There is no great and no small
To the Soul that maketh all:
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere.
I am owner of the sphere,
Of the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Caesar’s hand, and Plato’s brain,
Of Lord Christ’s heart, and Shakspeare’s strain.
ESSAY I History
There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has be-fallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.
Of the works of this mind history is the record. Its genius is illustrated2 by the entire series of days. Man is explicable by nothing less than all his history. Without hurry, without rest, the human spirit goes forth3 from the beginning to embody4 every faculty5, every thought, every emotion, which belongs to it in appropriate events. But the thought is always prior to the fact; all the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws. Each law in turn is made by circumstances predominant, and the limits of nature give power to but one at a time. A man is the whole encyclopaedia7 of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn8, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man. Epoch9 after epoch, camp, kingdom, empire, republic, democracy, are merely the application of his manifold spirit to the manifold world.
This human mind wrote history, and this must read it. The Sphinx must solve her own riddle11. If the whole of history is in one man, it is all to be explained from individual experience. There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn12 from the great repositories of nature, as the light on my book is yielded by a star a hundred millions of miles distant, as the poise13 of my body depends on the equilibrium14 of centrifugal and centripetal15 forces, so the hours should be instructed by the ages, and the ages explained by the hours. Of the universal mind each individual man is one more incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Each new fact in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done, and the crises of his life refer to national crises. Every revolution was first a thought in one man’s mind, and when the same thought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era. Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age. The fact narrated16 must correspond to something in me to be credible17 or intelligible18. We as we read must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr19 and executioner, must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly. What befell Asdrubal or Caesar Borgia is as much an illustration of the mind’s powers and depravations as what has befallen us. Each new law and political movement has meaning for you. Stand before each of its tablets and say, ‘Under this mask did my Proteus nature hide itself.’ This remedies the defect of our too great nearness to ourselves. This throws our actions into perspective: and as crabs20, goats, scorpions21, the balance, and the waterpot lose their meanness when hung as signs in the zodiac, so I can see my own vices22 without heat in the distant persons of Solomon, Alcibiades, and Catiline.
It is the universal nature which gives worth to particular men and things. Human life as containing this is mysterious and inviolable, and we hedge it round with penalties and laws. All laws derive23 hence their ultimate reason; all express more or less distinctly some command of this supreme24, illimitable essence. Property also holds of the soul, covers great spiritual facts, and instinctively25 we at first hold to it with swords and laws, and wide and complex combinations. The obscure consciousness of this fact is the light of all our day, the claim of claims; the plea for education, for justice, for charity, the foundation of friendship and love, and of the heroism26 and grandeur27 which belong to acts of self-reliance. It is remarkable28 that involuntarily we always read as superior beings. Universal history, the poets, the romancers, do not in their stateliest pictures — in the sacerdotal, the imperial palaces, in the triumphs of will or of genius — anywhere lose our ear, anywhere make us feel that we intrude29, that this is for better men; but rather is it true, that in their grandest strokes we feel most at home. All that Shakspeare says of the king, yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself. We sympathize in the great moments of history, in the great discoveries, the great resistances, the great prosperities of men; — because there law was enacted30, the sea was searched, the land was found, or the blow was struck for us, as we ourselves in that place would have done or applauded.
We have the same interest in condition and character. We honor the rich, because they have externally the freedom, power, and grace which we feel to be proper to man, proper to us. So all that is said of the wise man by Stoic31, or oriental or modern essayist, describes to each reader his own idea, describes his unattained but attainable33 self. All literature writes the character of the wise man. Books, monuments, pictures, conversation, are portraits in which he finds the lineaments he is forming. The silent and the eloquent34 praise him and accost35 him, and he is stimulated36 wherever he moves as by personal allusions37. A true aspirant38, therefore, never needs look for allusions personal and laudatory39 in discourse40. He hears the commendation, not of himself, but more sweet, of that character he seeks, in every word that is said concerning character, yea, further, in every fact and circumstance, — in the running river and the rustling41 corn. Praise is looked, homage42 tendered, love flows from mute nature, from the mountains and the lights of the firmament43.
These hints, dropped as it were from sleep and night, let us use in broad day. The student is to read history actively44 and not passively; to esteem45 his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the Muse46 of history will utter oracles47, as never to those who do not respect themselves. I have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded48 far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day.
The world exists for the education of each man. There is no age or state of society or mode of action in history, to which there is not somewhat corresponding in his life. Every thing tends in a wonderful manner to abbreviate49 itself and yield its own virtue50 to him. He should see that he can live all history in his own person. He must sit solidly at home, and not suffer himself to be bullied51 by kings or empires, but know that he is greater than all the geography and all the government of the world; he must transfer the point of view from which history is commonly read, from Rome and Athens and London to himself, and not deny his conviction that he is the court, and if England or Egypt have any thing to say to him, he will try the case; if not, let them for ever be silent. He must attain32 and maintain that lofty sight where facts yield their secret sense, and poetry and annals are alike. The instinct of the mind, the purpose of nature, betrays itself in the use we make of the signal narrations52 of history. Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts. No anchor, no cable, no fences, avail to keep a fact a fact. Babylon, Troy, Tyre, Palestine, and even early Rome, are passing already into fiction. The Garden of Eden, the sun standing53 still in Gibeon, is poetry thenceforward to all nations. Who cares what the fact was, when we have made a constellation54 of it to hang in heaven an immortal55 sign? London and Paris and New York must go the same way. “What is History,” said Napoleon, “but a fable56 agreed upon?” This life of ours is stuck round with Egypt, Greece, Gaul, England, War, Colonization57, Church, Court, and Commerce, as with so many flowers and wild ornaments59 grave and gay. I will not make more account of them. I believe in Eternity61. I can find Greece, Asia, Italy, Spain, and the Islands, — the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras in my own mind.
