By Way of Criticism.
THESE studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in the NEW QUARTERLY, one in MACMILLAN’S, and the rest in the CORNHILL MAGAZINE. To the CORNHILL I owe a double debt of thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and under the eye of the very best of editors; and second, that the proprietors1 have allowed me to republish so considerable an amount of copy.
These nine worthies2 have been brought together from many different ages and countries. Not the most erudite of men could be perfectly3 prepared to deal with so many and such various sides of human life and manners. To pass a true judgment4 upon Knox and Burns implies a grasp upon the very deepest strain of thought in Scotland, — a country far more essentially5 different from England than many parts of America; for, in a sense, the first of these men re-created Scotland, and the second is its most essentially national production. To treat fitly of Hugo and Villon would involve yet wider knowledge, not only of a country foreign to the author by race, history, and religion, but of the growth and liberties of art. Of the two Americans, Whitman and Thoreau, each is the type of something not so much realised as widely sought after among the late generations of their countrymen; and to see them clearly in a nice relation to the society that brought them forth6, an author would require a large habit of life among modern Americans. As for Yoshida, I have already disclaimed7 responsibility; it was but my hand that held the pen.
In truth, these are but the readings of a literary vagrant8. One book led to another, one study to another. The first was published with trepidation9. Since no bones were broken, the second was launched with greater confidence. So, by insensible degrees, a young man of our generation acquires, in his own eyes, a kind of roving judicial10 commission through the ages; and, having once escaped the perils11 of the Freemans and the Furnivalls, sets himself up to right the wrongs of universal history and criticism. Now, it is one thing to write with enjoyment12 on a subject while the story is hot in your mind from recent reading, coloured with recent prejudice; and it is quite another business to put these writings coldly forth again in a bound volume. We are most of us attached to our opinions; that is one of the “natural affections” of which we hear so much in youth; but few of us are altogether free from paralysing doubts and scruples13. For my part, I have a small idea of the degree of accuracy possible to man, and I feel sure these studies teem14 with error. One and all were written with genuine interest in the subject; many, however, have been conceived and finished with imperfect knowledge; and all have lain, from beginning to end, under the disadvantages inherent in this style of writing.
Of these disadvantages a word must here be said. The writer of short studies, having to condense in a few pages the events of a whole lifetime, and the effect on his own mind of many various volumes, is bound, above all things, to make that condensation15 logical and striking. For the only justification16 of his writing at all is that he shall present a brief, reasoned, and memorable17 view. By the necessity of the case, all the more neutral circumstances are omitted from his narrative18; and that of itself, by the negative exaggeration of which I have spoken in the text, lends to the matter in hand a certain false and specious19 glitter. By the necessity of the case, again, he is forced to view his subject throughout in a particular illumination, like a studio artifice20. Like Hales with Pepys, he must nearly break his sitter’s neck to get the proper shadows on the portrait. It is from one side only that he has time to represent his subject. The side selected will either be the one most striking to himself, or the one most obscured by controversy21; and in both cases that will be the one most liable to strained and sophisticated reading. In a biography, this and that is displayed; the hero is seen at home, playing the flute22; the different tendencies of his work come, one after another, into notice; and thus something like a true, general impression of the subject may at last be struck. But in the short study, the writer, having seized his “point of view,” must keep his eye steadily23 to that. He seeks, perhaps, rather to differentiate24 than truly to characterise. The proportions of the sitter must be sacrificed to the proportions of the portrait; the lights are heightened, the shadows overcharged; the chosen expression, continually forced, may degenerate25 at length into a grimace26; and we have at best something of a caricature, at worst a calumny27. Hence, if they be readable at all, and hang together by their own ends, the peculiar28 convincing force of these brief representations. They take so little a while to read, and yet in that little while the subject is so repeatedly introduced in the same light and with the same expression, that, by sheer force of repetition, that view is imposed upon the reader. The two English masters of the style, Macaulay and Carlyle, largely exemplify its dangers. Carlyle, indeed, had so much more depth and knowledge of the heart, his portraits of mankind are felt and rendered with so much more poetic29 comprehension, and he, like his favourite Ram30 Dass, had a fire in his belly31 so much more hotly burning than the patent reading lamp by which Macaulay studied, that it seems at first sight hardly fair to bracket them together. But the “point of view” was imposed by Carlyle on the men he judged of in his writings with an austerity not only cruel but almost stupid. They are too often broken outright32 on the Procrustean33 bed; they are probably always disfigured. The rhetorical artifice of Macaulay is easily spied; it will take longer to appreciate the moral bias34 of Carlyle. So with all writers who insist on forcing some significance from all that comes before them; and the writer of short studies is bound, by the necessity of the case, to write entirely35 in that spirit. What he cannot vivify he should omit.
