Book in the litter of a market-stall in Florence and the swoop23 of practised perception with which he caught up in it a treasure. Here was a subject stated to the last ounce of its weight, a living and breathing record of facts pitiful and terrible, a mass of matter bristling24 with revelations and yet at the same time wrapped over with layer upon layer of contemporary appreciation25; which appreciation, in its turn, was a part of the wealth to be appreciated. What our great master saw was his situation founded, seated there in positively26 packed and congested significance, though by just so much as it was charged with meanings and values were those things undeveloped and unexpressed. They looked up at him, even in that first flush and from their market-stall, and said to him, in their compressed compass, as with the muffled27 rumble28 of a slow-coming earthquake, “Express us, express us, immortalise us as we’ll immortalise you!”—so that the terms of the understanding were so far cogent29 and clear. It was an understanding, on their side, with the poet; and since that poet had produced “Men and Women,” “Dramatic Lyrics31,” “Dramatis Person?” and sundry32 plays—we needn’t even foist33 on him “Sordello”—he could but understand in his own way. That way would have had to be quite some other, we fully34 see, had he been by habit and profession not just the lyric30, epic35, dramatic commentator36, the extractor, to whatever essential potency37 and redundancy, of the moral of the fable38, but the very fabulist himself, the inventor and projector39, layer down of the postulate40 and digger of the foundation. I doubt if we have a precedent41 for this energy of appropriation42 of a deposit of stated matter, a block of sense already in position and requiring not to be shaped and squared and caused any further to solidify43, but rather to suffer disintegration44, be pulled apart, melted down, hammered, by the most characteristic of the poet’s processes, to powder—dust of gold and silver, let us say. He was to apply to it his favourite system—that of looking at his subject from the point of view of a curiosity almost sublime46 in its freedom, yet almost homely47 in its method, and of smuggling48 as many more points of view together into that one as the fancy might take him to smuggle49, on a scale on which even he had never before applied50 it; this with a courage and a confidence that, in presence of all the conditions, conditions many of them arduous51 and arid52 and thankless even to defiance53, we can only pronounce splendid, and of which the issue was to be of a proportioned monstrous54 magnificence.
The one definite forecast for this product would have been that it should figure for its producer as a poem—as if he had simply said, “I embark55 at any rate for the Golden Isles56”; everything else was of the pure incalculable, the frank voyage of adventure. To what extent the Golden Isles were in fact to be reached is a matter we needn’t pretend, I think, absolutely to determine; let us feel for ourselves and as we will about it—either see our adventurer, disembarked bag and baggage and in possession, plant his flag on the highest eminence57 within his circle of sea, or, on the other hand, but watch him approach and beat back a little, tack58 and turn and stand off, always fairly in sight of land, catching59 rare glimpses and meeting strange airs, but not quite achieving the final coup60 that annexes61 the group. He returns to us under either view all scented63 and salted with his measure of contact, and that for the moment is enough for us—more than enough for me at any rate, engaged for your beguilement64 in this practical relation of snuffing up what he brings. He brings, however one puts it, a detailed65 report, which is but another word for a story; and it is with his story, his offered, not his borrowed one—a very different matter—that I am concerned. We are probably most of us so aware of its general content that if I sum this up I may do so briefly66. The Book of the Florentine rubbish-heap is the full account (as full accounts were conceived in those days) of the trial before the Roman courts, with inquiries67 and judgments68 by the Tuscan authorities intermixed, of a certain Count Guido Franceschini of Arezzo, decapitated, in company with four confederates—these latter hanged—on February 22, 1698, for the murder of his young wife Pompilia Comparini and her ostensible69 parents, Pietro and Violante of that ilk.
The circumstances leading to this climax70 were primarily his marriage to Pompilia, some years before, in Rome—she being then but in her thirteenth year—under the impression, fostered in him by the elder pair, that she was their own child and on this head heiress to moneys settled on them from of old in the event of their having a child. They had in fact had none, and had, in substitution, invented, so to speak, Pompilia, the luckless base-born baby of a woman of lamentable71 character easily induced to part with her for cash. They bring up the hapless creature as their daughter, and as their daughter they marry her, in Rome, to the middle-aged72 and impecunious73 Count Guido, a rapacious74 and unscrupulous fortune-seeker by whose superior social position, as we say, dreadfully decaduto though he be, they are dazzled out of all circumspection75. The girl, innocent, ignorant, bewildered, scared and purely76 passive, is taken home by her husband to Arezzo, where she is at first attended by Pietro and Violante and where the direst disappointment await the three. Count Guido proves the basest of men and his home a place of terror and of torture, from which at the age of seventeen, and shortly prior to her giving birth to an heir to the house, such as it is, she is rescued by a pitying witness of her misery77, Canon Caponsacchi, a man of the world and adorning78 it, yet in holy orders, as men of the world in Italy might then be, who clandestinely79 helps her, at peril80 of both their lives, back to Rome, and of whom it is attested81 that he has had no other relation with her but this of distinguished82 and all-disinterested friend in need. The pretended parents have at an early stage thrown up their benighted83 game, fleeing from the rigour of their dupe’s domestic rule, disclosing to him vindictively84 the part they have played and the consequent failure of any profit to him through his wife, and leaving him in turn to wreak85 his spite, which has become infernal, on the wretched Pompilia. He pursues her to Rome, on her eventual86 flight, and overtakes her, with her companion, just outside the gates; but having, by the aid of the local powers, reachieved possession of her, he contents himself for the time with procuring87 her sequestration in a convent, from which, however, she is presently allowed to emerge in view of the near birth of her child. She rejoins Pietro and Violante, devoted88 to her, oddly enough, through all their folly89 and fatuity90; and under their roof, in a lonely Roman suburb, her child comes into the world. Her husband meanwhile, hearing of her release, gives way afresh to the fury that had not at the climax of his former pursuit taken full effect; he recruits a band of four of his young tenants92 or farm-labourers and makes his way, armed, like his companions, with knives, to the door behind which three of the parties to all the wrong done him, as he holds, then lurk93. He pronounces, after knocking and waiting, the name of Caponsacchi; upon which, as the door opens, Violante presents herself. He stabs her to death on the spot with repeated blows—like her companions she is off her guard; and he throws himself on each of these with equal murderous effect. Pietro, crying for mercy, falls second beneath him; after which he attacks his wife, whom he literally hacks94 to death. She survives, by a miracle, long enough, in spite of all her wounds, to testify; which testimony95, as may be imagined, is not the least precious part of the case. Justice is on the whole, though deprecated and delayed, what we call satisfactory; the last word is for the Pope in person, Innocent XII. Pignatelli, at whose deliberation, lone91 and supreme96, on Browning’s page, we splendidly assist; and Count Guido and his accomplices97, bloodless as to the act though these appear to have been, meet their discriminated98 doom99.
