He asked for a country parish, and that of R?cken was confided4 to him. The situation of this poor village, whose little houses uprear themselves in a vast plain on the confines of Prussia and Saxony, was melancholy5; but Karl-Ludwig Nietzsche liked the place, for solitude6 was acceptable to him. He was a great musician, and often, at the fall of day, would shut himself up in his church and improvise7 upon the rustic8 organ whilst the good folk of his parish stood without and listened in admiration9.
[Pg 20]
The pastor10 and his young wife waited four years for their first child, who was born on October 15,1844, the King's birthday. The coincidence increased the father's joy. "O month of October, blessed month," he wrote in his church register, "ever have you overwhelmed me with joy. But of all the joys that you have brought me, this is the deepest, the most magnificent: I baptize my first child.... My son, Friedrich Wilhelm, such shall be your name on earth in remembrance of the royal benefactor11 whose birthday is yours."
The child soon had a brother, then a sister. There are women who remember Friedrich's infancy12, and those quickly passing days of joy round the Nietzsches' hearth13. Friedrich was slow in learning to speak. He looked at everything with grave eyes, and kept silent. At the age of two and a half he spoke14 his first word. The pastor liked his silent boy, and was glad to have him as a companion of his walks. Never did Friedrich Nietzsche forget the sound of distant bells ringing over the immense pool-strewn plain as he wandered with his father, his hand nestled in that strong hand.
Misfortune came very quickly. In August, 1848, Nietzsche's father fell from the top of the stone steps leading up to his door, and struck his head violently against the edge of one of them. The shock brought on a terrible attack, or, perhaps, for one cannot be certain, only hastened its approach: Karl-Ludwig Nietzsche lost his reason, and, after a year of aberration15 and decline, died. Friedrich Nietzsche was then four years old. The incidents of this tragic16 time made a deep impression upon his mind: night-alarms, the weeping in the house, the terrors of the closed chamber17, the silence, the utter abandonment to woe18; the tolling19 bells, the hymns20, the funeral sermons; the coffin21 engulfed22 beneath the flagstones of the church. His understanding of such things had come too early, and he was shaken by it. His nights were troubled[Pg 21] with visions, and he had a presentiment23 of some early disaster. He had dreams—here is the na?ve recital24 that he makes in his fourteenth year:
"When one despoils25 a tree of its crown it withers26 and the birds desert its branches. Our family had been despoiled27 of its crown; joy departed from our hearts, and a profound sadness entered into possession of us. And our wounds were but closing when they were painfully reopened. About this time I had a dream in which I heard mournful organ music, as if at a burial. And as I was trying to discover the cause of this playing, a tomb opened sharply and my father appeared, clad in his shroud28. He crossed the church, and returned with a little child in his arms. The tomb opened again, my father disappeared into it, and the stone swung back to its place. At once the wail29 of the organ ceased, and I awoke. The next morning I told the dream to my dear mother. A short while after, my little brother Joseph fell ill, and after a nervous crisis of a few hours, he died. Our grief was terrible. My dream was exactly fulfilled, for the little body was placed in the arms of its father. After this double calamity30 the Lord in heaven was our sole consolation31. It was towards the end of January, 1850."
In the spring of this year the pastor's widow left the parochial house and went to reside in the neighbouring town of Naumburg-zur-Saale, where she was near her own people. Relations of hers lived in the neighbouring countryside. Her husband's mother and his sister came to stay with her in the small house, to which the children, who at first had been disconsolate32, gradually grew accustomed.
Naumburg was a royal city, favoured by the Hohenzollerns and devoted34 to their dynasty. A bourgeois35 society of officials and pastors36, with some officers' families and a few country squires37, lived within the grass-grown ramparts, pierced with five gates, which were closed every[Pg 22] evening. Their existence was grave and measured. The bell of the metropolitan38 church, flinging its chimes across the little town, awoke it, sent it to sleep, assembled it to State and religious festivals. As a small boy Nietzsche was himself grave and measured. His instincts were in accord with the customs of Naumburg, and his active soul was quick to discover the beauties of his new life. He admired the military parades, the religious services with organ and choir39, the majestic40 anniversary celebrations. He found himself deeply moved every year by the return of Christmas. His birthday stirred him less deeply, but was a source of great joy.
"My birthday being also that of our beloved King," he wrote, "I am awakened41 that day by military music. I receive my presents: the ceremony is quickly over, and we go together to the church. Although the sermon is not directed to my special benefit, I choose the best of it and apply it to myself. Afterwards we all assemble at the school to celebrate the great festival.... Before the break-up a fine patriotic42 chorus is sung, and the director concilium dimisit. Then comes for me the best moment of all; my friends arrive and we spend a happy day together."
