With these two brothers my story begins. Their deaths were simultaneous; their lives unusually brief and full. Tradition whispered me in childhood they were the owners of an islet near St. Kitts; and it is certain they had risen to be at the head of considerable interests in the West Indies, which Hugh managed abroad and Alan at home, at an age when others are still curveting a clerk’s stool. My kinsman4, Mr. Stevenson of Stirling, has heard his father mention that there had been ‘something romantic’ about Alan’s marriage: and, alas5! he has forgotten what. It was early at least. His wife was Jean, daughter of David Lillie, a builder in Glasgow, and several times ‘Deacon of the Wrights’: the date of the marriage has not reached me; but on 8th June 1772, when Robert, the only child of the union, was born, the husband and father had scarce passed, or had not yet attained6, his twentieth year. Here was a youth making haste to give hostages to fortune. But this early scene of prosperity in love and business was on the point of closing.
There hung in the house of this young family, and successively in those of my grandfather and father, an oil painting of a ship of many tons burthen. Doubtless the brothers had an interest in the vessel7; I was told she had belonged to them outright8; and the picture was preserved through years of hardship, and remains9 to this day in the possession of the family, the only memorial of my great-grandsire Alan. It was on this ship that he sailed on his last adventure, summoned to the West Indies by Hugh. An agent had proved unfaithful on a serious scale; and it used to be told me in my childhood how the brothers pursued him from one island to another in an open boat, were exposed to the pernicious dews of the tropics, and simultaneously10 struck down. The dates and places of their deaths (now before me) would seem to indicate a more scattered11 and prolonged pursuit: Hugh, on the 16th April 1774, in Tobago, within sight of Trinidad; Alan, so late as 26th May, and so far away as ‘Santt Kittes,’ in the Leeward12 Islands — both, says the family Bible, ‘of a fiver’(!). The death of Hugh was probably announced by Alan in a letter, to which we may refer the details of the open boat and the dew. Thus, at least, in something like the course of post, both were called away, the one twenty-five, the other twenty-two; their brief generation became extinct, their short-lived house fell with them; and ‘in these lawless parts and lawless times’— the words are my grandfather’s — their property was stolen or became involved. Many years later, I understand some small recovery to have been made; but at the moment almost the whole means of the family seem to have perished with the young merchants. On the 27th April, eleven days after Hugh Stevenson, twenty-nine before Alan, died David Lillie, the Deacon of the Wrights; so that mother and son were orphaned13 in one month. Thus, from a few scraps14 of paper bearing little beyond dates, we construct the outlines of the tragedy that shadowed the cradle of Robert Stevenson.
Jean Lillie was a young woman of strong sense, well fitted to contend with poverty, and of a pious15 disposition16, which it is like that these misfortunes heated. Like so many other widowed Scots-women, she vowed17 her son should wag his head in a pulpit; but her means were inadequate18 to her ambition. A charity school, and some time under a Mr. M’Intyre, ‘a famous linguist,’ were all she could afford in the way of education to the would-be minister. He learned no Greek; in one place he mentions that the Orations19 of Cicero were his highest book in Latin; in another that he had ‘delighted’ in Virgil and Horace; but his delight could never have been scholarly. This appears to have been the whole of his training previous to an event which changed his own destiny and moulded that of his descendants — the second marriage of his mother.
There was a Merchant-Burgess of Edinburgh of the name of Thomas Smith. The Smith pedigree has been traced a little more particularly than the Stevensons’, with a similar dearth20 of illustrious names. One character seems to have appeared, indeed, for a moment at the wings of history: a skipper of Dundee who smuggled21 over some Jacobite big-wig at the time of the ‘Fifteen, and was afterwards drowned in Dundee harbour while going on board his ship. With this exception, the generations of the Smiths present no conceivable interest even to a descendant; and Thomas, of Edinburgh, was the first to issue from respectable obscurity. His father, a skipper out of Broughty Ferry, was drowned at sea while Thomas was still young. He seems to have owned a ship or two — whalers, I suppose, or coasters — and to have been a member of the Dundee Trinity House, whatever that implies. On his death the widow remained in Broughty, and the son came to push his future in Edinburgh. There is a story told of him in the family which I repeat here because I shall have to tell later on a similar, but more perfectly22 authenticated23, experience of his stepson, Robert Stevenson. Word reached Thomas that his mother was unwell, and he prepared to leave for Broughty on the morrow. It was between two and three in the morning, and the early northern daylight was already clear, when he awoke and beheld24 the curtains at the bed-foot drawn25 aside and his mother appear in the interval26, smile upon him for a moment, and then vanish. The sequel is stereo-type; he took the time by his watch, and arrived at Broughty to learn it was the very moment of her death. The incident is at least curious in having happened to such a person — as the tale is being told of him. In all else, he appears as a man ardent27, passionate28, practical, designed for affairs and prospering29 in them far beyond the average. He founded a solid business in lamps and oils, and was the sole proprietor30 of a concern called the Greenside Company’s Works —‘a multifarious concern it was,’ writes my cousin, Professor Swan, ‘of tinsmiths, coppersmiths, brass-founders31, blacksmiths, and japanners.’ He was also, it seems, a shipowner and underwriter. He built himself ‘a land’— Nos. 1 and 2 Baxter’s Place, then no such unfashionable neighbourhood — and died, leaving his only son in easy circumstances, and giving to his three surviving daughters portions of five thousand pounds and upwards32. There is no standard of success in life; but in one of its meanings, this is to succeed.
