Professor Peck does not apologize for writing a new life of Shelley, nor does he give any reason for doing what has been so thoroughly1 done already, nor are the new documents that have come into his hands of any great importance. And yet nobody is going to complain that here are two more thick, illustrated2, careful and conscientious3 volumes devoted4 to the retelling of a story which everyone knows by heart. There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation, not that we have anything new to add to them, but because of some queer quality in them which makes them not only Shelley’s story but our own. Eminent5 and durable6 they stand on the skyline, a mark past which we sail, which moves as we move and yet remains7 the same.
Many such changes of orientation8 toward Shelley have been recorded. In his own lifetime all except five people looked upon him, Shelley said, “as a rare prodigy9 of crime and pollution, whose look even might infect.” Sixty years later he was canonized by Edward Dowden. By Matthew Arnold he was again reduced to the ordinary human scale. How many biographers and essayists have since absolved10 him or sentenced him, it is impossible to say. And now comes our turn to make up our minds what manner of man Shelley was; so that we read Professor Peck’s volumes, not to find out new facts, but to get Shelley more sharply outlined against the shifting image of ourselves.
If such is our purpose, never was there a biographer who gave his readers more opportunity to fulfil it than Professor Peck. He is singularly dispassionate, and yet not colourless. He has opinions, but he does not obtrude11 them. His attitude to Shelley is kind but not condescending12. He does not rhapsodize, but at the same time he does not scold. There are only two points which he seems to plead with any personal partiality; one, that Harriet was a much wronged woman; the other, that the political importance of Shelley’s poetry is not rated sufficiently13 high. Perhaps we could spare the careful analysis of so many poems. We scarcely need to know how many times mountains and precipices14 are mentioned in the course of Shelley’s works. But as a chronicler of great learning and lucidity15, Professor Peck is admirable. Here, he seems to say, is all that is actually known about Shelley’s life. In October he did this in November he did that; now it was that he wrote this poem it was here that he met that friend. And, moulding the enormous mass of the Shelley papers with dexterous16 fingers, he contrives17 tactfully to embed18 dates and facts in feelings, in comments, in what Shelley wrote, in what Mary wrote, in what other people wrote about them, so that we seem to be breasting the full current of Shelley’s life and get the illusion that we are, this time, seeing Shelley, not through the rosy19 glasses or the livid glasses which sentiment and prudery have fixed20 on our forerunners’ noses, but plainly, as he was. In this, of course, we are mistaken; glasses we wear, though we cannot see them. But the illusion of seeing Shelley plain is sufficiently exhilarating to tempt21 us to try to fix it while it lasts.
There is an image of Shelley’s personal appearance in everybody’s picture gallery. He was a lean, large-boned boy, much freckled22, with big, rather prominent blue eyes. His dress was careless, of course, but it was distinguished23; “he wore his clothes like a gentleman.” He was courteous24 and gentle in manner, but he spoke25 in a shrill26, harsh voice and soon rose to the heights of excitement. Nobody could overlook the presence of this discordant27 character in the room, and his presence was strangely disturbing. It was not merely that he might do something extreme, he might, somehow, make whoever was there appear absurd. From the earliest days normal people had noticed his abnormality and had done their best, following some obscure instinct of self-preservation, to make Shelley either toe the line or else quit the society of the respectable. At Eton they called him “mad Shelley” and pelted28 him with muddy balls. At Oxford29 he spilt acid over his tutor’s carpet, “a new purchase, which he thus completely destroyed,” and for other and more serious differences of opinion he was expelled.
After that he became the champion of every down-trodden cause and person. Now it was an embankment; now a publisher; now the Irish nation; now three poor weavers30 condemned31 for treason; now a flock of neglected sheep. Spinsters of all sorts who were oppressed or aspiring32 found in him their leader. The first years of his youth thus were spent in dropping seditious pamphlets into old women’s hoods34; in shooting scabby sheep to put them out of their misery35; in raising money; in writing pamphlets; in rowing out to sea and dropping bottles into the water which when broken open by the Town Clerk of Barnstable were found to contain a seditious paper, “the contents of which the mayor has not yet been able to ascertain36.” In all these wanderings and peregrinations he was accompanied by a woman, or perhaps by two women, who either had young children at the breast or were shortly expecting to become mothers. And one of them, it is said, could not contain her amusement when she saw the pamphlet dropped into the old woman’s hood33, but burst out laughing.