That is the bundle of facts, accompanied with the bundle of proceedings100, legal, ecclesiastical, diplomatic and other, on the facts, that our author, of a summer’s day, made prize of; but our general temptation, as I say—out of which springs this question of the other values of character and effect, the other completeness of picture and drama, that the confused whole might have had for us—is a distinctly different thing. The difference consists, you see, to begin with, in the very breath of our poet’s genius, already, and so inordinately101, at play on them from the first of our knowing them. And it consists in the second place of such an extracted sense of the whole, which becomes, after the most extraordinary fashion, bigger by the extraction, immeasurably bigger than even the most cumulative102 weight of the mere45 crude evidence, that our choice of how to take it all is in a manner determined103 for us: we can only take it as tremendously interesting, interesting not only in itself but with the great added interest, the dignity and authority and beauty, of Browning’s general perception of it. We can’t not accept this, and little enough on the whole do we want not to: it sees us, with its tremendous push, that of its poetic104, esthetic105, historic, psychologic shoulder (one scarce knows how to name it), so far on our way. Yet all the while we are in presence not at all of an achieved form, but of a mere preparation for one, though on the hugest scale; so that, you see, we are no more than decently attentive106 with our question: “Which of them all, of the various methods of casting the wondrously108 mixed metal, is he, as he goes, preparing?” Well, as he keeps giving and giving, in immeasurable plenty, it is in our selection from it all and our picking it over that we seek, and to whatever various and unequal effect find, our account. He works over his vast material, and we then work him over, though not availing ourselves, to this end, of a grain he himself doesn’t somehow give us; and there we are.
I admit that my faith in my particular contention109 would be a degree firmer and fonder if there didn’t glimmer110 through our poet’s splendid hocus-pocus just the hint of one of those flaws that sometimes deform111 the fair face of a subject otherwise generally appealing or promising—of such a subject in especial as may have been submitted to us, possibly even with the pretension112 to impose it, in too complete a shape. The idea but half hinted—when it is a very good one—is apt to contain the germ of happier fruit than the freight of the whole branch, waved at us or dropped into our lap, very often proves. This happens when we take over, as the phrase is, established data, take them over from existing records and under some involved obligation to take them as they stand. That drawback rests heavily for instance on the so-called historic fiction—so beautiful a case it is of a muddlement of terms—and is just one of the eminent113 reasons why the embarrassed Muse114 of that form, pulled up again and again, and the more often the fine intelligence invokes115 her, by the need of a superior harmony which shall be after all but a superior truth, catches up her flurried skirts and makes her saving dash for some gap in the hedge of romance. Now the flaw on this so intensely expressive116 face, that of the general donnée of the fate of Pompilia, is that amid the variety of forces at play about her the unity117 of the situation isn’t, by one of those large straight ideal gestures on the part of the Muse, handed to us at a stroke. The question of the whereabouts of the unity of a group of data subject to be wrought118 together into a thing of art, the question in other words of the point at which the various implications of interest, no matter how many, most converge119 and interfuse, becomes always, by my sense of the affair, quite the first to be answered; for according to the answer shapes and fills itself the very vessel120 of that beauty—the beauty, exactly, of interest, of maximum interest, which is the ultimate extract of any collocation of facts, any picture of life, and the finest aspect of any artistic121 work. Call a novel a picture of life as much as we will; call it, according to one of our recent fashions, a slice, or even a chunk122, even a “bloody” chunk, of life, a rough excision123 from that substance as superficially cut and as summarily served as possible, it still fails to escape this exposure to appreciation, or in other words to criticism, that it has had to be selected, selected under some sense for something; and the unity of the exhibition should meet us, does meet us if the work be done, at the point at which that sense is most patent. If the slice or the chunk, or whatever we call it, if it isn’t “done,” as we say—and as it so often declines to be—the work itself of course isn’t likely to be; and there we may dismiss it.
