In this chapter I will venture to name a few successful novelists of my own time, with whose works I am acquainted; and will endeavour to point whence their success has come, and why they have failed when there has been failure.
I do not hesitate to name Thackeray the first. His knowledge of human nature was supreme1, and his characters stand out as human beings, with a force and a truth which has not, I think, been within the reach of any other English novelist in any period. I know no character in fiction, unless it be Don Quixote, with whom the reader becomes so intimately acquainted as with Colonel Newcombe. How great a thing it is to be a gentleman at all parts! How we admire the man of whom so much may be said with truth! Is there any one of whom we feel more sure in this respect than of Colonel Newcombe? It is not because Colonel Newcombe is a perfect gentleman that we think Thackeray’s work to have been so excellent, but because he has had the power to describe him as such, and to force us to love him, a weak and silly old man, on account of this grace of character. It is evident from all Thackeray’s best work that he lived with the characters he was creating. He had always a story to tell until quite late in life; and he shows us that this was so, not by the interest which be had in his own plots — for I doubt whether his plots did occupy much of his mind — but by convincing us that his characters were alive to himself. With Becky Sharpe, with Lady Castlewood and her daughter, and with Esmond, with Warrington, Pendennis, and the Major, with Colonel Newcombe, and with Barry Lynon, he must have lived in perpetual intercourse2. Therefore he has made these personages real to us.
Among all our novelists his style is the purest, as to my ear it is also the most harmonious3. Sometimes it is disfigured by a slight touch of affectation, by little conceits4 which smell of the oil — but the language is always lucid5. The reader, without labour, knows what he means, and knows all that he means. As well as I can remember, he deals with no episodes. I think that any critic, examining his work minutely, would find that every scene, and every part of every scene, adds something to the clearness with which the story is told. Among all his stories there is not one which does not leave on the mind a feeling of distress6 that women should ever be immodest or men dishonest — and of joy that women should be so devoted7 and men so honest. How we hate the idle selfishness of Pendennis, the worldliness of Beatrix, the craft of Becky Sharpe! — how we love the honesty of Colonel Newcombe, the nobility of Esmond, and the devoted affection of Mrs. Pendennis! The hatred8 of evil and love of good can hardly have come upon so many readers without doing much good.
Late in Thackeray’s life — he never was an old man, but towards the end of his career — he failed in his power of charming, because he allowed his mind to become idle. In the plots which he conceived, and in the language which he used; I do not know that there is any perceptible change; but in The Virginians and in Philip the reader is introduced to no character with which he makes a close and undying acquaintance. And this, I have no doubt, is so because Thackeray himself had no such intimacy9. His mind had come to be weary of that fictitious10 life which is always demanding the labour of new creation, and he troubled himself with his two Virginians and his Philip only when he was seated at his desk.
At the present moment George Eliot is the first of English novelists, and I am disposed to place her second of those of my time. She is best known to the literary world as a writer of prose fiction, and not improbably whatever of permanent fame she may acquire will come from her novels. But the nature of her intellect is very far removed indeed from that which is common to the tellers11 of stories. Her imagination is no doubt strong, but it acts in analysing rather than in creating. Everything that comes before her is pulled to pieces so that the inside of it shall be seen, and be seen if possible by her readers as clearly as by herself. This searching analysis is carried so far that, in studying her latter writings, one feels oneself to be in company with some philosopher rather than with a novelist. I doubt whether any young person can read with pleasure either Felix Holt, Middlemarch, or Daniel Deronda. I know that they are very difficult to many that are not young.
Her personifications of character have been singularly terse12 and graphic13, and from them has come her great hold on the public — though by no means the greatest effect which she has produced. The lessons which she teaches remain, though it is not for the sake of the lessons that her pages are read. Seth Bede, Adam Bede, Maggie and Tom Tulliver, old Silas Marner, and, much above all, Tito, in Romola, are characters which, when once known, can never be forgotten. I cannot say quite so much for any of those in her later works, because in them the philosopher so greatly overtops the portrait-painter, that, in the dissection14 of the mind, the outward signs seem to have been forgotten. In her, as yet, there is no symptom whatever of that weariness of mind which, when felt by the reader, induces him to declare that the author has written himself out. It is not from decadence15 that we do not have another Mrs. Poyser, but because the author soars to things which seem to her to be higher than Mrs. Poyser.
