The lords of life, the lords of life,——
I saw them pass,
Like and unlike,
Portly and grim,
Use and Surprise,
Surface and Dream,
Succession swift, and spectral2 Wrong,
Temperament3 without a tongue,
And the inventor of the game
Omnipresent without name; —
Some to see, some to be guessed,
They marched from east to west:
Little man, least of all,
Among the legs of his guardians4 tall,
Walked about with puzzled look: —
Him by the hand dear nature took;
Dearest nature, strong and kind,
Whispered, ‘Darling, never mind!
Tomorrow they will wear another face,
The founder5 thou! these are thy race!’
ESSAY II Experience
Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended6; there are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight. But the Genius which, according to the old belief, stands at the door by which we enter, and gives us the lethe to drink, that we may tell no tales, mixed the cup too strongly, and we cannot shake off the lethargy now at noonday. Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers7 all day in the boughs8 of the fir-tree. All things swim and glitter. Our life is not so much threatened as our perception. Ghostlike we glide10 through nature, and should not know our place again. Did our birth fall in some fit of indigence11 and frugality12 in nature, that she was so sparing of her fire and so liberal of her earth, that it appears to us that we lack the affirmative principle, and though we have health and reason, yet we have no superfluity of spirit for new creation? We have enough to live and bring the year about, but not an ounce to impart or to invest. Ah that our Genius were a little more of a genius! We are like millers13 on the lower levels of a stream, when the factories above them have exhausted14 the water. We too fancy that the upper people must have raised their dams.
If any of us knew what we were doing, or where we are going, then when we think we best know! We do not know today whether we are busy or idle. In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterwards discovered, that much was accomplished15, and much was begun in us. All our days are so unprofitable while they pass, that ‘tis wonderful where or when we ever got anything of this which we call wisdom, poetry, virtue16. We never got it on any dated calendar day. Some heavenly days must have been intercalated somewhere, like those that Hermes won with dice17 of the Moon, that Osiris might be born. It is said, all martyrdoms looked mean when they were suffered. Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in. Embark18, and the romance quits our vessel19, and hangs on every other sail in the horizon. Our life looks trivial, and we shun20 to record it. Men seem to have learned of the horizon the art of perpetual retreating and reference. ‘Yonder uplands are rich pasturage, and my neighbor has fertile meadow, but my field,’ says the querulous farmer, ‘only holds the world together.’ I quote another man’s saying; unluckily, that other withdraws himself in the same way, and quotes me. ‘Tis the trick of nature thus to degrade today; a good deal of buzz, and somewhere a result slipped magically in. Every roof is agreeable to the eye, until it is lifted; then we find tragedy and moaning women, and hard-eyed husbands, and deluges21 of lethe, and the men ask, ‘What’s the news?’ as if the old were so bad. How many individuals can we count in society? how many actions? how many opinions? So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect23, that the pith of each man’s genius contracts itself to a very few hours. The history of literature — take the net result of Tiraboschi, Warton, or Schlegel, — is a sum of very few ideas, and of very few original tales, — all the rest being variation of these. So in this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. It is almost all custom and gross sense. There are even few opinions, and these seem organic in the speakers, and do not disturb the universal necessity.
What opium24 is instilled25 into all disaster! It shows formidable as we approach it, but there is at last no rough rasping friction26, but the most slippery sliding surfaces. We fall soft on a thought. Ate Dea is gentle,
“Over men’s heads walking aloft,
With tender feet treading so soft.”
People grieve and bemoan27 themselves, but it is not half so bad with them as they say. There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope that here, at least, we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit28. The only thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow it is. That, like all the rest, plays about the surface, and never introduces me into the reality, for contact with which, we would even pay the costly29 price of sons and lovers. Was it Boscovich who found out that bodies never come in contact? Well, souls never touch their objects. An innavigable sea washes with silent waves between us and the things we aim at and converse30 with. Grief too will make us idealists. In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate, — no more. I cannot get it nearer to me. If tomorrow I should be informed of the bankruptcy31 of my principal debtors32, the loss of my property would be a great inconvenience to me, perhaps, for many years; but it would leave me as it found me, — neither better nor worse. So is it with this calamity33: it does not touch me: some thing which I fancied was a part of me, which could not be torn away without tearing me, nor enlarged without enriching me, falls off from me, and leaves no scar. It was caducous. I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real nature. The Indian who was laid under a curse, that the wind should not blow on him, nor water flow to him, nor fire burn him, is a type of us all. The dearest events are summer-rain, and we the Para coats that shed every drop. Nothing is left us now but death. We look to that with a grim satisfaction, saying, there at least is reality that will not dodge34 us.
I take this evanescence and lubricity of all objects, which lets them slip through our fingers then when we clutch hardest, to be the most unhandsome part of our condition. Nature does not like to be observed, and likes that we should be her fools and playmates. We may have the sphere for our cricket-ball, but not a berry for our philosophy. Direct strokes she never gave us power to make; all our blows glance, all our hits are accidents. Our relations to each other are oblique35 and casual.
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads36, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue37, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate38 what we can, and we see only what we animate. Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene39 that we can relish40 nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective42 nature? Who cares what sensibility or discrimination a man has at some time shown, if he falls asleep in his chair? or if he laugh and giggle43? or if he apologize? or is affected44 with egotism? or thinks of his dollar? or cannot go by food? or has gotten a child in his boyhood? Of what use is genius, if the organ is too convex or too concave, and cannot find a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life? Of what use, if the brain is too cold or too hot, and the man does not care enough for results, to stimulate45 him to experiment, and hold him up in it? or if the web is too finely woven, too irritable46 by pleasure and pain, so that life stagnates47 from too much reception, without due outlet48? Of what use to make heroic vows49 of amendment50, if the same old law-breaker is to keep them? What cheer can the religious sentiment yield, when that is suspected to be secretly dependent on the seasons of the year, and the state of the blood? I knew a witty51 physician who found theology in the biliary duct, and used to affirm that if there was disease in the liver, the man became a Calvinist, and if that organ was sound, he became a Unitarian. Very mortifying52 is the reluctant experience that some unfriendly excess or imbecility neutralizes53 the promise of genius. We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly54 they promise, but they never acquit55 the debt; they die young and dodge the account: or if they live, they lose themselves in the crowd.