The first thing we do is to cast about for some centre in our field; seeing that, for such a purpose as ours, the subject might very nearly go a-begging with none more definite than the author has provided for it. I find that centre in the embracing consciousness of Caponsacchi, which, coming to the rescue of our question of treatment, of our search for a point of control, practically saves everything, and shows itself moreover the only thing that can save. The more we ask of any other part of our picture that it shall exercise a comprehensive function, the more we see that particular part inadequate124; as inadequate even in the extraordinarily125 magnified range of spirit and reach of intelligence of the atrocious Franceschini as in the sublime passivity and plasticity of the childish Pompilia, educated to the last point though she be indeed by suffering, but otherwise so untaught that she can neither read nor write. The magnified state is in this work still more than elsewhere the note of the intelligence, of any and every faculty126 of thought, imputed127 by our poet to his creatures; and it takes a great mind, one of the greatest, we may at once say, to make these persons express and confess themselves to such an effect of intellectual splendour. He resorts primarily to their sense, their sense of themselves and of everything else they know, to exhibit them, and has for this purpose to keep them, and to keep them persistently128 and inexhaustibly, under the fixed129 lens of his prodigious130 vision. He this makes out in them boundless131 treasures of truth—truth even when it happens to be, as in the case of Count Guido, but a shining wealth of constitutional falsity. Of the extent to which he may after this fashion unlimitedly133 draw upon them his exposure of Count Guido, which goes on and on, though partly, I admit, by repeating itself, is a wondrous107 example. It is not too much to say of Pompilia—Pompilia pierced with twenty wounds, Pompilia on her death-bed, Pompilia but seventeen years old and but a fortnight a mother—that she acquires an intellectual splendour just by the fact of the vast covering charity of imagination with which her recording134, our commemorated135, avenger136, never so as in this case an avenger of the wronged beautiful things in life, hangs over and breathes upon her. We see her come out to him, and the extremely remarkable137 thing is that we see it, on the whole, without doubting that it might just have been. Nothing could thus be more interesting, however it may at moments and in places puzzle us, than the impunity138, on our poet’s part, of most of these overstretchings of proportion, these violations139 of the immediate140 appearance. Browning is deep down below the immediate with the first step of his approach; he has vaulted141 over the gate, is already far afield and never, so long as we watch him, has occasion to fall back. We wonder, for, after all, the real is his quest, the very ideal of the real, the real most finely mixed with life, which is in the last analysis the ideal; and we know, with our dimmer vision, no such reality as a Franceschini fighting for his life, fighting for the vindication142 of his baseness, embodying143 his squalor, with an audacity144 of wit, an intensity145 of colour, a variety of speculation146 and illustration, that represent well-nigh the maximum play of the human mind. It is in like sort scarce too much to say of the exquisite147 Pompilia that on her part intelligence and expression are disengaged to a point at which the angels may well begin to envy her; and all again without our once wincing148 so far as our consistently liking149 to see and hear and believe is concerned. Caponsacchi regales us, of course, with the rarest fruit of a great character, a great culture and a great case; but Caponsacchi is acceptedly and naturally, needfully and illustratively, splendid. He is the soul of man at its finest—having passed through the smoky fires of life and emerging clear and high. Greatest of all the spirits exhibited, however, is that of the more than octogenarian Pope, at whose brooding, pondering, solitary150 vigil, by the end of a hard grey winter day in the great bleak151 waiting Vatican—“in the plain closet where he does such work”—we assist as intimately as at every other step of the case, and on whose grand meditation152 we heavily hang. But the Pope strikes us at first—though indeed perhaps only at first—as too high above the whole connection functionally153 and historically for us to place him within it dramatically. Our novel faces provisionally the question of dispensing154 with him, as it dispenses155 with the amazing, bristling, all too indulgently presented Roman advocates on either side of the case, who combine to put together the most formidable monument we possess to Browning’s active curiosity and the liveliest proof of his almost unlimited132 power to give on his readers’ nerves without giving on his own.
What remains156 with us all this time, none the less, is the effect of magnification, the exposure of each of these figures, in its degree, to that iridescent157 wash of personality, of temper and faculty, that our author ladles out to them, as the copious share of each, from his own great reservoir of spiritual health, and which makes us, as I have noted, seek the reason of a perpetual anomaly. Why, bristling so with references to him rather than with references to each other or to any accompanying set of circumstances, do they still establish more truth and beauty than they sacrifice, do they still, according to their chance, help to make “The Ring and the Book” a great living thing, a great objective mass? I brushed by the answer a moment ago, I think, in speaking of the development in Pompilia of the resource of expression, which brings us round, it seems to me, to the justification158 of Browning’s method. To express his inner self—his outward was a different affair!—and to express it utterly159, even if no matter how, was clearly, for his own measure and consciousness of that inner self, to be poetic; and the solution of all the deviations160 and disparities or, speaking critically, monstrosities, in the mingled161 tissue of this work, is the fact that whether or no by such convulsions of soul and sense life got delivered for him, the garment of life (which for him was poetry and poetry alone) got disposed in its due and adequate multitudinous folds. We move with him but in images and references and vast and far correspondences; we eat but of strange compounds and drink but of rare distillations; and very soon, after a course of this, we feel ourselves, however much or however little to our advantage we may on occasion pronounce it, in the world of Expression at any cost. That, essentially, is the world of poetry—which in the cases known to our experience where it seems to us to differ from Browning’s world does so but through this latter’s having been, by the vigour162 and violence, the bold familiarity, of his grasp and pull at it, moved several degrees nearer us, so to speak, than any other of the same general sort with which we are acquainted; so that, intellectually, we back away from it a little, back down before it, again and again, as we try to get off from a picture or a group or a view which is too much upon us and thereby163 out of focus. Browning is “upon” us, straighter upon us always, somehow, than anyone else of his race; and we thus recoil164, we push our chair back, from the table he so tremendously spreads, just to see a little better what is on it. This makes a relation with him that it is difficult to express; as if he came up against us, each time, on the same side of the street and not on the other side, across the way, where we mostly see the poets elegantly walk, and where we greet them without danger of concussion165. It is on this same side, as I call it, on our side, on the other hand, that I rather see our encounter with the novelists taking place; we being, as it were, more mixed with them, or they at least, by their desire and necessity, more mixed with us, and our brush of them, in their minor166 frenzy167, a comparatively muffled encounter.