Had it been possible to rewrite some of these papers, I hope I should have had the courage to attempt it. But it is not possible. Short studies are, or should be, things woven like a carpet, from which it is impossible to detach a strand36. What is perverted37 has its place there for ever, as a part of the technical means by which what is right has been presented. It is only possible to write another study, and then, with a new “point of view,” would follow new perversions39 and perhaps a fresh caricature. Hence, it will be, at least, honest to offer a few grains of salt to be taken with the text; and as some words of apology, addition, correction, or amplification40 fall to be said on almost every study in the volume, it will be most simple to run them over in their order. But this must not be taken as a propitiatory41 offering to the gods of shipwreck42; I trust my cargo43 unreservedly to the chances of the sea; and do not, by criticising myself, seek to disarm44 the wrath45 of other and less partial critics.
HUGO’S ROMANCES. — This is an instance of the “point of view.” The five romances studied with a different purpose might have given different results, even with a critic so warmly interested in their favour. The great contemporary master of wordmanship, and indeed of all literary arts and technicalities, had not unnaturally46 dazzled a beginner. But it is best to dwell on merits, for it is these that are most often overlooked.
BURNS. — I have left the introductory sentences on Principal Shairp, partly to explain my own paper, which was merely supplemental to his amiable48 but imperfect book, partly because that book appears to me truly misleading both as to the character and the genius of Burns. This seems ungracious, but Mr. Shairp has himself to blame; so good a Wordsworthian was out of character upon that stage.
This half apology apart, nothing more falls to be said except upon a remark called forth by my study in the columns of a literary Review. The exact terms in which that sheet disposed of Burns I cannot now recall; but they were to this effect — that Burns was a bad man, the impure49 vehicle of fine verses; and that this was the view to which all criticism tended. Now I knew, for my own part, that it was with the profoundest pity, but with a growing esteem50, that I studied the man’s desperate efforts to do right; and the more I reflected, the stranger it appeared to me that any thinking being should feel otherwise. The complete letters shed, indeed, a light on the depths to which Burns had sunk in his character of Don Juan, but they enhance in the same proportion the hopeless nobility of his marrying Jean. That I ought to have stated this more noisily I now see; but that any one should fail to see it for himself, is to me a thing both incomprehensible and worthy51 of open scorn. If Burns, on the facts dealt with in this study, is to be called a bad man, I question very much whether either I or the writer in the Review have ever encountered what it would be fair to call a good one. All have some fault. The fault of each grinds down the hearts of those about him, and — let us not blink the truth — hurries both him and them into the grave. And when we find a man persevering52 indeed, in his fault, as all of us do, and openly overtaken, as not all of us are, by its consequences, to gloss53 the matter over, with too polite biographers, is to do the work of the wrecker disfiguring beacons54 on a perilous55 seaboard; but to call him bad, with a self-righteous chuckle56, is to be talking in one’s sleep with Heedless and Too-bold in the arbour.
Yet it is undeniable that much anger and distress57 is raised in many quarters by the least attempt to state plainly, what every one well knows, of Burns’s profligacy58, and of the fatal consequences of his marriage. And for this there are perhaps two subsidiary reasons. For, first, there is, in our drunken land, a certain privilege extended to drunkenness. In Scotland, in particular, it is almost respectable, above all when compared with any “irregularity between the sexes.” The selfishness of the one, so much more gross in essence, is so much less immediately conspicuous60 in its results that our demiurgeous Mrs. Grundy smiles apologetically on its victims. It is often said — I have heard it with these ears — that drunkenness “may lead to vice61.” Now I did not think it at all proved that Burns was what is called a drunkard; and I was obliged to dwell very plainly on the irregularity and the too frequent vanity and meanness of his relations to women. Hence, in the eyes of many, my study was a step towards the demonstration62 of Burns’s radical63 badness.
