Nevertheless, with the greater number of them, though their dimness increases gradually, we may mark the moment of their sunset; and, happily, may turn the shadow back by the way by which it had gone down: but for one, the line of the horizon is irregular and undefined; and this, too, the very equator and girdle of them all—Truth; that only one of which there are no degrees, but breaks and rents continually; that pillar of the earth, yet a cloudy pillar; that golden and narrow line, which the very powers and virtues that lean upon[Pg 35] it bend, which policy and prudence10 conceal11, which kindness and courtesy modify, which courage overshadows with his shield, imagination covers with her wings, and charity dims with her tears. How difficult must the maintenance of that authority be, which, while it has to restrain the hostility12 of all the worst principles of man, has also to restrain the disorders13 of his best—which is continually assaulted by the one, and betrayed by the other, and which regards with the same severity the lightest and the boldest violations15 of its law! There are some faults slight in the sight of love, some errors slight in the estimate of wisdom; but truth forgives no insult, and endures no stain.
We do not enough consider this; nor enough dread16 the slight and continual occasions of offence against her. We are too much in the habit of looking at falsehood in its darkest associations, and through the color of its worst purposes. That indignation which we profess17 to feel at deceit absolute, is indeed only at deceit malicious18. We resent calumny19, hypocrisy20 and treachery, because they harm us, not because they are untrue. Take the detraction21 and the mischief22 from the untruth, and we are little offended by it; turn it into praise, and we may be pleased with it. And yet it is not calumny nor treachery that does the largest sum of mischief in the world; they are continually crushed, and are felt only in being conquered. But it is the glistening23 and softly spoken lie; the amiable24 fallacy; the patriotic25 lie of the historian, the provident26 lie of the politician, the zealous27 lie of the partizan, the merciful lie of the friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast that black mystery over humanity, through which any man who pierces, we thank as we would thank one who dug a well in a desert; happy in that the thirst for truth still remains29 with us, even when we have wilfully30 left the fountains of it.
It would be well if moralists less frequently confused the greatness of a sin with its unpardonableness. The two characters are altogether distinct. The greatness of a fault depends partly on the nature of the person against whom it is committed, partly upon the extent of its consequences. Its par[Pg 36]donableness depends, humanly speaking, on the degree of temptation to it. One class of circumstances determines the weight of the attaching punishment; the other, the claim to remission of punishment: and since it is not easy for men to estimate the relative weight, nor possible for them to know the relative consequences, of crime, it is usually wise in them to quit the care of such nice measurements, and to look to the other and clearer condition of culpability32; esteeming33 those faults worst which are committed under least temptation. I do not mean to diminish the blame of the injurious and malicious sin, of the selfish and deliberate falsity; yet it seems to me, that the shortest way to check the darker forms of deceit is to set watch more scrupulous35 against those which have mingled36, unregarded and unchastised, with the current of our life. Do not let us lie at all. Do not think of one falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as unintended. Cast them all aside: they may be light and accidental; but they are an ugly soot37 from the smoke of the pit, for all that; and it is better that our hearts should be swept clean of them, without over care as to which is largest or blackest. Speaking truth is like writing fair, and comes only by practice; it is less a matter of will than of habit, and I doubt if any occasion can be trivial which permits the practice and formation of such a habit. To speak and act truth with constancy and precision is nearly as difficult, and perhaps as meritorious38, as to speak it under intimidation39 or penalty; and it is a strange thought how many men there are, as I trust, who would hold to it at the cost of fortune or life, for one who would hold to it at the cost of a little daily trouble. And seeing that of all sin there is, perhaps, no one more flatly opposite to the Almighty40, no one more "wanting the good of virtue2 and of being," than this of lying, it is surely a strange insolence42 to fall into the foulness44 of it on light or on no temptation, and surely becoming an honorable man to resolve that, whatever semblances46 or fallacies the necessary course of his life may compel him to bear or to believe, none shall disturb the serenity47 of his voluntary actions, nor diminish the reality of his chosen delights.[Pg 37]
II. If this be just and wise for truth's sake, much more is it necessary for the sake of the delights over which she has influence. For, as I advocated the expression of the Spirit of Sacrifice in the acts and pleasures of men, not as if thereby48 those acts could further the cause of religion, but because most assuredly they might therein be infinitely49 ennobled themselves, so I would have the Spirit or Lamp of Truth clear in the hearts of our artists and handicraftsmen, not as if the truthful50 practice of handicrafts could far advance the cause of truth, but because I would fain see the handicrafts themselves urged by the spurs of chivalry51: and it is, indeed, marvellous to see what power and universality there is in this single principle, and how in the consulting or forgetting of it lies half the dignity or decline of every art and act of man. I have before endeavored to show its range and power in painting; and I believe a volume, instead of a chapter, might be written on its authority over all that is great in architecture. But I must be content with the force of instances few and familiar, believing that the occasions of its manifestation52 may be more easily discovered by a desire to be true, than embraced by an analysis of truth.
Only it is very necessary in the outset to mark clearly wherein consists the essence of fallacy as distinguished53 from supposition.
III. For it might be at first thought that the whole kingdom of imagination was one of deception54 also. Not so: the action of the imagination is a voluntary summoning of the conceptions of things absent or impossible; and the pleasure and nobility of the imagination partly consist in its knowledge and contemplation of them as such, i.e. in the knowledge of their actual absence or impossibility at the moment of their apparent presence or reality. When the imagination deceives it becomes madness. It is a noble faculty55 so long as it confesses its own ideality; when it ceases to confess this, it is insanity56. All the difference lies in the fact of the confession57, in there being no deception. It is necessary to our rank as spiritual creatures, that we should be able to invent and to behold58 what is not; and to our rank as moral creatures[Pg 38] that we should know and confess at the same time that it is not.
IV. Again, it might be thought, and has been thought, that the whole art of painting is nothing else than an endeavor to deceive. Not so: it is, on the contrary, a statement of certain facts, in the clearest possible way. For instance: I desire to give an account of a mountain or of a rock; I begin by telling its shape. But words will not do this distinctly, and I draw its shape, and say, "This was its shape." Next: I would fain represent its color; but words will not do this either, and I dye the paper, and say, "This was its color." Such a process may be carried on until the scene appears to exist, and a high pleasure may be taken in its apparent existence. This is a communicated act of imagination, but no lie. The lie can consist only in an assertion of its existence (which is never for one instant made, implied, or believed), or else in false statements of forms and colors (which are, indeed, made and believed to our great loss, continually). And observe, also, that so degrading a thing is deception in even the approach and appearance of it, that all painting which even reaches the mark of apparent realization59, is degraded in so doing. I have enough insisted on this point in another place.
V. The violations of truth, which dishonor poetry and painting, are thus for the most part confined to the treatment of their subjects. But in architecture another and a less subtle, more contemptible60, violation14 of truth is possible; a direct falsity of assertion respecting the nature of material, or the quantity of labor61. And this is, in the full sense of the word, wrong; it is as truly deserving of reprobation62 as any other moral delinquency; it is unworthy alike of architects and of nations; and it has been a sign, wherever it has widely and with toleration existed, of a singular debasement of the arts; that it is not a sign of worse than this, of a general want of severe probity63, can be accounted for only by our knowledge of the strange separation which has for some centuries existed between the arts and all other subjects of human intellect, as matters of conscience. This withdrawal64 of conscientiousness65 from among the faculties66 concerned with art, while it has[Pg 39] destroyed the arts themselves, has also rendered in a measure nugatory67 the evidence which otherwise they might have presented respecting the character of the respective nations among whom they have been cultivated; otherwise, it might appear more than strange that a nation so distinguished for its general uprightness and faith as the English, should admit in their architecture more of pretence68, concealment69, and deceit, than any other of this or of past time.
They are admitted in thoughtlessness, but with fatal effect upon the art in which they are practised. If there were no other causes for the failures which of late have marked every great occasion for architectural exertion70, these petty dishonesties would be enough to account for all. It is the first step and not the least, towards greatness to do away with these; the first, because so evidently and easily in our power. We may not be able to command good, or beautiful, or inventive architecture; but we can command an honest architecture: the meagreness of poverty may be pardoned, the sternness of utility respected; but what is there but scorn for the meanness of deception?
VI. Architectural Deceits are broadly to be considered under three heads:—
1st. The suggestion of a mode of structure or support, other than the true one; as in pendants of late Gothic roofs.
2d. The painting of surfaces to represent some other material than that of which they actually consist (as in the marbling of wood), or the deceptive71 representation of sculptured ornament72 upon them.
Now, it may be broadly stated, that architecture will be noble exactly in the degree in which all these false expedients75 are avoided. Nevertheless, there are certain degrees of them, which, owing to their frequent usage, or to other causes, have so far lost the nature of deceit as to be admissible; as, for instance, gilding76, which is in architecture no deceit, because it is therein not understood for gold; while in jewellery it is a deceit, because it is so understood, and therefore altogether to be reprehended77. So that there arise, in the application of[Pg 40] the strict rules of right, many exceptions and niceties of conscience; which let us as briefly78 as possible examine.
VII. 1st. Structural79 Deceits. I have limited these to the determined80 and purposed suggestion of a mode of support other than the true one. The architect is not bound to exhibit structure; nor are we to complain of him for concealing81 it, any more than we should regret that the outer surfaces of the human frame conceal much of its anatomy82; nevertheless, that building will generally be the noblest, which to an intelligent eye discovers the great secrets of its structure, as an animal form does, although from a careless observer they may be concealed83. In the vaulting85 of a Gothic roof it is no deceit to throw the strength into the ribs87 of it, and make the intermediate vault84 a mere88 shell. Such a structure would be presumed by an intelligent observer, the first time he saw such a roof; and the beauty of its traceries would be enhanced to him if they confessed and followed the lines of its main strength. If, however, the intermediate shell were made of wood instead of stone, and whitewashed91 to look like the rest,—this would, of course, be direct deceit, and altogether unpardonable.