We have in the whole thing, at any rate, the element of action which is at the same time constant picture, and the element of picture which is at the same time constant action; and with a fusion168, as the mass moves, that is none the less effective, none the less thick and complete, from our not owing it in the least to an artful economy. Another force pushes its way through the waste and rules the scene, making wrong things right and right things a hundred times more so—that breath of Browning’s own particular matchless Italy which takes us full in the face and remains from the first the felt rich coloured air in which we live. The quantity of that atmosphere that he had to give out is like nothing else in English poetry, any more than in English prose, that I recall; and since I am taking these liberties with him, let me take one too, a little, with the fruit of another genius shining at us here in association—with that great placed and timed prose fiction which we owe to George Eliot and in which her projection21 of the stage and scenery is so different a matter. Curious enough this difference where so many things make for identity—the quantity of talent, the quantity of knowledge, the high equality (or almost) of culture and curiosity, not to say of “spiritual life.” Each writer drags along a far-sweeping train, though indeed Browning’s spreads so considerably169 furthest; but his stirs up, to my vision, a perfect cloud of gold-dust, while hers, in “Romola,” by contrast, leaves the air about as clear, about as white, and withal about as cold, as before she had benevolently170 entered it. This straight saturation171 of our author’s, this prime assimilation of the elements for which the name of Italy stands, is a single splendid case, however; I can think of no second one that is not below it—if we take it as supremely172 expressed in those of his lyrics and shorter dramatic monologues173 that it has most helped to inspire. The Rome and Tuscany of the early ’fifties had become for him so at once a medium, a bath of the senses and perceptions, into which he could sink, in which he could unlimitedly soak, that wherever he might be touched afterwards he gave out some effect of that immersion174. This places him to my mind quite apart, makes the rest of our poetic record of a similar experience comparatively pale and abstract. Shelley and Swinburne—to name only his compeers—are, I know, a part of the record; but the author of “Men and Women,” of “Pippa Passes,” of certain of the Dramatic Lyrics and other scattered175 felicities, not only expresses and reflects the matter; he fairly, he heatedly, if I may use such a term, exudes176 and perspires177 it. Shelley, let us say in the connection, is a light and Swinburne, let us say, a sound; Browning alone of them all is a temperature. We feel it, we are in it at a plunge178, with the very first pages of the thing before us; to which, I confess, we surrender with a momentum179 drawn180 from fifty of their predecessors181, pages not less sovereign, elsewhere.
The old Florence of the late spring closes round us; the hand of Italy is at once, with the recital182 of the old-world litter of Piazza183 San Lorenzo, with that of the great glare and of the great shadow-masses, heavy upon us, heavy with that strange weight, that mixed pressure, which is somehow, to the imagination, at once a caress184 and a menace. Our poet kicks up on the spot and at short notice what I have called his cloud of gold-dust. I can but speak for myself at least—something that I want to feel both as historic and esthetic truth, both as pictorial185 and moral interest, something that will repay my fancy tenfold if I can but feel it, hovers186 before me, and I say to myself that, whether or no a great poem is to come off, I will be hanged if one of the vividest of all stories and one of the sharpest of all impressions doesn’t. I beckon187 these things on, I follow them up, I so desire and need them that I of course, by my imaginative collaboration188, contribute to them—from the moment, that is, of my finding myself really in relation to the great points. On the other hand, as certainly, it has taken the author of the first volume, and of the two admirable chapters of the same—since I can’t call them cantos—entitled respectively “Half-Rome” and “The Other Half-Rome,” to put me in relation; where it is that he keeps me more and more, letting the closeness of my state, it must be owned, occasionally drop, letting the finer call on me even, for bad quarters-of-an-hour, considerably languish189, but starting up before me again in vivid authority if I really presume to droop190 or stray. He takes his wilful191 way with me, but I make it my own, picking over and over as I have said, like some lingering talking pedlar’s client, his great unloosed pack; and thus it is that by the time I am settled with Pompilia at Arezzo I have lived into all the conditions. They press upon me close, those wonderful dreadful beautiful particulars of the Italy of the eve of the eighteenth century—Browning himself moving about, darting192 hither and thither193 in them, at his mighty194 ease: beautiful, I say, because of the quantity of romantic and esthetic tradition from a more romantic and esthetic age still visibly, palpably, in solution there; and wonderful and dreadful through something of a similar tissue of matchless and ruthless consistencies195 and immoralities. I make to my hand, as this infatuated reader, my Italy of the eve of the eighteenth century—a vast painted and gilded196 rococo197 shell roofing over a scenic198, an amazingly figured and furnished earth, but shutting out almost the whole of our own dearly-bought, rudely-recovered spiritual sky. You see I have this right, all the while, if I recognise my suggested material, which keeps coming and coming in the measure of my need, and my duty to which is to recognise it, and as handsomely and actively199 as possible. The great thing is that I have such a group of figures moving across so constituted a scene—figures so typical, so salient, so reeking200 with the old-world character, so impressed all over with its manners and its morals, and so predestined, we see, to this particular horrid201 little drama. And let me not be charged with giving it away, the idea of the latent prose fiction, by calling it little and horrid; let me not—for with my contention I can’t possibly afford to—appear to agree with those who speak of the Franceschini-Comparini case as a mere vulgar criminal anecdote202.