Temperament also enters fully56 into the system of illusions, and shuts us in a prison of glass which we cannot see. There is an optical illusion about every person we meet. In truth, they are all creatures of given temperament, which will appear in a given character, whose boundaries they will never pass: but we look at them, they seem alive, and we presume there is impulse in them. In the moment it seems impulse; in the year, in the lifetime, it turns out to be a certain uniform tune41 which the revolving57 barrel of the music-box must play. Men resist the conclusion in the morning, but adopt it as the evening wears on, that temper prevails over everything of time, place, and condition, and is inconsumable in the flames of religion. Some modifications58 the moral sentiment avails to impose, but the individual texture59 holds its dominion60, if not to bias61 the moral judgments63, yet to fix the measure of activity and of enjoyment64.
I thus express the law as it is read from the platform of ordinary life, but must not leave it without noticing the capital exception. For temperament is a power which no man willingly hears any one praise but himself. On the platform of physics, we cannot resist the contracting influences of so-called science. Temperament puts all divinity to rout22. I know the mental proclivity66 of physicians. I hear the chuckle67 of the phrenologists. Theoretic kidnappers68 and slave-drivers, they esteem69 each man the victim of another, who winds him round his finger by knowing the law of his being, and by such cheap signboards as the color of his beard, or the slope of his occiput, reads the inventory70 of his fortunes and character. The grossest ignorance does not disgust like this impudent71 knowingness. The physicians say, they are not materialists; but they are: — Spirit is matter reduced to an extreme thinness: O so thin! — But the definition of spiritual should be, that which is its own evidence. What notions do they attach to love! what to religion! One would not willingly pronounce these words in their hearing, and give them the occasion to profane72 them. I saw a gracious gentleman who adapts his conversation to the form of the head of the man he talks with! I had fancied that the value of life lay in its inscrutable possibilities; in the fact that I never know, in addressing myself to a new individual, what may befall me. I carry the keys of my castle in my hand, ready to throw them at the feet of my lord, whenever and in what disguise soever he shall appear. I know he is in the neighborhood hidden among vagabonds. Shall I preclude73 my future, by taking a high seat, and kindly74 adapting my conversation to the shape of heads? When I come to that, the doctors shall buy me for a cent.—— ‘But, sir, medical history; the report to the Institute; the proven facts!’ — I distrust the facts and the inferences. Temperament is the veto or limitation-power in the constitution, very justly applied75 to restrain an opposite excess in the constitution, but absurdly offered as a bar to original equity76. When virtue is in presence, all subordinate powers sleep. On its own level, or in view of nature, temperament is final. I see not, if one be once caught in this trap of so-called sciences, any escape for the man from the links of the chain of physical necessity. Given such an embryo77, such a history must follow. On this platform, one lives in a sty of sensualism, and would soon come to suicide. But it is impossible that the creative power should exclude itself. Into every intelligence there is a door which is never closed, through which the creator passes. The intellect, seeker of absolute truth, or the heart, lover of absolute good, intervenes for our succor78, and at one whisper of these high powers, we awake from ineffectual struggles with this nightmare. We hurl79 it into its own hell, and cannot again contract ourselves to so base a state.
The secret of the illusoriness is in the necessity of a succession of moods or objects. Gladly we would anchor, but the anchorage is quicksand. This onward80 trick of nature is too strong for us: Pero si muove. When, at night, I look at the moon and stars, I seem stationary81, and they to hurry. Our love of the real draws us to permanence, but health of body consists in circulation, and sanity82 of mind in variety or facility of association. We need change of objects. Dedication83 to one thought is quickly odious84. We house with the insane, and must humor them; then conversation dies out. Once I took such delight in Montaigne, that I thought I should not need any other book; before that, in Shakspeare; then in Plutarch; then in Plotinus; at one time in Bacon; afterwards in Goethe; even in Bettine; but now I turn the pages of either of them languidly, whilst I still cherish their genius. So with pictures; each will bear an emphasis of attention once, which it cannot retain, though we fain would continue to be pleased in that manner. How strongly I have felt of pictures, that when you have seen one well, you must take your leave of it; you shall never see it again. I have had good lessons from pictures, which I have since seen without emotion or remark. A deduction85 must be made from the opinion, which even the wise express of a new book or occurrence. Their opinion gives me tidings of their mood, and some vague guess at the new fact but is nowise to be trusted as the lasting86 relation between that intellect and that thing. The child asks, ‘Mamma, why don’t I like the story as well as when you told it me yesterday?’ Alas87, child, it is even so with the oldest cherubim of knowledge. But will it answer thy question to say, Because thou wert born to a whole, and this story is a particular? The reason of the pain this discovery causes us (and we make it late in respect to works of art and intellect), is the plaint of tragedy which murmurs88 from it in regard to persons, to friendship and love.
That immobility and absence of elasticity89 which we find in the arts, we find with more pain in the artist. There is no power of expansion in men. Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed. They stand on the brink90 of the ocean of thought and power, but they never take the single step that would bring them there. A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre91 as you turn it in your hand, until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors. There is no adaptation or universal applicability in men, but each has his special talent, and the mastery of successful men consists in adroitly92 keeping themselves where and when that turn shall be oftenest to be practised. We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can, and would fain have the praise of having intended the result which ensues. I cannot recall any form of man who is not superfluous93 sometimes. But is not this pitiful? Life is not worth the taking, to do tricks in.
Of course, it needs the whole society, to give the symmetry we seek. The parti-colored wheel must revolve94 very fast to appear white. Something is learned too by conversing95 with so much folly96 and defect. In fine, whoever loses, we are always of the gaining party. Divinity is behind our failures and follies97 also. The plays of children are nonsense, but very educative nonsense. So it is with the largest and solemnest things, with commerce, government, church, marriage, and so with the history of every man’s bread, and the ways by which he is to come by it. Like a bird which alights nowhere, but hops98 perpetually from bough9 to bough, is the Power which abides99 in no man and in no woman, but for a moment speaks from this one, and for another moment from that one.