There is, however, a certain deception necessarily occurring in Gothic architecture, which relates, not to the points, but to the manner, of support. The resemblance in its shafts93 and ribs to the external relations of stems and branches, which has been the ground of so much foolish speculation94, necessarily induces in the mind of the spectator a sense or belief of a correspondent internal structure; that is to say, of a fibrous and continuous strength from the root into the limbs, and an elasticity96 communicated upwards97, sufficient for the support of the ramified portions. The idea of the real conditions, of a great weight of ceiling thrown upon certain narrow, jointed98 lines, which have a tendency partly to be crushed, and partly to separate and be pushed outwards100, is with difficulty received; and the more so when the pillars would be, if unassisted, too slight for the weight, and are supported by external flying buttresses102, as in the apse of Beauvais, and other such achievements of the bolder Gothic. Now,[Pg 41] there is a nice question of conscience in this, which we shall hardly settle but by considering that, when the mind is informed beyond the possibility of mistake as to the true nature of things, the affecting it with a contrary impression, however distinct, is no dishonesty, but on the contrary, a legitimate103 appeal to the imagination. For instance, the greater part of the happiness which we have in contemplating104 clouds, results from the impression of their having massive, luminous105, warm, and mountain-like surfaces; and our delight in the sky frequently depends upon our considering it as a blue vault. But we know the contrary, in both instances; we know the cloud to be a damp fog, or a drift of snow flakes106; and the sky to be a lightless abyss. There is, therefore, no dishonesty, while there is much delight, in the irresistibly107 contrary impression. In the same way, so long as we see the stones and joints108, and are not deceived as to the points of support in any piece of architecture, we may rather praise than regret the dextrous artifices110 which compel us to feel as if there were fibre in its shafts and life in its branches. Nor is even the concealment of the support of the external buttress101 reprehensible111, so long as the pillars are not sensibly inadequate112 to their duty. For the weight of a roof is a circumstance of which the spectator generally has no idea, and the provisions for it, consequently, circumstances whose necessity or adaptation he could not understand. It is no deceit, therefore, when the weight to be borne is necessarily unknown, to conceal also the means of bearing it, leaving only to be perceived so much of the support as is indeed adequate to the weight supposed. For the shafts do, indeed, bear as much as they are ever imagined to bear, and the system of added support is no more, as a matter of conscience, to be exhibited, than, in the human or any other form, mechanical provisions for those functions which are themselves unperceived.
But the moment that the conditions of weight are comprehended, both truth and feeling require that the conditions of support should be also comprehended. Nothing can be worse, either as judged by the taste or the conscience, than[Pg 42] affectedly113 inadequate supports—suspensions in air, and other such tricks and vanities. Mr. Hope wisely reprehends114, for this reason, the arrangement of the main piers115 of St. Sophia at Constantinople. King's College Chapel116, Cambridge, is a piece of architectural juggling118, if possible still more to be condemned119, because less sublime120.
VIII. With deceptive concealments of structure are to be classed, though still more blameable, deceptive assumptions of it—the introduction of members which should have, or profess to have, a duty, and have none. One of the most general instances of this will be found in the form of the flying buttress in late Gothic. The use of that member is, of course, to convey support from one pier28 to another when the plan of the building renders it necessary or desirable that the supporting masses should be divided into groups, the most frequent necessity of this kind arising from the intermediate range of chapels121 or aisles122 between the nave124 or choir125 walls and their supporting piers. The natural, healthy, and beautiful arrangement is that of a steeply sloping bar of stone, sustained by an arch with its spandril carried farthest down on the lowest side, and dying into the vertical126 of the outer pier; that pier being, of course, not square, but rather a piece of wall set at right angles to the supported walls, and, if need be, crowned by a pinnacle127 to give it greater weight. The whole arrangement is exquisitely129 carried out in the choir of Beauvais. In later Gothic the pinnacle became gradually a decorative130 member, and was used in all places merely for the sake of its beauty. There is no objection to this; it is just as lawful131 to build a pinnacle for its beauty as a tower; but also the buttress became a decorative member; and was used, first, where it was not wanted, and, secondly132, in forms in which it could be of no use, becoming a mere tie, not between the pier and wall, but between the wall and the top of the decorative pinnacle, thus attaching itself to the very point where its thrust, if it made any, could not be resisted. The most flagrant instance of this barbarism that I remember (though it prevails partially133 in all the spires134 of the Netherlands), is the lantern of St. Ouen at Rouen, where the pierced buttress, having an ogee curve, looks about as much calculated[Pg 43] to bear a thrust as a switch of willow136; and the pinnacles137, huge and richly decorated, have evidently no work to do whatsoever138, but stand round the central tower, like four idle servants, as they are—heraldic supporters, that central tower being merely a hollow crown, which needs no more buttressing139 than a basket does. In fact, I do not know anything more strange or unwise than the praise lavished140 upon this lantern; it is one of the basest pieces of Gothic in Europe; its flamboyant142 traceries of the last and most degraded forms;5 and its entire plan and decoration resembling, and deserving little more credit than, the burnt sugar ornaments of elaborate confectionery. There are hardly any of the magnificent and serene143 constructions of the early Gothic which have not, in the course of time, been gradually thinned and pared away into these skeletons, which sometimes indeed, when their lines truly follow the structure of the original masses, have an interest like that of the fibrous framework of leaves from which the substance has been dissolved, but which are usually distorted as well as emaciated144, and remain but the sickly phantoms145 and mockeries of things that were; they are to true architecture what the Greek ghost was to the armed and living frame; and the very winds that whistle through the threads of them, are to the diapasoned echoes of the ancient walls, as to the voice of the man was the pining of the spectre.6
IX. Perhaps the most fruitful source of these kinds of corruption146 which we have to guard against in recent times, is one which, nevertheless, comes in a "questionable147 shape," and of which it is not easy to determine the proper laws and limits; I mean the use of iron. The definition of the art of architecture, given in the first chapter, is independent of its materials: nevertheless, that art having been, up to the beginning of the present century, practised for the most part in clay, stone, or wood, it has resulted that the sense of proportion and the laws of structure have been based, the one altogether, the other in great part, on the necessities consequent on the employment of those materials; and that the entire or principal employment of metallic148 framework would, therefore, be generally felt as a departure from the first principles of the art. Abstract[Pg 44]edly there appears no reason why iron should not be used as well as wood; and the time is probably near when a new system of architectural laws will be developed, adapted entirely149 to metallic construction. But I believe that the tendency of all present sympathy and association is to limit the idea of architecture to non-metallic work; and that not without reason. For architecture being in its perfection the earliest, as in its elements it is necessarily the first, of arts, will always precede, in any barbarous nation, the possession of the science necessary either for the obtaining or the management of iron. Its first existence and its earliest laws must, therefore, depend upon the use of materials accessible in quantity, and on the surface of the earth; that is to say, clay, wood, or stone: and as I think it cannot but be generally felt that one of the chief dignities of architecture is its historical use; and since the latter is partly dependent on consistency150 of style, it will be felt right to retain as far as may be, even in periods of more advanced science, the materials and principles of earlier ages.
X. But whether this be granted me or not, the fact is, that every idea respecting size, proportion, decoration, or construction, on which we are at present in the habit of acting151 or judging, depends on presupposition of such materials: and as I both feel myself unable to escape the influence of these prejudices, and believe that my readers will be equally so, it may be perhaps permitted to me to assume that true architecture does not admit iron as a constructive152 material,7 and that such works as the cast-iron central spire135 of Rouen Cathedral, or the iron roofs and pillars of our railway stations, and of some of our churches, are not architecture at all. Yet it is evident that metals may, and sometimes must, enter into the construction to a certain extent, as nails in wooden architecture, and therefore as legitimately153 rivets154 and solderings in stone; neither can we well deny to the Gothic architect the power of supporting statues, pinnacles, or traceries by iron bars; and if we grant this I do not see how we can help allowing Brunelleschi his iron chain around the dome155 of Florence, or the builders of Salisbury their elaborate iron binding156 of the central tower.8 If, however, we would not fall into the old sophistry157 of the[Pg 45] grains of corn and the heap, we must find a rule which may enable us to stop somewhere. This rule is, I think, that metals may be used as a cement but not as a support. For as cements of other kinds are often so strong that the stones may easier be broken than separated, and the wall becomes a solid mass without for that reason losing the character of architecture, there is no reason why, when a nation has obtained the knowledge and practice of iron work, metal rods or rivets should not be used in the place of cement, and establish the same or a greater strength and adherence158, without in any wise inducing departure from the types and system of architecture before established; nor does it make any difference except as to sightliness, whether the metal bands or rods so employed, be in the body of the wall or on its exterior159, or set as stays and cross-bands; so only that the use of them be always and distinctly one which might be superseded160 by mere strength of cement; as for instance if a pinnacle or mullion be propped161 or tied by an iron band, it is evident that the iron only prevents the separation of the stones by lateral162 force, which the cement would have done, had it been strong enough. But the moment that the iron in the least degree takes the place of the stone, and acts by its resistance to crushing, and bears superincumbent weight, or if it acts by its own weight as a counterpoise, and so supersedes164 the use of pinnacles or buttresses in resisting a lateral thrust, or if, in the form of a rod or girder, it is used to do what wooden beams would have done as well, that instant the building ceases, so far as such applications of metal extend, to be true architecture.
XI. The limit, however, thus determined, is an ultimate one, and it is well in all things to be cautious how we approach the utmost limit of lawfulness165; so that, although the employment of metal within this limit cannot be considered as destroying the very being and nature of architecture, it will, if, extravagant166 and frequent, derogate167 from the dignity of the work, as well as (which is especially to our present point) from its honesty. For although the spectator is not informed as to the quantity or strength of the cement employed, he will generally conceive the stones of the building to be separable[Pg 46] and his estimate of the skill of the architect will be based in a great measure on his supposition of this condition, and of the difficulties attendant upon it: so that it is always more honorable, and it has a tendency to render the style of architecture both more masculine and more scientific, to employ stone and mortar168 simply as such, and to do as much as possible with the weight of the one and the strength of the other, and rather sometimes to forego a grace, or to confess a weakness, than attain169 the one, or conceal the other, by means verging170 upon dishonesty.
Nevertheless, where the design is of such delicacy171 and slightness as, in some parts of very fair and finished edifices172, it is desirable that it should be; and where both its completion and security are in a measure dependent on the use of metal, let not such use be reprehended; so only that as much is done as may be, by good mortar and good masonry173; and no slovenly174 workmanship admitted through confidence in the iron helps; for it is in this license175 as in that of wine, a man may use it for his infirmities, but not for his nourishment176.
XII. And, in order to avoid an over use of this liberty, it would be well to consider what application may be conveniently made of the dovetailing and various adjusting of stones; for when any artifice109 is necessary to help the mortar, certainly this ought to come before the use of metal, for it is both safer and more honest. I cannot see that any objection can be made to the fitting of the stones in any shapes the architect pleases: for although it would not be desirable to see buildings put together like Chinese puzzles, there must always be a check upon such an abuse of the practice in its difficulty; nor is it necessary that it should be always exhibited, so that it be understood by the spectator as an admitted help, and that no principal stones are introduced in positions apparently177 impossible for them to retain, although a riddle178 here and there, in unimportant features, may sometimes serve to draw the eye to the masonry, and make it interesting, as well as to give a delightful179 sense of a kind of necromantic180 power in the architect. There is a pretty one in the lintel of the lateral door of the cathedral of Prato[Pg 47] (Plate IV. fig181. 4.); where the maintenance of the visibly separate stones, alternate marble and serpentine182, cannot be understood until their cross-cutting is seen below. Each block is, of course, of the form given in fig. 5.