It might have been such but for two reasons—counting only the principal ones; one of these our fact that we see it so, I repeat, in Browning’s inordinately-coloured light, and the other—which is indeed perhaps but another face of the same—that, with whatever limitations, it gives us in the rarest manner three characters of the first importance. I hold three a great many; I could have done with it almost, I think, if there had been but one or two; our rich provision shows you at any rate what I mean by speaking of our author’s performance as above all a preparation for something. Deeply he felt that with the three—the three built up at us each with an equal genial203 rage of reiterative204 touches—there couldn’t eventually not be something done (artistically done, I mean) if someone would only do it. There they are in their old yellow Arezzo, that miniature milder Florence, as sleepy to my recollection as a little English cathedral city clustered about a Close, but dreaming not so peacefully nor so innocently; there is the great fretted205 fabric206 of the Church on which they are all swarming207 and grovelling208, yet after their fashion interesting parasites209, from the high and dry old Archbishop, meanly wise or ignobly210 edifying211, to whom Pompilia resorts in her woe212 and who practically pushes her way with a shuffling213 velvet214 foot; down through the couple of Franceschini cadets, Canon Girolamo and Abate215 Paul, mere minions216, fairly in the verminous degree, of the overgrown order or too-rank organism; down to Count Guido himself and to Canon Caponsacchi, who have taken the tonsure217 at the outset of their careers, but none too strictly218 the vows219, and who lead their lives under some strangest profanest pervertedest clerical category. There have been before this the Roman preliminaries, the career of the queer Comparini, the adoption220, the assumption of the parentship, of the ill-starred little girl, with the sordid221 cynicism of her marriage out of hand, conveying her presumptive little fortune, her poor handful of even less than contingent222 cash, to hungry middle-aged Count Guido’s stale “rank”; the many-toned note or turbid223 harmony of all of which recurs224 to us in the vivid image of the pieties225 and paganisms of San Lorenzo in Lucina, that banal226 little church in the old upper Corso—banal, that is, at the worst, with the rare Roman banalité; bravely banal, or banal with style—that we have all passed with a sense of its reprieve227 to our sight-seeing, and where the bleeding bodies of the still-breathing Pompilia and her extinct companions are laid out on the greasy228 marble of the altar-steps. To glance at these things, however, is fairly to be tangled229, and at once, in the author’s complexity230 of suggestion, to which our own thick-coming fancies respond in no less a measure; so that I have already missed my time to so much even as name properly the tremendous little chapter we should have devoted to the Franceschini interior as revealed at last to Comparini eyes; the sinister231 scene or ragged232 ruin of the Aretine “palace,” where pride and penury233 and, at once, rabid resentment234 show their teeth in the dark and the void, and where Pompilia’s inspired little character, clear silver hardened, effectually beaten and battered235, to steel, begins to shine at the blackness with a light that fairly outfaces at last the gleam of wolfish fangs—the character that draws from Guido, in his, alas236, too boundless harangue237 of the fourth volume, some of the sharpest specifications238 into which that extraordinary desert, that indescribable waste of intellectual life, as I have hinted at its being, from time to time flowers.
“None of your abnegation of revenge!
Away with the empty stare! Be holy still,
And stupid ever! Occupy your patch
Of private snow that’s somewhere in what world
May now be growing icy round your head,
And aguish at your foot-print—freeze not me!”
I have spoken of the enveloping241 consciousness—or call it just the struggling, emerging, comparing, at last intensely living conscience—of Caponsacchi as the indicated centre of our situation or determinant of our form, in the matter of the excellent novel; and know of course what such an indication lets me in for, responsibly speaking, in the way of a rearrangement of relations, in the way of liberties taken. To lift our subject out of the sphere of anecdote and place it in the sphere of drama, liberally considered, to give it dignity by extracting its finest importance, causing its parts to flower together into some splendid special sense, we supply it with a large lucid242 reflector, which we find only, as I have already noted, in that mind and soul concerned in the business that have at once the highest sensibility and the highest capacity, or that are, as we may call it, most admirably agitated243. There is the awkward fact, the objector may say, that by our record the mind and soul in question are not concerned till a given hour, when many things have already happened and the climax is almost in sight; to which we reply, at our ease, that we simply don’t suffer that fact to be awkward. From the moment I am taking liberties I suffer no awkwardness; I should be very helpless, quite without resource and without vision, if I did. I said it to begin with: Browning works the whole thing over—the whole thing as originally given him—and we work him; helpfully, artfully, boldly, which is our whole blest basis. We therefore turn Caponsacchi on earlier, ever so much earlier; turn him on, with a brave ingenuity244, from the very first—that is in Rome if need be; place him there in the field, at once recipient245 and agent, vaguely conscious and with splendid brooding apprehension246, awaiting the adventure of his life, awaiting his call, his real call (the others have been such vain shows and hollow stopgaps), awaiting, in fine, his terrible great fortune. His direct connection with Pompilia begins certainly at Arezzo, only after she has been some time hideously247 mismated and has suffered all but her direst extremity—that is of the essence; we take it; it’s all right. But his indirect participation248 is another affair, and we get it—at a magnificent stroke—by the fact that his view of Franceschini, his fellow-Aretine sordidly249 “on the make,” his measure of undesired, indeed of quite execrated250 contact with him, brushed against in the motley hungry Roman traffic, where and while that sinister soul snuffs about on the very vague or the very foul251 scent62 of his fortune, may begin whenever we like. We have only to have it begin right, only to make it, on the part of two men, a relation of strong irritated perception and restless righteous convinced instinct in the one nature and of equally instinctive252 hate and envy, jealousy253 and latent fear, on the other, to see the indirect connection, the one with Pompilia, as I say, throw across our page as portentous254 a shadow as we need. Then we get Caponsacchi as a recipient up to the brim—as an agent, a predestined one, up to the hilt. I can scarce begin to tell you what I see him give, as we say, or how his sentient255 and observational life, his fine reactions in presence of such a creature as Guido, such a social type and image and lurid256 light, as it were, make him comparatively a modern man, breathed upon, to that deep and interesting agitation257 I have mentioned, by more forces than he yet reckons or knows the names of.