Friedrich did not forget his father, and wished to follow his example and to become, like all the men of his race, a pastor, one of the elect who live near God and speak in His name. He could conceive no higher vocation44, nor any more congenial to himself. Young as he was, he had an exacting45 and meticulous46 conscience. The slightest scolding pained him, and he liked to take his own line, unaided. Whenever he felt a scruple47 he would retire to some obscure hiding-place and examine his conscience, nor would he resume his play with his sister until he had deliberately48 arrived at a condemnation49 or a justification50 of his conduct. One day, when it was raining in torrents51, his mother saw him coming back from school with slow,[Pg 23] regular steps, although he was without umbrella or cloak. She called him, and he came sedately52 up to her. "We have always been told not to run in the streets," he explained. His companions nicknamed him "the little pastor," and listened, in respectful silence, when he read them aloud a chapter from the Bible.
He was careful of his prestige. "When one is master of oneself," he gravely taught his sister, "then one is master of the whole world." He was proud, and believed in the nobility of the Nietzsches. This was a family legend which his grandmother loved to relate, and of which he and his sister Lisbeth used to dream. Remote ancestors of theirs, Counts, Nietzski by name, had lived in Poland. During the Reformation they defied persecution53, and broke with the Catholic Church. Thereafter they wandered wretchedly for three years, outcasts, pursued from village to village. With them was their son, who had been born on the eve of their flight. The mother nursed this child with devoted constancy, and he thus acquired, in spite of all ordeals54, wonderful health, lived to a great age, and transmitted to his line the double virtue55 of strength and longevity56.
Friedrich was never tired of listening to so fine an adventure. Often also he asked to be told the history of the Poles. The election of the King by the Nobles, gathered together on horseback in the midst of a great plain, and the right which the meanest of them had to oppose his veto to the will of all the rest, struck him with admiration: he had no doubt that this race was the greatest in the world. "A Count Nietzski must not lie," he declared to his sister. Indeed, the passions and the powerful desires which, thirty or forty years later, were to inspire his work, already animated57 this child with the bulging58 forehead and the big eyes, whom unhappy women loved to fold in their tender caresses59. When he was nine years old his tastes widened, and music was[Pg 24] revealed to him by a chorus from Handel, heard at church. He studied the piano. He improvised60, he accompanied himself in chanting the Bible, and his mother, remembering her husband's fate, was troubled, for he, too, like the child, used to play and improvise on the organ at R?cken.
The instinct of creation—an instinct that was already tyrannical—seized hold of him; he composed melodies, fantasies, a succession of mazurkas, dedicated61 to his Polish ancestors. He wrote verses, and mother, grandmother, aunts, sister, received, every anniversary, a poem with his music. Games themselves became the pretext62 for work. He drew up didactic treatises63, containing rules and advice, which he handed over to his comrades. First he taught them architecture; then, in 1854, during the siege of Sebastopol, the capture of which made him weep—for he loved all Slavs and hated the revolutionary French—he studied ballistics and the defence of fortified64 places. At the same time, he and two friends founded a theatre of arts, in which they played dramas of antiquity65 and of primitive66 civilisations, of which he was the author: The Gods of Olympus and an Orkadal.
He left school to enter college at Naumburg. There he showed from the first such conspicuous67 ability that his professors advised his mother to send him to study in a superior institute. The poor woman hesitated. She would have liked to keep her child near her.
This was in 1858. Nietzsche's vacation was of rather a serious character. He spent it as usual in the village of Pobles, under the shadow of wooded hills, on the banks of the fresh and lazy Saale, in which each morning he bathed. His maternal68 grandparents had him and his sister Lisbeth to stay with them. He was happy, with a heaped abundance of life; but his mind was preoccupied69 with the uncertainty70 of his future.
Adolescence71 was coming; and perhaps he was about to[Pg 25] leave his own people and change his friends and his home. With some anxiety he foresaw the new course which his life was going to follow. He called to mind his boyish past, all the long years of childhood, at which one should not smile—thirteen years filled with the earliest affections and the earliest sorrows, with the first proud hopes of an ambitious soul, with the splendid discovery of music and poetry. Memories came, numerous, vivid, and touching72: Nietzsche, who had a lyric73 soul, suddenly became, as it were, intoxicated74 with himself.
He took up his pen, and in twelve days the history of his childhood was written. He was happy when he had finished.
"Now I have brought my first notebook to a proper end," he writes, "and I am content with my work. I have written with the greatest pleasure and without a moment's fatigue75. It is a grand thing to pass in review before one the course of one's first years, and to follow there the development of one's soul. I have sincerely recounted all the truth without poetry, without literary ornamentation. That I may write many more like it!"
Four little verses followed:
"Ein Spiegel ist das Leben
In ihm sich zu erkennen,
M?cht' ich das erste nennen
Wonach wir nur auch streben."[1]
[1] "Life is a mirror. I might say that the recognition of ourselves in it is the first object to which we all strive."