But what help from these fineries or pedantries100? What help from thought? Life is not dialectics. We, I think, in these times, have had lessons enough of the futility101 of criticism. Our young people have thought and written much on labor102 and reform, and for all that they have written, neither the world nor themselves have got on a step. Intellectual tasting of life will not supersede103 muscular activity. If a man should consider the nicety of the passage of a piece of bread down his throat, he would starve. At Education-Farm, the noblest theory of life sat on the noblest figures of young men and maidens104, quite powerless and melancholy105. It would not rake or pitch a ton of hay; it would not rub down a horse; and the men and maidens it left pale and hungry. A political orator106 wittily107 compared our party promises to western roads, which opened stately enough, with planted trees on either side, to tempt108 the traveller, but soon became narrow and narrower, and ended in a squirrel-track, and ran up a tree. So does culture with us; it ends in head-ache. Unspeakably sad and barren does life look to those, who a few months ago were dazzled with the splendor109 of the promise of the times. “There is now no longer any right course of action, nor any self-devotion left among the Iranis.” Objections and criticism we have had our fill of. There are objections to every course of life and action, and the practical wisdom infers an indifferency, from the omnipresence of objection. The whole frame of things preaches indifferency. Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere. Life is not intellectual or critical, but sturdy. Its chief good is for well-mixed people who can enjoy what they find, without question. Nature hates peeping, and our mothers speak her very sense when they say, “Children, eat your victuals110, and say no more of it.” To fill the hour, — that is happiness; to fill the hour, and leave no crevice111 for a repentance112 or an approval. We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them. Under the oldest mouldiest conventions, a man of native force prospers113 just as well as in the newest world, and that by skill of handling and treatment. He can take hold anywhere. Life itself is a mixture of power and form, and will not bear the least excess of either. To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. It is not the part of men, but of fanatics114, or of mathematicians115, if you will, to say, that, the shortness of life considered, it is not worth caring whether for so short a duration we were sprawling116 in want, or sitting high. Since our office is with moments, let us husband them. Five minutes of today are worth as much to me, as five minutes in the next millennium117. Let us be poised118, and wise, and our own, today. Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are. Men live in their fancy, like drunkards whose hands are too soft and tremulous for successful labor. It is a tempest of fancies, and the only ballast I know, is a respect to the present hour. Without any shadow of doubt, amidst this vertigo119 of shows and politics, I settle myself ever the firmer in the creed120, that we should not postpone121 and refer and wish, but do broad justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with, accepting our actual companions and circumstances, however humble122 or odious, as the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated its whole pleasure for us. If these are mean and malignant123, their contentment, which is the last victory of justice, is a more satisfying echo to the heart, than the voice of poets and the casual sympathy of admirable persons. I think that however a thoughtful man may suffer from the defects and absurdities124 of his company, he cannot without affectation deny to any set of men and women, a sensibility to extraordinary merit. The coarse and frivolous125 have an instinct of superiority, if they have not a sympathy, and honor it in their blind capricious way with sincere homage126.
The fine young people despise life, but in me, and in such as with me are free from dyspepsia, and to whom a day is a sound and solid good, it is a great excess of politeness to look scornful and to cry for company. I am grown by sympathy a little eager and sentimental127, but leave me alone, and I should relish every hour and what it brought me, the pot-luck of the day, as heartily128 as the oldest gossip in the bar-room. I am thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who expects everything of the universe, and is disappointed when anything is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods. I accept the clangor and jangle of contrary tendencies. I find my account in sots and bores also. They give a reality to the circumjacent picture, which such a vanishing meteorous appearance can ill spare. In the morning I awake, and find the old world, wife, babes, and mother, Concord130 and Boston, the dear old spiritual world, and even the dear old devil not far off. If we will take the good we find, asking no questions, we shall have heaping measures. The great gifts are not got by analysis. Everything good is on the highway. The middle region of our being is the temperate131 zone. We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, of spirit, of poetry, — a narrow belt. Moreover, in popular experience, everything good is on the highway. A collector peeps into all the picture-shops of Europe, for a landscape of Poussin, a crayon-sketch of Salvator; but the Transfiguration, the Last Judgment62, the Communion of St. Jerome, and what are as transcendent as these, are on the walls of the Vatican, the Uffizii, or the Louvre, where every footman may see them; to say nothing of nature’s pictures in every street, of sunsets and sunrises every day, and the sculpture of the human body never absent. A collector recently bought at public auction133, in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an autograph of Shakspeare: but for nothing a school-boy can read Hamlet, and can detect secrets of highest concernment yet unpublished therein. I think I will never read any but the commonest books, — the Bible, Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. Then we are impatient of so public a life and planet, and run hither and thither134 for nooks and secrets. The imagination delights in the wood-craft of Indians, trappers, and bee-hunters. We fancy that we are strangers, and not so intimately domesticated135 in the planet as the wild man, and the wild beast and bird. But the exclusion136 reaches them also; reaches the climbing, flying, gliding137, feathered and four-footed man. Fox and woodchuck, hawk138 and snipe, and bittern, when nearly seen, have no more root in the deep world than man, and are just such superficial tenants139 of the globe. Then the new molecular140 philosophy shows astronomical141 interspaces betwixt atom and atom, shows that the world is all outside: it has no inside.