The direct relation—always to Pompilia—is made, at Arezzo, as we know, by Franceschini himself; preparing his own doom, in the false light of his debased wit, by creating an appearance of hidden dealing258 between his wife and the priest which shall, as promptly as he likes—if he but work it right—compromise and overwhelm them. The particular deepest damnation he conceives for his weaker, his weakest victim is that she shall take the cleric Caponsacchi for her lover, he indubitably willing—to Guido’s apprehension; and that her castigation259 at his hands for this, sufficiently260 proved upon her, shall be the last luxury of his own baseness. He forges infernally, though grossly enough, an imputed correspondence between them, as series of love-letters, scandalous scrawls261, of the last erotic intensity; which we in the event see solemnly weighed by his fatuous262 judges, all fatuous save the grave old Pope, in the scale of Pompilia’s guilt263 and responsibility. It is this atrocity264 that at the dénouement damns Guido himself most, or well-nigh; but if it fails and recoils265, as all his calculations do—it is only his rush of passion that doesn’t miss—this is by the fact exactly that, as we have seen, his wife and her friend are, for our perfect persuasion266, characters of the deepest dye. There, if you please, is the finest side of our subject; such sides come up, such sides flare267 out upon us, when we get such characters in such embroilments. Admire with me therefore our felicity in this first-class value of Browning’s beautiful critical genial vision of his Caponsacchi—vision of him as the tried and tempered and illuminated268 man, a great round smooth, though as yet but little worn gold-piece, an embossed and figured ducat or sequin of the period, placed by the poet in my hand. He gives me that value to spend for him, spend on all the strange old experience, old sights and sounds and stuffs, of the old stored Italy—so we have at least the wit to spend it to high advantage; which is just what I mean by our taking the liberties we spoke240 of. I see such bits we can get with it; but the difficulty is that I see so many more things than I can have even dreamed of giving you a hint of. I see the Arezzo life and the Arezzo crisis with every “i” dotted and every circumstance presented; and when Guido takes his wife, as a possible trap for her, to the theatre—the theatre of old Arezzo: share with me the tattered269 vision and inhale270 the musty air!—I am well in range of Pompilia, the tragically exquisite, in her box, with her husband not there for the hour but posted elsewhere; I look at her in fact over Caponsacchi’s shoulder and that of his brother-canon Conti, while this light character, a vivid recruit to our company, manages to toss into her lap, and as coming in guise271 of overture272 from his smitten273 friend, “a papertwist of comfits.” There is a particular famous occasion at the theatre in a work of more or less contemporary fiction—at a petty provincial274 theatre which isn’t even, as you might think, the place where Pendennis had his first glimpse of Miss Fotheringay. The evening at the Rouen playhouse of Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” has a relief not elsewhere equalled—it is the most done visit to the play in all literature—but, though “doing” is now so woefully out of favour, my idea would be to give it here a precious pendant; which connection, silly Canon Conti, the old fripperies and levities275, the whole queer picture and show of manners, is handed over to us, expressly, as inapt for poetic illustration.
What is equally apt for poetic or for the other, indeed, is the thing for which we feel “The Ring and the Book” preponderantly done—it is at least what comes out clearest, comes out as straightest and strongest and finest, from Browning’s genius—the exhibition of the great constringent relation between man and woman at once at its maximum and as the relation most worth while in life for either party; an exhibition forming quite the main substance of our author’s message. He has dealt, in his immense variety and vivacity276, with other relations, but on this he has thrown his most living weight; it remains the thing of which his own rich experience most convincingly spoke to him. He has testified to it as charged to the brim with the burden of the senses, and has testified to it as almost too clarified, too liberated277 and sublimated278, for traceable application or fair record; he has figured it as never too much either of the flesh or of the spirit for him, so long as the possibility of both of these is in each, but always and ever as the thing absolutely most worth while. It is in the highest and rarest degree clarified and disengaged for Caponsacchi and Pompilia; but what their history most concludes to is how ineffably279 it was, whatever happened, worth while. Worth while most then for them or for us is the question? Well, let us say worth while assuredly for us, in this noble exercise of our imagination. Which accordingly shows us what we, for all our prose basis, would have found, to repeat my term once more, prepared for us. There isn’t a detail of their panting flight to Rome over the autumn Apennines—the long hours when they melt together only not to meet—that doesn’t positively plead for our perfect prose transcript280. And if it be said that the mere massacre281 at the final end is a lapse282 to passivity from the high plane, for our pair of protagonists283, of constructive284, of heroic vision, this is not a blur285 from the time everything that happens happens most effectively to Caponsacchi’s life. Pompilia’s is taken, but she is none the less given; and it is in his consciousness and experience that she most intensely flowers—with all her jubilation286 for doing so. So that he contains the whole—unless indeed after all the Pope does, the Pope whom I was leaving out as too transcendent for our version. Unless, unless, further and further, I see what I have at this late moment no right to; see, as the very end and splendid climax of all, Caponsacchi sent for to the Vatican and admitted alone to the Papal presence. There is a scene if we will; and in the mere mutual287 confrontation288, brief, silent, searching, recognising, consecrating289, almost as august on the one part as on the other. It rounds us off; but you will think I stray too far. I have wanted, alas, to say such still other fond fine things—it being of our poet’s great nature to prompt them at every step—that I almost feel I have missed half my points; which will doubtless therefore show you these remarks in their nakedness. Take them and my particular contention as a pretext290 and a minor affair if you will only feel them at the same time as at the worst a restless refinement291 of homage292. It has been easy in many another case to run to earth the stray prime fancy, the original anecdote or artless tale, from which a great imaginative work, starting off after meeting it, has sprung and rebounded293 again and soared; and perhaps it is right and happy and final that one should have faltered294 in attempting by a converse295 curiosity to clip off or tie back the wings that once have spread. You will agree with me none the less, I feel, that Browning’s great generous wings are over us still and even now, more than ever now; and also that they shake down on us his blessing296.