The school of Pforta is situated76 five miles from Naumburg, on the bank of the Saale. Ever since a Germany has existed there have been teachers and scholars in Pforta. Some Cistercian monks77, come in the twelfth century from the Latin West to convert the Slavs, obtained possession of this property, which[Pg 26] lies along both banks of the river. They built the high walls which surround it, the houses, the church, and founded a tradition which is not extinct. In the sixteenth century they were expelled by the Saxon princes, but their school was continued, and their methods conserved78 by the Lutherans who were installed in their place.
"The children shall be brought up to the religious life," says an instruction of 1540. "For six years they shall exercise themselves in the knowledge of letters, and in the disciplines of virtue." The pupils were kept separated from their families, cloistered79 with their teachers. The school had its fixed80 rules and customs: anything in the shape of easy manners was forbidden. There was a certain, established hierarchy81: the oldest scholars had charge of the youngest and each master was the tutor of twenty pupils. Religion, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin were taught. In this old monastery82 German rigour, the spirit of humanism, and the ethic83 of Protestantism formed a singular and deep-rooted alliance, a fruitful type of life and sentiment. Many distinguished84 men owed their education to Pforta: Novalis, the Schlegels, Fichte—Fichte, philosopher, educator, patriot43, and chief glory of the school. Nietzsche had long desired to study at Pforta, and in October, 1858, a scholarship being awarded him, he left his family to enter the school.
He now disappears for a time from our ken3. An heroic and boyish anecdote85 is the sole memory of his first year. The story of Mucius Sc?vola seemed an improbable one to some of his comrades; they denied it: "No man would have the courage to put his hand in fire," opined these young critics. Nietzsche did not deign86 to answer, but seized from the stove a flaming coal and placed it in the palm of his hand. He always carried the mark of this burn, the more visible because[Pg 27] he had taken care to keep in repair and enlarge so glorious a wound by letting melted wax run over it.
Assuredly, he did not easily endure this new life of his. He played little, not caring to attach himself to unfamiliar87 people; moreover, the tender customs of the maternal hearth had ill prepared him for the disciplines of Pforta. He only went out once a week, on Sunday afternoon. Then his mother, his sister, and two Naumburg friends of his came to meet him at the school door, and spent the day with him in a neighbouring inn.
In July, 1859, Nietzsche had a month's liberty. The holidays of pupils at Pforta were never longer. He revisited the people and places that he liked, and made a rapid voyage to Jena and Weimar. For a year he had written only what he had to write as a task, but now the inspiration and delight of the pen returned to him, and he composed out of his impressions of summer a sentimental88 fantasy which is not barren of pathos89.
"The sun has already set," he writes, "when we leave the dark enclosure. Behind us, the sky is bathed in gold; above us, there is a glow of rosy90 clouds: before us, we see the town, lying at rest under the gentle breeze of evening. Ah, Wilhelm, I say to my friend, is there any joy greater than that of wandering together across the world? Oh, pleasure of friendship, faithful friendship: oh, breath of this magnificent summer night, perfume of flowers, and redness of evening! Do you not feel your thoughts soar upward, to perch91 like the jubilant lark92 on a throne of golden clouds? The wonder of these evening landscapes! It is my own life that unveils itself to me. So are my own days arranged: some shut within the dark penumbra93, others lifted up in the air of liberty! At this moment our ears are pierced by a shrill94 cry: it comes from the madhouse which stands near our path. Our hands join in a tighter clasp, as if some evil genius had touched us with a sweep of menacing wings. Go from[Pg 28] us, ye powers of Evil! Even in this beautiful world there are unhappy souls! But what, then, is unhappiness?"
At the beginning of August he returned to Pforta, as sadly as he had gone there in the first instance. He could not accept the brusque constraint95 of the place, and, being unable to cease thinking of himself, he kept for some weeks an intimate diary which shows us how he employed his time and what his humours were from one day to another. We find, to begin with, certain courageous96 maxims97 against ennui98, given him by his professor and transcribed100; then a recital of his studies, his distractions101, his readings, and the crises which depress him. The poetic102 soul of the child now resists, now resigns itself to its impressions and bows painfully beneath a discipline. When emotion urges him he abandons prose, which is not musical enough to express his melancholy. Rhythm and rhyme appear; under an inspiration he makes a few verses, a quatrain, a sextain; but he does not seek after the lyrical impulse, nor hold to it; he merely follows it when it rises within him; and, as soon as it weakens, prose takes its place, as in a Shakesperean dialogue.
Life at Pforta was, however, brightened by hours of simple and youthful joy. The pupils went out for walks, sang in chorus, bathed. Nietzsche took part in these delights, and related them. When the heat was too heavy, the life of the water replaced the life of study. The two hundred scholars would go down to the river, timing104 their steps to the tunes105 they had struck up. They would throw themselves into the water, following the current without upsetting the order of their ranks, accomplish a swim long enough to try, and yet elate, the youngest members of the party, then clamber up the bank at their master's whistle, put on their uniforms, which a ferry boat had convoyed in their wake; then, still[Pg 29] singing, still in good order, would march back to their work and to the old school. "It is absolutely stunning," says Nietzsche in effect.