But second, there is a certain class, professors of that low morality so greatly more distressing64 than the better sort of vice, to whom you must never represent an act that was virtuous65 in itself, as attended by any other consequences than a large family and fortune. To hint that Burns’s marriage had an evil influence is, with this class, to deny the moral law. Yet such is the fact. It was bravely done; but he had presumed too far on his strength. One after another the lights of his life went out, and he fell from circle to circle to the dishonoured66 sickbed of the end. And surely for any one that has a thing to call a soul he shines out tenfold more nobly in the failure of that frantic68 effort to do right, than if he had turned on his heel with Worldly Wiseman, married a congenial spouse69, and lived orderly and died reputably an old man. It is his chief title that he refrained from “the wrong that amendeth wrong.” But the common, trashy mind of our generation is still aghast, like the Jews of old, at any word of an unsuccessful virtue70. Job has been written and read; the tower of Siloam fell nineteen hundred years ago; yet we have still to desire a little Christianity, or, failing that, a little even of that rude, old, Norse nobility of soul, which saw virtue and vice alike go unrewarded, and was yet not shaken in its faith.
WALT WHITMAN. — This is a case of a second difficulty which lies continually before the writer of critical studies: that he has to mediate59 between the author whom he loves and the public who are certainly indifferent and frequently averse71. Many articles had been written on this notable man. One after another had leaned, in my eyes, either to praise or blame unduly72. In the last case, they helped to blindfold73 our fastidious public to an inspiring writer; in the other, by an excess of unadulterated praise, they moved the more candid74 to revolt. I was here on the horns of a dilemma75; and between these horns I squeezed myself with perhaps some loss to the substance of the paper. Seeing so much in Whitman that was merely ridiculous, as well as so much more that was unsurpassed in force and fitness, — seeing the true prophet doubled, as I thought, in places with the Bull in a China Shop, — it appeared best to steer76 a middle course, and to laugh with the scorners when I thought they had any excuse, while I made haste to rejoice with the rejoicers over what is imperishably good, lovely, human, or divine, in his extraordinary poems. That was perhaps the right road; yet I cannot help feeling that in this attempt to trim my sails between an author whom I love and honour and a public too averse to recognise his merit, I have been led into a tone unbecoming from one of my stature77 to one of Whitman’s. But the good and the great man will go on his way not vexed78 with my little shafts79 of merriment. He, first of any one, will understand how, in the attempt to explain him credibly80 to Mrs. Grundy, I have been led into certain airs of the man of the world, which are merely ridiculous in me, and were not intentionally81 discourteous82 to himself. But there is a worse side to the question; for in my eagerness to be all things to all men, I am afraid I may have sinned against proportion. It will be enough to say here that Whitman’s faults are few and unimportant when they are set beside his surprising merits. I had written another paper full of gratitude84 for the help that had been given me in my life, full of enthusiasm for the intrinsic merit of the poems, and conceived in the noisiest extreme of youthful eloquence85. The present study was a rifacimento. From it, with the design already mentioned, and in a fit of horror at my old excess, the big words and emphatic86 passages were ruthlessly excised87. But this sort of prudence88 is frequently its own punishment; along with the exaggeration, some of the truth is sacrificed; and the result is cold, constrained89, and grudging90. In short, I might almost everywhere have spoken more strongly than I did.
THOREAU. — Here is an admirable instance of the “point of view” forced throughout, and of too earnest reflection on imperfect facts. Upon me this pure, narrow, sunnily-ascetic Thoreau had exercised a great charm. I have scarce written ten sentences since I was introduced to him, but his influence might be somewhere detected by a close observer. Still it was as a writer that I had made his acquaintance; I took him on his own explicit91 terms; and when I learned details of his life, they were, by the nature of the case and my own PARTI-PRIS, read even with a certain violence in terms of his writings. There could scarce be a perversion38 more justifiable92 than that; yet it was still a perversion. The study indeed, raised so much ire in the breast of Dr. Japp (H. A. Page), Thoreau’s sincere and learned disciple93, that had either of us been men, I please myself with thinking, of less temper and justice, the difference might have made us enemies instead of making us friends. To him who knew the man from the inside, many of my statements sounded like inversions94 made on purpose; and yet when we came to talk of them together, and he had understood how I was looking at the man through the books, while he had long since learned to read the books through the man, I believe he understood the spirit in which I had been led astray.