The picture is familiar enough; the only thing that changes is our attitude toward it. Shelley, excitable, uncompromising, atheistical37, throwing his pamphlets into the sea in the belief that he is going to reform the world, has become a figure which is half heroic and wholly delightful38. On the other hand, the world that Shelley fought has become ridiculous. Somehow the untidy, shrill-voiced boy, with his violence and his oddity has succeeded in making Eton and Oxford, the English government, the Town Clerk and Mayor of Barnstable, the country gentlemen of Sussex and innumerable obscure people whom we might call generically39, after Mary’s censorious friends, the Booths and the Baxters — Shelley has succeeded in making all these look absurd.
But, unfortunately, though one may make bodies and institutions look absurd, it is extremely difficult to make private men and women look anything so simple. Human relationships are too complex; human nature is too subtle. Thus contact with Shelley turned Harriet Westbrook, who should have been the happy mother of a commonplace family, into a muddled40 and bewildered woman, who wanted both to reform the world and yet to possess a coach and bonnets41, and was finally drawn42 from the Serpentine43 on a winter’s morning, drowned in her despair. And Mary and Miss Hitchener, and Godwin and Claire, and Hogg and Emilia Viviani, and Sophia Stacey and Jane Williams — there is nothing tragic44 about them, perhaps; there is, indeed, much that is ridiculous. Still, their association with Shelley does not lead to any clear and triumphant45 conclusion. Was he right? Were they right? The whole relationship is muddy and obscure; it baffles; it teases.
One is reminded of the private life of another man whose power of conviction was even greater than Shelley’s, and more destructive of normal human happiness. One remembers Tolstoy and his wife. The alliance of the intense belief of genius with the easy-going non-belief or compromise of ordinary humanity must, it seems, lead to disaster and to disaster of a lingering and petty kind in which the worst side of both natures is revealed. But while Tolstoy might have wrought46 out his philosophy alone or in a monastery47, Shelley was driven by something yielding and enthusiastic in his temperament48 to entangle49 himself with men and women. “I think one is always in love with something or other,” he wrote. But this “something or other” besides lodging50 in poetry and metaphysics and the good of society in general, had its dwelling51 in the bodies of human beings of the opposite sex.
He saw “the likeness52 of what is perhaps eternal” in the eyes of Mary. Then it vanished, to appear in the eyes of Emilia; then there it was again manifesting itself indisputably in Sophia Stacey or in Jane Williams. What is the lover to do when the will o’ the wisp shifts its quarters? One must go on, said Shelley, until one is stopped. And what is to stop one? Not, if one is Shelley, the conventions and superstitions54 which bind55 the baser part of mankind; not the Booths and the Baxters. Oxford might expel him, England might exile him, but still, in spite of disaster and derision, he sought the “likeness of what is perhaps eternal”; he went on being in love.
But as the object of his love was a hybrid56 creature, half human, half divine, so the manner of his love partook of the same ambiguous nature. There was something inhuman57 about Shelley. Godwin, in answer to Shelley’s first letter, noticed it. He complained of the “generalizing character” of Shelley’s style, which, he said, had the effect of making him “not an individual character” to him. Mary Shelley, musing58 over her life when Shelley was dead, exclaimed, “What a strange life mine has been. Love, youth, fear and fearlessness led me early from the regular routine of life and I united myself to this being who, not one of US, though like us, was pursued by numberless miseries59 and annoyances60, in all of which I shared.” Shelley was “not one of us.” He was, even to his wife, a “being,” some one who came and went like a ghost, seeking the eternal. Of the transitory, he had little notion. The joys and sorrows, from whose threads are woven the warm cocoon61 of private life in which most men live, had no hold upon him. A strange formality stiffens62 his letters; there is no intimacy63 in them and no fun.