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1
copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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pinnacles
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| 顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 )； 顶点； 尖顶； 小尖塔 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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inordinate
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| adj.无节制的；过度的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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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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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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affronting
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| v.勇敢地面对( affront的现在分词 )；相遇 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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labyrinth
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| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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profanely
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| adv.渎神地，凡俗地 | |
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tragically
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| adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地 | |
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smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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swoop
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| n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击 | |
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24
bristling
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| a.竖立的 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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27
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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28
rumble
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| n.隆隆声；吵嚷；v.隆隆响；低沉地说 | |
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29
cogent
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| adj.强有力的，有说服力的 | |
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lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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lyrics
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| n.歌词 | |
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32
sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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33
foist
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| vt.把…强塞给，骗卖给 | |
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34
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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commentator
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| n.注释者，解说者；实况广播评论员 | |
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potency
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| n. 效力，潜能 | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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projector
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| n.投影机，放映机，幻灯机 | |
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postulate
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| n.假定，基本条件；vt.要求，假定 | |
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41
precedent
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| n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的 | |
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42
appropriation
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| n.拨款，批准支出 | |
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43
solidify
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| v.(使)凝固，(使)固化，(使)团结 | |
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disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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45
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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46
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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47
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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48
smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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49
smuggle
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| vt.私运；vi.走私 | |
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50
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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51
arduous
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| adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的 | |
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52
arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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53
defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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54
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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55
embark
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| vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机 | |
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56
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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58
tack
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| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
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59
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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60
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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61
annexes
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| 并吞( annex的名词复数 )； 兼并； 强占； 并吞（国家、地区等）； 附加物，附属建筑( annexe的名词复数 ) | |
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62
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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63
scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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64
beguilement
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| n.欺骗，散心，欺瞒 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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67
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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69
ostensible
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| adj.(指理由)表面的，假装的 | |
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70
climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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71
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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73
impecunious
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| adj.不名一文的，贫穷的 | |
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74
rapacious
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| adj.贪婪的，强夺的 | |
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75
circumspection
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| n.细心，慎重 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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adorning
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| 修饰，装饰物 | |
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clandestinely
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| adv.秘密地，暗中地 | |
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80
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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81
attested
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| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
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82
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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83
benighted
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| adj.蒙昧的 | |
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84
vindictively
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| adv.恶毒地；报复地 | |
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85
wreak
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| v.发泄；报复 | |
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86
eventual
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| adj.最后的，结局的，最终的 | |
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87
procuring
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的现在分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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88
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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fatuity
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| n.愚蠢，愚昧 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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92
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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93
lurk
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| n.潜伏，潜行；v.潜藏，潜伏，埋伏 | |
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94
hacks
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| 黑客 | |
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95
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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96
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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97
accomplices
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| 从犯，帮凶，同谋( accomplice的名词复数 ) | |
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98
discriminated
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| 分别，辨别，区分( discriminate的过去式和过去分词 )； 歧视，有差别地对待 | |
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99
doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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100
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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101
inordinately
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| adv.无度地，非常地 | |
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102
cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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103
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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104
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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105
esthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的；悦目的，雅致的 | |
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106
attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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107
wondrous
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| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
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108
wondrously
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| adv.惊奇地，非常，极其 | |
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109
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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110
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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111
deform
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| vt.损坏…的形状；使变形，使变丑；vi.变形 | |
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112
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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113
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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114
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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115
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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116
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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117
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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118
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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119
converge
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| vi.会合；聚集，集中；(思想、观点等)趋近 | |
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120
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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121
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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122
chunk
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| n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量） | |
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123
excision
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| n.删掉；除去 | |
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124
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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125
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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126
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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127
imputed
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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128
persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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129
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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130
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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131
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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132
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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133
unlimitedly
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| 无限地，无例外地 | |
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134
recording
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| n.录音，记录 | |
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135
commemorated
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| v.纪念，庆祝( commemorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
avenger
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| n. 复仇者 | |
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137
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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138
impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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139
violations
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| 违反( violation的名词复数 )； 冒犯； 违反（行为、事例）； 强奸 | |
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140
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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141
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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142
vindication
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| n.洗冤，证实 | |
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143
embodying
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| v.表现( embody的现在分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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144
audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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145
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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146
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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147
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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148
wincing
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的现在分词 ) | |
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149
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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150
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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151
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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152
meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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153
functionally
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| adv.机能上地，官能地 | |
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154
dispensing
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| v.分配( dispense的现在分词 )；施与；配（药） | |
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155
dispenses
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| v.分配，分与；分配( dispense的第三人称单数 )；施与；配（药） | |
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156