On two most important points, Dr. Japp added to my knowledge, and with the same blow fairly demolished95 that part of my criticism. First, if Thoreau were content to dwell by Walden Pond, it was not merely with designs of self-improvement, but to serve mankind in the highest sense. Hither came the fleeing slave; thence was he despatched along the road to freedom. That shanty96 in the woods was a station in the great Underground Railroad; that adroit97 and philosophic98 solitary99 was an ardent100 worker, soul and body, in that so much more than honourable101 movement, which, if atonement were possible for nations, should have gone far to wipe away the guilt103 of slavery. But in history sin always meets with condign104 punishment; the generation passes, the offence remains105, and the innocent must suffer. No underground railroad could atone102 for slavery, even as no bills in Parliament can redeem106 the ancient wrongs of Ireland. But here at least is a new light shed on the Walden episode.
Second, it appears, and the point is capital, that Thoreau was once fairly and manfully in love, and, with perhaps too much aping of the angel, relinquished107 the woman to his brother. Even though the brother were like to die of it, we have not yet heard the last opinion of the woman. But be that as it may, we have here the explanation of the “rarefied and freezing air” in which I complained that he had taught himself to breathe. Reading the man through the books, I took his professions in good faith. He made a dupe of me, even as he was seeking to make a dupe of himself, wresting108 philosophy to the needs of his own sorrow. But in the light of this new fact, those pages, seemingly so cold, are seen to be alive with feeling. What appeared to be a lack of interest in the philosopher turns out to have been a touching109 insincerity of the man to his own heart; and that fine-spun airy theory of friendship, so devoid110, as I complained, of any quality of flesh and blood, a mere47 anodyne111 to lull112 his pains. The most temperate113 of living critics once marked a passage of my own with a cross ar d the words, “This seems nonsense.” It not only seemed; it was so. It was a private bravado114 of my own, which I had so often repeated to keep up my spirits, that I had grown at last wholly to believe it, and had ended by setting it down as a contribution to the theory of life. So with the more icy parts of this philosophy of Thoreau’s. He was affecting the Spartanism he had not; and the old sentimental115 wound still bled afresh, while he deceived himself with reasons.
Thoreau’s theory, in short, was one thing and himself another: of the first, the reader will find what I believe to be a pretty faithful statement and a fairly just criticism in the study; of the second he will find but a contorted shadow. So much of the man as fitted nicely with his doctrines116, in the photographer’s phrase, came out. But that large part which lay outside and beyond, for which he had found or sought no formula, on which perhaps his philosophy even looked askance, is wanting in my study, as it was wanting in the guide I followed. In some ways a less serious writer, in all ways a nobler man, the true Thoreau still remains to be depicted117.
VILLON. — I am tempted118 to regret that I ever wrote on this subject, not merely because the paper strikes me as too picturesque119 by half, but because I regarded Villon as a bad fellow. Others still think well of him, and can find beautiful and human traits where I saw nothing but artistic120 evil; and by the principle of the art, those should have written of the man, and not I. Where you see no good, silence is the best. Though this penitence121 comes too late, it may be well, at least, to give it expression.