XIII. Lastly, before leaving the subject of structural deceits, I would remind the architect who thinks that I am unnecessarily and narrowly limiting his resources or his art, that the highest greatness and the highest wisdom are shown, the first by a noble submission183 to, the second by a thoughtful providence184 for, certain voluntarily admitted restraints. Nothing is more evident than this, in that supreme185 government which is the example, as it is the centre, of all others. The Divine Wisdom is, and can be, shown to us only in its meeting and contending with the difficulties which are voluntarily, and for the sake of that contest, admitted by the Divine Omnipotence186: and these difficulties, observe, occur in the form of natural laws or ordinances187, which might, at many times and in countless188 ways, be infringed189 with apparent advantage, but which are never infringed, whatever costly190 arrangements or adaptations their observance may necessitate191 for the accomplishment192 of given purposes. The example most apposite to our present subject is the structure of the bones of animals. No reason can be given, I believe, why the system of the higher animals should not have been made capable, as that of the Infusoria is, of secreting193 flint, instead of phosphate of lime, or more naturally still, carbon; so framing the bones of adamant194 at once. The elephant or rhinoceros195, had the earthy part of their bones been made of diamond, might have been as agile196 and light as grasshoppers197, and other animals might have been framed far more magnificently colossal198 than any that walk the earth. In other worlds we may, perhaps, see such creations; a creation for every element, and elements infinite. But the architecture of animals here, is appointed by God to be a marble architecture, not a flint nor adamant architecture; and all manner of expedients are adopted to attain the utmost degree of strength and size possible under that great limitation. The jaw200 of the ichthyosaurus is pieced and riveted201, the leg of the megatherium is a foot thick, and[Pg 48] the head of the myodon has a double skull202; we, in our wisdom, should, doubtless, have given the lizard203 a steel jaw, and the myodon a cast-iron headpiece, and forgotten the great principle to which all creation bears witness, that order and system are nobler things than power. But God shows us in Himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative204 perfection, but even the perfection of Obedience205—an obedience to His own laws: and in the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of His creatures we are reminded, even in His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the human creature "that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not."
XIV. 2d. Surface Deceits. These may be generally defined as the inducing the supposition of some form or material which does not actually exist; as commonly in the painting of wood to represent marble, or in the painting of ornaments in deceptive relief, &c. But we must be careful to observe, that the evil of them consists always in definitely attempted deception, and that it is a matter of some nicety to mark the point where deception begins or ends.
Thus, for instance, the roof of Milan Cathedral is seemingly covered with elaborate fan tracery, forcibly enough painted to enable it, in its dark and removed position, to deceive a careless observer. This is, of course, gross degradation206; it destroys much of the dignity even of the rest of the building, and is in the very strongest terms to be reprehended.
The roof of the Sistine Chapel has much architectural design in grissaille mingled with the figures of its frescoes208; and the effect is increase of dignity.
In what lies the distinctive209 character?
In two points, principally:—First. That the architecture is so closely associated with the figures, and has so grand fellowship with them in its forms and cast shadows, that both are at once felt to be of a piece; and as the figures must necessarily be painted, the architecture is known to be so too. There is thus no deception.
Second. That so great a painter as Michael Angelo would always stop short in such minor210 parts of his design, of the de[Pg 49]gree of vulgar force which would be necessary to induce the supposition of their reality; and, strangely as it may sound, would never paint badly enough to deceive.
But though right and wrong are thus found broadly opposed in works severally so mean and so mighty41 as the roof of Milan and that of the Sistine, there are works neither so great nor so mean, in which the limits of right are vaguely211 defined, and will need some care to determine; care only, however, to apply accurately212 the broad principle with which we set out, that no form nor material is to be deceptively represented.
XV. Evidently, then, painting, confessedly such, is no deception: it does not assert any material whatever. Whether it be on wood or on stone, or, as will naturally be supposed, on plaster, does not matter. Whatever the material, good painting makes it more precious; nor can it ever be said to deceive respecting the ground of which it gives us no information. To cover brick with plaster, and this plaster with fresco207, is, therefore, perfectly213 legitimate; and as desirable a mode of decoration as it is constant in the great periods. Verona and Venice are now seen deprived of more than half their former splendor214; it depended far more on their frescoes than their marbles. The plaster, in this case, is to be considered as the gesso ground on panel or canvas. But to cover brick with cement, and to divide this cement with joints that it may look like stone, is to tell a falsehood; and is just as contemptible a procedure as the other is noble.
It being lawful to paint then, is it lawful to paint everything? So long as the painting is confessed—yes; but if, even in the slightest degree, the sense of it be lost, and the thing painted be supposed real—no. Let us take a few instances. In the Campo Santo at Pisa, each fresco is surrounded with a border composed of flat colored patterns of great elegance—no part of it in attempted relief. The certainty of flat surface being thus secured, the figures, though the size of life, do not deceive, and the artist thenceforward is at liberty to put forth215 his whole power, and to lead us through fields and groves216, and depths of pleasant landscape, and to soothe217 us with the sweet clearness of far off sky, and yet[Pg 50] never lose the severity of his primal218 purpose of architectural decoration.
In the Camera di Correggio of San Lodovico at Parma, the trellises of vine shadow the walls, as if with an actual arbor219; and the troops of children, peeping through the oval openings, luscious220 in color and faint in light, may well be expected every instant to break through, or hide behind the covert221. The grace of their attitudes, and the evident greatness of the whole work, mark that it is painting, and barely redeem222 it from the charge of falsehood; but even so saved, it is utterly223 unworthy to take a place among noble or legitimate architectural decoration.
In the cupola of the duomo of Parma the same painter has represented the Assumption with so much deceptive power, that he has made a dome of some thirty feet diameter look like a cloud-wrapt opening in the seventh heaven, crowded with a rushing sea of angels. Is this wrong? Not so: for the subject at once precludes224 the possibility of deception. We might have taken the vines for a veritable pergoda, and the children for its haunting ragazzi; but we know the stayed clouds and moveless angels must be man's work; let him put his utmost strength to it and welcome, he can enchant225 us, but cannot betray.
We may thus apply the rule to the highest, as well as the art of daily occurrence, always remembering that more is to be forgiven to the great painter than to the mere decorative workman; and this especially, because the former, even in deceptive portions, will not trick us so grossly; as we have just seen in Correggio, where a worse painter would have made the thing look like life at once. There is, however, in room, villa226, or garden decoration, some fitting admission of trickeries of this kind, as of pictured landscapes at the extremities227 of alleys228 and arcades230, and ceilings like skies, or painted with prolongations upwards of the architecture of the walls, which things have sometimes a certain luxury and pleasureableness in places meant for idleness, and are innocent enough as long as they are regarded as mere toys.
XVI. Touching231 the false representation of material, the[Pg 51] question is infinitely more simple, and the law more sweeping232; all such imitations are utterly base and inadmissible. It is melancholy233 to think of the time and expense lost in marbling the shop fronts of London alone, and of the waste of our resources in absolute vanities, in things about which no mortal cares, by which no eye is ever arrested, unless painfully, and which do not add one whit90 to comfort or cleanliness, or even to that great object of commercial art—conspicuousness. But in architecture of a higher rank, how much more is it to be condemned? I have made it a rule in the present work not to blame specifically; but I may, perhaps, be permitted, while I express my sincere admiration235 of the very noble entrance and general architecture of the British Museum, to express also my regret that the noble granite236 foundation of the staircase should be mocked at its landing by an imitation, the more blameable because tolerably successful. The only effect of it is to cast a suspicion upon the true stones below, and upon every bit of granite afterwards encountered. One feels a doubt, after it, of the honesty of Memnon himself. But even this, however derogatory to the noble architecture around it, is less painful than the want of feeling with which, in our cheap modern churches, we suffer the wall decorator to erect237 about the altar frameworks and pediments daubed with mottled color, and to dye in the same fashions such skeletons or caricatures of columns as may emerge above the pews; this is not merely bad taste; it is no unimportant or excusable error which brings even these shadows of vanity and falsehood into the house of prayer. The first condition which just feeling requires in church furniture is, that it should be simple and unaffected, not fictitious238 nor tawdry. It may be in our power to make it beautiful, but let it at least be pure; and if we cannot permit much to the architect, do not let us permit anything to the upholsterer; if we keep to solid stone and solid wood, whitewashed, if we like, for cleanliness' sake (for whitewash89 has so often been used as the dress of noble things that it has thence received a kind of nobility itself), it must be a bad design indeed which is grossly offensive. I recollect239 no instance of a[Pg 52] want of sacred character, or of any marked and painful ugliness, in the simplest or the most awkwardly built village church, where stone and wood were roughly and nakedly used, and the windows latticed with white glass. But the smoothly240 stuccoed walls, the flat roofs with ventilator ornaments, the barred windows with jaundiced borders and dead ground square panes241, the gilded242 or bronzed wood, the painted iron, the wretched upholstery of curtains and cushions, and pew heads and altar railings, and Birmingham metal candlesticks, and, above all, the green and yellow sickness of the false marble—disguises all, observe; falsehoods all—who are they who like these things? who defend them? who do them? I have never spoken to any one who did like them, though to many who thought them matters of no consequence. Perhaps not to religion (though I cannot but believe that there are many to whom, as to myself, such things are serious obstacles to the repose243 of mind and temper which should precede devotional exercises); but to the general tone of our judgment244 and feeling—yes; for assuredly we shall regard, with tolerance245, if not with affection, whatever forms of material things we have been in the habit of associating with our worship, and be little prepared to detect or blame hypocrisy, meanness, and disguise in other kinds of decoration when we suffer objects belonging to the most solemn of all services to be tricked out in a fashion so fictitious and unseemly.
XVII. Painting, however, is not the only mode in which material may be concealed, or rather simulated; for merely to conceal is, as we have seen, no wrong. Whitewash, for instance, though often (by no means always) to be regretted as a concealment, is not to be blamed as a falsity. It shows itself for what it is, and asserts nothing of what is beneath it. Gilding has become, from its frequent use, equally innocent. It is understood for what it is, a film merely, and is, therefore, allowable to any extent. I do not say expedient74: it is one of the most abused means of magnificence we possess, and I much doubt whether any use we ever make of it, balances that loss of pleasure, which, from the frequent sight and perpetual suspicion of it, we suffer in the contemplation of any[Pg 53]thing that is verily of gold. I think gold was meant to be seldom seen and to be admired as a precious thing; and I sometimes wish that truth should so far literally246 prevail as that all should be gold that glittered, or rather that nothing should glitter that was not gold. Nevertheless, nature herself does not dispense247 with such semblance45, but uses light for it; and I have too great a love for old and saintly art to part with its burnished248 field, or radiant nimbus; only it should be used with respect, and to express magnificence, or sacredness, and not in lavish141 vanity, or in sign painting. Of its expedience249, however, any more than of that of color, it is not here the place to speak; we are endeavoring to determine what is lawful, not what is desirable. Of other and less common modes of disguising surface, as of powder of lapis lazuli, or mosaic250 imitations of colored stones, I need hardly speak. The rule will apply to all alike, that whatever is pretended, is wrong; commonly enforced also by the exceeding ugliness and insufficient251 appearance of such methods, as lately in the style of renovation252 by which half the houses in Venice have been defaced, the brick covered first with stucco, and this painted with zigzag253 veins254 in imitation of alabaster255. But there is one more form of architectural fiction, which is so constant in the great periods that it needs respectful judgment. I mean the facing of brick with precious stone.
