For the purposes of this work, an outline of Bayard’s travels is all that can be attempted; except where some remarkable2 incident occurred that had an unusual influence on his subsequent life. Leaving Heidelberg in the latter part of October (1844), Bayard walked through the Odenwald to Frankfort, where he could pursue his study of the German language, and observe the customs and characteristics of the people to better advantage and at a less expense. In attempting to see Europe on such a limited allowance of money, he necessarily met with many inconveniences and privations. His sufferings were at times most intense. He knew what it was to fast for whole days; he felt the pains of blistered3 bare feet. He was exposed to the severest storms of summer and winter; he was familiar with the homes of beggary and the hard, swarming4 beds of third-class taverns5. He must have suffered beyond his own estimate, for, as he so well says, the pains of travel are soon forgotten and the pleasures[78] vividly6 remembered. There was a youthful abandon in his almost reckless adventures which startles the reader of his tours. But yet the pains he felt so keenly, the dangers he encountered so frequently, did not seem to abate7 his enthusiasm for the great works and beautiful scenes which Europe exhibits. To find ourselves in a strange city, where no one speaks our native language; where it is not possible that any person can know us or any of our friends; without money, or food, or work, is one of the most disheartening situations that can be imagined. Yet such an experience came often to Bayard. It would seem as if, on some occasions, he ran into such difficulties needlessly and for very wantonness. Yet, as was sometimes the experience of the writer, and from one of which dangerous situations Mr. Taylor generously rescued him, there somehow opens a way out from such ventures, which is found on the very verge8 of starvation and despair. But the trait of character, which in Bayard commanded such respect, was something so unusual, that his daring example cannot be safely followed by the multitude. It is far better to have a supply of money for the necessary expenses of travel in Europe or Asia, than to run risks for the sake of the romance which Bayard found in such straits. To many tourists, even the parks of Homburg, the castle of Drachenfels, or the palace of the Vatican, would become insignificant9 baubles10 before the stronger demands of the body for food and raiment. But seldom[79] did any fatigue11 or annoyance12 or loss, abate his wonderful zeal13 in his search for the poetical14, the strange, the historical, and the beautiful. Some of his most exquisite15 descriptions of art or nature, were written from notes made when his stomach was empty and his limbs chilled with wet and cold. Such young men are few; and for one with less perseverance16, endurance, or genius to attempt such things on such a scale, would be to meet with disheartening failure.
Of his life in Frankfort, during the winter of 1845, he often speaks with great satisfaction. He made excellent progress in the language, and in that understanding of the habits of the people which Mr. Greeley had so pointedly17 urged upon him as an ambitious aspirant18 for the favors of the “Tribune.” He comes out of that study a matured thinker. His descriptions assume a more thoughtful tone. His sympathies are more often awakened19 for the people, and he sees as a man sees, and less juvenile20 are all his undertakings21 and communications. He there acquired a love of German poetry, and became acquainted with many of the noted22 men of Frankfort. He visited the aged23 Mendelssohn, and tells with charming simplicity24 how he was received by the composer of “St. Paul” and “Elijah.” Thus introduced to German literature, art, and music, he entered again upon his travels at the opening of spring, with new and increasing appreciativeness.
Again, on foot, he went into the untried way of Europe. His first attraction was for the Hartz Mountains,[80] so intimately connected with Goethe’s “Faust,” with which Bayard was already in love, and which he afterwards translated in a masterly manner. So he went through Friedberg and Giessen, into Hesse-Cassel, making the acquaintance of peasants and merchants on his way, and moralizing upon the curious circumstance that the descendants of the Hessians, who fought so doggedly26 at Brandywine, should receive so hospitably27 the descendant of those who filled the “plains of Trenton with the short Hessian graves.” Thence by Münden, G?ttingen and Osterode, enduring sickening fatigues28 and dangerous exposure, he reached the Brocken mountain, where, through thickets29, rocks, chasms30, snow and cold, he at last rested in a cottage at its summit, amid the associations awakened by the weird31 tales of witches and the superstitious32 explanations of that singular illusion,—the “Spectre of the Brocken.” If he had any “wish” on that “Walpurgis night,” which he passed on the highest mountain of the Hartz range, it was probably to be relieved of the tortures which his weak frame endured, and from which the physician had failed to relieve him. It would not be surprising if he recited from “Faust” the words of scene IV.:—
“Through some familiar tone, retrieving33
And sweet, clear echoes came, deceiving
A faith bequeathed from childhood’s dawn,
[81]
With dazzling cheats and dear devices
Confines it in this cave of pain!
Cursed be, at once, the high ambition.
Cursed be the glare of apparition38,
We cannot forbear to add another quotation40 from the same Act, so illustrative is it of Bayard’s note-taking life:—
“No need to tell me twice to do it!
I think, how useful ’tis to write;
For what one has in black and white,
One carries home and then goes through it.”