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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157
iridescent
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| adj.彩虹色的，闪色的 | |
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158
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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159
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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160
deviations
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| 背离，偏离( deviation的名词复数 )； 离经叛道的行为 | |
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161
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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162
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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163
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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164
recoil
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| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
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165
concussion
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| n.脑震荡；震动 | |
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166
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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167
frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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168
fusion
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| n.溶化；熔解；熔化状态，熔和；熔接 | |
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169
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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170
benevolently
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| adv.仁慈地，行善地 | |
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171
saturation
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| n.饱和(状态)；浸透 | |
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172
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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173
monologues
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| n.（戏剧）长篇独白( monologue的名词复数 )；滔滔不绝的讲话；独角戏 | |
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174
immersion
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| n.沉浸；专心 | |
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175
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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176
exudes
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| v.缓慢流出，渗出，分泌出( exude的第三人称单数 )；流露出对（某物）的神态或感情 | |
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177
perspires
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| v.出汗，流汗( perspire的第三人称单数 ) | |
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178
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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179
momentum
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| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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180
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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181
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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182
recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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183
piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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184
caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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185
pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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186
hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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187
beckon
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| v.(以点头或打手势)向...示意，召唤 | |
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188
collaboration
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| n.合作，协作；勾结 | |
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189
languish
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| vi.变得衰弱无力，失去活力，（植物等）凋萎 | |
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190
droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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191
wilful
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| adj.任性的，故意的 | |
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192
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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193
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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194
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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195
consistencies
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| 一致性( consistency的名词复数 )； 连贯性； 坚实度； 浓度 | |
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196
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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197
rococo
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| n.洛可可；adj.过分修饰的 | |
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198
scenic
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| adj.自然景色的，景色优美的 | |
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199
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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200
reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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201
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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202
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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203
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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204
reiterative
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| 反复说的，重申的 | |
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205
fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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206
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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207
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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208
grovelling
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| adj.卑下的，奴颜婢膝的v.卑躬屈节，奴颜婢膝( grovel的现在分词 )；趴 | |
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209
parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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210
ignobly
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| 卑贱地，下流地 | |
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211
edifying
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| adj.有教训意味的，教训性的，有益的v.开导，启发( edify的现在分词 ) | |
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212
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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213
shuffling
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| adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式 | |
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214
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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215
abate
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| vi.(风势，疼痛等)减弱，减轻，减退 | |
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216
minions
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| n.奴颜婢膝的仆从( minion的名词复数 )；走狗；宠儿；受人崇拜者 | |
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217
tonsure
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| n.削发；v.剃 | |
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218
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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219
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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220
adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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221
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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222
contingent
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| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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turbid
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| adj.混浊的，泥水的，浓的 | |
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224
recurs
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| 再发生，复发( recur的第三人称单数 ) | |
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225
pieties
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| 虔诚，虔敬( piety的名词复数 ) | |
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226
banal
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| adj.陈腐的，平庸的 | |
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227
reprieve
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| n.暂缓执行（死刑）；v.缓期执行；给…带来缓解 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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229
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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230
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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231
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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232
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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233
penury
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| n.贫穷，拮据 | |
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234
resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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235
battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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236
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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237
harangue
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| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
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238
specifications
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| n.规格；载明；详述；（产品等的）说明书；说明书( specification的名词复数 )；详细的计划书；载明；详述 | |
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239
tug
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| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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240
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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241
enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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244
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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245
recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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246
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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247
hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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248
participation
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| n.参与，参加，分享 | |
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249
sordidly
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| adv.肮脏地；污秽地；不洁地 | |
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execrated
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| v.憎恶( execrate的过去式和过去分词 )；厌恶；诅咒；咒骂 | |
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251
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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252
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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253
jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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sentient
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| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
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256
lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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257
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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258
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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259
castigation
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| n.申斥，强烈反对 | |
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260
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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261
scrawls
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| 潦草的笔迹( scrawl的名词复数 ) | |
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fatuous
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| adj.愚昧的；昏庸的 | |
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263
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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264
atrocity
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| n.残暴，暴行 | |
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recoils
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| n.（尤指枪炮的）反冲，后坐力( recoil的名词复数 )v.畏缩( recoil的第三人称单数 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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268
illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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269
tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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270
inhale
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| v.吸入(气体等)，吸(烟) | |
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271
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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272
overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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274
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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levities
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| n.欠考虑( levity的名词复数 )；不慎重；轻率；轻浮 | |
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276
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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277
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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278
sublimated
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| v.（使某物质）升华( sublimate的过去式和过去分词 )；使净化；纯化 | |
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279
ineffably
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| adv.难以言喻地，因神圣而不容称呼地 | |
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280
transcript
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| n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书 | |
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281
massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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283
protagonists
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| n.（戏剧的）主角( protagonist的名词复数 )；（故事的）主人公；现实事件（尤指冲突和争端的）主要参与者；领导者 | |
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284
constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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285
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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286
jubilation
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| n.欢庆，喜悦 | |
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287
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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288
confrontation
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| n.对抗，对峙，冲突 | |
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289
consecrating
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| v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的现在分词 )；奉献 | |
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290
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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291
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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292
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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293
rebounded
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| 弹回( rebound的过去式和过去分词 )； 反弹； 产生反作用； 未能奏效 | |
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294
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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295
converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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296
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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