We are always coming up with the emphatic62 facts of history in our private experience, and verifying them here. All history becomes subjective63; in other words, there is properly no history; only biography. Every mind must know the whole lesson for itself, — must go over the whole ground. What it does not see, what it does not live, it will not know. What the former age has epitomized into a formula or rule for manipular convenience, it will lose all the good of verifying for itself, by means of the wall of that rule. Somewhere, sometime, it will demand and find compensation for that loss by doing the work itself. Ferguson discovered many things in astronomy which had long been known. The better for him.
History must be this or it is nothing. Every law which the state enacts64 indicates a fact in human nature; that is all. We must in ourselves see the necessary reason of every fact, — see how it could and must be. So stand before every public and private work; before an oration65 of Burke, before a victory of Napoleon, before a martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, of Sidney, of Marmaduke Robinson, before a French Reign1 of Terror, and a Salem hanging of witches, before a fanatic66 Revival67, and the Animal Magnetism68 in Paris, or in Providence69. We assume that we under like influence should be alike affected70, and should achieve the like; and we aim to master intellectually the steps, and reach the same height or the same degradation71, that our fellow, our proxy72, has done.
All inquiry73 into antiquity74, — all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the excavated75 cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis, — is the desire to do away this wild, savage76, and preposterous77 There or Then, and introduce in its place the Here and the Now. Belzoni digs and measures in the mummy-pits and pyramids of Thebes, until he can see the end of the difference between the monstrous78 work and himself. When he has satisfied himself, in general and in detail, that it was made by such a person as he, so armed and so motived, and to ends to which he himself should also have worked, the problem is solved; his thought lives along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and catacombs, passes through them all with satisfaction, and they live again to the mind, or are now.
A Gothic cathedral affirms that it was done by us, and not done by us. Surely it was by man, but we find it not in our man. But we apply ourselves to the history of its production. We put ourselves into the place and state of the builder. We remember the forest-dwellers, the first temples, the adherence79 to the first type, and the decoration of it as the wealth of the nation increased; the value which is given to wood by carving80 led to the carving over the whole mountain of stone of a cathedral. When we have gone through this process, and added thereto the Catholic Church, its cross, its music, its processions, its Saints’ days and image-worship, we have, as it were, been the man that made the minster; we have seen how it could and must be. We have the sufficient reason.
The difference between men is in their principle of association. Some men classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance; others by intrinsic likeness81, or by the relation of cause and effect. The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity82 of cause, the variety of appearance.
Upborne and surrounded as we are by this all-creating nature, soft and fluid as a cloud or the air, why should we be such hard pedants83, and magnify a few forms? Why should we make account of time, or of magnitude, or of figure? The soul knows them not, and genius, obeying its law, knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards and in churches. Genius studies the causal thought, and, far back in the womb of things, sees the rays parting from one orb84, that diverge85 ere they fall by infinite diameters. Genius watches the monad through all his masks as he performs the metempsychosis of nature. Genius detects through the fly, through the caterpillar86, through the grub, through the egg, the constant individual; through countless87 individuals, the fixed88 species; through many species, the genus; through all genera, the steadfast89 type; through all the kingdoms of organized life, the eternal unity. Nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same. She casts the same thought into troops of forms, as a poet makes twenty fables90 with one moral. Through the bruteness and toughness of matter, a subtle spirit bends all things to its own will. The adamant91 streams into soft but precise form before it, and, whilst I look at it, its outline and texture92 are changed again. Nothing is so fleeting93 as form; yet never does it quite deny itself. In man we still trace the remains94 or hints of all that we esteem badges of servitude in the lower races; yet in him they enhance his nobleness and grace; as Io, in Aeschylus, transformed to a cow, offends the imagination; but how changed, when as Isis in Egypt she meets Osiris-Jove, a beautiful woman, with nothing of the metamorphosis left but the lunar horns as the splendid ornament58 of her brows!
The identity of history is equally intrinsic, the diversity equally obvious. There is at the surface infinite variety of things; at the centre there is simplicity95 of cause. How many are the acts of one man in which we recognize the same character! Observe the sources of our information in respect to the Greek genius. We have the civil history of that people, as Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch have given it; a very sufficient account of what manner of persons they were, and what they did. We have the same national mind expressed for us again in their literature, in epic96 and lyric97 poems, drama, and philosophy; a very complete form. Then we have it once more in their architecture, a beauty as of temperance itself, limited to the straight line and the square, — a builded geometry. Then we have it once again in sculpture, the “tongue on the balance of expression,” a multitude of forms in the utmost freedom of action, and never transgressing98 the ideal serenity99; like votaries100 performing some religious dance before the gods, and, though in convulsive pain or mortal combat, never daring to break the figure and decorum of their dance. Thus, of the genius of one remarkable people, we have a fourfold representation: and to the senses what more unlike than an ode of Pindar, a marble centaur101, the peristyle of the Parthenon, and the last actions of Phocion?
Every one must have observed faces and forms which, without any resembling feature, make a like impression on the beholder102. A particular picture or copy of verses, if it do not awaken103 the same train of images, will yet superinduce the same sentiment as some wild mountain walk, although the resemblance is nowise obvious to the senses, but is occult and out of the reach of the understanding. Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.