So time went by, and the end of August came. The Journal is silent for eight days, then for six, then for a whole month. When he reopens his notebook, it is to bring it to an end.
"Since the day on which I began this Journal my state of mind has completely changed. Then we were in the green abundance of the late summer: now, alas106! we are in the late autumn. Then I was an unter-tertianer (a lower form boy); now I am in a higher form.... My birthday has come and gone, and I am older—time passes like the rose of spring, and pleasure like the foam107 of the brook108.
"At this moment I feel myself seized by an extraordinary desire for knowledge, for universal culture. That impulse comes to me from Humboldt, whom I have just read. May it prove as lasting109 as my love for poetry!"
He now mapped out a vast programme of study in which geology, botany, and astronomy were combined with readings in the Latin stylists, Hebrew, military science, and all the techniques. "And above all things," said he, "Religion, the foundation of all knowledge. Great is the domain110 of knowledge, infinite the search after truth."
A winter and spring-time sped away while the boy worked on. But now came his second holidays, then the third return to school; it was when autumn had denuded111 the great oaks on the estate of Pforta. Friedrich Nietzsche is seventeen years of age, and he is sad. Too long had he imposed upon himself a painful obedience112; he had read Schiller, H?lderlin, Byron; he dreams of the Gods of Greece, and of the sombre Manfred, that all-powerful magician who, weary of his omnipotence113, vainly sought repose114 in the death which his art had conquered.[Pg 30] What cares Nietzsche for the lessons of his professors? He meditates115 on the lines of the romantic poet:
"Sorrow is knowledge; they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The tree of knowledge is not that of life."
He grows weary at last. He longs to escape from the routine of classes, from tasks which absorb his whole life. He would listen to his soul alone, and thus come to understand the dreams with which his mind overflows116. He confides117 in his mother and his sister, and declares that his projects for the future have changed. The thought of the University bores him; he now wants to be not a professor, but a musician. His mother reasons with him, and succeeds in appeasing118 him a little. But her success is not for long. The death of a master to whom he had been attached completes his confusion of mind. He neglects his work, isolates119 himself, and meditates.
He writes. From his earliest childhood he had had the instinct of the phrase and the word, the instinct of visible thought. He writes incessantly120, and not one shade of his unrest has remained hidden from us. He surveys the vast universe of romanticism and of science, sombre, restless, and loveless. This monstrous121 vision fascinates and frightens him. The pious122 ways of his boyhood still hold him under their influence; he reproaches himself for his inclinations123 towards audacity124 and negation125, as if for sins. He strives to retain his religious faith, which is dwindling126 day by day. He does not break with it sharply in the French and Catholic manner, but slowly and fearfully detaches himself; slowly, because he venerates127 those dogmas or symbols which stand for all his past, for his memories of his home and his father; fearfully, because he knows that in renouncing128 the old security he will find not a new security to take its place, but a surging throng129 of problems.[Pg 31] Weighing the supreme130 gravity of the choice imposed on him, he meditates:
"Such an enterprise," he writes, "is the work not of a few weeks but of a life-time: can it be that, armed solely131 with the results of a boy's reflections, any one will venture to destroy the authority of two thousand years, guaranteed as it is by the deepest thinkers of all the centuries? Can it be that with his own mere103 fancies and rudiments132 of thought any one will venture to thrust aside from him all that anguish133 and benediction134 of religion with which history is profoundly penetrated135?
"To decide at a stroke those philosophical136 problems about which human thought has maintained an unending war for many thousands of years; to revolutionise beliefs which, accepted by men of the weightiest authority, first lifted man up to the level of true humanity; to link up Philosophy with the natural sciences, without as much as knowing the general results of the one or the others; and finally to derive137 from those natural sciences a system of reality, when the mind has not yet grasped either the unity138 of universal history, or the most essential principles—it is a masterpiece of rashness....
"What then is humanity? We hardly know: one stage in a whole, one period in a process of Becoming, an arbitrary production of God? Is man aught else than a stone evolved through the intermediary worlds of flora139 and fauna140? Is he from this time forward a completed being, or what has history in reserve for him? Is this eternal Becoming to have no end? What are the springs of this great clock? They are hidden; but however long be the duration of that vast hour which we call history, they are at every moment the same. The crises are inscribed141 on the dial-face: the hand moves on, and when it has reached the twelfth hour, it begins another series: it inaugurates a period in the history of humanity.
[Pg 32]
"To risk oneself, without guide or compass, on the ocean of doubt is for a young brain loss and madness; most adventurers on it are broken by the storms, few indeed are the discoverers of new lands.... All our philosophy has very often appeared to me a very Tower of Babel.... It has as its desolating142 result an infinite disturbance143 of popular thought; we must expect a vast upheaval144 when the multitude discovers that all Christianity is founded on gratuitous145 affirmations. The existence of God, immortality146, the authority of the Bible, Revelation, will for ever be problems. I have attempted to deny everything: ah, to destroy is easy, but to construct!"