The mid-world is best. Nature, as we know her, is no saint. The lights of the church, the ascetics142, Gentoos and Grahamites, she does not distinguish by any favor. She comes eating and drinking and sinning. Her darlings, the great, the strong, the beautiful, are not children of our law, do not come out of the Sunday School, nor weigh their food, nor punctually keep the commandments. If we will be strong with her strength, we must not harbor such disconsolate143 consciences, borrowed too from the consciences of other nations. We must set up the strong present tense against all the rumors144 of wrath145, past or to come. So many things are unsettled which it is of the first importance to settle, — and, pending146 their settlement, we will do as we do. Whilst the debate goes forward on the equity of commerce, and will not be closed for a century or two, New and Old England may keep shop. Law of copyright and international copyright is to be discussed, and, in the interim147, we will sell our books for the most we can. Expediency148 of literature, reason of literature, lawfulness149 of writing down a thought, is questioned; much is to say on both sides, and, while the fight waxes hot, thou, dearest scholar, stick to thy foolish task, add a line every hour, and between whiles add a line. Right to hold land, right of property, is disputed, and the conventions convene150, and before the vote is taken, dig away in your garden, and spend your earnings151 as a waif or godsend to all serene and beautiful purposes. Life itself is a bubble and a skepticism, and a sleep within a sleep. Grant it, and as much more as they will, — but thou, God’s darling! heed152 thy private dream: thou wilt153 not be missed in the scorning and skepticism: there are enough of them: stay there in thy closet, and toil154, until the rest are agreed what to do about it. Thy sickness, they say, and thy puny155 habit, require that thou do this or avoid that, but know that thy life is a flitting state, a tent for a night, and do thou, sick or well, finish that stint156. Thou art sick, but shalt not be worse, and the universe, which holds thee dear, shall be the better.
Human life is made up of the two elements, power and form, and the proportion must be invariably kept, if we would have it sweet and sound. Each of these elements in excess makes a mischief157 as hurtful as its defect. Everything runs to excess: every good quality is noxious158, if unmixed, and, to carry the danger to the edge of ruin, nature causes each man’s peculiarity159 to superabound. Here, among the farms, we adduce the scholars as examples of this treachery. They are nature’s victims of expression. You who see the artist, the orator, the poet, too near, and find their life no more excellent than that of mechanics or farmers, and themselves victims of partiality, very hollow and haggard, and pronounce them failures, — not heroes, but quacks160, — conclude very reasonably, that these arts are not for man, but are disease. Yet nature will not bear you out. Irresistible161 nature made men such, and makes legions more of such, every day. You love the boy reading in a book, gazing at a drawing, or a cast: yet what are these millions who read and behold162, but incipient163 writers and sculptors164? Add a little more of that quality which now reads and sees, and they will seize the pen and chisel165. And if one remembers how innocently he began to be an artist, he perceives that nature joined with his enemy. A man is a golden impossibility. The line he must walk is a hair’s breadth. The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.
How easily, if fate would suffer it, we might keep forever these beautiful limits, and adjust ourselves, once for all, to the perfect calculation of the kingdom of known cause and effect. In the street and in the newspapers, life appears so plain a business, that manly166 resolution and adherence167 to the multiplication-table through all weathers, will insure success. But ah! presently comes a day, or is it only a half-hour, with its angel-whispering, — which discomfits168 the conclusions of nations and of years! Tomorrow again, everything looks real and angular, the habitual169 standards are reinstated, common sense is as rare as genius, — is the basis of genius, and experience is hands and feet to every enterprise; — and yet, he who should do his business on this understanding, would be quickly bankrupt. Power keeps quite another road than the turnpikes of choice and will, namely, the subterranean170 and invisible tunnels and channels of life. It is ridiculous that we are diplomatists, and doctors, and considerate people: there are no dupes like these. Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth taking or keeping, if it were not. God delights to isolate171 us every day, and hide from us the past and the future. We would look about us, but with grand politeness he draws down before us an impenetrable screen of purest sky, and another behind us of purest sky. ‘You will not remember,’ he seems to say, ‘and you will not expect.’ All good conversation, manners, and action, come from a spontaneity which forgets usages, and makes the moment great. Nature hates calculators; her methods are saltatory and impulsive172. Man lives by pulses; our organic movements are such; and the chemical and ethereal agents are undulatory and alternate; and the mind goes antagonizing on, and never prospers but by fits. We thrive by casualties. Our chief experiences have been casual. The most attractive class of people are those who are powerful obliquely173, and not by the direct stroke: men of genius, but not yet accredited174: one gets the cheer of their light, without paying too great a tax. Theirs is the beauty of the bird, or the morning light, and not of art. In the thought of genius there is always a surprise; and the moral sentiment is well called “the newness,” for it is never other; as new to the oldest intelligence as to the young child, — “the kingdom that cometh without observation.” In like manner, for practical success, there must not be too much design. A man will not be observed in doing that which he can do best. There is a certain magic about his properest action, which stupefies your powers of observation, so that though it is done before you, you wist not of it. The art of life has a pudency, and will not be exposed. Every man is an impossibility, until he is born; every thing impossible, until we see a success. The ardors of piety175 agree at last with the coldest skepticism, — that nothing is of us or our works, — that all is of God. Nature will not spare us the smallest leaf of laurel. All writing comes by the grace of God, and all doing and having. I would gladly be moral, and keep due metes176 and bounds, which I dearly love, and allow the most to the will of man, but I have set my heart on honesty in this chapter, and I can see nothing at last, in success or failure, than more or less of vital force supplied from the Eternal. The results of life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the days never know. The persons who compose our company, converse, and come and go, and design and execute many things, and somewhat comes of it all, but an unlooked for result. The individual is always mistaken. He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, quarrelled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns out somewhat new, and very unlike what he promised himself.