Nature is full of a sublime105 family likeness throughout her works; and delights in startling us with resemblances in the most unexpected quarters. I have seen the head of an old sachem of the forest, which at once reminded the eye of a bald mountain summit, and the furrows106 of the brow suggested the strata107 of the rock. There are men whose manners have the same essential splendor108 as the simple and awful sculpture on the friezes109 of the Parthenon, and the remains of the earliest Greek art. And there are compositions of the same strain to be found in the books of all ages. What is Guido’s Rospigliosi Aurora110 but a morning thought, as the horses in it are only a morning cloud. If any one will but take pains to observe the variety of actions to which he is equally inclined in certain moods of mind, and those to which he is averse111, he will see how deep is the chain of affinity112.
A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely, — but, by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature, and can then draw him at will in every attitude. So Roos “entered into the inmost nature of a sheep.” I knew a draughtsman employed in a public survey, who found that he could not sketch113 the rocks until their geological structure was first explained to him. In a certain state of thought is the common origin of very diverse works. It is the spirit and not the fact that is identical. By a deeper apprehension114, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains115 the power of awakening116 other souls to a given activity.
It has been said, that “common souls pay with what they do; nobler souls with that which they are.” And why? Because a profound nature awakens117 in us by its actions and words, by its very looks and manners, the same power and beauty that a gallery of sculpture, or of pictures, addresses.
Civil and natural history, the history of art and of literature, must be explained from individual history, or must remain words. There is nothing but is related to us, nothing that does not interest us, — kingdom, college, tree, horse, or iron shoe, the roots of all things are in man. Santa Croce and the Dome118 of St. Peter’s are lame119 copies after a divine model. Strasburg Cathedral is a material counterpart of the soul of Erwin of Steinbach. The true poem is the poet’s mind; the true ship is the ship-builder. In the man, could we lay him open, we should see the reason for the last flourish and tendril of his work; as every spine120 and tint121 in the sea-shell preexist in the secreting122 organs of the fish. The whole of heraldry and of chivalry123 is in courtesy. A man of fine manners shall pronounce your name with all the ornament that titles of nobility could ever add.
The trivial experience of every day is always verifying some old prediction to us, and converting into things the words and signs which we had heard and seen without heed124. A lady, with whom I was riding in the forest, said to me, that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer125 has passed onward126: a thought which poetry has celebrated127 in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet. The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world. I remember one summer day, in the fields, my companion pointed128 out to me a broad cloud, which might extend a quarter of a mile parallel to the horizon, quite accurately129 in the form of a cherub130 as painted over churches, — a round block in the centre, which it was easy to animate131 with eyes and mouth, supported on either side by wide-stretched symmetrical wings. What appears once in the atmosphere may appear often, and it was undoubtedly132 the archetype of that familiar ornament. I have seen in the sky a chain of summer lightning which at once showed to me that the Greeks drew from nature when they painted the thunderbolt in the hand of Jove. I have seen a snow-drift along the sides of the stone wall which obviously gave the idea of the common architectural scroll133 to abut134 a tower.
By surrounding ourselves with the original circumstances, we invent anew the orders and the ornaments of architecture, as we see how each people merely decorated its primitive135 abodes136. The Doric temple preserves the semblance104 of the wooden cabin in which the Dorian dwelt. The Chinese pagoda137 is plainly a Tartar tent. The Indian and Egyptian temples still betray the mounds138 and subterranean139 houses of their forefathers140. “The custom of making houses and tombs in the living rock,” says Heeren, in his Researches on the Ethiopians, “determined very naturally the principal character of the Nubian Egyptian architecture to the colossal141 form which it assumed. In these caverns142, already prepared by nature, the eye was accustomed to dwell on huge shapes and masses, so that, when art came to the assistance of nature, it could not move on a small scale without degrading itself. What would statues of the usual size, or neat porches and wings, have been, associated with those gigantic halls before which only Colossi could sit as watchmen, or lean on the pillars of the interior?”
The Gothic church plainly originated in a rude adaptation of the forest trees with all their boughs143 to a festal or solemn arcade144, as the bands about the cleft145 pillars still indicate the green withes that tied them. No one can walk in a road cut through pine woods, without being struck with the architectural appearance of the grove146, especially in winter, when the bareness of all other trees shows the low arch of the Saxons. In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which the Gothic cathedrals are adorned147, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest. Nor can any lover of nature enter the old piles of Oxford148 and the English cathedrals, without feeling that the forest overpowered the mind of the builder, and that his chisel149, his saw, and plane still reproduced its ferns, its spikes150 of flowers, its locust151, elm, oak, pine, fir, and spruce.
The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone subdued152 by the insatiable demand of harmony in man. The mountain of granite153 blooms into an eternal flower, with the lightness and delicate finish, as well as the aerial proportions and perspective, of vegetable beauty.
In like manner, all public facts are to be individualized, all private facts are to be generalized. Then at once History becomes fluid and true, and Biography deep and sublime. As the Persian imitated in the slender shafts154 and capitals of his architecture the stem and flower of the lotus and palm, so the Persian court in its magnificent era never gave over the nomadism155 of its barbarous tribes, but travelled from Ecbatana, where the spring was spent, to Susa in summer, and to Babylon for the winter.