It is, I think, the defect of George Eliot that she struggles too hard to do work that shall be excellent. She lacks ease. Latterly the signs of this have been conspicuous16 in her style, which has always been and is singularly correct, but which has become occasionally obscure from her too great desire to be pungent17. It is impossible not to feel the struggle, and that feeling begets18 a flavour of affectation. In Daniel Deronda, of which at this moment only a portion has been published, there are sentences which I have found myself compelled to read three times before I have been able to take home to myself all that the writer has intended. Perhaps I may be permitted here to say, that this gifted woman was among my dearest and most intimate friends. As I am speaking here of novelists, I will not attempt to speak of George Eliot’s merit as a poet.
There can be no doubt that the most popular novelist of my time — probably the most popular English novelist of any time — has been Charles Dickens. He has now been dead nearly six years, and the sale of his books goes on as it did during his life. The certainty with which his novels are found in every house — the familiarity of his name in all English-speaking countries — the popularity of such characters as Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, and Pecksniff, and many others whose names have entered into the English language and become well-known words — the grief of the country at his death, and the honours paid to him at his funeral — all testify to his popularity. Since the last book he wrote himself, I doubt whether any book has been so popular as his biography by John Forster. There is no withstanding such testimony19 as this. Such evidence of popular appreciation20 should go for very much, almost for everything, in criticism on the work of a novelist. The primary object of a novelist is to please; and this man’s novels have been found more pleasant than those of any other writer. It might of course be objected to this, that though the books have pleased they have been injurious, that their tendency has been immoral21 and their teaching vicious; but it is almost needless to say that no such charge has ever been made against Dickens. His teaching has ever been good. From all which, there arises to the critic a question whether, with such evidence against him as to the excellence22 of this writer, he should not subordinate his own opinion to the collected opinion of the world of readers. To me it almost seems that I must be wrong to place Dickens after Thackeray and George Eliot, knowing as I do that so great a majority put him above those authors.
My own peculiar23 idiosyncrasy in the matter forbids me to do so. I do acknowledge that Mrs. Gamp, Micawber, Pecksniff, and others have become household words in every house, as though they were human beings; but to my judgment24 they are not human beings, nor are any of the characters human which Dickens has portrayed25. It has been the peculiarity26 and the marvel27 of this man’s power, that he has invested, his puppets with a charm that has enabled him to dispense28 with human nature. There is a drollery29 about them, in my estimation, very much below the humour of Thackeray, but which has reached the intellect of all; while Thackeray’s humour has escaped the intellect of many. Nor is the pathos30 of Dickens human. It is stagey and melodramatic. But it is so expressed that it touches every heart a little. There is no real life in Smike. His misery31, his idiotcy, his devotion for Nicholas, his love for Kate, are all overdone32 and incompatible33 with each other. But still the reader sheds a tear. Every reader can find a tear for Smike. Dickens’s novels are like Boucicault’s plays. He has known how to draw his lines broadly, so that all should see the colour.
He, too, in his best days, always lived with his characters — and he, too, as he gradually ceased to have the power of doing so, ceased to charm. Though they are not human beings, we all remember Mrs. Gamp and Pickwick. The Boffins and Veneerings do not, I think, dwell in the minds of so many.
Of Dickens’s style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance34 of rules — almost as completely as that created by Carlyle. To readers who have taught themselves to regard language, it must therefore be unpleasant. But the critic is driven to feel the weakness of his criticism, when he acknowledges to himself — as he is compelled in all honesty to do — that with the language, such as it is, the writer has satisfied the great mass of the readers of his country. Both these great writers have satisfied the readers of their own pages; but both have done infinite harm by creating a school of imitators. No young novelist should ever dare to imitate the style of Dickens. If such a one wants a model for his language, let him take Thackeray.
Bulwer, or Lord Lytton — but I think that he is still better known by his earlier name — was a man of very great parts. Better educated than either of those I have named before him, he was always able to use his erudition, and he thus produced novels from which very much not only may be but must be learned by his readers. He thoroughly35 understood the political status of his own country, a subject on which, I think, Dickens was marvellously ignorant, and which Thackeray had never studied. He had read extensively, and was always apt to give his readers the benefit of what he knew. The result has been that very much more than amusement may be obtained from Bulwer’s novels. There is also a brightness about them — the result rather of thought than of imagination, of study and of care, than of mere36 intellect — which has made many of them excellent in their way. It is perhaps improper37 to class all his novels together, as he wrote in varied38 manners, making in his earlier works, such as Pelham and Ernest Maltravers, pictures of a fictitious life, and afterwards pictures of life as he believed it to be, as in My Novel and The Caxtons. But from all of them there comes the same flavour of an effort to produce effect. The effects are produced, but it would have been better if the flavour had not been there.