XVIII. It is well known, that what is meant by a church's being built of marble is, in nearly all cases, only that a veneering of marble has been fastened on the rough brick wall, built with certain projections256 to receive it; and that what appear to be massy stones, are nothing more than external slabs257.
Now, it is evident, that, in this case, the question of right is on the same ground as in that of gilding. If it be clearly understood that a marble facing does not pretend or imply a marble wall, there is no harm in it; and as it is also evident that, when very precious stones are used, as jaspers and serpentines258, it must become, not only an extravagant and vain increase of expense, but sometimes an actual impossibility, to obtain mass of them enough to build with, there is no resource but this of veneering; nor is there anything to be alleged[Pg 54] against it on the head of durability260, such work having been by experience found to last as long, and in as perfect condition, as any kind of masonry. It is, therefore, to be considered as simply an art of mosaic on a large scale, the ground being of brick, or any other material; and when lovely stones are to be obtained, it is a manner which should be thoroughly261 understood, and often practised. Nevertheless, as we esteem34 the shaft92 of a column more highly for its being of a single block, and as we do not regret the loss of substance and value which there is in things of solid gold, silver, agate262, or ivory; so I think the walls themselves may be regarded with a more just complacency if they are known to be all of noble substance; and that rightly weighing the demands of the two principles of which we have hitherto spoken—Sacrifice and Truth, we should sometimes rather spare external ornament than diminish the unseen value and consistency of what we do; and I believe that a better manner of design, and a more careful and studious, if less abundant decoration would follow, upon the consciousness of thoroughness in the substance. And, indeed, this is to be remembered, with respect to all the points we have examined; that while we have traced the limits of license, we have not fixed263 those of that high rectitude which refuses license. It is thus true that there is no falsity, and much beauty in the use of external color, and that it is lawful to paint either pictures or patterns on whatever surfaces may seem to need enrichment. But it is not less true, that such practices are essentially264 unarchitectural; and while we cannot say that there is actual danger in an over use of them, seeing that they have been always used most lavishly265 in the times of most noble art, yet they divide the work into two parts and kinds, one of less durability than the other, which dies away from it in process of ages, and leaves it, unless it have noble qualities of its own, naked and bare. That enduring noblesse I should, therefore, call truly architectural; and it is not until this has been secured that the accessory power of painting may be called in, for the delight of the immediate266 time; nor this, as I think, until every resource of a more stable kind has been exhausted267. The true colors of architecture are those of natural stone, and [Pg 55] I would fain see these taken advantage of to the full. Every variety of hue268, from pale yellow to purple, passing through orange, red, and brown, is entirely at our command; nearly every kind of green and gray is also attainable269: and with these, and pure white, what harmonies might we not achieve? Of stained and variegated270 stone, the quantity is unlimited271, the kinds innumerable; where brighter colors are required, let glass, and gold protected by glass, be used in mosaic—a kind of work as durable272 as the solid stone, and incapable273 of losing its lustre274 by time—and let the painter's work be reserved for the shadowed loggia and inner chamber275. This is the true and faithful way of building; where this cannot be, the device of external coloring may, indeed, be employed without dishonor; but it must be with the warning reflection, that a time will come when such aids must pass away, and when the building will be judged in its lifelessness, dying the death of the dolphin. Better the less bright, more enduring fabric276. The transparent277 alabasters of San Miniato, and the mosaics278 of St. Mark's, are more warmly filled, and more brightly touched, by every return of morning and evening rays; while the hues279 of our cathedrals have died like the iris280 out of the cloud; and the temples whose azure281 and purple once flamed above the Grecian promontories282, stand in their faded whiteness, like snows which the sunset has left cold.
PLATE II. PLATE II.—(Page 55—Vol. V.)
Part of the Cathedral of St. Lo, Normandy.
XIX. The last form of fallacy which it will be remembered we had to deprecate, was the substitution of cast or machine work for that of the hand, generally expressible as Operative Deceit.
There are two reasons, both weighty, against this practice; one, that all cast and machine work is bad, as work; the other, that it is dishonest. Of its badness, I shall speak in another place, that being evidently no efficient reason against its use when other cannot be had. Its dishonesty, however, which, to my mind, is of the grossest kind, is, I think, a sufficient reason to determine absolute and unconditional283 rejection284 of it.
Ornament, as I have often before observed, has two entirely distinct sources of agreeableness: one, that of the ab[Pg 56]stract beauty of its forms, which, for the present, we will suppose to be the same whether they come from the hand or the machine; the other, the sense of human labor and care spent upon it. How great this latter influence we may perhaps judge, by considering that there is not a cluster of weeds growing in any cranny of ruin which has not a beauty in all respects nearly equal, and, in some, immeasurably superior, to that of the most elaborate sculpture of its stones: and that all our interest in the carved work, our sense of its richness, though it is tenfold less rich than the knots of grass beside it; of its delicacy, though it is a thousand fold less delicate; of its admirableness, though a millionfold less admirable; results from our consciousness of its being the work of poor, clumsy, toilsome man. Its true delightfulness285 depends on our discovering in it the record of thoughts, and intents, and trials, and heart-breakings—of recoveries and joyfulnesses of success: all this can be traced by a practised eye; but, granting it even obscure, it is presumed or understood; and in that is the worth of the thing, just as much as the worth of anything else we call precious. The worth of a diamond is simply the understanding of the time it must take to look for it before it can be cut. It has an intrinsic value besides, which the diamond has not (for a diamond has no more real beauty than a piece of glass); but I do not speak of that at present; I place the two on the same ground; and I suppose that hand-wrought286 ornament can no more be generally known from machine work, than a diamond can be known from paste; nay287, that the latter may deceive, for a moment, the mason's, as the other the jeweller's eye; and that it can be detected only by the closest examination. Yet exactly as a woman of feeling would not wear false jewels, so would a builder of honor disdain288 false ornaments. The using of them is just as downright and inexcusable a lie. You use that which pretends to a worth which it has not; which pretends to have cost, and to be, what it did not, and is not; it is an imposition, a vulgarity, an impertinence, and a sin. Down with it to the ground, grind it to powder, leave its ragged289 place upon the wall, rather; you have not paid for it, you[Pg 57] have no business with it, you do not want it. Nobody wants ornaments in this world, but everybody wants integrity. All the fair devices that ever were fancied, are not worth a lie. Leave your walls as bare as a planed board, or build them of baked mud and chopped straw, if need be; but do not rough-cast them with falsehood.
This, then, being our general law, and I hold it for a more imperative290 one than any other I have asserted; and this kind of dishonesty the meanest, as the least necessary; for ornament is an extravagant and inessential thing; and, therefore, if fallacious, utterly base—this, I say, being our general law, there are, nevertheless, certain exceptions respecting particular substances and their uses.
XX. Thus in the use of brick; since that is known to be originally moulded, there is no reason why it should not be moulded into diverse forms. It will never be supposed to have been cut, and therefore, will cause no deception; it will have only the credit it deserves. In flat countries, far from any quarry291 of stone, cast brick may be legitimately, and most successfully, used in decoration, and that elaborate, and even refined. The brick mouldings of the Palazzo Pepoli at Bologna, and those which run round the market-place of Vercelli, are among the richest in Italy. So also, tile and porcelain292 work, of which the former is grotesquely293, but successfully, employed in the domestic architecture of France, colored tiles being inserted in the diamond spaces between the crossing timbers; and the latter admirably in Tuscany, in external bas-reliefs, by the Robbia family, in which works, while we cannot but sometimes regret the useless and ill-arranged colors, we would by no means blame the employment of a material which, whatever its defects, excels every other in permanence, and, perhaps, requires even greater skill in its management than marble. For it is not the material, but the absence of the human labor, which makes the thing worthless; and a piece of terra cotta, or of plaster of Paris, which has been wrought by human hand, is worth all the stone in Carrara, cut by machinery294. It is, indeed, possible, and even usual, for men to sink into machines themselves, so[Pg 58] that even hand-work has all the characters of mechanism295; of the difference between living and dead hand-work I shall speak presently; all that I ask at present is, what it is always in our power to secure—the confession of what we have done, and what we have given; so that when we use stone at all, since all stone is naturally supposed to be carved by hand, we must not carve it by machinery; neither must we use any artificial stone cast into shape, nor any stucco ornaments of the color of stone, or which might in anywise be mistaken for it, as the stucco mouldings in the cortile of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence, which cast a shame and suspicion over every part of the building. But for ductile296 and fusible materials, as clay, iron, and bronze, since these will usually be supposed to have been cast or stamped, it is at our pleasure to employ them as we will; remembering that they become precious, or otherwise, just in proportion to the hand-work upon them, or to the clearness of their reception of the hand-work of their mould.
But I believe no cause to have been more active in the degradation of our natural feeling for beauty, than the constant use of cast iron ornaments. The common iron work of the middle ages was as simple as it was effective, composed of leafage cut flat out of sheet iron, and twisted at the workman's will. No ornaments, on the contrary, are so cold, clumsy, and vulgar, so essentially incapable of a fine line, or shadow, as those of cast iron; and while, on the score of truth, we can hardly allege259 anything against them, since they are always distinguishable, at a glance, from wrought and hammered work, and stand only for what they are, yet I feel very strongly that there is no hope of the progress of the arts of any nation which indulges in these vulgar and cheap substitutes for real decoration. Their inefficiency297 and paltriness298 I shall endeavor to show more conclusively299 in another place, enforcing only, at present, the general conclusion that, if even honest or allowable, they are things in which we can never take just pride or pleasure, and must never be employed in any place wherein they might either themselves obtain the credit of being other and better than they are, or be asso[Pg 59]ciated with the downright work to which it would be a disgrace to be found in their company.
Such are, I believe, the three principal kinds of fallacy by which architecture is liable to be corrupted300; there are, however, other and more subtle forms of it, against which it is less easy to guard by definite law, than by the watchfulness301 of a manly31 and unaffected spirit. For, as it has been above noticed, there are certain kinds of deception which extend to impressions and ideas only; of which some are, indeed, of a noble use, as that above referred to, the arborescent look of lofty Gothic aisles; but of which the most part have so much of legerdemain302 and trickery about them, that they will lower any style in which they considerably303 prevail; and they are likely to prevail when once they are admitted, being apt to catch the fancy alike of uninventive architects and feelingless spectators; just as mean and shallow minds are, in other matters, delighted with the sense of over-reaching, or tickled304 with the conceit305 of detecting the intention to over-reach; and when subtleties306 of this kind are accompanied by the display of such dextrous stone-cutting, or architectural sleight307 of hand, as may become, even by itself, a subject of admiration, it is a great chance if the pursuit of them do not gradually draw us away from all regard and care for the nobler character of the art, and end in its total paralysis308 or extinction309. And against this there is no guarding, but by stern disdain of all display of dexterity310 and ingenious device, and by putting the whole force of our fancy into the arrangement of masses and forms, caring no more how these masses and forms are wrought out, than a great painter cares which way his pencil strikes. It would be easy to give many instances of the danger of these tricks and vanities; but I shall confine myself to the examination of one which has, as I think, been the cause of the fall of Gothic architecture throughout Europe. I mean the system of intersectional312 mouldings, which, on account of its great importance, and for the sake of the general reader, I may, perhaps, be pardoned for explaining elementarily.