What a marvellous instinct appears in this page! Friedrich Nietzsche poses the precise questions which are later to occupy his thought and gives a foretaste of the energetic answers with which he is to trouble men's souls: humanity is a nothing, an arbitrary production of God; an absurd Becoming impels147 it towards recommencements without a term, towards eternal returns; all sovereignty is referable in the last instance to force, and force is blind, following only chance....
Friedrich Nietzsche affirms nothing: he disapproves148 of rapid conclusions on grave subjects, and, so long as he is hesitant, likes to abstain149 from them. But when he commits himself, it will be with a whole heart. Meanwhile he stays his thought. But, despite himself, it overflows at times in its effort towards expression. "Very often," he writes, "submission150 to the will of God and humility151 are but a mantle152 thrown over the cowardice153 and pusillanimity154 which we experience at the moment when we ought to face our destiny with courage." All the Nietzschean ethics155, all the Nietzschean heroism156 are included in these few words.
We have named the authors who were Nietzsche's favourites at this time: Schiller, Byron, H?lderlin—of[Pg 33] these he preferred H?lderlin, then so little known. He had discovered him, as one discovers, at a glance, a friend in a crowd. It was a singular encounter. The life of this child, now scarcely begun, was to resemble the life of the poet who had just died. H?lderlin, the son of a clergyman, had wished to follow his father's vocation. In 1780 he is studying theology at the University of Tübingen with comrades whose names are Hegel, Sendling. He ceases to believe. He comes to know Rousseau, Goethe, Schiller, and the intoxication157 of romanticism. He loves the mystery of nature, and the lucid158 mind of Greece; he loves them together, and dreams of uniting their beauties in a German work. He is poor, and has to live the hard life of a needy159 poet. As a teacher, he endures the ennui of wealthy houses in which he is despised generally, and once is loved too much—a brief rapture160 that ends in distress161. He returns to his native village, for its air and its people are pleasant to him. He works, writes at his leisure, but as it pains him to live at the expense of his own family, he goes away again. He has some of his verses published; but the public shows no taste for those fine poems in which the genius of an unknown German calls up the Gods of Olympus to people the deep forests of Suabia and the Rhineland. The unhappy H?lderlin dreams of vaster creations, but goes no farther than a dream: Germany is a world in itself, and Greece is another; the inspiration of a Goethe is needed to unite them, and to fix in eternal words the triumph of Faust, the ravisher of Helen. H?lderlin writes fragments of a poem in prose: his hero is a young Greek, who laments162 over the ruin of his race and, frail163 forerunner164 of Zarathustra, calls for the rebirth of a valorous humanity. He composes three scenes of a tragedy, taking for his hero Empedocles, tyrant165 of Agrigentum, poet, philosopher, haughty166 inspirer of the multitude, a Greek isolated167 among the Greeks by reason[Pg 34] of his very greatness, a magician, who, possessing all nature, wearies of the satisfactions which one life can offer, retires to the summit of Etna, sends away his family, his friends, his appealing people, and flings himself, one evening, at sunset, into the crater169.
The work is full of power; but H?lderlin abandons it. His melancholy enfeebles and exalts170 him. He wishes to leave Germany where he has suffered so much, and to free his relatives from the inconvenience of his presence. Employment is offered to him in France, at Bordeaux, and he disappears. Six months later he returns home sunburnt and in rags. He is questioned, but he does not reply. Enquiries are made and it is, with great difficulty, discovered that he had crossed France on foot under the August sun. His mind is gone, swallowed up in a torpor171 which is to last for forty years. He dies in 1843, a few months before the birth of Nietzsche. It might please a Platonist to think that the same genius passed from one body to the other. Surely the same German soul, romantic by nature, and classic in aspiration172, broken at length by its desires, animated these two men, and predestined them to the same end. One seems to surprise across the tenor173 of their lives the blind labour of the race, which, pursuing its monotonous174 bent175, sends into the world, from century to century, like children for like ordeals.
That year, at the approach of summer, Nietzsche suffered severely176 from his head and eyes. The malady177 was uncertain in its nature, but possibly had its origin in the nerves. His holidays were spoilt. But he arranged to be able to stay at Naumburg until the end of August, and the joys of a prolonged leisure compensated178 him for previous vexations.
He returned to Pforta in a wholesome179 frame of mind.[Pg 35] He had not resolved his doubts but he had explored them, and could without wronging himself become once more a laborious180 student. He was careful not to interrupt his reading, which was immense. From month to month he sent punctually to his two friends at Naumburg, poems, pieces of dance and song music, essays in criticism and philosophy. But these occupations were not allowed to interrupt his work as a student. Under the direction of excellent masters, he studied the languages and the literatures of antiquity.
He would have been happy, had not the pressing questions of the future and of a profession begun to torment181 him.