I cannot say of Bulwer as I have of the other novelists whom I have named that he lived with his characters. He lived with his work, with the doctrines39 which at the time he wished to preach, thinking always of the effects which he wished to produce; but I do not think he ever knew his own personages — and therefore neither do we know them. Even Pelham and Eugene Aram are not human beings to us, as are Pickwick, and Colonel Newcombe, and Mrs. Poyser.
In his plots Bulwer has generally been simple, facile, and successful. The reader never feels with him, as he does with Wilkie Collins, that it is all plot, or, as with George Eliot, that there is no plot. The story comes naturally without calling for too much attention, and is thus proof of the completeness of the man’s intellect. His language is clear, good, intelligible40 English, but it is defaced by mannerism41. In all that he did, affectation was his fault.
How shall I speak of my dear old friend Charles Lever, and his rattling42, jolly, joyous43, swearing Irishmen. Surely never did a sense of vitality44 come so constantly from a man’s pen, nor from man’s voice, as from his! I knew him well for many years, and whether in sickness or in health, I have never come across him without finding him to be running over with wit and fun. Of all the men I have encountered, he was the surest fund of drollery. I have known many witty45 men, many who could say good things, many who would sometimes be ready to say them when wanted, though they would sometimes fail — but he never failed. Rouse him in the middle of the night, and wit would come from him before he was half awake. And yet he never monopolised the talk, was never a bore. He would take no more than his own share of the words spoken, and would yet seem to brighten all that was said during the night. His earlier novels — the later I have not read — are just like his conversation. The fun never flags, and to me, when I read them, they were never tedious. As to character he can hardly be said to have produced it. Corney Delaney, the old manservant, may perhaps be named as an exception.
Lever’s novels will not live long — even if they may be said to be alive now — because it is so. What was his manner of working I do not know, but I should think it must have been very quick, and that he never troubled himself on the subject, except when he was seated with a pen in his hand.
Charlotte Bronte was surely a marvellous woman. If it could be right to judge the work of a novelist from one small portion of one novel, and to say of an author that he is to be accounted as strong as he shows himself to be in his strongest morsel46 of work, I should be inclined to put Miss Bronte very high indeed. I know no interest more thrilling than that which she has been able to throw into the characters of Rochester and the governess, in the second volume of Jane Eyre. She lived with those characters, and felt every fibre of the heart, the longings47 of the one and the sufferings of the other. And therefore, though the end of the book is weak, and the beginning not very good, I venture to predict that Jane Eyre will be read among English novels when many whose names are now better known shall have been forgotten. Jane Eyre, and Esmond, and Adam Bede will be in the hands of our grandchildren, when Pickwick, and Pelham, and Harry48 Lorrequer are forgotten; because the men and women depicted49 are human in their aspirations50, human in their sympathies, and human in their actions.
In Vilette, too, and in Shirley, there is to be found human life as natural and as real, though in circumstances not so full of interest as those told in Jane Eyre. The character of Paul in the former of the two is a wonderful study. She must herself have been in love with some Paul when she wrote the book, and have been determined51 to prove to herself that she was capable of loving one whose exterior52 circumstances were mean and in every way unprepossessing.