XXI. I must, in the first place, however, refer to Professor[Pg 60] Willis's account of the origin of tracery, given in the sixth chapter of his Architecture of the Middle Ages; since the publication of which I have been not a little amazed to hear of any attempts made to resuscitate313 the inexcusably absurd theory of its derivation from imitated vegetable form—inexcusably, I say, because the smallest acquaintance with early Gothic architecture would have informed the supporters of that theory of the simple fact, that, exactly in proportion to the antiquity314 of the work, the imitation of such organic forms is less, and in the earliest examples does not exist at all. There cannot be the shadow of a question, in the mind of a person familiarised with any single series of consecutive315 examples, that tracery arose from the gradual enlargement of the penetrations316 of the shield of stone which, usually supported by a central pillar, occupied the head of early windows. Professor Willis, perhaps, confines his observations somewhat too absolutely to the double sub-arch. I have given, in Plate VII. fig. 2, an interesting case of rude penetration317 of a high and simply trefoiled shield, from the church of the Eremitani at Padua. But the more frequent and typical form is that of the double sub-arch, decorated with various piercings of the space between it and the superior arch; with a simple trefoil under a round arch, in the Abbaye aux Hommes, Caen9 (Plate III. fig. 1); with a very beautifully proportioned quatrefoil, in the triforium of Eu, and that of the choir of Lisieux; with quatrefoils, sixfoils, and septfoils, in the transept towers of Rouen (Plate III. fig. 2); with a trefoil awkwardly, and very small quatrefoil above, at Coutances, (Plate III. fig. 3); then, with multiplications318 of the same figures, pointed199 or round, giving very clumsy shapes of the intermediate stone (fig. 4, from one of the nave chapels of Rouen, fig. 5, from one of the nave chapels of Bayeaux), and finally, by thinning out the stony319 ribs, reaching conditions like that of the glorious typical form of the clerestory of the apse of Beauvais (fig. 6).
PLATE III. PLATE III.—(Page 60—Vol. V.)
Traceries From Caen, Bayeux, Rouen, and Beavais.
XXII. Now, it will be noticed that, during the whole of this process, the attention is kept fixed on the forms of the penetrations, that is to say, of the lights as seen from the interior, not of the intermediate stone. All the grace of the [Pg 61] window is in the outline of its light; and I have drawn320 all these traceries as seen from within, in order to show the effect of the light thus treated, at first in far off and separate stars, and then gradually enlarging, approaching, until they come and stand over us, as it were, filling the whole space with their effulgence321. And it is in this pause of the star, that we have the great, pure, and perfect form of French Gothic; it was at the instant when the rudeness of the intermediate space had been finally conquered, when the light had expanded to its fullest, and yet had not lost its radiant unity322, principality, and visible first causing of the whole, that we have the most exquisite128 feeling and most faultless judgments323 in the management alike of the tracery and decorations. I have given, in Plate X., an exquisite example of it, from a panel decoration of the buttresses of the north door of Rouen; and in order that the reader may understand what truly fine Gothic work is, and how nobly it unites fantasy and law, as well as for our immediate purpose, it will be well that he should examine its sections and mouldings in detail (they are described in the fourth Chapter, § xxvii.), and that the more carefully, because this design belongs to a period in which the most important change took place in the spirit of Gothic architecture, which, perhaps, ever resulted from the natural progress of any art. That tracery marks a pause between the laying aside of one great ruling principle, and the taking up of another; a pause as marked, as clear, as conspicuous234 to the distant view of after times, as to the distant glance of the traveller is the culminating ridge117 of the mountain chain over which he has passed. It was the great watershed324 of Gothic art. Before it, all had been ascent325; after it, all was decline; both, indeed, by winding326 paths and varied327 slopes; both interrupted, like the gradual rise and fall of the passes of the Alps, by great mountain outliers, isolated328 or branching from the central chain, and by retrograde or parallel directions of the valleys of access. But the track of the human mind is traceable up to that glorious ridge, in a continuous line, and thence downwards329. Like a silver zone[Pg 62]—
"Flung about carelessly, it shines afar,
And oft above, and oft below, appears—
* * * * to him who journeys up
As though it were another."
And at that point, and that instant, reaching the place that was nearest heaven, the builders looked back, for the last time, to the way by which they had come, and the scenes through which their early course had passed. They turned away from them and their morning light, and descended332 towards a new horizon, for a time in the warmth of western sun, but plunging333 with every forward step into more cold and melancholy shade.
XXIII. The change of which I speak, is inexpressible in few words, but one more important, more radically334 influential335, could not be. It was the substitution of the line for the mass, as the element of decoration.
We have seen the mode in which the openings or penetration of the window expanded, until what were, at first, awkward forms of intermediate stone, became delicate lines of tracery: and I have been careful in pointing out the peculiar336 attention bestowed337 on the proportion and decoration of the mouldings of the window at Rouen, in Plate X., as compared with earlier mouldings, because that beauty and care are singularly significant. They mark that the traceries had caught the eye of the architect. Up to that time, up to the very last instant in which the reduction and thinning of the intervening stone was consummated338, his eye had been on the openings only, on the stars of light. He did not care about the stone, a rude border of moulding was all he needed, it was the penetrating339 shape which he was watching. But when that shape had received its last possible expansion, and when the stone-work became an arrangement of graceful340 and parallel lines, that arrangement, like some form in a picture, unseen and accidentally developed, struck suddenly, inevitably341, on the sight. It had literally not been seen before. It flashed out in an instant as an independent form. It became a feature of the[Pg 63] work. The architect took it under his care, thought over it, and distributed its members as we see.
Now, the great pause was at the moment when the space and the dividing stone-work were both equally considered. It did not last fifty years. The forms of the tracery were seized with a childish delight in the novel source of beauty; and the intervening space was cast aside, as an element of decoration, for ever. I have confined myself, in following this change, to the window, as the feature in which it is clearest. But the transition is the same in every member of architecture; and its importance can hardly be understood, unless we take the pains to trace it in the universality, of which illustrations, irrelevant342 to our present purpose, will be found in the third Chapter. I pursue here the question of truth, relating to the treatment of the mouldings.
XXIV. The reader will observe that, up to the last expansion of the penetrations, the stone-work was necessarily considered, as it actually is, stiff, and unyielding. It was so, also, during the pause of which I have spoken, when the forms of the tracery were still severe and pure; delicate indeed, but perfectly firm.
At the close of the period of pause, the first sign of serious change was like a low breeze, passing through the emaciated tracery, and making it tremble. It began to undulate like the threads of a cobweb lifted by the wind. It lost its essence as a structure of stone. Reduced to the slenderness of threads, it began to be considered as possessing also their flexibility343. The architect was pleased with this his new fancy, and set himself to carry it out; and in a little time, the bars of tracery were caused to appear to the eye as if they had been woven together like a net. This was a change which sacrificed a great principle of truth; it sacrificed the expression of the qualities of the material; and, however delightful its results in their first developments, it was ultimately ruinous.
For, observe the difference between the supposition of ductility344, and that of elastic95 structure noticed above in the resemblance to tree form. That resemblance was not sought, but necessary; it resulted from the natural conditions of strength[Pg 64] in the pier or trunk, and slenderness in the ribs or branches, while many of the other suggested conditions of resemblance were perfectly true. A tree branch, though in a certain sense flexible, is not ductile; it is as firm in its own form as the rib86 of stone; both of them will yield up to certain limits, both of them breaking when those limits are exceeded; while the tree trunk will bend no more than the stone pillar. But when the tracery is assumed to be as yielding as a silken cord; when the whole fragility, elasticity, and weight of the material are to the eye, if not in terms, denied; when all the art of the architect is applied345 to disprove the first conditions of his working, and the first attributes of his materials; this is a deliberate treachery, only redeemed346 from the charge of direct falsehood by the visibility of the stone surface, and degrading all the traceries it affects exactly in the degree of its presence.
XXV. But the declining and morbid347 taste of the later architects, was not satisfied with thus much deception. They were delighted with the subtle charm they had created, and thought only of increasing its power. The next step was to consider and represent the tracery, as not only ductile, but penetrable348; and when two mouldings met each other, to manage their intersection311, so that one should appear to pass through the other, retaining its independence; or when two ran parallel to each other, to represent the one as partly contained within the other, and partly apparent above it. This form of falsity was that which crushed the art. The flexible traceries were often beautiful, though they were ignoble349; but the penetrated350 traceries, rendered, as they finally were, merely the means of exhibiting the dexterity of the stone-cutter, annihilated351 both the beauty and dignity of the Gothic types. A system so momentous352 in its consequences deserves some detailed353 examination.
XXVI. In the drawing of the shafts of the door at Lisieux, under the spandril, in Plate VII., the reader will see the mode of managing the intersection of similar mouldings, which was universal in the great periods. They melted into each other, and became one at the point of crossing, or of contact; and even the suggestion of so sharp intersection as this of Lisieux[Pg 65] is usually avoided (this design being, of course, only a pointed form of the earlier Norman arcade229, in which the arches are interlaced, and lie each over the preceding, and under the following, one, as in Anselm's tower at Canterbury), since, in the plurality of designs, when mouldings meet each other, they coincide through some considerable portion of their curves, meeting by contact, rather than by intersection; and at the point of coincidence the section of each separate moulding becomes common to the two thus melted into each other. Thus, in the junction354 of the circles of the window of the Palazzo Foscari, Plate VIII., given accurately in fig. 8, Plate IV., the section across the line s, is exactly the same as that across any break of the separated moulding above, as s. It sometimes, however, happens, that two different mouldings meet each other. This was seldom permitted in the great periods, and, when it took place, was most awkwardly managed. Fig. 1, Plate IV. gives the junction of the mouldings of the gable and vertical, in the window of the spire of Salisbury. That of the gable is composed of a single, and that of the vertical of a double cavetto, decorated with ball-flowers; and the larger single moulding swallows up one of the double ones, and pushes forward among the smaller balls with the most blundering and clumsy simplicity355. In comparing the sections it is to be observed that, in the upper one, the line a b represents an actual vertical in the plane of the window; while, in the lower one, the line c d represents the horizontal, in the plane of the window, indicated by the perspective line d e.