"I am much preoccupied with the problem of my future," he wrote to his mother in May, 1862. "Many reasons, external and internal, make it appear to me troubled and uncertain. Doubtless I believe myself to be capable of success in whatever province I select. But strength fails me to put aside so many of the diverse objects which interest me. What shall I study? No idea of a decision presents itself to my mind, and yet with myself alone it lies to reflect and to make my choice. What is certain is that whatever I study I shall be eager to probe to its depths. But this fact only renders the choice more difficult, since the question is to discover the pursuit to which one can give one's whole self. And how often they deceive us, these hopes of ours! How quickly one is put on the wrong track by a momentary182 predilection183, a family tradition, a desire! To choose one's profession is to make one in a game of lotto, in which there are many blanks, but only very few prizes! At this moment my position is uncomfortable. I have dispersed184 my interest over so many provinces that if I were to satisfy my tastes I would certainly become a very learned man, but only with great difficulty a[Pg 36] professional animal. My task is to destroy many of my present tastes, that is clear, and, by the same process, to acquire new ones. But which are the unfortunates that I am to throw overboard? Precisely185 my dearest children, maybe!..."
His last holidays slipped by into the beginning of his last year. Nietzsche returned without vexation to the old school which he was soon to leave. The rules had grown lighter186, and he had a room to himself, and certain liberties. He went out to dine on the invitation of this or that professor, and thus, even in the monastery, he had his first taste of the pleasures of the world. At the house of one of his tutors he met a charming girl; he saw her again, and, for the first time in his life, fell in love. For some days his dreams were all of the books which he wished to lend her, of the music which he wished to play with her. His emotion was delicious. But the girl left Pforta, and Nietzsche returned to his work. The Banquet of Plato, the tragedies of ?schylus, were his last diversions before he gave himself up to the ordinary round of tasks. Sometimes he sat down to the piano just before the supper hour; two comrades who were to remain his friends, Gersdorff and Paul Deussen, listening while he played them Beethoven or Schumann, or improvised.
Poetry is always by him. If he has the slightest leisure, if there is a delay of some hours in his work, the lyricist reappears. On Easter morning he leaves school, returns home, goes straight to his room, where he is alone, dreams for a moment; then finds himself assailed187 by a multitude of impressions. He writes with intense pleasure after his long privation. And is not the page, which we transcribe99 here, worthy188 of Zarathustra?
"Here I am on the evening of Easter Day, seated at[Pg 37] my fire, enveloped189 in a dressing-gown. Outside a fine rain is falling. All about me is solitude. A sheet of white paper lies on my table; I look at it in a muse190, rolling my pen between my fingers, embarrassed by the inextricable multitude of subjects, feelings, thoughts which press forward and ask to be written. Some of them clamour and make a great tumult191: they are young and eager for life. Others gesture and struggle there also: they are old thoughts, well matured, well clarified; like elderly gentlemen they regard with displeasure the mêlée of young bloods. This struggle between an old world and a new it is that determines our mood; and the state of combat, the victory of these, the weakness of those, we call at any moment our state of mind, our Stimmung.... Often when I play the spy on my thoughts and feelings, and study them in religious silence, I am impressed as with the hum and ferment192 of savage193 factions168, the air shudders194 and is torn across as if a thought or an eagle had shot up towards the sun.
"Combat is the food which gives strength to the soul. The soul has skill to pluck out of battle sweet and glorious fruits. Impelled195 by the desire for fresh nutriment, it destroys; it struggles fiercely—but how gentle it can be when it allures196 the adversary197, gathers it close against itself, and wholly assimilates it.
"That impression, which at this moment makes all your pleasure or all your pain, will, it may be, slip off in an instant, being the mere drapery of an impression still more profound, will disappear before something older and higher. Thus our impressions grave themselves deeper and deeper on our souls, being ever unique, incomparable, unspeakably young, swift as the instant that brought them.
"At this moment I am thinking of certain people whom I have loved; their names, their faces pass before my mind. I do not mean that in fact their natures[Pg 38] become continually more profound and more beautiful; but it is at least true that each of these reminiscences, when I recover it, leads me on to some acuter impression, for the mind cannot endure to return to a level which it has already passed; it has a need of constant expansion. I salute198 you, dear impressions, marvellous undulations of an agitated199 soul. You are as numerous as Nature, but more grandiose200, for you increase and strive perpetually—the plant, on the contrary, gives out to-day the same perfume that it gave out on the day of creation. I no longer love now as I loved a few weeks ago, and I find myself in a different disposition201 at this moment from that in which I was when I took up this pen."
Nietzsche returned to Pforta to undergo his last examinations. He all but failed to pass; and, indeed, in mathematics he did not obtain the required number of marks. But the professors, overlooking this inadequacy202, granted him his diploma. He left his old school, and left it with pain. His mind easily adjusted itself to the places where it lived, and clung with equal force to happy memories and to melancholy impressions.