His visit to the Brocken was one of the most fascinating trips of his whole pedestrian tour, notwithstanding his narrow escape from death in the snow, and from destruction by falling into the partially41 concealed42 caves that beset43 his way to the summit. He mentioned long afterward25 the view he had from the summit-house, through the rifts44 in the clouds, of the plains and cities of Germany. Thirty cities and several hundred villages lay within sight, and all of them more or less closely interwoven with the literature of Germany. The plains of Brunswick and Magdeburg stretch away for seventy miles, with all the various shadings of green intermingled with the sparkling silver of stream and lake. It is a scene so grand that no pen could portray45 its sublimity46 and no tongue accurately47 convey an idea of its varied48 beauty. With that[82] romantic persistency49 which no amount of fatigue overcame, Bayard descended50 the mountain by that rugged51 and nerve-shaking path up which Faust was said to have ascended52 with Mephistopheles (scene XXI. of Taylor’s translation) who says:—
“How sadly rises, incomplete and ruddy,
And lights so dimly, that, as one advances,
At every step one strikes a rock or tree!
Let us, then, use a Jack-o’-Lantern’s glances:
I see one yonder, burning merrily.
Why waste so vainly thy resplendence?
Be kind enough to light us up the steep.”
Its exhalation tracks and follows
Now like a tender thread it creepeth,
Now like a fountain leaps and plays.
Here winds away, and in a hundred
Itself detaches, spreads and fades.
But, see! in all their height at present,
The rocky ramparts blazing stand.”
[83]
As Bayard leaped and stumbled down the rocky declivity67 into the narrow gorge59 that there divides the mountains to give an outlet68 for the river Bode69, the very difficulties bound him closer to Goethe’s writings. He felt again how important a thing it is in literature to connect it by patriotic70 links with some actual landscape, and how much more vivid and permanent are the lessons an author would teach when the reader visits the mountains, plains, cities, buildings, and people mentioned in books of classic worth. Thus learning and growing the young traveller plodded71 on from inn to inn and village to village.
Leipsic, which he reached a day or two after leaving the Brocken, was a place of great interest to Bayard, as it is in fact to all travellers. But the interest in any city or country visited by a tourist depends so much upon his previous reading, and the taste and opportunities for reading are so diverse, that it seldom happens that any two persons in the same party enjoy the same scene with equal satisfaction. Bayard had read of Leipsic and Dresden in his boyhood when other boys were catching72 rabbits or playing ball, and as when he sees the great citadel73 at Magdeburg which once held Baron74 Trenck a prisoner, so when at Leipsic he looks over the field where Blucher and Schwartzenberg met Napoleon, he is startled with the vividness of the pictures in his imagination. Hundreds of thousands rushing to combat and scattering75 in retreat while smoke rolls[84] upward from hundreds of cannon76 and the streams are choked with piles of bloody77 dead!
There too was Auerbach’s Cellar, in which Goethe’s Faust and Mephistopheles are so humorously placed. There was the same drinking-saloon, there the descendant of the old bar-keeper, and there the same characteristic crowd of loafers, as when Faust and Mephistopheles drank there, and when amid songs and jokes, the latter drew all kinds of wine from the gimlet holes in the leaf of the old wooden table. Bayard’s estimate of the people appears to have confirmed that of Mephistopheles who says (scene V.):—
“Before all else I bring thee hither
To let thee see how smooth life runs away.
Here, for the folk, each day’s a holiday:
With little wit, and ease to suit them,
They whirl in narrow, circling trails,
Like kittens playing with their tails:
So long the host may credit give,
They merrily and careless live.”
The peasantry still crowd the cellar, still sing the old lays, and each day tell over again the old legend of Mephistopheles’ miraculous80 exit.
“I saw him, with these eyes, upon a wine cask riding
Out of the cellar door, just now.”