XXVII. The very awkwardness with which such occurrences of difficulty are met by the earlier builder, marks his dislike of the system, and unwillingness356 to attract the eye to such arrangements. There is another very clumsy one, in the junction of the upper and sub-arches of the triforium of Salisbury; but it is kept in the shade, and all the prominent junctions357 are of mouldings like each other, and managed with perfect simplicity. But so soon as the attention of the builders became, as we have just seen, fixed upon the lines of mouldings instead of the enclosed spaces, those lines began to preserve an independent existence wherever they met; and different mould[Pg 66]ings were studiously associated, in order to obtain variety of intersectional line. We must, however, do the late builders the justice to note that, in one case, the habit grew out of a feeling of proportion, more refined than that of earlier workmen. It shows itself first in the bases of divided pillars, or arch mouldings, whose smaller shafts had originally bases formed by the continued base of the central, or other larger, columns with which they were grouped; but it being felt, when the eye of the architect became fastidious, that the dimension of moulding which was right for the base of a large shaft, was wrong for that of a small one, each shaft had an independent base; at first, those of the smaller died simply down on that of the larger; but when the vertical sections of both became complicated, the bases of the smaller shafts were considered to exist within those of the larger, and the places of their emergence358, on this supposition, were calculated with the utmost nicety, and cut with singular precision; so that an elaborate late base of a divided column, as, for instance, of those in the nave of Abbeville, looks exactly as if its smaller shafts had all been finished to the ground first, each with its complete and intricate base, and then the comprehending base of the central pier had been moulded over them in clay, leaving their points and angles sticking out here and there, like the edges of sharp crystals out of a nodule of earth. The exhibition of technical dexterity in work of this kind is often marvellous, the strangest possible shapes of sections being calculated to a hair's-breadth, and the occurrence of the under and emergent forms being rendered, even in places where they are so slight that they can hardly be detected but by the touch. It is impossible to render a very elaborate example of this kind intelligible359, without some fifty measured sections; but fig. 6, Plate IV. is a very interesting and simple one, from the west gate of Rouen. It is part of the base of one of the narrow piers between its principal niches360. The square column k, having a base with the profile p r, is supposed to contain within itself another similar one, set diagonally, and lifted so far above the inclosing one, as that the recessed361 part of its profile p r shall fall behind the projecting part of the outer one. The angle of its upper portion exactly meets the plane of the side of the upper inclosing shaft 4, and would, therefore, not be seen, unless two vertical cuts were made to exhibit it, which form two dark lines the whole way up the shaft. Two small pilasters are run, like fastening stitches, through the junction on the front of the shafts. The sections k n taken respectively at the levels k, n, will explain the hypothetical construction of the whole. Fig. 7 is a base, or joint99 rather (for passages of this form occur again and again, on the shafts of flamboyant work), of one of the smallest piers of the pedestals which support the lost statues of the porch; its section below would be the same as n, and its construction, after what has been said of the other base, will be at once perceived.
PLATE IV. PLATE IV.—(Page 66—Vol. V.)
Intersectional Mouldings.
[Pg 67]
XXVIII. There was, however, in this kind of involution, much to be admired as well as reprehended, the proportions of quantities were always as beautiful as they were intricate; and, though the lines of intersection were harsh, they were exquisitely opposed to the flower-work of the interposing mouldings. But the fancy did not stop here; it rose from the bases into the arches; and there, not finding room enough for its exhibition, it withdrew the capitals from the heads even of cylindrical362 shafts, (we cannot but admire, while we regret, the boldness of the men who could defy the authority and custom of all the nations of the earth for a space of some three thousand years,) in order that the arch mouldings might appear to emerge from the pillar, as at its base they had been lost in it, and not to terminate on the abacus363 of the capital; then they ran the mouldings across and through each other, at the point of the arch; and finally, not finding their natural directions enough to furnish as many occasions of intersection as they wished, bent163 them hither and thither364, and cut off their ends short, when they had passed the point of intersection. Fig. 2, Plate IV. is part of a flying buttress from the apse of St. Gervais at Falaise, in which the moulding whose section is rudely given above at f, (taken vertically365 through the point f,) is carried thrice through itself, in the cross-bar and two arches; and the flat fillet is cut off sharp at the end of the cross-bar, for the mere pleasure of the truncation366. Fig. 3 is[Pg 68] half of the head of a door in the Stadthaus of Sursee, in which the shaded part of the section of the joint g g, is that of the arch-moulding, which is three times reduplicated, and six times intersected by itself, the ends being cut off when they become unmanageable. This style is, indeed, earlier exaggerated in Switzerland and Germany, owing to the imitation in stone of the dovetailing of wood, particularly of the intersecting of beams at the angles of chalets; but it only furnishes the more plain instance of the danger of the fallacious system which, from the beginning, repressed the German, and, in the end, ruined the French Gothic. It would be too painful a task to follow further the caricatures of form, and eccentricities367 of treatment, which grow out of this singular abuse—the flattened368 arch, the shrunken pillar, the lifeless ornament, the liny moulding, the distorted and extravagant foliation, until the time came when, over these wrecks369 and remnants, deprived of all unity and principle, rose the foul43 torrent370 of the renaissance371, and swept them all away. So fell the great dynasty of medi?val architecture. It was because it had lost its own strength, and disobeyed its own laws—because its order, and consistency, and organization, had been broken through—that it could oppose no resistance to the rush of overwhelming innovation. And this, observe, all because it had sacrificed a single truth. From that one surrender of its integrity, from that one endeavor to assume the semblance of what it was not, arose the multitudinous forms of disease and decrepitude372, which rotted away the pillars of its supremacy373. It was not because its time was come; it was not because it was scorned by the classical Romanist, or dreaded374 by the faithful Protestant. That scorn and that fear it might have survived, and lived; it would have stood forth in stern comparison with the enervated375 sensuality of the renaissance; it would have risen in renewed and purified honor, and with a new soul, from the ashes into which it sank, giving up its glory, as it had received it, for the honor of God—but its own truth was gone, and it sank forever. There was no wisdom nor strength left in it, to raise it from the dust; and the error of zeal, and the softness of luxury smote376 it down and dissolved it away.[Pg 69] It is good for us to remember this, as we tread upon the bare ground of its foundations, and stumble over its scattered377 stones. Those rent skeletons of pierced wall, through which our sea-winds moan and murmur378, strewing379 them joint by joint, and bone by bone, along the bleak380 promontories on which the Pharos lights came once from houses of prayer—those grey arches and quiet isles123 under which the sheep of our valleys feed and rest on the turf that has buried their altars—those shapeless heaps, that are not of the Earth, which lift our fields into strange and sudden banks of flowers, and stay our mountain streams with stones that are not their own, have other thoughts to ask from us than those of mourning for the rage that despoiled381, or the fear that forsook382 them. It was not the robber, not the fanatic383, not the blasphemer, who sealed the destruction that they had wrought; the war, the wrath384, the terror, might have worked their worst, and the strong walls would have risen, and the slight pillars would have started again, from under the hand of the destroyer. But they could not rise out of the ruins of their own violated truth.
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1 likeness | |
n.相像,相似(之处) | |
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2 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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3 virtues | |
美德( virtue的名词复数 ); 德行; 优点; 长处 | |
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4 vigor | |
n.活力,精力,元气 | |
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5 domains | |
n.范围( domain的名词复数 );领域;版图;地产 | |
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6 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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7 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
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8 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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9 superstition | |
n.迷信,迷信行为 | |
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10 prudence | |
n.谨慎,精明,节俭 | |
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11 conceal | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
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12 hostility | |
n.敌对,敌意;抵制[pl.]交战,战争 | |
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13 disorders | |
n.混乱( disorder的名词复数 );凌乱;骚乱;(身心、机能)失调 | |
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14 violation | |
n.违反(行为),违背(行为),侵犯 | |
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15 violations | |
违反( violation的名词复数 ); 冒犯; 违反(行为、事例); 强奸 | |
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16 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
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17 profess | |
v.声称,冒称,以...为业,正式接受入教,表明信仰 | |
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18 malicious | |
adj.有恶意的,心怀恶意的 | |
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19 calumny | |
n.诽谤,污蔑,中伤 | |
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20 hypocrisy | |
n.伪善,虚伪 | |
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21 detraction | |
n.减损;诽谤 | |
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22 mischief | |
n.损害,伤害,危害;恶作剧,捣蛋,胡闹 | |
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23 glistening | |
adj.闪耀的,反光的v.湿物闪耀,闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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24 amiable | |
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的 | |
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25 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
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26 provident | |
adj.为将来做准备的,有先见之明的 | |
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27 zealous | |
adj.狂热的,热心的 | |
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28 pier | |
n.码头;桥墩,桥柱;[建]窗间壁,支柱 | |
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29 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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30 wilfully | |
adv.任性固执地;蓄意地 | |
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31 manly | |
adj.有男子气概的;adv.男子般地,果断地 | |
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32 culpability | |
n.苛责,有罪 | |
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33 esteeming | |
v.尊敬( esteem的现在分词 );敬重;认为;以为 | |
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34 esteem | |
n.尊敬,尊重;vt.尊重,敬重;把…看作 | |
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35 scrupulous | |
adj.审慎的,小心翼翼的,完全的,纯粹的 | |
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36 mingled | |
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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37 soot | |
n.煤烟,烟尘;vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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38 meritorious | |
adj.值得赞赏的 | |
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39 intimidation | |
n.恐吓,威胁 | |
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40 almighty | |
adj.全能的,万能的;很大的,很强的 | |
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41 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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42 insolence | |
n.傲慢;无礼;厚颜;傲慢的态度 | |
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43 foul | |
adj.污秽的;邪恶的;v.弄脏;妨害;犯规;n.犯规 | |
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44 foulness | |
n. 纠缠, 卑鄙 | |
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45 semblance | |
n.外貌,外表 | |
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46 semblances | |
n.外表,外观(semblance的复数形式) | |
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47 serenity | |
n.宁静,沉着,晴朗 | |
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48 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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49 infinitely | |
adv.无限地,无穷地 | |
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50 truthful | |
adj.真实的,说实话的,诚实的 | |
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51 chivalry | |
n.骑士气概,侠义;(男人)对女人彬彬有礼,献殷勤 | |
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52 manifestation | |
n.表现形式;表明;现象 | |
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53 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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54 deception | |
n.欺骗,欺诈;骗局,诡计 | |
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55 faculty | |
n.才能;学院,系;(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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56 insanity | |
n.疯狂,精神错乱;极端的愚蠢,荒唐 | |
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57 confession | |
n.自白,供认,承认 | |
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58 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
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59 realization | |
n.实现;认识到,深刻了解 | |
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60 contemptible | |
adj.可鄙的,可轻视的,卑劣的 | |
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61 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
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62 reprobation | |
n.斥责 | |
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63 probity | |
n.刚直;廉洁,正直 | |
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64 withdrawal | |
n.取回,提款;撤退,撤军;收回,撤销 | |
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65 conscientiousness | |
责任心 | |
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66 faculties | |
n.能力( faculty的名词复数 );全体教职员;技巧;院 | |
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67 nugatory | |
adj.琐碎的,无价值的 | |
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68 pretence | |
n.假装,作假;借口,口实;虚伪;虚饰 | |
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69 concealment | |
n.隐藏, 掩盖,隐瞒 | |
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70 exertion | |
n.尽力,努力 | |
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71 deceptive | |
adj.骗人的,造成假象的,靠不住的 | |
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72 ornament | |
v.装饰,美化;n.装饰,装饰物 | |