At the same time it is perfectly64 true, and Professor Peck does well to emphasize the fact, that Shelley loved humanity if he did not love this Harriet or that Mary. A sense of the wretchedness of human beings burnt in him as brightly and as persistently65 as his sense of the divine beauty of nature. He loved the clouds and the mountains and the rivers more passionately66 than any other man loved them; but at the foot of the mountain he always saw a ruined cottage; there were criminals in chains, hoeing up the weeds in the pavement of St. Peter’s Square; there was an old woman shaking with ague on the banks of the lovely Thames. Then he would thrust aside his writing, dismiss his dreams and trudge67 off to physic the poor with medicine or with soup. Inevitably68 there collected round him, as time went on, the oddest assortment69 of pensioners70 and protégés. He took on himself the charge of deserted71 women and other people’s children; he paid other persons’ debts and planned their journeys and settled their relationships. The most ethereal of poets was the most practical of men.
Hence, says Professor Peck, from this union of poetry and humanity springs the true value of Shelley’s poetry. It was the poetry of a man who was not a “pure poet,” but a poet with a passion for reforming the wrongs of men. Had he lived, he would have reconciled poetry and the statement of “the necessity of certain immediate72 reforms in politics, society and government.” He died too young to be able to deliver his message; and the difficulty of his poetry arises from the fact that the conflict between poetry and politics rages there unresolved. We may not agree with Professor Peck’s definition, yet we have only to read Shelley again to come up against the difficulty of which he speaks. It lies partly in the disconcerting fact that we had thought his poetry so good and we find it indeed so poor. How are we to account for the fact that we remember him as a great poet and find him on opening his pages a bad one? The explanation seems to be that he was not a “pure poet.” He did not concentrate his meaning in a small space; there is nothing in Shelley’s poetry as rich and compact as the odes of Keats. His taste could be sentimental73; he had all the vices74 of the album makers75; he was unreal, strained, verbose76. The lines which Professor Peck quotes with admiration77: “Good night? No, love! The night is ill,” seems to us a proof of it. But if we pass from the lyrics78, with all their exquisite79 beauty, and read ourselves into one of the longer poems, EPIPSYCHIDION or PROMETHEUS UNBOUND, where the faults have space to lose themselves, we again become convinced of his greatness. And here again we are confronted by a difficulty. For if we were asked to extract the teaching from these poems we should be at a loss. We can hardly say what reform in “politics, society and government” they advocate. Their greatness seems to lie in nothing so definite as a philosophy, in nothing so pure as perfection of expression. It lies rather in a state of being. We come through skeins of clouds and gusts80 of whirlwind out into a space of pure calm, of intense and windless serenity81. Defensibly or not, we make a distinction — THE SKYLARK, the ODE TO THE WEST WIND are poems; the PROMETHEUS, the EPIPSYCHIDION are poetry.
So if we outline our relationship to Shelley from the vantage ground Of 1927 we shall find that his England is a barbarous place where they imprison82 journalists for being disrespectful to the Prince Regent, stand men in stocks for publishing attacks upon the Scriptures83, execute weavers upon the suspicion of treason, and, without giving proof of strict religious belief themselves, expel a boy from Oxford for avowing84 his atheism85. Politically, then, Shelley’s England has already receded86, and his fight, valiant87 though it is, seems to be with monsters who are a little out of date, and therefore slightly ridiculous. But privately88 he is much closer to us. For alongside the public battle wages, from generation to generation, another fight which is as important as the other, though much less is said about it. Husband fights with wife and son with father. The poor fight the rich and the employer fights the employed. There is a perpetual effort on the one hand to make all these relationships more reasonable, less painful and less servile; on the other, to keep them as they are. Shelley, both as son and as husband, fought for reason and freedom in private life, and his experiments, disastrous89 as they were in many ways, have helped us to greater sincerity90 and happiness in our own conflicts. The Sir Timothys of Sussex are no longer so prompt to cut their sons off with a shilling; the Booths and the Baxters are no longer quite so sure that an unmarried wife is an unmitigated demon91. The grasp of convention upon private life is no longer quite so coarse or quite so callous92 because of Shelley’s successes and failures.