In the early history of Asia and Africa, Nomadism and Agriculture are the two antagonist156 facts. The geography of Asia and of Africa necessitated157 a nomadic158 life. But the nomads159 were the terror of all those whom the soil, or the advantages of a market, had induced to build towns. Agriculture, therefore, was a religious injunction, because of the perils160 of the state from nomadism. And in these late and civil countries of England and America, these propensities161 still fight out the old battle in the nation and in the individual. The nomads of Africa were constrained162 to wander by the attacks of the gad-fly, which drives the cattle mad, and so compels the tribe to emigrate in the rainy season, and to drive off the cattle to the higher sandy regions. The nomads of Asia follow the pasturage from month to month. In America and Europe, the nomadism is of trade and curiosity; a progress, certainly, from the gad-fly of Astaboras to the Anglo and Italo-mania of Boston Bay. Sacred cities, to which a periodical religious pilgrimage was enjoined163, or stringent164 laws and customs, tending to invigorate the national bond, were the check on the old rovers; and the cumulative166 values of long residence are the restraints on the itineracy167 of the present day. The antagonism168 of the two tendencies is not less active in individuals, as the love of adventure or the love of repose170 happens to predominate. A man of rude health and flowing spirits has the faculty of rapid domestication171, lives in his wagon172, and roams through all latitudes174 as easily as a Calmuc. At sea, or in the forest, or in the snow, he sleeps as warm, dines with as good appetite, and associates as happily, as beside his own chimneys. Or perhaps his facility is deeper seated, in the increased range of his faculties175 of observation, which yield him points of interest wherever fresh objects meet his eyes. The pastoral nations were needy176 and hungry to desperation; and this intellectual nomadism, in its excess, bankrupts the mind, through the dissipation of power on a miscellany of objects. The home-keeping wit, on the other hand, is that continence or content which finds all the elements of life in its own soil; and which has its own perils of monotony and deterioration177, if not stimulated by foreign infusions178.
Every thing the individual sees without him corresponds to his states of mind, and every thing is in turn intelligible to him, as his onward thinking leads him into the truth to which that fact or series belongs.
The primeval world, — the Fore-World, as the Germans say, — I can dive to it in myself as well as grope for it with researching fingers in catacombs, libraries, and the broken reliefs and torsos of ruined villas179.
What is the foundation of that interest all men feel in Greek history, letters, art, and poetry, in all its periods, from the Heroic or Homeric age down to the domestic life of the Athenians and Spartans180, four or five centuries later? What but this, that every man passes personally through a Grecian period. The Grecian state is the era of the bodily nature, the perfection of the senses, — of the spiritual nature unfolded in strict unity with the body. In it existed those human forms which supplied the sculptor181 with his models of Hercules, Ph;oebus, and Jove; not like the forms abounding182 in the streets of modern cities, wherein the face is a confused blur183 of features, but composed of incorrupt, sharply defined, and symmetrical features, whose eye-sockets are so formed that it would be impossible for such eyes to squint184, and take furtive185 glances on this side and on that, but they must turn the whole head. The manners of that period are plain and fierce. The reverence186 exhibited is for personal qualities, courage, address, self-command, justice, strength, swiftness, a loud voice, a broad chest. Luxury and elegance188 are not known. A sparse189 population and want make every man his own valet, cook, butcher, and soldier, and the habit of supplying his own needs educates the body to wonderful performances. Such are the Agamemnon and Diomed of Homer, and not far different is the picture Xenophon gives of himself and his compatriots in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand. “After the army had crossed the river Teleboas in Armenia, there fell much snow, and the troops lay miserably190 on the ground covered with it. But Xenophon arose naked, and, taking an axe191, began to split wood; whereupon others rose and did the like.” Throughout his army exists a boundless192 liberty of speech. They quarrel for plunder193, they wrangle194 with the generals on each new order, and Xenophon is as sharp-tongued as any, and sharper-tongued than most, and so gives as good as he gets. Who does not see that this is a gang of great boys, with such a code of honor and such lax discipline as great boys have?
The costly195 charm of the ancient tragedy, and indeed of all the old literature, is, that the persons speak simply, — speak as persons who have great good sense without knowing it, before yet the reflective habit has become the predominant habit of the mind. Our admiration196 of the antique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural. The Greeks are not reflective, but perfect in their senses and in their health, with the finest physical organization in the world. Adults acted with the simplicity and grace of children. They made vases, tragedies, and statues, such as healthy senses should,—— that is, in good taste. Such things have continued to be made in all ages, and are now, wherever a healthy physique exists; but, as a class, from their superior organization, they have surpassed all. They combine the energy of manhood with the engaging unconsciousness of childhood. The attraction of these manners is that they belong to man, and are known to every man in virtue of his being once a child; besides that there are always individuals who retain these characteristics. A person of childlike genius and inborn197 energy is still a Greek, and revives our love of the Muse of Hellas. I admire the love of nature in the Philoctetes. In reading those fine apostrophes to sleep, to the stars, rocks, mountains, and waves, I feel time passing away as an ebbing199 sea. I feel the eternity of man, the identity of his thought. The Greek had, it seems, the same fellow-beings as I. The sun and moon, water and fire, met his heart precisely200 as they meet mine. Then the vaunted distinction between Greek and English, between Classic and Romantic schools, seems superficial and pedantic201. When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to me, — when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires mine, time is no more. When I feel that we two meet in a perception, that our two souls are tinged202 with the same hue203, and do, as it were, run into one, why should I measure degrees of latitude173, why should I count Egyptian years?
The student interprets the age of chivalry by his own age of chivalry, and the days of maritime204 adventure and circumnavigation by quite parallel miniature experiences of his own. To the sacred history of the world, he has the same key. When the voice of a prophet out of the deeps of antiquity merely echoes to him a sentiment of his infancy205, a prayer of his youth, he then pierces to the truth through all the confusion of tradition and the caricature of institutions.
Rare, extravagant206 spirits come by us at intervals207, who disclose to us new facts in nature. I see that men of God have, from time to time, walked among men and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer. Hence, evidently, the tripod, the priest, the priestess inspired by the divine afflatus208.
Jesus astonishes and overpowers sensual people. They cannot unite him to history, or reconcile him with themselves. As they come to revere187 their intuitions and aspire209 to live holily, their own piety210 explains every fact, every word.