In what we know of his opinions, he makes a figure highly characteristic of the time. A high Tory and patriot33, a captain — so I find it in my notes — of Edinburgh Spearmen, and on duty in the Castle during the Muir and Palmer troubles, he bequeathed to his descendants a bloodless sword and a somewhat violent tradition, both long preserved. The judge who sat on Muir and Palmer, the famous Braxfield, let fall from the bench the obiter dictum —‘I never liked the French all my days, but now I hate them.’ If Thomas Smith, the Edinburgh Spearman, were in court, he must have been tempted34 to applaud. The people of that land were his abhorrence35; he loathed36 Buonaparte like Antichrist. Towards the end he fell into a kind of dotage37; his family must entertain him with games of tin soldiers, which he took a childish pleasure to array and overset; but those who played with him must be upon their guard, for if his side, which was always that of the English against the French, should chance to be defeated, there would be trouble in Baxter’s Place. For these opinions he may almost be said to have suffered. Baptised and brought up in the Church of Scotland, he had, upon some conscientious38 scruple39, joined the communion of the Baptists. Like other Nonconformists, these were inclined to the Liberal side in politics, and, at least in the beginning, regarded Buonaparte as a deliverer. From the time of his joining the Spearmen, Thomas Smith became in consequence a bugbear to his brethren in the faith. ‘They that take the sword shall perish with the sword,’ they told him; they gave him ‘no rest’; ‘his position became intolerable’; it was plain he must choose between his political and his religious tenets; and in the last years of his life, about 1812, he returned to the Church of his fathers.
August 1786 was the date of his chief advancement40, when, having designed a system of oil lights to take the place of the primitive41 coal fires before in use, he was dubbed42 engineer to the newly-formed Board of Northern Lighthouses. Not only were his fortunes bettered by the appointment, but he was introduced to a new and wider field for the exercise of his abilities, and a new way of life highly agreeable to his active constitution. He seems to have rejoiced in the long journeys, and to have combined them with the practice of field sports. ‘A tall, stout43 man coming ashore44 with his gun over his arm’— so he was described to my father — the only description that has come down to me by a light-keeper old in the service. Nor did this change come alone. On the 9th July of the same year, Thomas Smith had been left for the second time a widower45. As he was still but thirty-three years old, prospering in his affairs, newly advanced in the world, and encumbered46 at the time with a family of children, five in number, it was natural that he should entertain the notion of another wife. Expeditious47 in business, he was no less so in his choice; and it was not later than June 1787 — for my grandfather is described as still in his fifteenth year — that he married the widow of Alan Stevenson.
The perilous48 experiment of bringing together two families for once succeeded. Mr. Smith’s two eldest49 daughters, Jean and Janet, fervent50 in piety51, unwearied in kind deeds, were well qualified52 both to appreciate and to attract the stepmother; and her son, on the other hand, seems to have found immediate53 favour in the eyes of Mr. Smith. It is, perhaps, easy to exaggerate the ready-made resemblances; the tired woman must have done much to fashion girls who were under ten; the man, lusty and opinionated, must have stamped a strong impression on the boy of fifteen. But the cleavage of the family was too marked, the identity of character and interest produced between the two men on the one hand, and the three women on the other, was too complete to have been the result of influence alone. Particular bonds of union must have pre-existed on each side. And there is no doubt that the man and the boy met with common ambitions, and a common bent54, to the practice of that which had not so long before acquired the name of civil engineering.
For the profession which is now so thronged56, famous, and influential57, was then a thing of yesterday. My grandfather had an anecdote58 of Smeaton, probably learned from John Clerk of Eldin, their common friend. Smeaton was asked by the Duke of Argyll to visit the West Highland59 coast for a professional purpose. He refused, appalled60, it seems, by the rough travelling. ‘You can recommend some other fit person?’ asked the Duke. ‘No,’ said Smeaton, ‘I’m sorry I can’t.’ ‘What!’ cried the Duke, ‘a profession with only one man in it! Pray, who taught you?’ ‘Why,’ said Smeaton, ‘I believe I may say I was self-taught, an’t please your grace.’ Smeaton, at the date of Thomas Smith’s third marriage, was yet living; and as the one had grown to the new profession from his place at the instrument-maker’s, the other was beginning to enter it by the way of his trade. The engineer of today is confronted with a library of acquired results; tables and formulae to the value of folios full have been calculated and recorded; and the student finds everywhere in front of him the footprints of the pioneers. In the eighteenth century the field was largely unexplored; the engineer must read with his own eyes the face of nature; he arose a volunteer, from the workshop or the mill, to undertake works which were at once inventions and adventures. It was not a science then — it was a living art; and it visibly grew under the eyes and between the hands of its practitioners61.
The charm of such an occupation was strongly felt by stepfather and stepson. It chanced that Thomas Smith was a reformer; the superiority of his proposed lamp and reflectors over open fires of coal secured his appointment; and no sooner had he set his hand to the task than the interest of that employment mastered him. The vacant stage on which he was to act, and where all had yet to be created — the greatness of the difficulties, the smallness of the means intrusted him — would rouse a man of his disposition like a call to battle. The lad introduced by marriage under his roof was of a character to sympathise; the public usefulness of the service would appeal to his judgment62, the perpetual need for fresh expedients63 stimulate64 his ingenuity65. And there was another attraction which, in the younger man at least, appealed to, and perhaps first aroused, a profound and enduring sentiment of romance: I mean the attraction of the life. The seas into which his labours carried the new engineer were still scarce charted, the coasts still dark; his way on shore was often far beyond the convenience of any road; the isles66 in which he must sojourn67 were still partly savage68. He must toss much in boats; he must often adventure on horseback by the dubious69 bridle-track through unfrequented wildernesses70; he must sometimes plant his lighthouse in the very camp of wreckers; and he was continually enforced to the vicissitudes72 of outdoor life. The joy of my grandfather in this career was strong as the love of woman. It lasted him through youth and manhood, it burned strong in age, and at the approach of death his last yearning73 was to renew these loved experiences. What he felt himself he continued to attribute to all around him. And to this supposed sentiment in others I find him continually, almost pathetically, appealing; often in vain.