So we see Shelley through our particular pair of spectacles — a shrill, charming, angular boy; a champion riding out against the forces of superstition53 and brutality93 with heroic courage; at the same time blind, inconsiderate, obtuse94 to other persons’ feelings. Rapt in his extraordinary vision, ascending95 to the very heights of existence, he seems, as Mary said, “a being,” “not one of us,” but better and higher and aloof96 and apart. Suddenly there comes a knock at the door; the Hunts and seven children are at Leghorn; Lord Byron has been rude to them; Hunt is cut to the heart. Shelley must be off at once to see that they are comfortable. And, rousing himself from his rapture97, Shelley goes.
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1 thoroughly | |
adv.完全地,彻底地,十足地 | |
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2 illustrated | |
adj. 有插图的,列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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3 conscientious | |
adj.审慎正直的,认真的,本着良心的 | |
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4 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
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5 eminent | |
adj.显赫的,杰出的,有名的,优良的 | |
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6 durable | |
adj.持久的,耐久的 | |
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7 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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8 orientation | |
n.方向,目标;熟悉,适应,情况介绍 | |
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9 prodigy | |
n.惊人的事物,奇迹,神童,天才,预兆 | |
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10 absolved | |
宣告…无罪,赦免…的罪行,宽恕…的罪行( absolve的过去式和过去分词 ); 不受责难,免除责任 [义务] ,开脱(罪责) | |
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11 obtrude | |
v.闯入;侵入;打扰 | |
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12 condescending | |
adj.谦逊的,故意屈尊的 | |
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13 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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14 precipices | |
n.悬崖,峭壁( precipice的名词复数 ) | |
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15 lucidity | |
n.明朗,清晰,透明 | |
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16 dexterous | |
adj.灵敏的;灵巧的 | |
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17 contrives | |
(不顾困难地)促成某事( contrive的第三人称单数 ); 巧妙地策划,精巧地制造(如机器); 设法做到 | |
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18 embed | |
vt.把…嵌(埋、插)入,扎牢;使深留脑中 | |
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19 rosy | |
adj.美好的,乐观的,玫瑰色的 | |
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20 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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21 tempt | |
vt.引诱,勾引,吸引,引起…的兴趣 | |
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22 freckled | |
adj.雀斑;斑点;晒斑;(使)生雀斑v.雀斑,斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
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24 courteous | |
adj.彬彬有礼的,客气的 | |
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25 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 | |
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26 shrill | |
adj.尖声的;刺耳的;v尖叫 | |
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27 discordant | |
adj.不调和的 | |
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28 pelted | |
(连续地)投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 ); 连续抨击; 攻击; 剥去…的皮 | |
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29 Oxford | |
n.牛津(英国城市) | |
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30 weavers | |
织工,编织者( weaver的名词复数 ) | |
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31 condemned | |
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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32 aspiring | |
adj.有志气的;有抱负的;高耸的v.渴望;追求 | |
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33 hood | |
n.头巾,兜帽,覆盖;v.罩上,以头巾覆盖 | |
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34 hoods | |
n.兜帽( hood的名词复数 );头巾;(汽车、童车等的)折合式车篷;汽车发动机罩v.兜帽( hood的第三人称单数 );头巾;(汽车、童车等的)折合式车篷;汽车发动机罩 | |
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35 misery | |
n.痛苦,苦恼,苦难;悲惨的境遇,贫苦 | |
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36 ascertain | |
vt.发现,确定,查明,弄清 | |
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37 atheistical | |
adj.无神论(者)的 | |
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38 delightful | |
adj.令人高兴的,使人快乐的 | |
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39 generically | |
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40 muddled | |
adj.混乱的;糊涂的;头脑昏昏然的v.弄乱,弄糟( muddle的过去式);使糊涂;对付,混日子 | |
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41 bonnets | |
n.童帽( bonnet的名词复数 );(烟囱等的)覆盖物;(苏格兰男子的)无边呢帽;(女子戴的)任何一种帽子 | |
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42 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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43 serpentine | |
adj.蜿蜒的,弯曲的 | |
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44 tragic | |