There is no writer of the present day who has so much puzzled me by his eccentricities53, impracticabilities, and capabilities54 as Charles Reade. I look upon him as endowed almost with genius, but as one who has not been gifted by nature with ordinary powers of reasoning. He can see what is grandly noble and admire it with all his heart. He can see, too, what is foully55 vicious and hate it with equal ardour. But in the common affairs of life he cannot see what is right or wrong; and as he is altogether unwilling57 to be guided by the opinion of others, he is constantly making mistakes in his literary career, and subjecting himself to reproach which he hardly deserves. He means to be honest. He means to be especially honest — more honest than other people. He has written a book called The Eighth Commandment on behalf of honesty in literary transactions — a wonderful work, which has I believe been read by a very few. I never saw a copy except that in my own library, or heard of any one who knew the book. Nevertheless it is a volume that must have taken very great labour, and have been written — as indeed he declares that it was written — without the hope of pecuniary58 reward. He makes an appeal to the British Parliament and British people on behalf of literary honesty, declaring that should he fail —“I shall have to go on blushing for the people I was born among.” And yet of all the writers of my day he has seemed to me to understand literary honesty the least. On one occasion, as he tells us in this book, he bought for a certain sum from a French author the right of using a plot taken from a play — which he probably might have used without such purchase, and also without infringing59 any international copyright act. The French author not unnaturally61 praises him for the transaction, telling him that he is “un vrai gentleman.” The plot was used by Reade in a novel; and a critic discovering the adaptation, made known his discovery to the public. Whereupon the novelist became angry, called his critic a pseudonymuncle, and defended himself by stating the fact of his own purchase. In all this he seems to me to ignore what we all mean when we talk of literary plagiarism62 and literary honesty. The sin of which the author is accused is not that of taking another man’s property, but of passing off as his own creation that which he does not himself create. When an author puts his name to a book he claims to have written all that there is therein, unless he makes direct signification to the contrary. Some years subsequently there arose another similar question, in which Mr. Reade’s opinion was declared even more plainly, and certainly very much more publicly. In a tale which he wrote he inserted a dialogue which he took from Swift, and took without any acknowledgment. As might have been expected, one of the critics of the day fell foul56 of him for this barefaced63 plagiarism. The author, however, defended himself, with much abuse of the critic, by asserting, that whereas Swift had found the jewel he had supplied the setting — an argument in which there was some little wit, and would have been much excellent truth, had he given the words as belonging to Swift and not to himself.
The novels of a man possessed64 of so singular a mind must themselves be very strange — and they are strange. It has generally been his object to write down some abuse with which he has been particularly struck — the harshness, for instance, with which paupers65 or lunatics are treated, or the wickedness of certain classes — and he always, I think, leaves upon his readers an idea of great earnestness of purpose. But he has always left at the same time on my mind so strong a conviction that he has not really understood his subject, that I have ever found myself taking the part of those whom he has accused. So good a heart, and so wrong a head, surely no novelist ever before had combined! In storytelling he has occasionally been almost great. Among his novels I would especially recommend The Cloister66 and the Hearth67. I do not know that in this work, or in any, that he has left a character that will remain; but he has written some of his scenes so brightly that to read them would always be a pleasure.
Of Wilkie Collins it is impossible for a true critic not to speak with admiration68, because he has excelled all his contemporaries in a certain most difficult branch of his art; but as it is a branch which I have not myself at all cultivated, it is not unnatural60 that his work should be very much lost upon me individually. When I sit down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not very much care, how it is to end. Wilkie Collins seems so to construct his that he not only, before writing, plans everything on, down to the minutest detail, from the beginning to the end; but then plots it all back again, to see that there is no piece of necessary dove-tailing which does not dove-tail with absolute accuracy. The construction is most minute and most wonderful. But I can never lose the taste of the construction. The author seems always to be warning me to remember that something happened at exactly half-past two o’clock on Tuesday morning; or that a woman disappeared from the road just fifteen yards beyond the fourth mile-stone. One is constrained69 by mysteries and hemmed70 in by difficulties, knowing, however, that the mysteries will be made clear, and the difficulties overcome at the end of the third volume. Such work gives me no pleasure. I am, however, quite prepared to acknowledge that the want of pleasure comes from fault of my intellect.
There are two ladies of whom I would fain say a word, though I feel that I am making my list too long, in order that I may declare how much I have admired their work. They are Annie Thackeray and Rhoda Broughton. I have known them both, and have loved the former almost as though she belonged to me. No two writers were ever more dissimilar — except in this that they are both feminine. Miss Thackeray’s characters are sweet, charming, and quite true to human nature. In her writings she is always endeavouring to prove that good produces good, and evil evil. There is not a line of which she need be ashamed — not a sentiment of which she should not be proud. But she writes like a lazy writer who dislikes her work, and who allows her own want of energy to show itself in her pages.
Miss Broughton, on the other hand, is full of energy — though she too, I think, can become tired over her work. She, however, does take the trouble to make her personages stand upright on the ground. And she has the gift of making them speak as men and women do speak. “You beast!” said Nancy, sitting on the wall, to the man who was to be her husband — thinking that she was speaking to her brother. Now Nancy, whether right or wrong, was just the girl who would, as circumstances then were, have called her brother a beast. There is nothing wooden about any of Miss Broughton’s novels; and in these days so many novels are wooden! But they are not sweet-savoured as are those by Miss Thackeray, and are, therefore, less true to nature. In Miss Broughton’s determination not to be mawkish71 and missish, she has made her ladies do and say things which ladies would not do and say. They throw themselves at men’s heads, and when they are not accepted only think how they may throw themselves again. Miss Broughton is still so young that I hope she may live to overcome her fault in this direction.