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73 ornaments | |
n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 );点缀;装饰品;首饰v.装饰,点缀,美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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74 expedient | |
adj.有用的,有利的;n.紧急的办法,权宜之计 | |
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75 expedients | |
n.应急有效的,权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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76 gilding | |
n.贴金箔,镀金 | |
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77 reprehended | |
v.斥责,指摘,责备( reprehend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78 briefly | |
adv.简单地,简短地 | |
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79 structural | |
adj.构造的,组织的,建筑(用)的 | |
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80 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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81 concealing | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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82 anatomy | |
n.解剖学,解剖;功能,结构,组织 | |
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83 concealed | |
a.隐藏的,隐蔽的 | |
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84 vault | |
n.拱形圆顶,地窖,地下室 | |
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85 vaulting | |
n.(天花板或屋顶的)拱形结构 | |
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86 rib | |
n.肋骨,肋状物 | |
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87 ribs | |
n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 );(船或屋顶等的)肋拱;肋骨状的东西;(织物的)凸条花纹 | |
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88 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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89 whitewash | |
v.粉刷,掩饰;n.石灰水,粉刷,掩饰 | |
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90 whit | |
n.一点,丝毫 | |
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91 whitewashed | |
粉饰,美化,掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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92 shaft | |
n.(工具的)柄,杆状物 | |
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93 shafts | |
n.轴( shaft的名词复数 );(箭、高尔夫球棒等的)杆;通风井;一阵(疼痛、害怕等) | |
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94 speculation | |
n.思索,沉思;猜测;投机 | |
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95 elastic | |
n.橡皮圈,松紧带;adj.有弹性的;灵活的 | |
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96 elasticity | |
n.弹性,伸缩力 | |
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97 upwards | |
adv.向上,在更高处...以上 | |
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98 jointed | |
有接缝的 | |
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99 joint | |
adj.联合的,共同的;n.关节,接合处;v.连接,贴合 | |
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100 outwards | |
adj.外面的,公开的,向外的;adv.向外;n.外形 | |
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101 buttress | |
n.支撑物;v.支持 | |
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102 buttresses | |
n.扶壁,扶垛( buttress的名词复数 )v.用扶壁支撑,加固( buttress的第三人称单数 ) | |
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103 legitimate | |
adj.合法的,合理的,合乎逻辑的;v.使合法 | |
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104 contemplating | |
深思,细想,仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 ); 注视,凝视; 考虑接受(发生某事的可能性); 深思熟虑,沉思,苦思冥想 | |
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105 luminous | |
adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的 | |
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106 flakes | |
小薄片( flake的名词复数 ); (尤指)碎片; 雪花; 古怪的人 | |
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107 irresistibly | |
adv.无法抵抗地,不能自持地;极为诱惑人地 | |
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108 joints | |
接头( joint的名词复数 ); 关节; 公共场所(尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所) (非正式); 一块烤肉 (英式英语) | |
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109 artifice | |
n.妙计,高明的手段;狡诈,诡计 | |
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110 artifices | |
n.灵巧( artifice的名词复数 );诡计;巧妙办法;虚伪行为 | |
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111 reprehensible | |
adj.该受责备的 | |
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112 inadequate | |
adj.(for,to)不充足的,不适当的 | |
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113 affectedly | |
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114 reprehends | |
v.斥责,指摘,责备( reprehend的第三人称单数 ) | |
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115 piers | |
n.水上平台( pier的名词复数 );(常设有娱乐场所的)突堤;柱子;墙墩 | |
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116 chapel | |
n.小教堂,殡仪馆 | |
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117 ridge | |
n.山脊;鼻梁;分水岭 | |
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118 juggling | |
n. 欺骗, 杂耍(=jugglery) adj. 欺骗的, 欺诈的 动词juggle的现在分词 | |
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119 condemned | |
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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120 sublime | |
adj.崇高的,伟大的;极度的,不顾后果的 | |
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121 chapels | |
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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122 aisles | |
n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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123 isles | |
岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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124 nave | |
n.教堂的中部;本堂 | |
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125 choir | |
n.唱诗班,唱诗班的席位,合唱团,舞蹈团;v.合唱 | |
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126 vertical | |
adj.垂直的,顶点的,纵向的;n.垂直物,垂直的位置 | |
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127 pinnacle | |
n.尖塔,尖顶,山峰;(喻)顶峰 | |
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128 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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129 exquisitely | |
adv.精致地;强烈地;剧烈地;异常地 | |
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130 decorative | |
adj.装饰的,可作装饰的 | |
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131 lawful | |
adj.法律许可的,守法的,合法的 | |
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132 secondly | |
adv.第二,其次 | |
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133 partially | |
adv.部分地,从某些方面讲 | |
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134 spires | |
n.(教堂的) 塔尖,尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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135 spire | |
n.(教堂)尖顶,尖塔,高点 | |
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136 willow | |
n.柳树 | |
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137 pinnacles | |
顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 ); 顶点; 尖顶; 小尖塔 | |
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138 whatsoever | |
adv.(用于否定句中以加强语气)任何;pron.无论什么 | |
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139 buttressing | |
v.用扶壁支撑,加固( buttress的现在分词 ) | |
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140 lavished | |
v.过分给予,滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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141 lavish | |
adj.无节制的;浪费的;vt.慷慨地给予,挥霍 | |
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142 flamboyant | |
adj.火焰般的,华丽的,炫耀的 | |
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143 serene | |
adj. 安详的,宁静的,平静的 | |
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144 emaciated | |
adj.衰弱的,消瘦的 | |
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145 phantoms | |
n.鬼怪,幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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146 corruption | |
n.腐败,堕落,贪污 | |
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147 questionable | |
adj.可疑的,有问题的 | |
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148 metallic | |
adj.金属的;金属制的;含金属的;产金属的;像金属的 | |
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149 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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150 consistency | |
n.一贯性,前后一致,稳定性;(液体的)浓度 | |
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151 acting | |
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的 | |
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152 constructive | |
adj.建设的,建设性的 | |
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153 legitimately | |
ad.合法地;正当地,合理地 | |
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154 rivets | |
铆钉( rivet的名词复数 ) | |
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155 dome | |
n.圆屋顶,拱顶 | |
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156 binding | |
有约束力的,有效的,应遵守的 | |
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157 sophistry | |
n.诡辩 | |
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158 adherence | |
n.信奉,依附,坚持,固着 | |
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159 exterior | |
adj.外部的,外在的;表面的 | |
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160 superseded | |
[医]被代替的,废弃的 | |
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161 propped | |
支撑,支持,维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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162 lateral | |
adj.侧面的,旁边的 | |
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163 bent | |
n.爱好,癖好;adj.弯的;决心的,一心的 | |
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164 supersedes | |
取代,接替( supersede的第三人称单数 ) | |
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165 lawfulness | |
法制,合法 | |
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166 extravagant | |
adj.奢侈的;过分的;(言行等)放肆的 | |
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167 derogate | |
v.贬低,诽谤 | |
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168 mortar | |
n.灰浆,灰泥;迫击炮;v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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169 attain | |
vt.达到,获得,完成 | |
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170 verging | |
接近,逼近(verge的现在分词形式) | |
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171 delicacy | |
n.精致,细微,微妙,精良;美味,佳肴 | |
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172 edifices | |
n.大建筑物( edifice的名词复数 ) | |
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173 masonry | |
n.砖土建筑;砖石 | |
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174 slovenly | |
adj.懒散的,不整齐的,邋遢的 | |
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175 license | |
n.执照,许可证,特许;v.许可,特许 | |
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176 nourishment | |
n.食物,营养品;营养情况 | |
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177 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
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178 riddle | |
n.谜,谜语,粗筛;vt.解谜,给…出谜,筛,检查,鉴定,非难,充满于;vi.出谜 | |
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179 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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180 necromantic | |
降神术的,妖术的 | |
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181 fig | |
n.无花果(树) | |
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182 serpentine | |
adj.蜿蜒的,弯曲的 | |
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183 submission | |
n.服从,投降;温顺,谦虚;提出 | |
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184 providence | |
n.深谋远虑,天道,天意;远见;节约;上帝 | |
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185 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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186 omnipotence | |
n.全能,万能,无限威力 | |
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187 ordinances | |
n.条例,法令( ordinance的名词复数 ) | |
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188 countless | |
adj.无数的,多得不计其数的 | |
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189 infringed | |
v.违反(规章等)( infringe的过去式和过去分词 );侵犯(某人的权利);侵害(某人的自由、权益等) | |
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190 costly | |
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的 | |
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191 necessitate | |
v.使成为必要,需要 | |
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192 accomplishment | |
n.完成,成就,(pl.)造诣,技能 | |
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193 secreting | |
v.(尤指动物或植物器官)分泌( secrete的现在分词 );隐匿,隐藏 | |
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194 adamant | |
adj.坚硬的,固执的 | |
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195 rhinoceros | |
n.犀牛 | |
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196 agile | |
adj.敏捷的,灵活的 | |
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197 grasshoppers | |
n.蚱蜢( grasshopper的名词复数 );蝗虫;蚂蚱;(孩子)矮小的 | |
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198 colossal | |
adj.异常的,庞大的 | |
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199 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
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200 jaw | |
n.颚,颌,说教,流言蜚语;v.喋喋不休,教训 | |
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201 riveted | |
铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 ); 把…固定住; 吸引; 引起某人的注意 | |
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202 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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203 lizard | |
n.蜥蜴,壁虎 | |
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204 authoritative | |
adj.有权威的,可相信的;命令式的;官方的 | |
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205 obedience | |
n.服从,顺从 | |
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206 degradation | |
n.降级;低落;退化;陵削;降解;衰变 | |
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207 fresco | |
n.壁画;vt.作壁画于 | |
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208 frescoes | |
n.壁画( fresco的名词复数 );温壁画技法,湿壁画 | |
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209 distinctive | |
adj.特别的,有特色的,与众不同的 | |
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210 minor | |
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修 | |
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211 vaguely | |
adv.含糊地,暖昧地 | |
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212 accurately | |
adv.准确地,精确地 | |
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213 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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214 splendor | |
n.光彩;壮丽,华丽;显赫,辉煌 | |
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215 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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216 groves | |
树丛,小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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217 soothe | |
v.安慰;使平静;使减轻;缓和;奉承 | |
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218 primal | |
adj.原始的;最重要的 | |
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219 arbor | |
n.凉亭;树木 | |
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220 luscious | |
adj.美味的;芬芳的;肉感的,引与性欲的 | |
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221 covert | |
adj.隐藏的;暗地里的 | |
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222 redeem | |
v.买回,赎回,挽回,恢复,履行(诺言等) | |
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223 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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224 precludes | |
v.阻止( preclude的第三人称单数 );排除;妨碍;使…行不通 | |
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225 enchant | |
vt.使陶醉,使入迷;使着魔,用妖术迷惑 | |
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226 villa | |
n.别墅,城郊小屋 | |
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227 extremities | |
n.端点( extremity的名词复数 );尽头;手和足;极窘迫的境地 | |
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228 alleys | |
胡同,小巷( alley的名词复数 ); 小径 | |
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229 arcade | |
n.拱廊;(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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230 arcades | |
n.商场( arcade的名词复数 );拱形走道(两旁有商店或娱乐设施);连拱廊;拱形建筑物 | |