点击收听单词发音
1 wan | |
(wide area network)广域网 | |
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2 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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3 blistered | |
adj.水疮状的,泡状的v.(使)起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 );(使表皮等)涨破,爆裂 | |
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4 swarming | |
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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5 taverns | |
n.小旅馆,客栈,酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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6 vividly | |
adv.清楚地,鲜明地,生动地 | |
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7 abate | |
vi.(风势,疼痛等)减弱,减轻,减退 | |
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8 verge | |
n.边,边缘;v.接近,濒临 | |
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9 insignificant | |
adj.无关紧要的,可忽略的,无意义的 | |
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10 baubles | |
n.小玩意( bauble的名词复数 );华而不实的小件装饰品;无价值的东西;丑角的手杖 | |
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11 fatigue | |
n.疲劳,劳累 | |
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12 annoyance | |
n.恼怒,生气,烦恼 | |
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13 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
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14 poetical | |
adj.似诗人的;诗一般的;韵文的;富有诗意的 | |
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15 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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16 perseverance | |
n.坚持不懈,不屈不挠 | |
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17 pointedly | |
adv.尖地,明显地 | |
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18 aspirant | |
n.热望者;adj.渴望的 | |
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19 awakened | |
v.(使)醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 );(使)觉醒;弄醒;(使)意识到 | |
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20 juvenile | |
n.青少年,少年读物;adj.青少年的,幼稚的 | |
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21 undertakings | |
企业( undertaking的名词复数 ); 保证; 殡仪业; 任务 | |
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22 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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23 aged | |
adj.年老的,陈年的 | |
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24 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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25 afterward | |
adv.后来;以后 | |
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26 doggedly | |
adv.顽强地,固执地 | |
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27 hospitably | |
亲切地,招待周到地,善于款待地 | |
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28 fatigues | |
n.疲劳( fatigue的名词复数 );杂役;厌倦;(士兵穿的)工作服 | |
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29 thickets | |
n.灌木丛( thicket的名词复数 );丛状物 | |
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30 chasms | |
裂缝( chasm的名词复数 ); 裂口; 分歧; 差别 | |
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31 weird | |
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的 | |
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32 superstitious | |
adj.迷信的 | |
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33 retrieving | |
n.检索(过程),取还v.取回( retrieve的现在分词 );恢复;寻回;检索(储存的信息) | |
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34 torment | |
n.折磨;令人痛苦的东西(人);vt.折磨;纠缠 | |
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35 entices | |
诱惑,怂恿( entice的第三人称单数 ) | |
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36 snares | |
n.陷阱( snare的名词复数 );圈套;诱人遭受失败(丢脸、损失等)的东西;诱惑物v.用罗网捕捉,诱陷,陷害( snare的第三人称单数 ) | |
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37 deludes | |
v.欺骗,哄骗( delude的第三人称单数 ) | |
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38 apparition | |
n.幽灵,神奇的现象 | |
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39 intrudes | |
v.侵入,侵扰,打扰( intrude的第三人称单数 );把…强加于 | |
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40 quotation | |
n.引文,引语,语录;报价,牌价,行情 | |
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41 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
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42 concealed | |
a.隐藏的,隐蔽的 | |
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43 beset | |
v.镶嵌;困扰,包围 | |
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44 rifts | |
n.裂缝( rift的名词复数 );裂隙;分裂;不和 | |
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45 portray | |
v.描写,描述;画(人物、景象等) | |
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46 sublimity | |
崇高,庄严,气质高尚 | |
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47 accurately | |
adv.准确地,精确地 | |
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48 varied | |
adj.多样的,多变化的 | |
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49 persistency | |
n. 坚持(余辉, 时间常数) | |
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50 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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51 rugged | |
adj.高低不平的,粗糙的,粗壮的,强健的 | |
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52 ascended | |
v.上升,攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53 lone | |
adj.孤寂的,单独的;唯一的 | |
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54 levy | |
n.征收税或其他款项,征收额 | |
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55 musing | |
n. 沉思,冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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56 glimmers | |
n.微光,闪光( glimmer的名词复数 )v.发闪光,发微光( glimmer的第三人称单数 ) | |
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57 dreary | |
adj.令人沮丧的,沉闷的,单调乏味的 | |
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58 gorges | |
n.山峡,峡谷( gorge的名词复数 );咽喉v.(用食物把自己)塞饱,填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 );作呕 | |
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59 gorge | |
n.咽喉,胃,暴食,山峡;v.塞饱,狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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60 vapor | |
n.蒸汽,雾气 | |
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61 haze | |
n.霾,烟雾;懵懂,迷糊;vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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62 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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63 sundered | |
v.隔开,分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64 gush | |
v.喷,涌;滔滔不绝(说话);n.喷,涌流;迸发 | |
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65 incandescent | |
adj.遇热发光的, 白炽的,感情强烈的 | |
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66 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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67 declivity | |
n.下坡,倾斜面 | |
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68 outlet | |
n.出口/路;销路;批发商店;通风口;发泄 | |
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69 bode | |
v.预示 | |
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70 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
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71 plodded | |
v.沉重缓慢地走(路)( plod的过去式和过去分词 );努力从事;沉闷地苦干;缓慢进行(尤指艰难枯燥的工作) | |
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72 catching | |
adj.易传染的,有魅力的,迷人的,接住 | |
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73 citadel | |
n.城堡;堡垒;避难所 | |
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74 baron | |
n.男爵;(商业界等)巨头,大王 | |
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75 scattering | |
n.[物]散射;散乱,分散;在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的;分散在不同范围的;广泛扩散的;(选票)数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式);散布;驱散 | |
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76 cannon | |
n.大炮,火炮;飞机上的机关炮 | |
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77 bloody | |
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染 | |
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78 boon | |
n.恩赐,恩物,恩惠 | |
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79 persecute | |
vt.迫害,虐待;纠缠,骚扰 | |
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80 miraculous | |
adj.像奇迹一样的,不可思议的 | |
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