How easily these old worships of Moses, of Zoroaster, of Menu, of Socrates, domesticate211 themselves in the mind. I cannot find any antiquity in them. They are mine as much as theirs.
I have seen the first monks212 and anchorets without crossing seas or centuries. More than once some individual has appeared to me with such negligence213 of labor214 and such commanding contemplation, a haughty215 beneficiary, begging in the name of God, as made good to the nineteenth century Simeon the Stylite, the Thebais, and the first Capuchins.
The priestcraft of the East and West, of the Magian, Brahmin, Druid, and Inca, is expounded216 in the individual’s private life. The cramping217 influence of a hard formalist on a young child in repressing his spirits and courage, paralyzing the understanding, and that without producing indignation, but only fear and obedience218, and even much sympathy with the tyranny, — is a familiar fact explained to the child when he becomes a man, only by seeing that the oppressor of his youth is himself a child tyrannized over by those names and words and forms, of whose influence he was merely the organ to the youth. The fact teaches him how Belus was worshipped, and how the Pyramids were built, better than the discovery by Champollion of the names of all the workmen and the cost of every tile. He finds Assyria and the Mounds of Cholula at his door, and himself has laid the courses.
Again, in that protest which each considerate person makes against the superstition219 of his times, he repeats step for step the part of old reformers, and in the search after truth finds like them new perils to virtue. He learns again what moral vigor165 is needed to supply the girdle of a superstition. A great licentiousness220 treads on the heels of a reformation. How many times in the history of the world has the Luther of the day had to lament221 the decay of piety in his own household! “Doctor,” said his wife to Martin Luther, one day, “how is it that, whilst subject to papacy, we prayed so often and with such fervor222, whilst now we pray with the utmost coldness and very seldom?”
The advancing man discovers how deep a property he has in literature, — in all fable as well as in all history. He finds that the poet was no odd fellow who described strange and impossible situations, but that universal man wrote by his pen a confession223 true for one and true for all. His own secret biography he finds in lines wonderfully intelligible to him, dotted down before he was born. One after another he comes up in his private adventures with every fable of Aesop, of Homer, of Hafiz, of Ariosto, of Chaucer, of Scott, and verifies them with his own head and hands.
The beautiful fables of the Greeks, being proper creations of the imagination and not of the fancy, are universal verities224. What a range of meanings and what perpetual pertinence225 has the story of Prometheus! Beside its primary value as the first chapter of the history of Europe, (the mythology226 thinly veiling authentic227 facts, the invention of the mechanic arts, and the migration228 of colonies,) it gives the history of religion with some closeness to the faith of later ages. Prometheus is the Jesus of the old mythology. He is the friend of man; stands between the unjust “justice” of the Eternal Father and the race of mortals, and readily suffers all things on their account. But where it departs from the Calvinistic Christianity, and exhibits him as the defier of Jove, it represents a state of mind which readily appears wherever the doctrine229 of Theism is taught in a crude, objective form, and which seems the self-defence of man against this untruth, namely, a discontent with the believed fact that a God exists, and a feeling that the obligation of reverence is onerous230. It would steal, if it could, the fire of the Creator, and live apart from him, and independent of him. The Prometheus Vinctus is the romance of skepticism. Not less true to all time are the details of that stately apologue. Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the poets. When the gods come among men, they are not known. Jesus was not; Socrates and Shakspeare were not. Antaeus was suffocated231 by the gripe of Hercules, but every time he touched his mother earth, his strength was renewed. Man is the broken giant, and, in all his weakness, both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature. The power of music, the power of poetry to unfix, and, as it were, clap wings to solid nature, interprets the riddle of Orpheus. The philosophical232 perception of identity through endless mutations of form makes him know the Proteus. What else am I who laughed or wept yesterday, who slept last night like a corpse233, and this morning stood and ran? And what see I on any side but the transmigrations of Proteus? I can symbolize234 my thought by using the name of any creature, of any fact, because every creature is man agent or patient. Tantalus is but a name for you and me. Tantalus means the impossibility of drinking the waters of thought which are always gleaming and waving within sight of the soul. The transmigration of souls is no fable. I would it were; but men and women are only half human. Every animal of the barn-yard, the field, and the forest, of the earth and of the waters that are under the earth, has contrived235 to get a footing and to leave the print of its features and form in some one or other of these upright, heaven-facing speakers. Ah! brother, stop the ebb198 of thy soul, — ebbing downward into the forms into whose habits thou hast now for many years slid. As near and proper to us is also that old fable of the Sphinx, who was said to sit in the road-side and put riddles236 to every passenger. If the man could not answer, she swallowed him alive. If he could solve the riddle, the Sphinx was slain237. What is our life but an endless flight of winged facts or events! In splendid variety these changes come, all putting questions to the human spirit. Those men who cannot answer by a superior wisdom these facts or questions of time, serve them. Facts encumber238 them, tyrannize over them, and make the men of routine the men of sense, in whom a literal obedience to facts has extinguished every spark of that light by which man is truly man. But if the man is true to his better instincts or sentiments, and refuses the dominion239 of facts, as one that comes of a higher race, remains fast by the soul and sees the principle, then the facts fall aptly and supple240 into their places; they know their master, and the meanest of them glorifies241 him.
See in Goethe’s Helena the same desire that every word should be a thing. These figures, he would say, these Chirons, Griffins, Phorkyas, Helen, and Leda, are somewhat, and do exert a specific influence on the mind. So far then are they eternal entities243, as real to-day as in the first Olympiad. Much revolving244 them, he writes out freely his humor, and gives them body tohis own imagination. And although that poem be as vague and fantastic as a dream, yet is it much more attractive than the more regular dramatic pieces of the same author, for the reason that it operates a wonderful relief to the mind from the routine of customary images, — awakens the reader’s invention and fancy by the wild freedom of the design, and by the unceasing succession of brisk shocks of surprise.