The ancients, struck with this irreducibleness of the elements of human life to calculation, exalted177 Chance into a divinity, but that is to stay too long at the spark, — which glitters truly at one point, — but the universe is warm with the latency of the same fire. The miracle of life which will not be expounded178, but will remain a miracle, introduces a new element. In the growth of the embryo, Sir Everard Home, I think, noticed that the evolution was not from one central point, but co-active from three or more points. Life has no memory. That which proceeds in succession might be remembered, but that which is coexistent, or ejaculated from a deeper cause, as yet far from being conscious, knows not its own tendency. So is it with us, now skeptical179, or without unity180, because immersed in forms and effects all seeming to be of equal yet hostile value, and now religious, whilst in the reception of spiritual law. Bear with these distractions181, with this coetaneous growth of the parts: they will one day be members, and obey one will. On that one will, on that secret cause, they nail our attention and hope. Life is hereby melted into an expectation or a religion. Underneath182 the inharmonious and trivial particulars, is a musical perfection, the Ideal journeying always with us, the heaven without rent or seam. Do but observe the mode of our illumination. When I converse with a profound mind, or if at any time being alone I have good thoughts, I do not at once arrive at satisfactions, as when, being thirsty, I drink water, or go to the fire, being cold: no! but I am at first apprised183 of my vicinity to a new and excellent region of life. By persisting to read or to think, this region gives further sign of itself, as it were in flashes of light, in sudden discoveries of its profound beauty and repose184, as if the clouds that covered it parted at intervals185, and showed the approaching traveller the inland mountains, with the tranquil186 eternal meadows spread at their base, whereon flocks graze, and shepherds pipe and dance. But every insight from this realm of thought is felt as initial, and promises a sequel. I do not make it; I arrive there, and behold what was there already. I make! O no! I clap my hands in infantine joy and amazement187, before the first opening to me of this august magnificence, old with the love and homage of innumerable ages, young with the life of life, the sunbright Mecca of the desert. And what a future it opens! I feel a new heart beating with the love of the new beauty. I am ready to die out of nature, and be born again into this new yet unapproachable America I have found in the West.
“Since neither now nor yesterday began
These thoughts, which have been ever, nor yet can
A man be found who their first entrance knew.”
If I have described life as a flux188 of moods, I must now add, that there is that in us which changes not, and which ranks all sensations and states of mind. The consciousness in each man is a sliding scale, which identifies him now with the First Cause, and now with the flesh of his body; life above life, in infinite degrees. The sentiment from which it sprung determines the dignity of any deed, and the question ever is, not, what you have done or forborne, but, at whose command you have done or forborne it.
Fortune, Minerva, Muse189, Holy Ghost, — these are quaint190 names, too narrow to cover this unbounded substance. The baffled intellect must still kneel before this cause, which refuses to be named, — ineffable191 cause, which every fine genius has essayed to represent by some emphatic192 symbol, as, Thales by water, Anaximenes by air, Anaxagoras by (Nous) thought, Zoroaster by fire, Jesus and the moderns by love: and the metaphor193 of each has become a national religion. The Chinese Mencius has not been the least successful in his generalization194. “I fully understand language,” he said, “and nourish well my vast-flowing vigor195.” — “I beg to ask what you call vast-flowing vigor?” — said his companion. “The explanation,” replied Mencius, “is difficult. This vigor is supremely196 great, and in the highest degree unbending. Nourish it correctly, and do it no injury, and it will fill up the vacancy197 between heaven and earth. This vigor accords with and assists justice and reason, and leaves no hunger.” — In our more correct writing, we give to this generalization the name of Being, and thereby198 confess that we have arrived as far as we can go. Suffice it for the joy of the universe, that we have not arrived at a wall, but at interminable oceans. Our life seems not present, so much as prospective199; not for the affairs on which it is wasted, but as a hint of this vast-flowing vigor. Most of life seems to be mere200 advertisement of faculty201: information is given us not to sell ourselves cheap; that we are very great. So, in particulars, our greatness is always in a tendency or direction, not in an action. It is for us to believe in the rule, not in the exception. The noble are thus known from the ignoble202. So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality203 of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in the history of the globe. Shall we describe this cause as that which works directly? The spirit is not helpless or needful of mediate204 organs. It has plentiful205 powers and direct effects. I am explained without explaining, I am felt without acting65, and where I am not. Therefore all just persons are satisfied with their own praise. They refuse to explain themselves, and are content that new actions should do them that office. They believe that we communicate without speech, and above speech, and that no right action of ours is quite unaffecting to our friends, at whatever distance; for the influence of action is not to be measured by miles. Why should I fret206 myself, because a circumstance has occurred, which hinders my presence where I was expected? If I am not at the meeting, my presence where I am, should be as useful to the commonwealth207 of friendship and wisdom, as would be my presence in that place. I exert the same quality of power in all places. Thus journeys the mighty208 Ideal before us; it never was known to fall into the rear. No man ever came to an experience which was satiating, but his good is tidings of a better. Onward and onward! In liberated209 moments, we know that a new picture of life and duty is already possible; the elements already exist in many minds around you, of a doctrine210 of life which shall transcend132 any written record we have. The new statement will comprise the skepticisms, as well as the faiths of society, and out of unbeliefs a creed shall be formed. For, skepticisms are not gratuitous211 or lawless, but are limitations of the affirmative statement, and the new philosophy must take them in, and make affirmations out-side of them, just as much as it must include the oldest beliefs.
It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man. Ever afterwards, we suspect our instruments. We have learned that we do not see directly, but mediately212, and that we have no means of correcting these colored and distorting lenses which we are, or of computing213 the amount of their errors. Perhaps these subject-lenses have a creative power; perhaps there are no objects. Once we lived in what we saw; now, the rapaciousness214 of this new power, which threatens to absorb all things, engages us. Nature, art, persons, letters, religions, — objects, successively tumble in, and God is but one of its ideas. Nature and literature are subjective215 phenomena216; every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast. The street is full of humiliations to the proud. As the fop contrived217 to dress his bailiffs in his livery, and make them wait on his guests at table, so the chagrins218 which the bad heart gives off as bubbles, at once take form as ladies and gentlemen in the street, shopmen or barkeepers in hotels, and threaten or insult whatever is threatenable and insultable in us. ‘Tis the same with our idolatries. People forget that it is the eye which makes the horizon, and the rounding mind’s eye which makes this or that man a type or representative of humanity with the name of hero or saint. Jesus the “providential man,” is a good man on whom many people are agreed that these optical laws shall take effect. By love on one part, and by forbearance to press objection on the other part, it is for a time settled, that we will look at him in the centre of the horizon, and ascribe to him the properties that will attach to any man so seen. But the longest love or aversion has a speedy term. The great and crescive self, rooted in absolute nature, supplants219 all relative existence, and ruins the kingdom of mortal friendship and love. Marriage (in what is called the spiritual world) is impossible, because of the inequality between every subject and every object. The subject is the receiver of Godhead, and at every comparison must feel his being enhanced by that cryptic220 might. Though not in energy, yet by presence, this magazine of substance cannot be otherwise than felt: nor can any force of intellect attribute to the object the proper deity221 which sleeps or wakes forever in every subject. Never can love make consciousness and ascription equal in force. There will be the same gulf222 between every me and thee, as between the original and the picture. The universe is the bride of the soul. All private sympathy is partial. Two human beings are like globes, which can touch only in a point, and, whilst they remain in contact, all other points of each of the spheres are inert223; their turn must also come, and the longer a particular union lasts, the more energy of appetency the parts not in union acquire.