The spirit of Villon is still living in the literature of France. Fat Peg122 is oddly of a piece with the work of Zola, the Goncourts, and the infinitely123 greater Flaubert; and, while similar in ugliness, still surpasses them in native power. The old author, breaking with an ECLAT124 DE VOIX, out of his tongue-tied century, has not yet been touched on his own ground, and still gives us the most vivid and shocking impression of reality. Even if that were not worth doing at all, it would be worth doing as well as he has done it; for the pleasure we take in the author’s skill repays us, or at least reconciles us to the baseness of his attitude. Fat Peg (LA GROSSE MARGOT) is typical of much; it is a piece of experience that has nowhere else been rendered into literature; and a kind of gratitude for the author’s plainness mingles125, as we read, with the nausea126 proper to the business. I shall quote here a verse of an old students’ song, worth laying side by side with Villon’s startling ballade. This singer, also, had an unworthy mistress, but he did not choose to share the wages of dishonour67; and it is thus, with both wit and pathos127, that he laments128 her fall:—
Nunc plango florem
AEtatis tenerae
Nitidiorem
Veneris sidere:
Tunc columbinam
Mentis dulcedinem,
Nunc serpentinam
Amaritudinem.
Verbo rogantes
Removes ostio,
Munera dantes
Foves cubiculo,
Illos abire praecipis
A quibus nihil accipis,
Caecos claudosque recipis,
Viros illustres decipis
Cum melle venenosa. 1
1 GAUDEAMUS: CARMINA VAGORUM SELECTA. Leipsic. Trubner. 1879.
But our illustrious writer of ballades it was unnecessary to deceive; it was the flight of beauty alone, not that of honesty or honour, that he lamented129 in his song; and the nameless mediaeval vagabond has the best of the comparison.
There is now a Villon Society in England; and Mr. John Payne has translated him entirely into English, a task of unusual difficulty. I regret to find that Mr. Payne and I are not always at one as to the author’s meaning; in such cases I am bound to suppose that he is in the right, although the weakness of the flesh withholds130 me from anything beyond a formal submission131. He is now upon a larger venture, promising132 us at last that complete Arabian Nights to which we have all so long looked forward.
CHARLES OF ORLEANS. — Perhaps I have done scanty133 justice to the charm of the old Duke’s verses, and certainly he is too much treated as a fool. The period is not sufficiently134 remembered. What that period was, to what a blank of imbecility the human mind had fallen, can only be known to those who have waded135 in the chronicles. Excepting Comines and La Salle and Villon, I have read no author who did not appal136 me by his torpor137; and even the trial of Joan of Arc, conducted as it was by chosen clerks, bears witness to a dreary138, sterile139 folly140, — a twilight141 of the mind peopled with childish phantoms142. In relation to his contemporaries, Charles seems quite a lively character.
It remains for me to acknowledge the kindness of Mr. Henry Pyne, who, immediately on the appearance of the study, sent me his edition of the Debate between the Heralds143: a courtesy from the expert to the amateur only too uncommon144 in these days.
KNOX. — Knox, the second in order of interest among the reformers, lies dead and buried in the works of the learned and unreadable M’Crie. It remains for some one to break the tomb and bring him forth, alive again and breathing, in a human book. With the best intentions in the world, I have only added two more flagstones, ponderous145 like their predecessors146, to the mass of obstruction147 that buries the reformer from the world; I have touched him in my turn with that “mace of death,” which Carlyle has attributed to Dryasdust; and my two dull papers are, in the matter of dulness, worthy additions to the labours of M’Crie. Yet I believe they are worth reprinting in the interest of the next biographer of Knox. I trust his book may be a masterpiece; and I indulge the hope that my two studies may lend him a hint or perhaps spare him a delay in its composition.
Of the PEPYS I can say nothing; for it has been too recently through my hands; and I still retain some of the heat of composition. Yet it may serve as a text for the last remark I have to offer. To Pepys I think I have been amply just; to the others, to Burns, Thoreau, Whitman, Charles of Orleans, even Villon, I have found myself in the retrospect148 ever too grudging of praise, ever too disrespectful in manner. It is not easy to see why I should have been most liberal to the man of least pretensions149. Perhaps some cowardice150 withheld151 me from the proper warmth of tone; perhaps it is easier to be just to those nearer us in rank of mind. Such at least is the fact, which other critics may explain. For these were all men whom, for one reason or another, I loved; or when I did not love the men, my love was the greater to their books. I had read them and lived with them; for months they were continually in my thoughts; I seemed to rejoice in their joys and to sorrow with them in their griefs; and behold152, when I came to write of them, my tone was sometimes hardly courteous83 and seldom wholly just.