There is one other name, without which the list of the best known English novelists of my own time would certainly be incomplete, and that is the name of the present Prime Minister of England. Mr. Disraeli has written so many novels, and has been so popular as a novelist that, whether for good or for ill, I feel myself compelled to speak of him. He began his career as an author early in life, publishing Vivian Grey when he was twenty-three years old. He was very young for such work, though hardly young enough to justify72 the excuse that he makes in his own preface, that it is a book written by a boy. Dickens was, I think, younger when he wrote his Sketches73 by Boz, and as young when he was writing the Pickwick Papers. It was hardly longer ago than the other day when Mr. Disraeli brought out Lothair, and between the two there were eight or ten others. To me they have all had the same flavour of paint and unreality. In whatever he has written he has affected74 something which has been intended to strike his readers as uncommon75 and therefore grand. Because he has been bright and a man of genius, he has carried his object as regards the young. He has struck them with astonishment76 and aroused in their imagination ideas of a world more glorious, more rich, more witty, more enterprising, than their own. But the glory has been the glory of pasteboard, and the wealth has been a wealth of tinsel. The wit has been the wit of hairdressers, and the enterprise has been the enterprise of mountebanks. An audacious conjurer has generally been his hero — some youth who, by wonderful cleverness, can obtain success by every intrigue77 that comes to his hand. Through it all there is a feeling of stage properties, a smell of hair-oil, an aspect of buhl, a remembrance of tailors, and that pricking78 of the conscience which must be the general accompaniment of paste diamonds. I can understand that Mr. Disraeli should by his novels have instigated79 many a young man and many a young woman on their way in life, but I cannot understand that he should have instigated any one to good. Vivian Grey has had probably as many followers80 as Jack81 Sheppard, and has led his followers in the same direction.
Lothair, which is as yet Mr. Disraeli’s last work, and, I think, undoubtedly82 his worst, has been defended on a plea somewhat similar to that by which he has defended Vivian Grey. As that was written when he was too young, so was the other when he was too old — too old for work of that nature, though not too old to be Prime Minister. If his mind were so occupied with greater things as to allow him to write such a work, yet his judgment should have sufficed to induce him to destroy it when written. Here that flavour of hair-oil, that flavour of false jewels, that remembrance of tailors, comes out stronger than in all the others. Lothair is falser even than Vivian Grey, and Lady Corisande, the daughter of the Duchess, more inane83 and unwomanlike than Venetia or Henrietta Temple. It is the very bathos of story-telling. I have often lamented84, and have as often excused to myself, that lack of public judgment which enables readers to put up with bad work because it comes from good or from lofty hands. I never felt the feeling so strongly, or was so little able to excuse it, as when a portion of the reading public received Lothair with satisfaction.
1 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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2 intercourse | |
n.性交;交流,交往,交际 | |
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3 harmonious | |
adj.和睦的,调和的,和谐的,协调的 | |
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4 conceits | |
高傲( conceit的名词复数 ); 自以为; 巧妙的词语; 别出心裁的比喻 | |
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5 lucid | |
adj.明白易懂的,清晰的,头脑清楚的 | |
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6 distress | |
n.苦恼,痛苦,不舒适;不幸;vt.使悲痛 | |
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7 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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8 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
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9 intimacy | |
n.熟悉,亲密,密切关系,亲昵的言行 | |
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10 fictitious | |
adj.虚构的,假设的;空头的 | |
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11 tellers | |
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12 terse | |
adj.(说话,文笔)精炼的,简明的 | |
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13 graphic | |
adj.生动的,形象的,绘画的,文字的,图表的 | |
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14 dissection | |
n.分析;解剖 | |
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15 decadence | |
n.衰落,颓废 | |
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16 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
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17 pungent | |
adj.(气味、味道)刺激性的,辛辣的;尖锐的 | |
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18 begets | |
v.为…之生父( beget的第三人称单数 );产生,引起 | |
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19 testimony | |
n.证词;见证,证明 | |
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20 appreciation | |
n.评价;欣赏;感谢;领会,理解;价格上涨 | |
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21 immoral | |
adj.不道德的,淫荡的,荒淫的,有伤风化的 | |
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22 excellence | |
n.优秀,杰出,(pl.)优点,美德 | |
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23 peculiar | |
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24 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
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25 portrayed | |
v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 );描述;描绘;描画 | |
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26 peculiarity | |
n.独特性,特色;特殊的东西;怪癖 | |
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27 marvel | |
vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异;n.令人惊异的事 | |
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28 dispense | |
vt.分配,分发;配(药),发(药);实施 | |
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29 drollery | |
n.开玩笑,说笑话;滑稽可笑的图画(或故事、小戏等) | |
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30 pathos | |
n.哀婉,悲怆 | |
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31 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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32 overdone | |
v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 );太夸张;把…煮得太久;(工作等)过度 | |
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33 incompatible | |
adj.不相容的,不协调的,不相配的 | |
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34 defiance | |
n.挑战,挑衅,蔑视,违抗 | |
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35 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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36 mere | |
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37 improper | |
adj.不适当的,不合适的,不正确的,不合礼仪的 | |
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38 varied | |
adj.多样的,多变化的 | |
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39 doctrines | |
n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 );教义;学说;(政府政策的)正式声明 | |
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40 intelligible | |
adj.可理解的,明白易懂的,清楚的 | |
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41 mannerism | |
n.特殊习惯,怪癖 | |
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42 rattling | |
adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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43 joyous | |
adj.充满快乐的;令人高兴的 | |
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44 vitality | |
n.活力,生命力,效力 | |
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45 witty | |
adj.机智的,风趣的 | |
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46 morsel | |
n.一口,一点点 | |
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47 longings | |
渴望,盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
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48 harry | |
vt.掠夺,蹂躏,使苦恼 | |
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49 depicted | |
描绘,描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 ); 描述 | |
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50 aspirations | |
强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 ); 志向; 发送气音; 发 h 音 | |
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51 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
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52 exterior | |
adj.外部的,外在的;表面的 | |
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53 eccentricities | |
n.古怪行为( eccentricity的名词复数 );反常;怪癖 | |
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54 capabilities | |
n.能力( capability的名词复数 );可能;容量;[复数]潜在能力 | |
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55 foully | |
ad.卑鄙地 | |
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56 foul | |
adj.污秽的;邪恶的;v.弄脏;妨害;犯规;n.犯规 | |
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57 unwilling | |
adj.不情愿的 | |
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58 pecuniary | |
adj.金钱的;金钱上的 | |
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59 infringing | |
v.违反(规章等)( infringe的现在分词 );侵犯(某人的权利);侵害(某人的自由、权益等) | |
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60 unnatural | |
adj.不自然的;反常的 | |
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61 unnaturally | |
adv.违反习俗地;不自然地;勉强地;不近人情地 | |
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62 plagiarism | |
n.剽窃,抄袭 | |
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63 barefaced | |
adj.厚颜无耻的,公然的 | |
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64 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
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65 paupers | |
n.穷人( pauper的名词复数 );贫民;贫穷 | |
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66 cloister | |
n.修道院;v.隐退,使与世隔绝 | |
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67 hearth | |
n.壁炉炉床,壁炉地面 | |
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68 admiration | |
n.钦佩,赞美,羡慕 | |
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69 constrained | |
adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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70 hemmed | |
缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 ); 包围 | |
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71 mawkish | |
adj.多愁善感的的;无味的 | |
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72 justify | |
vt.证明…正当(或有理),为…辩护 | |
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73 sketches | |
n.草图( sketch的名词复数 );素描;速写;梗概 | |
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74 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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75 uncommon | |
adj.罕见的,非凡的,不平常的 | |
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76 astonishment | |
n.惊奇,惊异 | |
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77 intrigue | |
vt.激起兴趣,迷住;vi.耍阴谋;n.阴谋,密谋 | |
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78 pricking | |
刺,刺痕,刺痛感 | |
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79 instigated | |
v.使(某事物)开始或发生,鼓动( instigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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80 followers | |
追随者( follower的名词复数 ); 用户; 契据的附面; 从动件 | |
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81 jack | |
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克 | |
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82 undoubtedly | |
adv.确实地,无疑地 | |
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83 inane | |
adj.空虚的,愚蠢的,空洞的 | |
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84 lamented | |
adj.被哀悼的,令人遗憾的v.(为…)哀悼,痛哭,悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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