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231 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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232 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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233 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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234 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
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235 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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236 granite | |
adj.花岗岩,花岗石 | |
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237 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
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238 fictitious | |
adj.虚构的,假设的;空头的 | |
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239 recollect | |
v.回忆,想起,记起,忆起,记得 | |
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240 smoothly | |
adv.平滑地,顺利地,流利地,流畅地 | |
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241 panes | |
窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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242 gilded | |
a.镀金的,富有的 | |
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243 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
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244 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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245 tolerance | |
n.宽容;容忍,忍受;耐药力;公差 | |
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246 literally | |
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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247 dispense | |
vt.分配,分发;配(药),发(药);实施 | |
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248 burnished | |
adj.抛光的,光亮的v.擦亮(金属等),磨光( burnish的过去式和过去分词 );被擦亮,磨光 | |
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249 expedience | |
n.方便,私利,权宜 | |
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250 mosaic | |
n./adj.镶嵌细工的,镶嵌工艺品的,嵌花式的 | |
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251 insufficient | |
adj.(for,of)不足的,不够的 | |
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252 renovation | |
n.革新,整修 | |
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253 zigzag | |
n.曲折,之字形;adj.曲折的,锯齿形的;adv.曲折地,成锯齿形地;vt.使曲折;vi.曲折前行 | |
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254 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
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255 alabaster | |
adj.雪白的;n.雪花石膏;条纹大理石 | |
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256 projections | |
预测( projection的名词复数 ); 投影; 投掷; 突起物 | |
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257 slabs | |
n.厚板,平板,厚片( slab的名词复数 );厚胶片 | |
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258 serpentines | |
n.像蛇般蜷曲的,蜿蜒的( serpentine的名词复数 )v.像蛇般蜷曲的,蜿蜒的( serpentine的第三人称单数 ) | |
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259 allege | |
vt.宣称,申述,主张,断言 | |
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260 durability | |
n.经久性,耐用性 | |
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261 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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262 agate | |
n.玛瑙 | |
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263 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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264 essentially | |
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上 | |
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265 lavishly | |
adv.慷慨地,大方地 | |
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266 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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267 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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268 hue | |
n.色度;色调;样子 | |
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269 attainable | |
a.可达到的,可获得的 | |
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270 variegated | |
adj.斑驳的,杂色的 | |
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271 unlimited | |
adj.无限的,不受控制的,无条件的 | |
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272 durable | |
adj.持久的,耐久的 | |
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273 incapable | |
adj.无能力的,不能做某事的 | |
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274 lustre | |
n.光亮,光泽;荣誉 | |
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275 chamber | |
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所 | |
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276 fabric | |
n.织物,织品,布;构造,结构,组织 | |
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277 transparent | |
adj.明显的,无疑的;透明的 | |
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278 mosaics | |
n.马赛克( mosaic的名词复数 );镶嵌;镶嵌工艺;镶嵌图案 | |
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279 hues | |
色彩( hue的名词复数 ); 色调; 信仰; 观点 | |
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280 iris | |
n.虹膜,彩虹 | |
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281 azure | |
adj.天蓝色的,蔚蓝色的 | |
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282 promontories | |
n.岬,隆起,海角( promontory的名词复数 ) | |
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283 unconditional | |
adj.无条件的,无限制的,绝对的 | |
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284 rejection | |
n.拒绝,被拒,抛弃,被弃 | |
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285 delightfulness | |
n.delightful(令人高兴的,使人愉快的,给人快乐的,讨人喜欢的)的变形 | |
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286 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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287 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
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288 disdain | |
n.鄙视,轻视;v.轻视,鄙视,不屑 | |
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289 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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290 imperative | |
n.命令,需要;规则;祈使语气;adj.强制的;紧急的 | |
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291 quarry | |
n.采石场;v.采石;费力地找 | |
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292 porcelain | |
n.瓷;adj.瓷的,瓷制的 | |
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293 grotesquely | |
adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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294 machinery | |
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构 | |
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295 mechanism | |
n.机械装置;机构,结构 | |
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296 ductile | |
adj.易延展的,柔软的 | |
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297 inefficiency | |
n.无效率,无能;无效率事例 | |
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298 paltriness | |
n.不足取,无价值 | |
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299 conclusively | |
adv.令人信服地,确凿地 | |
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300 corrupted | |
(使)败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)腐化; 引起(计算机文件等的)错误; 破坏 | |
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301 watchfulness | |
警惕,留心; 警觉(性) | |
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302 legerdemain | |
n.戏法,诈术 | |
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303 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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304 tickled | |
(使)发痒( tickle的过去式和过去分词 ); (使)愉快,逗乐 | |
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305 conceit | |
n.自负,自高自大 | |
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306 subtleties | |
细微( subtlety的名词复数 ); 精细; 巧妙; 细微的差别等 | |
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307 sleight | |
n.技巧,花招 | |
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308 paralysis | |
n.麻痹(症);瘫痪(症) | |
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309 extinction | |
n.熄灭,消亡,消灭,灭绝,绝种 | |
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310 dexterity | |
n.(手的)灵巧,灵活 | |
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311 intersection | |
n.交集,十字路口,交叉点;[计算机] 交集 | |
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312 intersectional | |
adj.交叉(点)的,区际的 | |
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313 resuscitate | |
v.使复活,使苏醒 | |
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314 antiquity | |
n.古老;高龄;古物,古迹 | |
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315 consecutive | |
adj.连续的,联贯的,始终一贯的 | |
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316 penetrations | |
渗透( penetration的名词复数 ); 穿透; 突破; (男人阴茎的)插入 | |
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317 penetration | |
n.穿透,穿人,渗透 | |
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318 multiplications | |
增多( multiplication的名词复数 ); 增加; 乘; 繁殖 | |
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319 stony | |
adj.石头的,多石头的,冷酷的,无情的 | |
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320 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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321 effulgence | |
n.光辉 | |
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322 unity | |
n.团结,联合,统一;和睦,协调 | |
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323 judgments | |
判断( judgment的名词复数 ); 鉴定; 评价; 审判 | |
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324 watershed | |
n.转折点,分水岭,分界线 | |
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325 ascent | |
n.(声望或地位)提高;上升,升高;登高 | |
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326 winding | |
n.绕,缠,绕组,线圈 | |
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327 varied | |
adj.多样的,多变化的 | |
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328 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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329 downwards | |
adj./adv.向下的(地),下行的(地) | |
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330 catching | |
adj.易传染的,有魅力的,迷人的,接住 | |
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331 glides | |
n.滑行( glide的名词复数 );滑音;音渡;过渡音v.滑动( glide的第三人称单数 );掠过;(鸟或飞机 ) 滑翔 | |
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332 descended | |
a.为...后裔的,出身于...的 | |
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333 plunging | |
adj.跳进的,突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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334 radically | |
ad.根本地,本质地 | |
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335 influential | |
adj.有影响的,有权势的 | |
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336 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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337 bestowed | |
赠给,授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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338 consummated | |
v.使结束( consummate的过去式和过去分词 );使完美;完婚;(婚礼后的)圆房 | |
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339 penetrating | |
adj.(声音)响亮的,尖锐的adj.(气味)刺激的adj.(思想)敏锐的,有洞察力的 | |
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340 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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341 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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342 irrelevant | |
adj.不恰当的,无关系的,不相干的 | |
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343 flexibility | |
n.柔韧性,弹性,(光的)折射性,灵活性 | |
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344 ductility | |
n.展延性,柔软性,顺从;韧性;塑性;展性 | |
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345 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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346 redeemed | |
adj. 可赎回的,可救赎的 动词redeem的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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347 morbid | |
adj.病的;致病的;病态的;可怕的 | |
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348 penetrable | |
adj.可穿透的 | |
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349 ignoble | |
adj.不光彩的,卑鄙的;可耻的 | |
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350 penetrated | |
adj. 击穿的,鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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351 annihilated | |
v.(彻底)消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 );使无效;废止;彻底击溃 | |
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352 momentous | |
adj.重要的,重大的 | |
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353 detailed | |
adj.详细的,详尽的,极注意细节的,完全的 | |
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354 junction | |
n.连接,接合;交叉点,接合处,枢纽站 | |
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355 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
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356 unwillingness | |
n. 不愿意,不情愿 | |
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357 junctions | |
联结点( junction的名词复数 ); 会合点; (公路或铁路的)交叉路口; (电缆等的)主结点 | |
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358 emergence | |
n.浮现,显现,出现,(植物)突出体 | |
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359 intelligible | |
adj.可理解的,明白易懂的,清楚的 | |
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360 niches | |
壁龛( niche的名词复数 ); 合适的位置[工作等]; (产品的)商机; 生态位(一个生物所占据的生境的最小单位) | |
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361 recessed | |
v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的过去式和过去分词 );将(墙)做成凹形,在(墙)上做壁龛;休息,休会,休庭 | |
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362 cylindrical | |
adj.圆筒形的 | |
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363 abacus | |
n.算盘 | |
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364 thither | |
adv.向那里;adj.在那边的,对岸的 | |
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365 vertically | |
adv.垂直地 | |
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366 truncation | |
n.切断;截短;缺棱;截尾 | |
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367 eccentricities | |
n.古怪行为( eccentricity的名词复数 );反常;怪癖 | |
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368 flattened | |
[医](水)平扁的,弄平的 | |
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369 wrecks | |
n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 );(事故中)遭严重毁坏的汽车(或飞机等);(身体或精神上)受到严重损伤的人;状况非常糟糕的车辆(或建筑物等)v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 );使(船舶)失事,使遇难,使下沉 | |
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370 torrent | |
n.激流,洪流;爆发,(话语等的)连发 | |
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371 renaissance | |
n.复活,复兴,文艺复兴 | |
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372 decrepitude | |
n.衰老;破旧 | |
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373 supremacy | |
n.至上;至高权力 | |
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374 dreaded | |
adj.令人畏惧的;害怕的v.害怕,恐惧,担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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375 enervated | |
adj.衰弱的,无力的v.使衰弱,使失去活力( enervate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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376 smote | |
v.猛打,重击,打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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377 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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378 murmur | |
n.低语,低声的怨言;v.低语,低声而言 | |
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379 strewing | |
v.撒在…上( strew的现在分词 );散落于;点缀;撒满 | |
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380 bleak | |
adj.(天气)阴冷的;凄凉的;暗淡的 | |
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381 despoiled | |
v.掠夺,抢劫( despoil的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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382 forsook | |
forsake的过去式 | |
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383 fanatic | |
n.狂热者,入迷者;adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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384 wrath | |
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒 | |
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