Snared74 by these interests, the boy seems to have become almost at once the eager confidant and adviser75 of his new connection; the Church, if he had ever entertained the prospect76 very warmly, faded from his view; and at the age of nineteen I find him already in a post of some authority, superintending the construction of the lighthouse on the isle3 of Little Cumbrae, in the Firth of Clyde. The change of aim seems to have caused or been accompanied by a change of character. It sounds absurd to couple the name of my grandfather with the word indolence; but the lad who had been destined77 from the cradle to the Church, and who had attained the age of fifteen without acquiring more than a moderate knowledge of Latin, was at least no unusual student. And from the day of his charge at Little Cumbrae he steps before us what he remained until the end, a man of the most zealous79 industry, greedy of occupation, greedy of knowledge, a stern husband of time, a reader, a writer, unflagging in his task of self-improvement. Thenceforward his summers were spent directing works and ruling workmen, now in uninhabited, now in half-savage islands; his winters were set apart, first at the Andersonian Institution, then at the University of Edinburgh to improve himself in mathematics, chemistry, natural history, agriculture, moral philosophy, and logic80; a bearded student — although no doubt scrupulously81 shaved. I find one reference to his years in class which will have a meaning for all who have studied in Scottish Universities. He mentions a recommendation made by the professor of logic. ‘The high-school men,’ he writes, ‘and BEARDED MEN LIKE MYSELF, were all attention.’ If my grandfather were throughout life a thought too studious of the art of getting on, much must be forgiven to the bearded and belated student who looked across, with a sense of difference, at ‘the high-school men.’ Here was a gulf82 to be crossed; but already he could feel that he had made a beginning, and that must have been a proud hour when he devoted83 his earliest earnings84 to the repayment85 of the charitable foundation in which he had received the rudiments86 of knowledge.
In yet another way he followed the example of his father-inlaw, and from 1794 to 1807, when the affairs of the Bell Rock made it necessary for him to resign, he served in different corps87 of volunteers. In the last of these he rose to a position of distinction, no less than captain of the Grenadier Company, and his colonel, in accepting his resignation, entreated89 he would do them ‘the favour of continuing as an honorary member of a corps which has been so much indebted for your zeal78 and exertions90.’
To very pious women the men of the house are apt to appear worldly. The wife, as she puts on her new bonnet91 before church, is apt to sigh over that assiduity which enabled her husband to pay the milliner’s bill. And in the household of the Smiths and Stevensons the women were not only extremely pious, but the men were in reality a trifle worldly. Religious they both were; conscious, like all Scots, of the fragility and unreality of that scene in which we play our uncomprehended parts; like all Scots, realising daily and hourly the sense of another will than ours and a perpetual direction in the affairs of life. But the current of their endeavours flowed in a more obvious channel. They had got on so far; to get on further was their next ambition — to gather wealth, to rise in society, to leave their descendants higher than themselves, to be (in some sense) among the founders of families. Scott was in the same town nourishing similar dreams. But in the eyes of the women these dreams would be foolish and idolatrous.
I have before me some volumes of old letters addressed to Mrs. Smith and the two girls, her favourites, which depict92 in a strong light their characters and the society in which they moved.
‘My very dear and much esteemed94 Friend,’ writes one correspondent, ‘this day being the anniversary of our acquaintance, I feel inclined to address you; but where shall I find words to express the fealings of a graitful Heart, first to the Lord who graiciously inclined you on this day last year to notice an afflicted96 Strainger providentially cast in your way far from any Earthly friend? . . . Methinks I shall hear him say unto you, “Inasmuch as ye shewed kindness to my afflicted handmaiden, ye did it unto me.”’
This is to Jean; but the same afflicted lady wrote indifferently to Jean, to Janet, and to Ms. Smith, whom she calls ‘my Edinburgh mother.’ It is plain the three were as one person, moving to acts of kindness, like the Graces, inarmed. Too much stress must not be laid on the style of this correspondence; Clarinda survived, not far away, and may have met the ladies on the Calton Hill; and many of the writers appear, underneath97 the conventions of the period, to be genuinely moved. But what unpleasantly strikes a reader is, that these devout98 unfortunates found a revenue in their devotion. It is everywhere the same tale; on the side of the soft-hearted ladies, substantial acts of help; on the side of the correspondents, affection, italics, texts, ecstasies99, and imperfect spelling. When a midwife is recommended, not at all for proficiency100 in her important art, but because she has ‘a sister whom I [the correspondent] esteem93 and respect, and [who] is a spiritual daughter of my Hond Father in the Gosple,’ the mask seems to be torn off, and the wages of godliness appear too openly. Capacity is a secondary matter in a midwife, temper in a servant, affection in a daughter, and the repetition of a shibboleth101 fulfils the law. Common decency102 is at times forgot in the same page with the most sanctified advice and aspiration103. Thus I am introduced to a correspondent who appears to have been at the time the housekeeper104 at Invermay, and who writes to condole105 with my grandmother in a season of distress106. For nearly half a sheet she keeps to the point with an excellent discretion107 in language then suddenly breaks out:
‘It was fully108 my intention to have left this at Martinmass, but the Lord fixes the bounds of our habitation. I have had more need of patience in my situation here than in any other, partly from the very violent, unsteady, deceitful temper of the Mistress of the Family, and also from the state of the house. It was in a train of repair when I came here two years ago, and is still in Confusion. There is above six Thousand Pounds’ worth of Furniture come from London to be put up when the rooms are completely finished; and then, woe109 be to the Person who is Housekeeper at Invermay!’
And by the tail of the document, which is torn, I see she goes on to ask the bereaved110 family to seek her a new place. It is extraordinary that people should have been so deceived in so careless an impostor; that a few sprinkled ‘God willings’ should have blinded them to the essence of this venomous letter; and that they should have been at the pains to bind111 it in with others (many of them highly touching) in their memorial of harrowing days. But the good ladies were without guile112 and without suspicion; they were victims marked for the axe113, and the religious impostors snuffed up the wind as they drew near.
I have referred above to my grandmother; it was no slip of the pen: for by an extraordinary arrangement, in which it is hard not to suspect the managing hand of a mother, Jean Smith became the wife of Robert Stevenson. Mrs. Smith had failed in her design to make her son a minister, and she saw him daily more immersed in business and worldly ambition. One thing remained that she might do: she might secure for him a godly wife, that great means of sanctification; and she had two under her hand, trained by herself, her dear friends and daughters both in law and love — Jean and Janet. Jean’s complexion114 was extremely pale, Janet’s was florid; my grandmother’s nose was straight, my great-aunt’s aquiline115; but by the sound of the voice, not even a son was able to distinguish one from other. The marriage of a man of twenty-seven and a girl of twenty who have lived for twelve years as brother and sister, is difficult to conceive. It took place, however, and thus in 1799 the family was still further cemented by the union of a representative of the male or worldly element with one of the female and devout.
This essential difference remained unbridged, yet never diminished the strength of their relation. My grandfather pursued his design of advancing in the world with some measure of success; rose to distinction in his calling, grew to be the familiar of members of Parliament, judges of the Court of Session, and ‘landed gentlemen’; learned a ready address, had a flow of interesting conversation, and when he was referred to as ‘a highly respectable bourgeois,’ resented the description. My grandmother remained to the end devout and unambitious, occupied with her Bible, her children, and her house; easily shocked, and associating largely with a clique116 of godly parasites117. I do not know if she called in the midwife already referred to; but the principle on which that lady was recommended, she accepted fully. The cook was a godly woman, the butcher a Christian118 man, and the table suffered. The scene has been often described to me of my grandfather sawing with darkened countenance119 at some indissoluble joint120 —‘Preserve me, my dear, what kind of a reedy, stringy beast is this?’— of the joint removed, the pudding substituted and uncovered; and of my grandmother’s anxious glance and hasty, deprecatory comment, ‘Just mismanaged!’ Yet with the invincible121 obstinacy122 of soft natures, she would adhere to the godly woman and the Christian man, or find others of the same kidney to replace them. One of her confidants had once a narrow escape; an unwieldy old woman, she had fallen from an outside stair in a close of the Old Town; and my grandmother rejoiced to communicate the providential circumstance that a baker124 had been passing underneath with his bread upon his head. ‘I would like to know what kind of providence125 the baker thought it!’ cried my grandfather.
But the sally must have been unique. In all else that I have heard or read of him, so far from criticising, he was doing his utmost to honour and even to emulate126 his wife’s pronounced opinions. In the only letter which has come to my hand of Thomas Smith’s, I find him informing his wife that he was ‘in time for afternoon church’; similar assurances or cognate127 excuses abound128 in the correspondence of Robert Stevenson; and it is comical and pretty to see the two generations paying the same court to a female piety more highly strung: Thomas Smith to the mother of Robert Stevenson — Robert Stevenson to the daughter of Thomas Smith. And if for once my grandfather suffered himself to be hurried, by his sense of humour and justice, into that remark about the case of Providence and the Baker, I should be sorry for any of his children who should have stumbled into the same attitude of criticism. In the apocalyptic129 style of the housekeeper of Invermay, woe be to that person! But there was no fear; husband and sons all entertained for the pious, tender soul the same chivalrous130 and moved affection. I have spoken with one who remembered her, and who had been the intimate and equal of her sons, and I found this witness had been struck, as I had been, with a sense of disproportion between the warmth of the adoration131 felt and the nature of the woman, whether as described or observed. She diligently132 read and marked her Bible; she was a tender nurse; she had a sense of humour under strong control; she talked and found some amusement at her (or rather at her husband’s) dinner-parties. It is conceivable that even my grandmother was amenable133 to the seductions of dress; at least, I find her husband inquiring anxiously about ‘the gowns from Glasgow,’ and very careful to describe the toilet of the Princess Charlotte, whom he had seen in church ‘in a Pelisse and Bonnet of the same colour of cloth as the Boys’ Dress jackets, trimmed with blue satin ribbons; the hat or Bonnet, Mr. Spittal said, was a Parisian slouch, and had a plume134 of three white feathers.’ But all this leaves a blank impression, and it is rather by reading backward in these old musty letters, which have moved me now to laughter and now to impatience135, that I glean136 occasional glimpses of how she seemed to her contemporaries, and trace (at work in her queer world of godly and grateful parasites) a mobile and responsive nature. Fashion moulds us, and particularly women, deeper than we sometimes think; but a little while ago, and, in some circles, women stood or fell by the degree of their appreciation137 of old pictures; in the early years of the century (and surely with more reason) a character like that of my grandmother warmed, charmed, and subdued138, like a strain of music, the hearts of the men of her own household. And there is little doubt that Mrs. Smith, as she looked on at the domestic life of her son and her stepdaughter, and numbered the heads in their increasing nursery, must have breathed fervent thanks to her Creator.
Yet this was to be a family unusually tried; it was not for nothing that one of the godly women saluted139 Miss Janet Smith as ‘a veteran in affliction’; and they were all before middle life experienced in that form of service. By the 1st of January 1808, besides a pair of still-born twins, children had been born and still survived to the young couple. By the 11th two were gone; by the 28th a third had followed, and the two others were still in danger. In the letters of a former nurserymaid — I give her name, Jean Mitchell, honoris causa — we are enabled to feel, even at this distance of time, some of the bitterness of that month of bereavement140.
‘I have this day received,’ she writes to Miss Janet, ‘the melancholy141 news of my dear babys’ deaths. My heart is like to break for my dear Mrs. Stevenson. O may she be supported on this trying occasion! I hope her other three babys will be spared to her. O, Miss Smith, did I think when I parted from my sweet babys that I never was to see them more?’ ‘I received,’ she begins her next, ‘the mournful news of my dear Jessie’s death. I also received the hair of my three sweet babys, which I will preserve as dear to their memorys and as a token of Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson’s friendship and esteem. At my leisure hours, when the children are in bed, they occupy all my thoughts, I dream of them. About two weeks ago I dreamed that my sweet little Jessie came running to me in her usual way, and I took her in my arms. O my dear babys, were mortal eyes permitted to see them in heaven, we would not repine nor grieve for their loss.’
By the 29th of February, the Reverend John Campbell, a man of obvious sense and human value, but hateful to the present biographer, because he wrote so many letters and conveyed so little information, summed up this first period of affliction in a letter to Miss Smith: ‘Your dear sister but a little while ago had a full nursery, and the dear blooming creatures sitting around her table filled her breast with hope that one day they should fill active stations in society and become an ornament142 in the Church below. But ah!’
Near a hundred years ago these little creatures ceased to be, and for not much less a period the tears have been dried. And to this day, looking in these stitched sheaves of letters, we hear the sound of many soft-hearted women sobbing143 for the lost. Never was such a massacre144 of the innocents; teething and chincough and scarlet145 fever and smallpox146 ran the round; and little Lillies, and Smiths, and Stevensons fell like moths147 about a candle; and nearly all the sympathetic correspondents deplore148 and recall the little losses of their own. ‘It is impossible to describe the Heavnly looks of the Dear Babe the three last days of his life,’ writes Mrs. Laurie to Mrs. Smith. ‘Never — never, my dear aunt, could I wish to eface the rememberance of this Dear Child. Never, never, my dear aunt!’ And so soon the memory of the dead and the dust of the survivors149 are buried in one grave.
There was another death in 1812; it passes almost unremarked; a single funeral seemed but a small event to these ‘veterans in affliction’; and by 1816 the nursery was full again. Seven little hopefuls enlivened the house; some were growing up; to the elder girl my grandfather already wrote notes in current hand at the tail of his letters to his wife: and to the elder boys he had begun to print, with laborious150 care, sheets of childish gossip and pedantic151 applications. Here, for instance, under date of 26th May 1816, is part of a mythological152 account of London, with a moral for the three gentlemen, ‘Messieurs Alan, Robert, and James Stevenson,’ to whom the document is addressed:
‘There are many prisons here like Bridewell, for, like other large towns, there are many bad men here as well as many good men. The natives of London are in general not so tall and strong as the people of Edinburgh, because they have not so much pure air, and instead of taking porridge they eat cakes made with sugar and plums. Here you have thousands of carts to draw timber, thousands of coaches to take you to all parts of the town, and thousands of boats to sail on the river Thames. But you must have money to pay, otherwise you can get nothing. Now the way to get money is, become clever men and men of education, by being good scholars.’
From the same absence, he writes to his wife on a Sunday:
‘It is now about eight o’clock with me, and I imagine you to be busy with the young folks, hearing the questions [Anglice, catechism], and indulging the boys with a chapter from the large Bible, with their interrogations and your answers in the soundest doctrine153. I hope James is getting his verse as usual, and that Mary is not forgetting her little hymn154. While Jeannie will be reading Wotherspoon, or some other suitable and instructive book, I presume our friend, Aunt Mary, will have just arrived with the news of A THRONG55 KIRK [a crowded church] and a great sermon. You may mention, with my compliments to my mother, that I was at St. Paul’s today, and attended a very excellent service with Mr. James Lawrie. The text was “Examine and see that ye be in the faith.”’
A twinkle of humour lights up this evocation155 of the distant scene — the humour of happy men and happy homes. Yet it is penned upon the threshold of fresh sorrow. James and Mary — he of the verse and she of the hymn — did not much more than survive to welcome their returning father. On the 25th, one of the godly women writes to Janet:
‘My dearest beloved madam, when I last parted from you, you was so affected156 with your affliction [you? or I?] could think of nothing else. But on Saturday, when I went to inquire after your health, how was I startled to hear that dear James was gone! Ah, what is this? My dear benefactors157, doing so much good to many, to the Lord, suddenly to be deprived of their most valued comforts! I was thrown into great perplexity, could do nothing but murmur158, why these things were done to such a family. I could not rest, but at midnight, whether spoken [or not] it was presented to my mind — “Those whom ye deplore are walking with me in white.” I conclude from this the Lord saying to sweet Mrs. Stevenson: “I gave them to be brought up for me: well done, good and faithful! they are fully prepared, and now I must present them to my father and your father, to my God and your God.”’
It would be hard to lay on flattery with a more sure and daring hand. I quote it as a model of a letter of condolence; be sure it would console. Very different, perhaps quite as welcome, is this from a lighthouse inspector159 to my grandfather:
‘In reading your letter the trickling160 tear ran down ray cheeks in silent sorrow for your departed dear ones, my sweet little friends. Well do I remember, and you will call to mind, their little innocent and interesting stories. Often have they come round me and taken me by the hand, but alas! I am no more destined to behold161 them.’
The child who is taken becomes canonised, and the looks of the homeliest babe seem in the retrospect162 ‘heavenly the three last days of his life.’ But it appears that James and Mary had indeed been children more than usually engaging; a record was preserved a long while in the family of their remarks and ‘little innocent and interesting stories,’ and the blow and the blank were the more sensible.
Early the next month Robert Stevenson must proceed upon his voyage of inspection163, part by land, part by sea. He left his wife plunged164 in low spirits; the thought of his loss, and still more of her concern, was continually present in his mind, and he draws in his letters home an interesting picture of his family relations:
‘Windygates Inn, Monday (Postmark July 16th)
‘MY DEAREST JEANNIE — While the people of the inn are getting me a little bit of something to eat, I sit down to tell you that I had a most excellent passage across the water, and got to Wemyss at mid-day. I hope the children will be very good, and that Robert will take a course with you to learn his Latin lessons daily; he may, however, read English in company. Let them have strawberries on Saturdays.’
‘Westhaven, 17th July.
‘I have been occupied today at the harbour of Newport, opposite Dundee, and am this far on my way to Arbroath. You may tell the boys that I slept last night in Mr. Steadman’s tent. I found my bed rather hard, but the lodgings165 were otherwise extremely comfortable. The encampment is on the Fife side of the Tay, immediately opposite to Dundee. From the door of the tent you command the most beautiful view of the Firth, both up and down, to a great extent. At night all was serene166 and still, the sky presented the most beautiful appearance of bright stars, and the morning was ushered167 in with the song of many little birds.’
‘Aberdeen, July 19th.
‘I hope, my dear, that you are going out of doors regularly and taking much exercise. I would have you to MAKE THE MARKETS DAILY— and by all means to take a seat in the coach once or twice in the week and see what is going on in town. [The family were at the sea-side.] It will be good not to be too great a stranger to the house. It will be rather painful at first, but as it is to be done, I would have you not to be too strange to the house in town.
‘Tell the boys that I fell in with a soldier — his name is Henderson — who was twelve years with Lord Wellington and other commanders. He returned very lately with only eightpence-halfpenny in his pocket, and found his father and mother both in life, though they had never heard from him, nor he from them. He carried my great-coat and umbrella a few miles.’
‘Fraserburgh, July 20th.
‘Fraserburgh is the same dull place which [Auntie] Mary and Jeannie found it. As I am travelling along the coast which they are acquainted with, you had better cause Robert bring down the map from Edinburgh; and it will be a good exercise in geography for the young folks to trace my course. I hope they have entered upon the writing. The library will afford abundance of excellent books, which I wish you would employ a little. I hope you are doing me the favour to go much out with the boys, which will do you much good and prevent them from getting so very much overheated.’
[To the Boys — Printed.]
‘When I had last the pleasure of writing to you, your dear little brother James and your sweet little sister Mary were still with us. But it has pleased God to remove them to another and a better world, and we must submit to the will of Providence. I must, however, request of you to think sometimes upon them, and to be very careful not to do anything that will displease168 or vex169 your mother. It is therefore proper that you do not roamp [Scottish indeed] too much about, and that you learn your lessons.’
‘I went to Fraserburgh and visited Kinnaird Head Lighthouse, which I found in good order. All this time I travelled upon good roads, and paid many a toll-man by the way; but from Fraserburgh to Banff there is no toll-bars, and the road is so bad that I had to walk up and down many a hill, and for want of bridges the horses had to drag the chaise up to the middle of the wheels in water. At Banff I saw a large ship of 300 tons lying on the sands upon her beam-ends, and a wreck71 for want of a good harbour. Captain Wilson — to whom I beg my compliments — will show you a ship of 300 tons. At the towns of Macduff, Banff, and Portsoy, many of the houses are built of marble, and the rocks on this part of the coast or sea-side are marble. But, my dear Boys, unless marble be polished and dressed, it is a very coarse-looking stone, and has no more beauty than common rock. As a proof of this, ask the favour of your mother to take you to Thomson’s Marble Works in South Leith, and you will see marble in all its stages, and perhaps you may there find Portsoy marble! The use I wish to make of this is to tell you that, without education, a man is just like a block of rough, unpolished marble. Notice, in proof of this, how much Mr. Neill and Mr. M’Gregor [the tutor] know, and observe how little a man knows who is not a good scholar. On my way to Fochabers I passed through many thousand acres of Fir timber, and saw many deer running in these woods.’
[To Mrs. Stevenson.]
‘Inverness, July 21st.
‘I propose going to church in the afternoon, and as I have breakfasted late, I shall afterwards take a walk, and dine about six o’clock. I do not know who is the clergyman here, but I shall think of you all. I travelled in the mail-coach [from Banff] almost alone. While it was daylight I kept the top, and the passing along a country I had never before seen was a considerable amusement. But, my dear, you are all much in my thoughts, and many are the objects which recall the recollection of our tender and engaging children we have so recently lost. We must not, however, repine. I could not for a moment wish any change of circumstances in their case; and in every comparative view of their state, I see the Lord’s goodness in removing them from an evil world to an abode170 of bliss171; and I must earnestly hope that you may be enabled to take such a view of this affliction as to live in the happy prospect of our all meeting again to part no more — and that under such considerations you are getting up your spirits. I wish you would walk about, and by all means go to town, and do not sit much at home.’
‘Inverness, July 23rd.
‘I am duly favoured with your much-valued letter, and I am happy to find that you are so much with my mother, because that sort of variety has a tendency to occupy the mind, and to keep it from brooding too much upon one subject. Sensibility and tenderness are certainly two of the most interesting and pleasing qualities of the mind. These qualities are also none of the least of the many endearingments of the female character. But if that kind of sympathy and pleasing melancholy, which is familiar to us under distress, be much indulged, it becomes habitual172, and takes such a hold of the mind as to absorb all the other affections, and unfit us for the duties and proper enjoyments173 of life. Resignation sinks into a kind of peevish174 discontent. I am far, however, from thinking there is the least danger of this in your case, my dear; for you have been on all occasions enabled to look upon the fortunes of this life as under the direction of a higher power, and have always preserved that propriety175 and consistency176 of conduct in all circumstances which endears your example to your family in particular, and to your friends. I am therefore, my dear, for you to go out much, and to go to the house up-stairs [he means to go up-stairs in the house, to visit the place of the dead children], and to put yourself in the way of the visits of your friends. I wish you would call on the Miss Grays, and it would be a good thing upon a Saturday to dine with my mother, and take Meggy and all the family with you, and let them have their strawberries in town. The tickets of one of the OLD-FASHIONED COACHES would take you all up, and if the evening were good, they could all walk down, excepting Meggy and little David.’
‘Inverness, July 25th, 11 p.m.
‘Captain Wemyss, of Wemyss, has come to Inverness to go the voyage with me, and as we are sleeping in a double-bedded room, I must no longer transgress177. You must remember me the best way you can to the children.’
‘On board of the Lighthouse Yacht, July 29th.
‘I got to Cromarty yesterday about mid-day, and went to church. It happened to be the sacrament there, and I heard a Mr. Smith at that place conclude the service with a very suitable exhortation178. There seemed a great concourse of people, but they had rather an unfortunate day for them at the tent, as it rained a good deal. After drinking tea at the inn, Captain Wemyss accompanied me on board, and we sailed about eight last night. The wind at present being rather a beating one, I think I shall have an opportunity of standing179 into the bay of Wick, and leaving this letter to let you know my progress and that I am well.’
‘Lighthouse Yacht, Stornoway, August 4th.
‘To-day we had prayers on deck as usual when at sea. I read the 14th chapter, I think, of Job. Captain Wemyss has been in the habit of doing this on board his own ship, agreeably to the Articles of War. Our passage round the Cape123 [Cape Wrath] was rather a cross one, and as the wind was northerly, we had a pretty heavy sea, but upon the whole have made a good passage, leaving many vessels180 behind us in Orkney. I am quite well, my dear; and Captain Wemyss, who has much spirit, and who is much given to observation, and a perfect enthusiast181 in his profession, enlivens the voyage greatly. Let me entreat88 you to move about much, and take a walk with the boys to Leith. I think they have still many places to see there, and I wish you would indulge them in this respect. Mr. Scales is the best person I know for showing them the sailcloth-weaving, etc., and he would have great pleasure in undertaking182 this. My dear, I trust soon to be with you, and that through the goodness of God we shall meet all well.’
‘There are two vessels lying here with emigrants183 for America, each with eighty people on board, at all ages, from a few days to upwards of sixty! Their prospects184 must be very forlorn to go with a slender purse for distant and unknown countries.’
‘Lighthouse Yacht, off Greenock, Aug. 18th.
‘It was after CHURCH-TIME before we got here, but we had prayers upon deck on the way up the Clyde. This has, upon the whole, been a very good voyage, and Captain Wemyss, who enjoys it much, has been an excellent companion; we met with pleasure, and shall part with regret.’
Strange that, after his long experience, my grandfather should have learned so little of the attitude and even the dialect of the spiritually-minded; that after forty-four years in a most religious circle, he could drop without sense of incongruity185 from a period of accepted phrases to ‘trust his wife was GETTING UP HER SPIRITS,’ or think to reassure186 her as to the character of Captain Wemyss by mentioning that he had read prayers on the deck of his frigate187 ‘AGREEABLY TO THE ARTICLES OF WAR’! Yet there is no doubt — and it is one of the most agreeable features of the kindly188 series — that he was doing his best to please, and there is little doubt that he succeeded. Almost all my grandfather’s private letters have been destroyed. This correspondence has not only been preserved entire, but stitched up in the same covers with the works of the godly women, the Reverend John Campbell, and the painful Mrs. Ogle189. I did not think to mention the good dame190, but she comes in usefully as an example. Amongst the treasures of the ladies of my family, her letters have been honoured with a volume to themselves. I read about a half of them myself; then handed over the task to one of stauncher resolution, with orders to communicate any fact that should be found to illuminate191 these pages. Not one was found; it was her only art to communicate by post second-rate sermons at second-hand192; and such, I take it, was the correspondence in which my grandmother delighted. If I am right, that of Robert Stevenson, with his quaint95 smack193 of the contemporary ‘Sandford and Merton,’ his interest in the whole page of experience, his perpetual quest, and fine scent194 of all that seems romantic to a boy, his needless pomp of language, his excellent good sense, his unfeigned, unstained, unwearied human kindliness195, would seem to her, in a comparison, dry and trivial and worldly. And if these letters were by an exception cherished and preserved, it would be for one or both of two reasons — because they dealt with and were bitter-sweet reminders196 of a time of sorrow; or because she was pleased, perhaps touched, by the writer’s guileless efforts to seem spiritually-minded.
After this date there were two more births and two more deaths, so that the number of the family remained unchanged; in all five children survived to reach maturity197 and to outlive their parents.
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1
nether
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| adj.下部的，下面的；n.阴间；下层社会 | |
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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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kinsman
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| n.男亲属 | |
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alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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6
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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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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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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leeward
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| adj.背风的；下风的 | |
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orphaned
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| [计][修]孤立 | |
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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17
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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orations
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| n.（正式仪式中的）演说，演讲( oration的名词复数 ) | |
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dearth
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| n.缺乏，粮食不足，饥谨 | |
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smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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authenticated
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| v.证明是真实的、可靠的或有效的( authenticate的过去式和过去分词 )；鉴定，使生效 | |
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24
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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prospering
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的现在分词 ) | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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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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abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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dotage
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| n.年老体衰；年老昏聩 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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42
dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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widower
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| n.鳏夫 | |
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46
encumbered
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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expeditious
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| adj.迅速的，敏捷的 | |
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48
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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49
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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50
fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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51
piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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52
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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53
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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54
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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55
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57
influential
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| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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58
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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59
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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60
appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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practitioners
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| n.习艺者，实习者( practitioner的名词复数 )；从业者（尤指医师） | |
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62
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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expedients
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| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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64
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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66
isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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68
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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wildernesses
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| 荒野( wilderness的名词复数 )； 沙漠； （政治家）在野； 不再当政（或掌权） | |
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71
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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73
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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snared
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| v.用罗网捕捉，诱陷，陷害( snare的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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80
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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81
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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82
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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83
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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84
earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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85
repayment
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| n.偿还，偿还款；报酬 | |
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86
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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87
corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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88
entreat
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| v.恳求，恳请 | |
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89
entreated
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| 恳求，乞求( entreat的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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90
exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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91
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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92
depict
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| vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述 | |
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93
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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94
esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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95
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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96
afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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97
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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98
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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99
ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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100
proficiency
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| n.精通，熟练，精练 | |
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101
shibboleth
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| n.陈规陋习；口令；暗语 | |
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102
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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103
aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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104
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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105
condole
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| v.同情；慰问 | |
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106
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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107
discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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108
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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109
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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110
bereaved
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| adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物） | |
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111
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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112
guile
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| n.诈术 | |
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113
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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114
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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115
aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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116
clique
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| n.朋党派系，小集团 | |
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117
parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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118
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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119
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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120
joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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121
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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122
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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123
cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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124
baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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125
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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126
emulate
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| v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿 | |
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127
cognate
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| adj.同类的，同源的，同族的；n.同家族的人，同源词 | |
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128
abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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129
apocalyptic
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| adj.预示灾祸的，启示的 | |
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130
chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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131
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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132
diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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133
amenable
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| adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的 | |
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134
plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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135
impatience
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| n.不耐烦，急躁 | |
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136
glean
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| v.收集(消息、资料、情报等) | |
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137
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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138
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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139
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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140
bereavement
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| n.亲人丧亡，丧失亲人，丧亲之痛 | |
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141
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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142
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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143
sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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144
massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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145
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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146
smallpox
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| n.天花 | |
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147
moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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148
deplore
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| vt.哀叹，对...深感遗憾 | |
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149
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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150
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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151
pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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152
mythological
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| adj.神话的 | |
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153
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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154
hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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155
evocation
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| n. 引起，唤起 n. <古> 召唤，招魂 | |
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156
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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157
benefactors
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| n.捐助者，施主( benefactor的名词复数 )；恩人 | |
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158
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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159
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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160
trickling
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| n.油画底色含油太多而成泡沫状突起v.滴( trickle的现在分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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161
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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162
retrospect
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| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
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163
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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164
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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165
lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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166
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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167
ushered
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| v.引，领，陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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168
displease
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| vt.使不高兴，惹怒；n.不悦，不满，生气 | |
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169
vex
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| vt.使烦恼，使苦恼 | |
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170
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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171
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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172
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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173
enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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174
peevish
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| adj.易怒的，坏脾气的 | |
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175
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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176
consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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177
transgress
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| vt.违反，逾越 | |
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178
exhortation
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| n.劝告，规劝 | |
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179
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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180
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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181
enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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182
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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183
emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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184
prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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185
incongruity
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| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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186
reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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187
frigate
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| n.护航舰，大型驱逐舰 | |
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188
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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189
ogle
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| v.看；送秋波；n.秋波，媚眼 | |
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190
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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191
illuminate
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| vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释 | |
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192
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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193
smack
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| vt.拍，打，掴；咂嘴；vi.含有…意味；n.拍 | |
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194
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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195
kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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196
reminders
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| n.令人回忆起…的东西( reminder的名词复数 )；提醒…的东西；（告知该做某事的）通知单；提示信 | |
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197
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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