Life will be imaged, but cannot be divided nor doubled. Any invasion of its unity would be chaos224. The soul is not twin-born, but the only begotten225, and though revealing itself as child in time, child in appearance, is of a fatal and universal power, admitting no co-life. Every day, every act betrays the ill-concealed deity. We believe in ourselves, as we do not believe in others. We permit all things to ourselves, and that which we call sin in others, is experiment for us. It is an instance of our faith in ourselves, that men never speak of crime as lightly as they think: or, every man thinks a latitude226 safe for himself, which is nowise to be indulged to another. The act looks very differently on the inside, and on the outside; in its quality, and in its consequences. Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles: it is an act quite easy to be contemplated227, but in its sequel, it turns out to be a horrible jangle and confounding of all relations. Especially the crimes that spring from love, seem right and fair from the actor’s point of view, but, when acted, are found destructive of society. No man at last believes that he can be lost, nor that the crime in him is as black as in the felon228. Because the intellect qualifies in our own case the moral judgments. For there is no crime to the intellect. That is antinomian or hypernomian, and judges law as well as fact. “It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder,” said Napoleon, speaking the language of the intellect. To it, the world is a problem in mathematics or the science of quantity, and it leaves out praise and blame, and all weak emotions. All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal? Saints are sad, because they behold sin, (even when they speculate,) from the point of view of the conscience, and not of the intellect; a confusion of thought. Sin seen from the thought, is a diminution229 or less: seen from the conscience or will, it is pravity or bad. The intellect names it shade, absence of light, and no essence. The conscience must feel it as essence, essential evil. This it is not: it has an objective existence, but no subjective.
Thus inevitably230 does the universe wear our color, and every object fall successively into the subject itself. The subject exists, the subject enlarges; all things sooner or later fall into place. As I am, so I see; use what language we will, we can never say anything but what we are; Hermes, Cadmus, Columbus, Newton, Buonaparte, are the mind’s ministers. Instead of feeling a poverty when we encounter a great man, let us treat the new comer like a travelling geologist232, who passes through our estate, and shows us good slate233, or limestone234, or anthracite, in our brush pasture. The partial action of each strong mind in one direction, is a telescope for the objects on which it is pointed129. But every other part of knowledge is to be pushed to the same extravagance, ere the soul attains235 her due sphericity. Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily236 her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing com-plex dramas, with tragic237 and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate, — and meantime it is only puss and her tail. How long before our masquerade will end its noise of tamborines, laughter, and shouting, and we shall find it was a solitary238 performance? — A subject and an object, — it takes so much to make the galvanic circuit complete, but magnitude adds nothing. What imports it whether it is Kepler and the sphere; Columbus and America; a reader and his book; or puss with her tail?
It is true that all the muses239 and love and religion hate these developments, and will find a way to punish the chemist, who publishes in the parlor240 the secrets of the laboratory. And we cannot say too little of our constitutional necessity of seeing things under private aspects, or saturated241 with our humors. And yet is the God the native of these bleak242 rocks. That need makes in morals the capital virtue of self-trust. We must hold hard to this poverty, however scandalous, and by more vigorous self-recoveries, after the sallies of action, possess our axis243 more firmly. The life of truth is cold, and so far mournful; but it is not the slave of tears, contritions, and perturbations. It does not attempt another’s work, nor adopt another’s facts. It is a main lesson of wisdom to know your own from another’s. I have learned that I cannot dispose of other people’s facts; but I possess such a key to my own, as persuades me against all their denials, that they also have a key to theirs. A sympathetic person is placed in the dilemma244 of a swimmer among drowning men, who all catch at him, and if he give so much as a leg or a finger, they will drown him. They wish to be saved from the mischiefs245 of their vices246, but not from their vices. Charity would be wasted on this poor waiting on the symptoms. A wise and hardy247 physician will say, Come out of that, as the first condition of advice.
In this our talking America, we are ruined by our good nature and listening on all sides. This compliance248 takes away the power of being greatly useful. A man should not be able to look other than directly and forthright249. A preoccupied250 attention is the only answer to the importunate251 frivolity252 of other people: an attention, and to an aim which makes their wants frivolous. This is a divine answer, and leaves no appeal, and no hard thoughts. In Flaxman’s drawing of the Eumenides of Aeschylus, Orestes supplicates253 Apollo, whilst the Furies sleep on the threshold. The face of the god expresses a shade of regret and compassion254, but calm with the conviction of the irreconcilableness of the two spheres. He is born into other politics, into the eternal and beautiful. The man at his feet asks for his interest in turmoils255 of the earth, into which his nature cannot enter. And the Eumenides there lying express pictorially256 this disparity. The god is surcharged with his divine destiny.
Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness257, — these are threads on the loom258 of time, these are the lords of life. I dare not assume to give their order, but I name them as I find them in my way. I know better than to claim any completeness for my picture. I am a fragment, and this is a fragment of me. I can very confidently announce one or another law, which throws itself into relief and form, but I am too young yet by some ages to compile a code. I gossip for my hour concerning the eternal politics. I have seen many fair pictures not in vain. A wonderful time I have lived in. I am not the novice259 I was fourteen, nor yet seven years ago. Let who will ask, where is the fruit? I find a private fruit sufficient. This is a fruit, — that I should not ask for a rash effect from meditations260, counsels, and the hiving of truths. I should feel it pitiful to demand a result on this town and county, an overt231 effect on the instant month and year. The effect is deep and secular261 as the cause. It works on periods in which mortal lifetime is lost. All I know is reception; I am and I have: but I do not get, and when I have fancied I had gotten anything, I found I did not. I worship with wonder the great Fortune. My reception has been so large, that I am not annoyed by receiving this or that superabundantly. I say to the Genius, if he will pardon the proverb, In for a mill, in for a million. When I receive a new gift, I do not macerate262 my body to make the account square, for, if I should die, I could not make the account square. The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overran the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving.
Also, that hankering after an overt or practical effect seems to me an apostasy263. In good earnest, I am willing to spare this most unnecessary deal of doing. Life wears to me a visionary face. Hardest, roughest action is visionary also. It is but a choice between soft and turbulent dreams. People disparage264 knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am very content with knowing, if only I could know. That is an august entertainment, and would suffice me a great while. To know a little, would be worth the expense of this world. I hear always the law of Adrastia, “that every soul which had acquired any truth, should be safe from harm until another period.”
I know that the world I converse with in the city and in the farms, is not the world I think. I observe that difference and shall observe it. One day, I shall know the value and law of this discrepance. But I have not found that much was gained by manipular attempts to realize the world of thought. Many eager persons successively make an experiment in this way, and make themselves ridiculous. They acquire democratic manners, they foam265 at the mouth, they hate and deny. Worse, I observe, that, in the history of mankind, there is never a solitary example of success, — taking their own tests of success. I say this polemically, or in reply to the inquiry266, why not realize your world? But far be from me the despair which prejudges the law by a paltry267 empiricism, — since there never was a right endeavor, but it succeeded. Patience and patience, we shall win at the last. We must be very suspicious of the deceptions268 of the element of time. It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the light of our life. We dress our garden, eat our dinners, discuss the household with our wives, and these things make no impression, are forgotten next week; but in the solitude269 to which every man is always returning, he has a sanity and revelations, which in his passage into new worlds he will carry with him. Never mind the ridicule270, never mind the defeat: up again, old heart! — it seems to say, — there is victory yet for all justice; and the true romance which the world exists to realize, will be the transformation271 of genius into practical power.
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1
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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Founder
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| n.创始者，缔造者 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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indigence
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| n.贫穷 | |
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frugality
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| n.节约，节俭 | |
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millers
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| n.（尤指面粉厂的）厂主( miller的名词复数 )；磨房主；碾磨工；铣工 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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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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dice
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| n.骰子；vt.把（食物）切成小方块，冒险 | |
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embark
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| vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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shun
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| vt.避开，回避，避免 | |
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deluges
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| v.使淹没( deluge的第三人称单数 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付 | |
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rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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opium
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| n.鸦片；adj.鸦片的 | |
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instilled
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| v.逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instill的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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bemoan
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| v.悲叹，哀泣，痛哭；惋惜，不满于 | |
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counterfeit
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| vt.伪造，仿造；adj.伪造的，假冒的 | |
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costly
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| adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的 | |
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converse
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| vi.谈话，谈天，闲聊；adv.相反的，相反 | |
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bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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debtors
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| n.债务人，借方( debtor的名词复数 ) | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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dodge
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| v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计 | |
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oblique
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| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
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beads
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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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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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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defective
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| adj.有毛病的，有问题的，有瑕疵的 | |
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giggle
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| n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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stagnates
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| v.停滞，不流动，不发展( stagnate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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amendment
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| n.改正，修正，改善，修正案 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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mortifying
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| adj.抑制的，苦修的v.使受辱( mortify的现在分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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neutralizes
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| v.使失效( neutralize的第三人称单数 )；抵消；中和；使（一个国家）中立化 | |
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lavishly
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| adv.慷慨地，大方地 | |
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acquit
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| vt.宣判无罪；(oneself)使(自己)表现出 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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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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modifications
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| n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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66
proclivity
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| n.倾向，癖性 | |
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67
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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68
kidnappers
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| n.拐子，绑匪( kidnapper的名词复数 ) | |
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69
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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70
inventory
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| n.详细目录，存货清单 | |
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71
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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72
profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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73
preclude
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| vt.阻止，排除，防止；妨碍 | |
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74
kindly
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|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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75
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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76
equity
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| n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票 | |
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77
embryo
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| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
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78
succor
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| n.援助，帮助；v.给予帮助 | |
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79
hurl
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| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
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80
onward
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|
| adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先 | |
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81
stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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82
sanity
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|
| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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83
dedication
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|
| n.奉献，献身，致力，题献，献辞 | |
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84
odious
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|
| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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85
deduction
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|
| n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎 | |
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86
lasting
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|
| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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87
alas
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|
| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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88
murmurs
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|
| n.低沉、连续而不清的声音( murmur的名词复数 )；低语声；怨言；嘀咕 | |
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89
elasticity
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|
| n.弹性，伸缩力 | |
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90
brink
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|
| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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91
lustre
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|
| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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92
adroitly
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|
| adv.熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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93
superfluous
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|
| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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94
revolve
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| vi.(使)旋转；循环出现 | |
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95
conversing
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|
| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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96
folly
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|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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97
follies
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| 罪恶，时事讽刺剧； 愚蠢，蠢笨，愚蠢的行为、思想或做法( folly的名词复数 ) | |
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98
hops
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| 跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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99
abides
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| 容忍( abide的第三人称单数 )； 等候； 逗留； 停留 | |
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100
pedantries
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| n.假学问，卖弄学问，迂腐( pedantry的名词复数 ) | |
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101
futility
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| n.无用 | |
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102
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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103
supersede
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| v.替代；充任 | |
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104
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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105
melancholy
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|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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106
orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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107
wittily
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| 机智地，机敏地 | |
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108
tempt
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| vt.引诱，勾引，吸引，引起…的兴趣 | |
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109
splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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110
victuals
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| n.食物；食品 | |
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111
crevice
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| n.(岩石、墙等)裂缝；缺口 | |
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112
repentance
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| n.懊悔 | |
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113
prospers
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| v.成功，兴旺( prosper的第三人称单数 ) | |
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114
fanatics
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| 狂热者，入迷者( fanatic的名词复数 ) | |
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115
mathematicians
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| 数学家( mathematician的名词复数 ) | |
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116
sprawling
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|
| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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117
millennium
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|
| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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118
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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119
vertigo
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| n.眩晕 | |
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120
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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121
postpone
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| v.延期，推迟 | |
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122
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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123
malignant
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|
| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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124
absurdities
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| n.极端无理性( absurdity的名词复数 )；荒谬；谬论；荒谬的行为 | |
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125
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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126
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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127
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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128
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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129
pointed
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|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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130
concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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131
temperate
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|
| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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132
transcend
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|
| vt.超出，超越(理性等)的范围 | |
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133
auction
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|
| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
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134
thither
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|
| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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135
domesticated
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|
| adj.喜欢家庭生活的；（指动物）被驯养了的v.驯化( domesticate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
exclusion
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|
| n.拒绝，排除，排斥，远足，远途旅行 | |
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137
gliding
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|
| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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138
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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139
tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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140
molecular
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|
| adj.分子的；克分子的 | |
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141
astronomical
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|
| adj.天文学的，（数字）极大的 | |
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142
ascetics
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|
| n.苦行者，禁欲者，禁欲主义者( ascetic的名词复数 ) | |
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143
disconsolate
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|
| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
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144
rumors
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|
| n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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145
wrath
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|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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146
pending
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|
| prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的 | |
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147
interim
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|
| adj.暂时的，临时的；n.间歇，过渡期间 | |
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148
expediency
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|
| n.适宜；方便；合算；利己 | |
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149
lawfulness
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| 法制，合法 | |
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150
convene
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|
| v.集合，召集，召唤，聚集，集合 | |
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151
earnings
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|
| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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152
heed
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|
| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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153
wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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154
toil
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|
| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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155
puny
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|
| adj.微不足道的，弱小的 | |
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156
stint
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|
| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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157
mischief
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|
| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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158
noxious
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|
| adj.有害的，有毒的；使道德败坏的，讨厌的 | |
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159
peculiarity
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|
| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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160
quacks
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| abbr.quacksalvers 庸医，骗子(16世纪习惯用水银或汞治疗梅毒的人)n.江湖医生( quack的名词复数 )；江湖郎中；（鸭子的）呱呱声v.（鸭子）发出嘎嘎声( quack的第三人称单数 ) | |
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161
irresistible
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|
| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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162
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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163
incipient
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|
| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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164
sculptors
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| 雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座 | |
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165
chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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166
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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167
adherence
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| n.信奉，依附，坚持，固着 | |
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168
discomfits
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| v.使为难( discomfit的第三人称单数 )；使狼狈；使挫折；挫败 | |
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169
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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170
subterranean
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|
| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
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171
isolate
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| vt.使孤立，隔离 | |
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172
impulsive
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|
| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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173
obliquely
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|
| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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174
accredited
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|
| adj.可接受的；可信任的；公认的；质量合格的v.相信( accredit的过去式和过去分词 )；委托；委任；把…归结于 | |
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175
piety
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|
| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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176
metes
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| v.（对某人）施以，给予（处罚等）( mete的第三人称单数 ) | |
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177
exalted
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|
| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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178
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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179
skeptical
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|
| adj.怀疑的，多疑的 | |
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180
unity
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|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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181
distractions
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|
| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
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182
underneath
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|
| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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183
apprised
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| v.告知，通知( apprise的过去式和过去分词 )；评价 | |
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184
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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185
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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186
tranquil
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|
| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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187
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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188
flux
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| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
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189
muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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190
quaint
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|
| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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191
ineffable
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|
| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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192
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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metaphor
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| n.隐喻，暗喻 | |
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194
generalization
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| n.普遍性，一般性，概括 | |
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195
vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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197
vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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199
prospective
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| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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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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202
ignoble
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| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
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immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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mediate
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| vi.调解，斡旋；vt.经调解解决；经斡旋促成 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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gratuitous
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| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
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mediately
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| 在中间，间接 | |
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computing
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| n.计算 | |
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rapaciousness
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| n.贪婪；强取，贪婪 | |
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subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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chagrins
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| v.使懊恼，使懊丧，使悔恨( chagrin的第三人称单数 ) | |
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supplants
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| 把…排挤掉，取代( supplant的第三人称单数 ) | |
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cryptic
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| adj.秘密的，神秘的，含义模糊的 | |
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deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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begotten
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| v.为…之生父( beget的过去分词 )；产生，引起 | |
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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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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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felon
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| n.重罪犯；adj.残忍的 | |
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diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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overt
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| adj.公开的，明显的，公然的 | |
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geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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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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prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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muses
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的第三人称单数 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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axis
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| n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线 | |
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dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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mischiefs
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| 损害( mischief的名词复数 )； 危害； 胡闹； 调皮捣蛋的人 | |
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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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hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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compliance
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| n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从 | |
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forthright
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| adj.直率的，直截了当的 [同]frank | |
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preoccupied
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| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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importunate
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| adj.强求的；纠缠不休的 | |
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frivolity
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| n.轻松的乐事，兴高采烈；轻浮的举止 | |
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supplicates
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| vt.& vi.祈求，哀求，恳求（supplicate的第三人称单数形式） | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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255
turmoils
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| n.混乱( turmoil的名词复数 )；焦虑 | |
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pictorially
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| 绘画般地 | |
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257
subjectiveness
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| 主观（性） | |
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258
loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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novice
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| adj.新手的，生手的 | |
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260
meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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macerate
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| v.浸软，使消瘦 | |
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263
apostasy
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| n.背教，脱党 | |
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264
disparage
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| v.贬抑，轻蔑 | |
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265
foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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267
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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deceptions
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| 欺骗( deception的名词复数 )； 骗术，诡计 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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270
ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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271
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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