The universal nature, too strong for the petty nature of the bard245, sits on his neck and writes through his hand; so that when he seems to vent6 a mere10 caprice and wild romance, the issue is an exact allegory. Hence Plato said that “poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.” All the fictions of the Middle Age explain themselves as a masked or frolic expression of that which in grave earnest the mind of that period toiled246 to achieve. Magic, and all that is ascribed to it, is a deep presentiment247 of the powers of science. The shoes of swiftness, the sword of sharpness, the power of subduing248 the elements, of using the secret virtues249 of minerals, of understanding the voices of birds, are the obscure efforts of the mind in a right direction. The preternatural prowess of the hero, the gift of perpetual youth, and the like, are alike the endeavour of the human spirit “to bend the shows of things to the desires of the mind.”
In Perceforest and Amadis de Gaul, a garland and a rose bloom on the head of her who is faithful, and fade on the brow of the inconstant. In the story of the Boy and the Mantle250, even a mature reader may be surprised with a glow of virtuous251 pleasure at the triumph of the gentle Genelas; and, indeed, all the postulates252 of elfin annals, — that the fairies do not like to be named; that their gifts are capricious and not to be trusted; that who seeks a treasure must not speak; and the like, — I find true in Concord253, however they might be in Cornwall or Bretagne.
Is it otherwise in the newest romance? I read the Bride of Lammermoor. Sir William Ashton is a mask for a vulgar temptation, Ravenswood Castle a fine name for proud poverty, and the foreign mission of state only a Bunyan disguise for honest industry. We may all shoot a wild bull that would toss the good and beautiful, by fighting down the unjust and sensual. Lucy Ashton is another name for fidelity254, which is always beautiful and always liable to calamity255 in this world.
But along with the civil and metaphysical history of man, another history goes daily forward, — that of the external world, — in which he is not less strictly256 implicated257. He is the compend of time; he is also the correlative of nature. His power consists in the multitude of his affinities258, in the fact that his life is intertwined with the whole chain of organic and inorganic259 being. In old Rome the public roads beginning at the Forum260 proceeded north, south, east, west, to the centre of every province of the empire, making each market-town of Persia, Spain, and Britain pervious to the soldiers of the capital: so out of the human heart go, as it were, highways to the heart of every object in nature, to reduce it under the dominion of man. A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world. His faculties refer to natures out of him, and predict the world he is to inhabit, as the fins242 of the fish foreshow that water exists, or the wings of an eagle in the egg presuppose air. He cannot live without a world. Put Napoleon in an island prison, let his faculties find no men to act on, no Alps to climb, no stake to play for, and he would beat the air and appear stupid. Transport him to large countries, dense261 population, complex interests, and antagonist power, and you shall see that the man Napoleon, bounded, that is, by such a profile and outline, is not the virtual Napoleon. This is but Talbot’s shadow;
“His substance is not here:
For what you see is but the smallest part
And least proportion of humanity;
But were the whole frame here,
It is of such a spacious262, lofty pitch,
Your roof were not sufficient to contain it.”
Henry VI.
Columbus needs a planet to shape his course upon. Newton and Laplace need myriads263 of ages and thick-strewn celestial264 areas. One may say a gravitating solar system is already prophesied265 in the nature of Newton’s mind. Not less does the brain of Davy or of Gay-Lussac, from childhood exploring the affinities and repulsions of particles, anticipate the laws of organization. Does not the eye of the human embryo266 predict the light? the ear of Handel predict the witchcraft267 of harmonic sound? Do not the constructive268 fingers of Watt269, Fulton, Whittemore, Arkwright, predict the fusible, hard, and temperable texture of metals, the properties of stone, water, and wood? Do not the lovely attributes of the maiden270 child predict the refinements271 and decorations of civil society? Here also we are reminded of the action of man on man. A mind might ponder its thought for ages, and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach it in a day. Who knows himself before he has been thrilled with indignation at an outrage272, or has heard an eloquent tongue, or has shared the throb273 of thousands in a national exultation274 or alarm? No man can antedate275 his experience, or guess what faculty or feeling a new object shall unlock, any more than he can draw to-day the face of a person whom he shall see to-morrow for the first time.
I will not now go behind the general statement to explore the reason of this correspondency. Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.
Thus in all ways does the soul concentrate and reproduce its treasures for each pupil. He, too, shall pass through the whole cycle of experience. He shall collect into a focus the rays of nature. History no longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk incarnate276 in every just and wise man. You shall not tell me by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read. You shall make me feel what periods you have lived. A man shall be the Temple of Fame. He shall walk, as the poets have described that goddess, in a robe painted all over with wonderful events and experiences; — his own form and features by their exalted277 intelligence shall be that variegated278 vest. I shall find in him the Foreworld; in his childhood the Age of Gold; the Apples of Knowledge; the Argonautic Expedition; the calling of Abraham; the building of the Temple; the Advent169 of Christ; Dark Ages; the Revival of Letters; the Reformation; the discovery of new lands; the opening of new sciences, and new regions in man. He shall be the priest of Pan, and bring with him into humble279 cottages the blessing280 of the morning stars and all the recorded benefits of heaven and earth.