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的 | |
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45 triumphant | |
adj.胜利的,成功的;狂欢的,喜悦的 | |
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46 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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47 monastery | |
n.修道院,僧院,寺院 | |
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48 temperament | |
n.气质,性格,性情 | |
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49 entangle | |
vt.缠住,套住;卷入,连累 | |
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50 lodging | |
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51 dwelling | |
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52 likeness | |
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53 superstition | |
n.迷信,迷信行为 | |
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54 superstitions | |
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55 bind | |
vt.捆,包扎;装订;约束;使凝固;vi.变硬 | |
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56 hybrid | |
n.(动,植)杂种,混合物 | |
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57 inhuman | |
adj.残忍的,不人道的,无人性的 | |
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58 musing | |
n. 沉思,冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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59 miseries | |
n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 );痛苦的事;穷困;常发牢骚的人 | |
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60 annoyances | |
n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 );烦恼;打扰;使人烦恼的事 | |
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61 cocoon | |
n.茧 | |
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62 stiffens | |
(使)变硬,(使)强硬( stiffen的第三人称单数 ) | |
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63 intimacy | |
n.熟悉,亲密,密切关系,亲昵的言行 | |
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64 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
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65 persistently | |
ad.坚持地;固执地 | |
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66 passionately | |
ad.热烈地,激烈地 | |
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67 trudge | |
v.步履艰难地走;n.跋涉,费力艰难的步行 | |
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68 inevitably | |
adv.不可避免地;必然发生地 | |
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69 assortment | |
n.分类,各色俱备之物,聚集 | |
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70 pensioners | |
n.领取退休、养老金或抚恤金的人( pensioner的名词复数 ) | |
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71 deserted | |
adj.荒芜的,荒废的,无人的,被遗弃的 | |
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72 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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73 sentimental | |
adj.多愁善感的,感伤的 | |
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74 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
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75 makers | |
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76 verbose | |
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77 admiration | |
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78 lyrics | |
n.歌词 | |
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79 exquisite | |
adj.精美的;敏锐的;剧烈的,感觉强烈的 | |
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80 gusts | |
一阵强风( gust的名词复数 ); (怒、笑等的)爆发; (感情的)迸发; 发作 | |
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81 serenity | |
n.宁静,沉着,晴朗 | |
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82 imprison | |
vt.监禁,关押,限制,束缚 | |
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83 scriptures | |
经文,圣典( scripture的名词复数 ); 经典 | |
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84 avowing | |
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85 atheism | |
n.无神论,不信神 | |
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86 receded | |
v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 );向后倾斜;自原处后退或避开别人的注视;尤指问题 | |
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87 valiant | |
adj.勇敢的,英勇的;n.勇士,勇敢的人 | |
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88 privately | |
adv.以私人的身份,悄悄地,私下地 | |
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89 disastrous | |
adj.灾难性的,造成灾害的;极坏的,很糟的 | |
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90 sincerity | |
n.真诚,诚意;真实 | |
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91 demon | |
n.魔鬼,恶魔 | |
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92 callous | |
adj.无情的,冷淡的,硬结的,起老茧的 | |
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93 brutality | |
n.野蛮的行为,残忍,野蛮 | |
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94 obtuse | |
adj.钝的;愚钝的 | |
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95 ascending | |
adj.上升的,向上的 | |
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96 aloof | |
adj.远离的;冷淡的,漠不关心的 | |
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97 rapture | |
n.狂喜;全神贯注;着迷;v.使狂喜 | |
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