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worthies
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perfectly
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judgment
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essentially
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forth
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disclaimed
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enjoyment
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scruples
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teem
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condensation
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justification
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perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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38
perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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39
perversions
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| n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 )；变坏；变态心理 | |
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40
amplification
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| n.扩大，发挥 | |
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41
propitiatory
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| adj.劝解的；抚慰的；谋求好感的；哄人息怒的 | |
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42
shipwreck
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| n.船舶失事，海难 | |
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43
cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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44
disarm
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| v.解除武装，回复平常的编制，缓和 | |
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45
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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46
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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47
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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48
amiable
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| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
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49
impure
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| adj.不纯净的，不洁的；不道德的，下流的 | |
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50
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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51
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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52
persevering
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| a.坚忍不拔的 | |
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53
gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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54
beacons
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| 灯塔( beacon的名词复数 )； 烽火； 指路明灯； 无线电台或发射台 | |
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55
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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56
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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57
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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58
profligacy
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| n.放荡，不检点，肆意挥霍 | |
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59
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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60
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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61
vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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62
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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63
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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64
distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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65
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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66
dishonoured
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| a.不光彩的，不名誉的 | |
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67
dishonour
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| n./vt.拒付（支票、汇票、票据等）；vt.凌辱，使丢脸；n.不名誉，耻辱，不光彩 | |
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68
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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69
spouse
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| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
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70
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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71
averse
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| adj.厌恶的；反对的，不乐意的 | |
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72
unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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73
blindfold
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| vt.蒙住…的眼睛；adj.盲目的；adv.盲目地；n.蒙眼的绷带[布等]； 障眼物，蒙蔽人的事物 | |
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74
candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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75
dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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76
steer
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| vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶 | |
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77
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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78
vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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79
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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80
credibly
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| ad.可信地；可靠地 | |
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81
intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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82
discourteous
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| adj.不恭的，不敬的 | |
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83
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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84
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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85
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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86
emphatic
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| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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87
excised
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| v.切除，删去( excise的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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88
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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89
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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90
grudging
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| adj.勉强的，吝啬的 | |
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91
explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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92
justifiable
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| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
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93
disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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94
inversions
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| 倒置( inversion的名词复数 )； （尤指词序）倒装； 转化； （染色体的）倒位 | |
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95
demolished
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| v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 )；推翻；拆毁（尤指大建筑物）；吃光 | |
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96
shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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97
adroit
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| adj.熟练的，灵巧的 | |
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98
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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99
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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100
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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101
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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102
atone
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| v.赎罪，补偿 | |
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103
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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104
condign
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| adj.应得的，相当的 | |
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105
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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106
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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107
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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108
wresting
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| 动词wrest的现在进行式 | |
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109
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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110
devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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111
anodyne
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| n.解除痛苦的东西，止痛剂 | |
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112
lull
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| v.使安静，使入睡，缓和，哄骗；n.暂停，间歇 | |
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113
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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114
bravado
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| n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能 | |
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115
sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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116
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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117
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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118
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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119
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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120
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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121
penitence
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| n.忏悔，赎罪；悔过 | |
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122
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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123
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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124
eclat
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| n.显赫之成功，荣誉 | |
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125
mingles
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| 混合，混入( mingle的第三人称单数 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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126
nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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127
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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128
laments
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| n.悲恸，哀歌，挽歌( lament的名词复数 )v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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129
lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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130
withholds
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| v.扣留( withhold的第三人称单数 )；拒绝给予；抑制（某事物）；制止 | |
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131
submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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132
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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133
scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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134
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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135
waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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136
appal
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| vt.使胆寒，使惊骇 | |
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137
torpor
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| n.迟钝；麻木；（动物的）冬眠 | |
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138
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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139
sterile
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| adj.不毛的，不孕的，无菌的，枯燥的，贫瘠的 | |
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140
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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141
twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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142
phantoms
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| n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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143
heralds
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| n.使者( herald的名词复数 )；预报者；预兆；传令官v.预示( herald的第三人称单数 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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144
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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145
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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146
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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147
obstruction
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| n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物 | |
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148
retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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149
pretensions
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| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
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150
cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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151
withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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152
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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