Is there somewhat overweening in this claim? Then I reject all I have written, for what is the use of pretending to know what we know not? But it is the fault of our rhetoric281 that we cannot strongly state one fact without seeming to belie60 some other. I hold our actual knowledge very cheap. Hear the rats in the wall, see the lizard282 on the fence, the fungus283 under foot, the lichen284 on the log. What do I know sympathetically, morally, of either of these worlds of life? As old as the Caucasian man, — perhaps older, — these creatures have kept their counsel beside him, and there is no record of any word or sign that has passed from one to the other. What connection do the books show between the fifty or sixty chemical elements, and the historical eras? Nay285, what does history yet record of the metaphysical annals of man? What light does it shed on those mysteries which we hide under the names Death and Immortality286? Yet every history should be written in a wisdom which divined the range of our affinities and looked at facts as symbols. I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times we must say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates287 to these neighbouring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succour have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, for the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore288, the porter?
Broader and deeper we must write our annals, — from an ethical289 reformation, from an influx290 of the ever new, ever sanative conscience, — if we would trulier express our central and wide-related nature, instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes. Already that day exists for us, shines in on us at unawares, but the path of science and of letters is not the way into nature. The idiot, the Indian, the child, and unschooled farmer’s boy, stand nearer to the light by which nature is to be read, than the dissector291 or the antiquary.
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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encyclopaedia
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| n.百科全书 | |
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acorn
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| n.橡实，橡子 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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riddle
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| 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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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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poise
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| vt./vi. 平衡，保持平衡；n.泰然自若，自信 | |
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equilibrium
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| n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静 | |
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centripetal
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| adj.向心的 | |
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narrated
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| v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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credible
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| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
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intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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crabs
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| n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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scorpions
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| n.蝎子( scorpion的名词复数 ) | |
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vices
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| 缺陷( vice的名词复数 )； 恶习； 不道德行为； 台钳 | |
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derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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enacted
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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stoic
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| n.坚忍克己之人，禁欲主义者 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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attainable
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| a.可达到的，可获得的 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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accost
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| v.向人搭话，打招呼 | |
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stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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aspirant
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| n.热望者；adj.渴望的 | |
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laudatory
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| adj.赞扬的 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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firmament
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| n.苍穹；最高层 | |
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actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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oracles
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| 神示所( oracle的名词复数 )； 神谕； 圣贤； 哲人 | |
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resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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abbreviate
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| v.缩写，使...简略，缩短 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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narrations
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| 叙述事情的经过，故事( narration的名词复数 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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constellation
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| n.星座n.灿烂的一群 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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colonization
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| 殖民地的开拓，殖民，殖民地化； 移殖 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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ornaments
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| 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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belie
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| v.掩饰，证明为假 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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enacts
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| 制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的第三人称单数 ) | |
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oration
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| n.演说，致辞，叙述法 | |
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fanatic
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| n.狂热者，入迷者；adj.狂热入迷的 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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magnetism
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| n.磁性，吸引力，磁学 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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proxy
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| n.代理权，代表权；（对代理人的）委托书；代理人 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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excavated
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| v.挖掘( excavate的过去式和过去分词 )；开凿；挖出；发掘 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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78
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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79
adherence
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| n.信奉，依附，坚持，固着 | |
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80
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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81
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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82
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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83
pedants
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| n.卖弄学问的人，学究，书呆子( pedant的名词复数 ) | |
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84
orb
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| n.太阳；星球；v.弄圆；成球形 | |
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85
diverge
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| v.分叉，分歧，离题，使...岔开，使转向 | |
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86
caterpillar
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| n.毛虫，蝴蝶的幼虫 | |
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87
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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88
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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89
steadfast
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|
| adj.固定的，不变的，不动摇的；忠实的；坚贞不移的 | |
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90
fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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91
adamant
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| adj.坚硬的，固执的 | |
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92
texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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93
fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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94
remains
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|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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95
simplicity
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|
| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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96
epic
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|
| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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97
lyric
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| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
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98
transgressing
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| v.超越( transgress的现在分词 )；越过；违反；违背 | |
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99
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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100
votaries
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|
| n.信徒( votary的名词复数 )；追随者；（天主教）修士；修女 | |
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101
centaur
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| n.人首马身的怪物 | |
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102
beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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103
awaken
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|
| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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104
semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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105
sublime
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|
| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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106
furrows
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|
| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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107
strata
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| n.地层（复数）；社会阶层 | |
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108
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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109
friezes
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|
| n.（柱顶过梁和挑檐间的）雕带，（墙顶的）饰带( frieze的名词复数 ) | |
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110
aurora
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| n.极光 | |
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111
averse
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|
| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
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112
affinity
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| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
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113
sketch
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|
| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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114
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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115
attains
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的第三人称单数 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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116
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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117
awakens
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的第三人称单数 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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118
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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119
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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120
spine
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| n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊 | |
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121
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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122
secreting
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| 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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123
chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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124
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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125
wayfarer
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| n.旅人 | |
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126
onward
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|
| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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127
celebrated
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|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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128
pointed
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|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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129
accurately
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|
| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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130
cherub
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| n.小天使，胖娃娃 | |
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131
animate
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|
| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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132
undoubtedly
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|
| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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133
scroll
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|
| n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡 | |
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134
abut
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| v.接界，毗邻 | |
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135
primitive
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|
| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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136
abodes
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| 住所( abode的名词复数 )； 公寓； （在某地的）暂住； 逗留 | |
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137
pagoda
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|
| n.宝塔（尤指印度和远东的多层宝塔），（印度教或佛教的）塔式庙宇 | |
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138
mounds
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| 土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆 | |
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139
subterranean
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|
| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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140
forefathers
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|
| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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141
colossal
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|
| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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142
caverns
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| 大山洞，大洞穴( cavern的名词复数 ) | |
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143
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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144
arcade
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|
| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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145
cleft
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|
| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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146
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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147
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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148
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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149
chisel
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|
| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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150
spikes
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| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
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151
locust
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|
| n.蝗虫；洋槐，刺槐 | |
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152
subdued
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|
| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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153
granite
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|
| adj.花岗岩，花岗石 | |
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154
shafts
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|
| 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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155
nomadism
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|
| n.游牧生活，流浪生活 | |
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156
antagonist
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|
| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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157
necessitated
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| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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158
nomadic
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|
| adj.流浪的；游牧的 | |
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159
nomads
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|
| n.游牧部落的一员( nomad的名词复数 )；流浪者；游牧生活；流浪生活 | |
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160
perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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161
propensities
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| n.倾向，习性( propensity的名词复数 ) | |
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162
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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163
enjoined
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| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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164
stringent
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|
| adj.严厉的；令人信服的；银根紧的 | |
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165
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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166
cumulative
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|
| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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167
itineracy
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| n.巡回 | |
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168
antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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169
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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170
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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171
domestication
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| n.驯养，驯化 | |
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172
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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173
latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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174
latitudes
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| 纬度 | |
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175
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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176
needy
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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177
deterioration
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| n.退化；恶化；变坏 | |
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178
infusions
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| n.沏或泡成的浸液（如茶等）( infusion的名词复数 )；注入，注入物 | |
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179
villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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180
spartans
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| n.斯巴达（spartan的复数形式） | |
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181
sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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182
abounding
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|
| adj.丰富的，大量的v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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183
blur
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| n.模糊不清的事物；vt.使模糊，使看不清楚 | |
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184
squint
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| v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的 | |
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185
furtive
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|
| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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186
reverence
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|
| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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187
revere
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| vt.尊崇，崇敬，敬畏 | |
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188
elegance
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|
| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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189
sparse
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|
| adj.稀疏的，稀稀落落的，薄的 | |
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190
miserably
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|
| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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191
axe
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|
| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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192
boundless
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|
| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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193
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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194
wrangle
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| vi.争吵 | |
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195
costly
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|
| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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196
admiration
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|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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197
inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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198
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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199
ebbing
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| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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200
precisely
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|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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201
pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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202
tinged
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|
| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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203
hue
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|
| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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204
maritime
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|
| adj.海的，海事的，航海的，近海的，沿海的 | |
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205
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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206
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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207
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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208
afflatus
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| n.灵感，神感 | |
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209
aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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210
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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211
domesticate
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| vt.驯养；使归化，使专注于家务 | |
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212
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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213
negligence
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| n.疏忽，玩忽，粗心大意 | |
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214
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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215
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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216
expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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217
cramping
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| 图像压缩 | |
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218
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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219
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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220
licentiousness
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| n.放肆，无法无天 | |
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221
lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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222
fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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223
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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224
verities
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| n.真实( verity的名词复数 )；事实；真理；真实的陈述 | |
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225
pertinence
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| n.中肯 | |
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226
mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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227
authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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228
migration
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| n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙 | |
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229
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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230
onerous
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| adj.繁重的 | |
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231
suffocated
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| （使某人）窒息而死( suffocate的过去式和过去分词 )； （将某人）闷死； 让人感觉闷热； 憋气 | |
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232
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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233
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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234
symbolize
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| vt.作为...的象征，用符号代表 | |
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235
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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236
riddles
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| n.谜（语）( riddle的名词复数 )；猜不透的难题，难解之谜 | |
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237
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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238
encumber
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| v.阻碍行动，妨碍，堆满 | |
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239
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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240
supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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241
glorifies
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| 赞美( glorify的第三人称单数 )； 颂扬； 美化； 使光荣 | |
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242
fins
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| [医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌 | |
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243
entities
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| 实体对像； 实体，独立存在体，实际存在物( entity的名词复数 ) | |
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244
revolving
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| adj.旋转的，轮转式的；循环的v.（使）旋转( revolve的现在分词 )；细想 | |
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245
bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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246
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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247
presentiment
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| n.预感，预觉 | |
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248
subduing
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| 征服( subdue的现在分词 )； 克制； 制服； 色变暗 | |
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249
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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250
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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251
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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252
postulates
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| v.假定，假设( postulate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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253
concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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254
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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255
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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256
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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257
implicated
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| adj.密切关联的；牵涉其中的 | |
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258
affinities
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| n.密切关系( affinity的名词复数 )；亲近；（生性）喜爱；类同 | |
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259
inorganic
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| adj.无生物的；无机的 | |
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260
forum
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| n.论坛，讨论会 | |
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261
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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262
spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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263
myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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264
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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265
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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266
embryo
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| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
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267
witchcraft
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| n.魔法，巫术 | |
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268
constructive
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| adj.建设的，建设性的 | |
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269
watt
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| n.瓦，瓦特 | |
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270
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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271
refinements
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| n.（生活）风雅；精炼( refinement的名词复数 )；改良品；细微的改良；优雅或高贵的动作 | |
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272
outrage
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| n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒 | |
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273
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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274
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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275
antedate
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| vt.填早...的日期，早干，先干 | |
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276
incarnate
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| adj.化身的，人体化的，肉色的 | |
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277
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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278
variegated
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| adj.斑驳的，杂色的 | |
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279
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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280
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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281
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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282
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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283
fungus
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| n.真菌，真菌类植物 | |
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284
lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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285
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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286
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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287
consulates
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| n.领事馆( consulate的名词复数 ) | |
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288
stevedore
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| n.码头工人；v.装载货物 | |
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289
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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290
influx
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| n.流入，注入 | |
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291
dissector
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| n.解剖者，解剖学家，解剖器 | |
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