The break-up of the school was a prescribed ceremony. The assembled students prayed together for the last time; then those who were about to leave presented their masters with a written testimony203 of gratitude204. Friedrich Nietzsche's letter moves one by its pathetic and solemn accent. First he addresses himself to God: "To Him who has given me all, my first thanks. What offering should I bring Him, if not the warm gratitude of my heart, confident of His love? It is He who has permitted me to live this glorious hour of my life. May He, the All-Bountiful, continue to watch over me." Then he thanks the King, "through whose goodness I entered this school...; him and my country I hope one day to honour. Such is my resolve." Then he speaks to his[Pg 39] venerated205 masters, to his dear comrades, "and particularly to you, my dear friends: what shall I say to you at the instant of parting? I understand how it is that the plant when torn from the soil which has nourished it can only take root slowly and with difficulty in a foreign soil. Shall I be able to disaccustom myself to you? Shall I be able to accustom33 myself to another environment? Adieu!"
These long effusions were not enough, and he wrote, for himself alone, certain lines in which they are repeated:
"So be it—it is the way of the world:
Let life deal with me as with so many others:
They set forth206, their frail skiff is shattered,
And no man can tell us the spot where it sank.
Adieu, adieu! the ship's bell calls me,
And as I linger the shipmaster urges me on.
And now to confront bravely waves, storms, reefs.
Adieu, adieu!..."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
agitations
|
|
| （液体等的）摇动( agitation的名词复数 )； 鼓动； 激烈争论； （情绪等的）纷乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
condescended
|
|
| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
ken
|
|
| n.视野，知识领域 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
confided
|
|
| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
solitude
|
|
| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
improvise
|
|
| v.即兴创作；临时准备，临时凑成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
rustic
|
|
| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
pastor
|
|
| n.牧师，牧人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
benefactor
|
|
| n. 恩人，行善的人，捐助人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
infancy
|
|
| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
hearth
|
|
| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
aberration
|
|
| n.离开正路，脱离常规，色差 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
tragic
|
|
| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
chamber
|
|
| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
woe
|
|
| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
tolling
|
|
| [财]来料加工 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
hymns
|
|
| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌( hymn的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
coffin
|
|
| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
engulfed
|
|
| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
presentiment
|
|
| n.预感，预觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
recital
|
|
| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
despoils
|
|
| v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
26
withers
|
|
| 马肩隆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
despoiled
|
|
| v.掠夺，抢劫( despoil的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
shroud
|
|
| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
wail
|
|
| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
calamity
|
|
| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
consolation
|
|
| n.安慰，慰问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
disconsolate
|
|
| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
accustom
|
|
| vt.使适应，使习惯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
bourgeois
|
|
| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
pastors
|
|
| n.（基督教的）牧师( pastor的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
squires
|
|
| n.地主，乡绅( squire的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
metropolitan
|
|
| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
choir
|
|
| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
majestic
|
|
| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
awakened
|
|
| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
patriotic
|
|
| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
patriot
|
|
| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
vocation
|
|
| n.职业，行业 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
exacting
|
|
| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
meticulous
|
|
| adj.极其仔细的，一丝不苟的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
scruple
|
|
| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
condemnation
|
|
| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
justification
|
|
| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
torrents
|
|
| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
sedately
|
|
| adv.镇静地，安详地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
persecution
|
|
| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
ordeals
|
|
| n.严峻的考验，苦难的经历( ordeal的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
longevity
|
|
| n.长命；长寿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
animated
|
|
| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
bulging
|
|
| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
caresses
|
|
| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
improvised
|
|
| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
dedicated
|
|
| adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
pretext
|
|
| n.借口，托词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
treatises
|
|
| n.专题著作，专题论文，专著( treatise的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
fortified
|
|
| adj. 加强的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
antiquity
|
|
| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
primitive
|
|
| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
conspicuous
|
|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
maternal
|
|
| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
preoccupied
|
|
| adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
uncertainty
|
|
| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
adolescence
|
|
| n.青春期，青少年 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
touching
|
|
| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
lyric
|
|
| n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
intoxicated
|
|
| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
fatigue
|
|
| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
situated
|
|
| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
monks
|
|
| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
conserved
|
|
| v.保护，保藏，保存( conserve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
cloistered
|
|
| adj.隐居的，躲开尘世纷争的v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
hierarchy
|
|
| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
monastery
|
|
| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
ethic
|
|
| n.道德标准，行为准则 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
distinguished
|
|
| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
anecdote
|
|
| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
deign
|
|
| v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
unfamiliar
|
|
| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
sentimental
|
|
| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
pathos
|
|
| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
rosy
|
|
| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
perch
|
|
| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
lark
|
|
| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
penumbra
|
|
| n.（日蚀）半影部 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
shrill
|
|
| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
constraint
|
|
| n.(on)约束，限制；限制(或约束)性的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
courageous
|
|
| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
maxims
|
|
| n.格言，座右铭( maxim的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
ennui
|
|
| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
transcribe
|
|
| v.抄写，誉写；改编(乐曲)；复制，转录 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
transcribed
|
|
| （用不同的录音手段）转录( transcribe的过去式和过去分词 )； 改编（乐曲）（以适应他种乐器或声部）； 抄写； 用音标标出（声音） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
distractions
|
|
| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
poetic
|
|
| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
timing
|
|
| n.时间安排，时间选择 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
tunes
|
|
| n.曲调，曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
alas
|
|
| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
foam
|
|
| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
brook
|
|
| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
lasting
|
|
| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
domain
|
|
| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
denuded
|
|
| adj.[医]变光的，裸露的v.使赤裸( denude的过去式和过去分词 )；剥光覆盖物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
obedience
|
|
| n.服从，顺从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
omnipotence
|
|
| n.全能，万能，无限威力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
repose
|
|
| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
meditates
|
|
| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的第三人称单数 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
overflows
|
|
| v.溢出，淹没( overflow的第三人称单数 )；充满；挤满了人；扩展出界，过度延伸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
confides
|
|
| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的第三人称单数 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
appeasing
|
|
| 安抚，抚慰( appease的现在分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
isolates
|
|
| v.使隔离( isolate的第三人称单数 )；将…剔出（以便看清和单独处理）；使（某物质、细胞等）分离；使离析 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
incessantly
|
|
| ad.不停地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
monstrous
|
|
| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
pious
|
|
| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
inclinations
|
|
| 倾向( inclination的名词复数 )； 倾斜； 爱好； 斜坡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
audacity
|
|
| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
negation
|
|
| n.否定；否认 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
dwindling
|
|
| adj.逐渐减少的v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
venerates
|
|
| 敬重（某人或某事物），崇敬( venerate的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
renouncing
|
|
| v.声明放弃( renounce的现在分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
throng
|
|
| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
supreme
|
|
| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
solely
|
|
| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
rudiments
|
|
| n.基础知识，入门 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
anguish
|
|
| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
benediction
|
|
| n.祝福；恩赐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
penetrated
|
|
| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
philosophical
|
|
| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
derive
|
|
| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
unity
|
|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
flora
|
|
| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
fauna
|
|
| n.(一个地区或时代的)所有动物，动物区系 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
inscribed
|
|
| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
desolating
|
|
| 毁坏( desolate的现在分词 )； 极大地破坏； 使沮丧； 使痛苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
disturbance
|
|
| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
upheaval
|
|
| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
gratuitous
|
|
| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
immortality
|
|
| n.不死，不朽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
impels
|
|
| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
disapproves
|
|
| v.不赞成( disapprove的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
abstain
|
|
| v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
submission
|
|
| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
humility
|
|
| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
mantle
|
|
| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
cowardice
|
|
| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
pusillanimity
|
|
| n.无气力，胆怯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
155
ethics
|
|
| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
heroism
|
|
| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
intoxication
|
|
| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
lucid
|
|
| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
needy
|
|
| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
rapture
|
|
| n.狂喜；全神贯注；着迷；v.使狂喜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
distress
|
|
| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
laments
|
|
| 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 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
frail
|
|
| adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
forerunner
|
|
| n.前身，先驱（者），预兆，祖先 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
tyrant
|
|
| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
haughty
|
|
| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
isolated
|
|
| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
factions
|
|
| 组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
crater
|
|
| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
exalts
|
|
| 赞扬( exalt的第三人称单数 )； 歌颂； 提升； 提拔 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
torpor
|
|
| n.迟钝；麻木；（动物的）冬眠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
aspiration
|
|
| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
tenor
|
|
| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
monotonous
|
|
| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
severely
|
|
| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
malady
|
|
| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
compensated
|
|
| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
wholesome
|
|
| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
laborious
|
|
| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
torment
|
|
| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
momentary
|
|
| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
predilection
|
|
| n.偏好 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
dispersed
|
|
| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
185
precisely
|
|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
186
lighter
|
|
| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
187
assailed
|
|
| v.攻击( assail的过去式和过去分词 )；困扰；质问；毅然应对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
188
worthy
|
|
| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
189
enveloped
|
|
| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
190
muse
|
|
| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
191
tumult
|
|
| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
192
ferment
|
|
| vt.使发酵；n./vt.（使）激动，（使）动乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
193
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
194
shudders
|
|
| n.颤动，打颤，战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
195
impelled
|
|
| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
196
allures
|
|
| 诱引，吸引( allure的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
197
adversary
|
|
| adj.敌手，对手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
198
salute
|
|
| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
199
agitated
|
|
| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
200
grandiose
|
|
| adj.宏伟的，宏大的，堂皇的，铺张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
201
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
202
inadequacy
|
|
| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
203
testimony
|
|
| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
204
gratitude
|
|
| adj.感激，感谢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
205
venerated
|
|
| 敬重（某人或某事物），崇敬( venerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
206
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |