These boys congregated1 every autumn about a certain easterly fisher-village, where they tasted in a high degree the glory of existence. The place was created seemingly on purpose for the diversion of young gentlemen. A street or two of houses, mostly red and many of, them tiled; a number of fine trees clustered about the manse and the kirkyard, and turning the chief street into a shady alley2; many little gardens more than usually bright with flowers; nets a-drying, and fisher-wives scolding in the backward parts; a smell of fish, a genial4 smell of seaweed; whiffs of blowing sand at the street-corners; shops with golf-balls and bottled lollipops5; another shop with penny pickwicks (that remarkable6 cigar) and the London Journal, dear to me for its startling pictures, and a few novels, dear for their suggestive names: such, as well as memory serves me, were the ingredients of the town. These, you are to conceive posted on a spit between two sandy bays, and sparsely8 flanked with villas9 enough for the boys to lodge10 in with their subsidiary parents, not enough (not yet enough) to cocknify the scene: a haven11 in the rocks in front: in front of that, a file of gray islets: to the left, endless links and sand wreaths, a wilderness12 of hiding-holes, alive with popping rabbits and soaring gulls13: to the right, a range of seaward crags, one rugged14 brow beyond another; the ruins of a mighty15 and ancient fortress16 on the brink17 of one; coves18 between—now charmed into sunshine quiet, now whistling with wind and clamorous19 with bursting surges; the dens3 and sheltered hollows redolent of thyme and southernwood, the air at the cliff’s edge brisk and clean and pungent20 of the sea—in front of all, the Bass21 Rock, tilted22 seaward like a doubtful bather, the surf ringing it with white, the solan-geese hanging round its summit like a great and glittering smoke. This choice piece of seaboard was sacred, besides, to the wrecker; and the Bass, in the eye of fancy, still flew the colours of King James; and in the ear of fancy the arches of Tantallon still rang with horse-shoe iron, and echoed to the commands of Bell-the-Cat.
There was nothing to mar7 your days, if you were a boy summering in that part, but the embarrassment24 of pleasure. You might golf if you wanted; but I seem to have been better employed. You might secrete25 yourself in the Lady’s Walk, a certain sunless dingle of elders, all mossed over by the damp as green as grass, and dotted here and there by the stream-side with roofless walls, the cold homes of anchorites. To fit themselves for life, and with a special eye to acquire the art of smoking, it was even common for the boys to harbour there; and you might have seen a single penny pickwick, honestly shared in lengths with a blunt knife, bestrew the glen with these apprentices26. Again, you might join our fishing parties, where we sat perched as thick as solan-geese, a covey of little anglers, boy and girl, angling over each other’s heads, to the to the much entanglement27 of lines and loss of podleys and consequent shrill29 recrimination—shrill as the geese themselves. Indeed, had that been all, you might have done this often; but though fishing be a fine pastime, the podley is scarce to be regarded as a dainty for the table; and it was a point of honour that a boy should eat all that he had taken. Or again, you might climb the Law, where the whale’s jawbone stood landmark30 in the buzzing wind, and behold31 the face of many counties, and the smoke and spires32 of many towns, and the sails of distant ships. You might bathe, now in the flaws of fine weather, that we pathetically call our summer, now in a gale33 of wind, with the sand scourging34 your bare hide, your clothes thrashing abroad from underneath35 their guardian36 stone, the froth of the great breakers casting you headlong ere it had drowned your knees. Or you might explore the tidal rocks, above all in the ebb37 of springs, when the very roots of the hills were for the nonce discovered; following my leader from one group to another, groping in slippery tangle28 for the wreck23 of ships, wading38 in pools after the abominable39 creatures of the sea, and ever with an eye cast backward on the march off the tide and the menaced line of your retreat. And then you might go Crusoeing, a word that covers all extempore eating in the open air: digging perhaps a house under the margin40 of the links, kindling41 a fire of the sea-ware, and cooking apples there—if they were truly apples, for I sometimes suppose the merchant must have played us off with some inferior and quite local fruit capable of resolving, in the neighbourhood of fire, into mere42 sand and smoke and iodine43; or perhaps pushing to Tantallon, you might lunch on sandwiches and visions in the grassy44 court, while the wind hummed in the crumbling45 turrets46; or clambering along the coast, eat geans [141] (the worst, I must suppose, in Christendom) from an adventurous47 gean tree that had taken root under a cliff, where it was shaken with an ague of east wind, and silvered after gales48 with salt, and grew so foreign among its bleak49 surroundings that to eat of its produce was an adventure in itself.
There are mingled50 some dismal51 memories with so many that were joyous52. Of the fisher-wife, for instance, who had cut her throat at Canty Bay; and of how I ran with the other children to the top of the Quadrant, and beheld53 a posse of silent people escorting a cart, and on the cart, bound in a chair, her throat bandaged, and the bandage all bloody—horror!—the fisher-wife herself, who continued thenceforth to hag-ride my thoughts, and even to-day (as I recall the scene) darkens daylight. She was lodged54 in the little old jail in the chief street; but whether or no she died there, with a wise terror of the worst, I never inquired. She had been tippling; it was but a dingy55 tragedy; and it seems strange and hard that, after all these years, the poor crazy sinner should be still pilloried56 on her cart in the scrap-book of my memory. Nor shall I readily forget a certain house in the Quadrant where a visitor died, and a dark old woman continued to dwell alone with the dead body; nor how this old woman conceived a hatred57 to myself and one of my cousins, and in the dread58 hour of the dusk, as we were clambering on the garden-walls, opened a window in that house of mortality and cursed us in a shrill voice and with a marrowy59 choice of language. It was a pair of very colourless urchins60 that fled down the lane from this remarkable experience! But I recall with a more doubtful sentiment, compounded out of fear and exultation62, the coil of equinoctial tempests; trumpeting63 squalls, scouring64 flaws of rain; the boats with their reefed lugsails scudding65 for the harbour mouth, where danger lay, for it was hard to make when the wind had any east in it; the wives clustered with blowing shawls at the pier-head, where (if fate was against them) they might see boat and husband and sons—their whole wealth and their whole family—engulfed under their eyes; and (what I saw but once) a troop of neighbours forcing such an unfortunate homeward, and she squalling and battling in their midst, a figure scarcely human, a tragic66 Mænad.
These are things that I recall with interest; but what my memory dwells upon the most, I have been all this while withholding67. It was a sport peculiar68 to the place, and indeed to a week or so of our two months’ holiday there. Maybe it still flourishes in its native spot; for boys and their pastimes are swayed by periodic forces inscrutable to man; so that tops and marbles reappear in their due season, regular like the sun and moon; and the harmless art of knucklebones has seen the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of the United States. It may still flourish in its native spot, but nowhere else, I am persuaded; for I tried myself to introduce it on Tweedside, and was defeated lamentably69; its charm being quite local, like a country wine that cannot be exported.
The idle manner of it was this:—
Toward the end of September, when school-time was drawing near and the nights were already black, we would begin to sally from our-respective villas, each equipped with a tin bull’s-eye lantern. The thing was so well known that it had worn a rut in the commerce of Great Britain; and the grocers, about the due time, began to garnish70 their windows with our particular brand of luminary71. We wore them buckled72 to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigour of the game, a buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered74 tin; they never burned aright, though they would always burn our fingers; their use was naught75; the pleasure of them merely fanciful; and yet a boy with a bull’s-eye under his top-coat asked for nothing more. The fishermen used lanterns about their boats, and it was from them, I suppose, that we had got the hint; but theirs were not bull’s-eyes, nor did we ever play at being fishermen. The police carried them at their belts, and we had plainly copied them in that; yet we did not pretend to be policemen. Burglars, indeed, we may have had some haunting thoughts of; and we had certainly an eye to past ages when lanterns were more common, and to certain story-books in which we had found them to figure very largely. But take it for all in all, the pleasure of the thing was substantive76; and to be a boy with a bull’s-eye under his top-coat was good enough for us.
When two of these asses77 met, there would be an anxious “Have you got your lantern?” and a gratified “Yes!” That was the shibboleth78, and very needful too; for, as it was the rule to keep our glory contained, none could recognise a lantern-bearer, unless (like the polecat) by the smell. Four or five would sometimes climb into the belly79 of a ten-man lugger, with nothing but the thwarts80 above them—for the cabin was usually locked, or choose out some hollow of the links where the wind might whistle overhead. There the coats would be unbuttoned and the bull’s-eyes discovered; and in the chequering glimmer81, under the huge windy hall of the night, and cheered by a rich steam of toasting tinware, these fortunate young gentlemen would crouch82 together in the cold sand of the links or on the scaly83 bilges of the fishing-boat, and delight themselves with inappropriate talk. Woe84 is me that I may not give some specimens—some of their foresights85 of life, or deep inquiries86 into the rudiments87 of man and nature, these were so fiery88 and so innocent, they were so richly silly, so romantically young. But the talk, at any rate, was but a condiment89; and these gatherings90 themselves only accidents in the career of the lantern-bearer. The essence of this bliss91 was to walk by yourself in the black night; the slide shut, the top-coat buttoned; not a ray escaping, whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your glory public: a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while, deep down in the privacy of your fool’s heart, to know you had a bull’s-eye at your belt, and to exult61 and sing over the knowledge.
II
It is said that a poet has died young in the breast of the most stolid92. It may be contended, rather, that this (somewhat minor) bard93 in almost every case survives, and is the spice of life to his possessor. Justice is not done to the versatility94 and the unplumbed childishness of man’s imagination. His life from without may seem but a rude mound95 of mud; there will be some golden chamber96 at the heart of it, in which he dwells delighted; and for as dark as his pathway seems to the observer, he will have some kind of a bull’s-eye at his belt.
It would be hard to pick out a career more cheerless than that of Dancer, the miser97, as he figures in the “Old Bailey Reports,” a prey98 to the most sordid99 persecutions, the butt73 of his neighbourhood, betrayed by his hired man, his house beleaguered100 by the impish schoolboy, and he himself grinding and fuming101 and impotently fleeing to the law against these pin-pricks. You marvel102 at first that any one should willingly prolong a life so destitute103 of charm and dignity; and then you call to memory that had he chosen, had he ceased to be a miser, he could have been freed at once from these trials, and might have built himself a castle and gone escorted by a squadron. For the love of more recondite104 joys, which we cannot estimate, which, it may be, we should envy, the man had willingly forgone105 both comfort and consideration. “His mind to him a kingdom was”; and sure enough, digging into that mind, which seems at first a dust-heap, we unearth106 some priceless jewels. For Dancer must have had the love of power and the disdain107 of using it, a noble character in itself; disdain of many pleasures, a chief part of what is commonly called wisdom; disdain of the inevitable108 end, that finest trait of mankind; scorn of men’s opinions, another element of virtue109; and at the back of all, a conscience just like yours and mine, whining110 like a cur, swindling like a thimble-rigger, but still pointing (there or there-about) to some conventional standard. Here were a cabinet portrait to which Hawthorne perhaps had done justice; and yet not Hawthorne either, for he was mildly minded, and it lay not in him to create for us that throb111 of the miser’s pulse, his fretful energy of gusto, his vast arms of ambition clutching in he knows not what: insatiable, insane, a god with a muck-rake. Thus, at least, looking in the bosom112 of the miser, consideration detects the poet in the full tide of life, with more, indeed, of the poetic113 fire than usually goes to epics114; and tracing that mean man about his cold hearth115, and to and fro in his discomfortable house, spies within him a blazing bonfire of delight. And so with others, who do not live by bread alone, but by some cherished and perhaps fantastic pleasure; who are meat salesmen to the external eye, and possibly to themselves are Shakespeares, Napoleons, or Beethovens; who have not one virtue to rub against another in the field of active life, and yet perhaps, in the life of contemplation, sit with the saints. We see them on the street, and we can count their buttons; but heaven knows in what they pride themselves! heaven knows where they have set their treasure!
There is one fable116 that touches very near the quick of life: the fable of the monk117 who passed into the woods, heard a bird break into song, hearkened for a trill or two, and found himself on his return a stranger at his convent gates; for he had been absent fifty years, and of all his comrades there survived but one to recognise him. It is not only in the woods that this enchanter carols, though perhaps he is native there. He sings in the most doleful places. The miser hears him and chuckles118, and the days are moments. With no more apparatus119 than an ill-smelling lantern I have evoked120 him on the naked links. All life that is not merely mechanical is spun121 out of two strands122: seeking for that bird and hearing him. And it is just this that makes life so hard to value, and the delight of each so incommunicable. And just a knowledge of this, and a remembrance of those fortunate hours in which the bird has sung to us, that fills us with such wonder when we turn the pages of the realist. There, to be sure, we find a picture of life in so far as it consists of mud and of old iron, cheap desires and cheap fears, that which we are ashamed to remember and that which we are careless whether we forget; but of the note of that time-devouring nightingale we hear no news.
The case of these writers of romance is most obscure. They have been boys and youths; they have lingered outside the window of the beloved, who was then most probably writing to some one else; they have sat before a sheet of paper, and felt themselves mere continents of congested poetry, not one line of which would flow; they have walked alone in the woods, they have walked in cities under the countless123 lamps; they have been to sea, they have hated, they have feared, they have longed to knife a man, and maybe done it; the wild taste of life has stung their palate. Or, if you deny them all the rest, one pleasure at least they have tasted to the full—their books are there to prove it—the keen pleasure of successful literary composition. And yet they fill the globe with volumes, whose cleverness inspires me with despairing admiration124, and whose consistent falsity to all I care to call existence, with despairing wrath125. If I had no better hope than to continue to revolve126 among the dreary127 and petty businesses, and to be moved by the paltry128 hopes and fears with which they surround and animate129 their heroes, I declare I would die now. But there has never an hour of mine gone quite so dully yet; if it were spent waiting at a railway junction130, I would have some scattering131 thoughts, I could count some grains of memory, compared to which the whole of one of these romances seems but dross132.
These writers would retort (if I take them properly) that this was very true; that it was the same with themselves and other persons of (what they call) the artistic133 temperament134; that in this we were exceptional, and should apparently135 be ashamed of ourselves; but that our works must deal exclusively with (what they call) the average man, who was a prodigious136 dull fellow, and quite dead to all but the paltriest137 considerations. I accept the issue. We can only know others by ourselves. The artistic temperament (a plague on the expression!) does not make us different from our fellowmen, or it would make us incapable138 of writing novels; and the average man (a murrain on the word!) is just like you and me, or he would not be average. It was Whitman who stamped a kind of Birmingham sacredness upon the latter phrase; but Whitman knew very well, and showed very nobly, that the average man was full of joys and full of a poetry of his own. And this harping139 on life’s dulness and man’s meanness is a loud profession of incompetence140; it is one of two things: the cry of the blind eye, I cannot see, or the complaint of the dumb tongue, I cannot utter. To draw a life without delights is to prove I have not realised it. To picture a man without some sort of poetry—well, it goes near to prove my case, for it shows an author may have little enough. To see Dancer only as a dirty, old, small-minded, impotently fuming man, in a dirty house, besieged141 by Harrow boys, and probably beset142 by small attorneys, is to show myself as keen an observer as . . . the Harrow boys. But these young gentlemen (with a more becoming modesty143) were content to pluck Dancer by the coat-tails; they did not suppose they had surprised his secret or could put him living in a book: and it is there my error would have lain. Or say that in the same romance—I continue to call these books romances, in the hope of giving pain—say that in the same romance, which now begins really to take shape, I should leave to speak of Dancer, and follow instead the Harrow boys; and say that I came on some such business as that of my lantern-bearers on the links; and described the boys as very cold, spat144 upon by flurries of rain, and drearily145 surrounded, all of which they were; and their talk as silly and indecent, which it certainly was. I might upon these lines, and had I Zola’s genius, turn out, in a page or so, a gem146 of literary art, render the lantern-light with the touches of a master, and lay on the indecency with the ungrudging hand of love; and when all was done, what a triumph would my picture be of shallowness and dulness! how it would have missed the point! how it would have belied147 the boys! To the ear of the stenographer148, the talk is merely silly and indecent; but ask the boys themselves, and they are discussing (as it is highly proper they should) the possibilities of existence. To the eye of the observer they are wet and cold and drearily surrounded; but ask themselves, and they are in the heaven of a recondite pleasure, the ground of which is an ill-smelling lantern.
III
For, to repeat, the ground of a man’s joy is often hard to hit. It may hinge at times upon a mere accessory, like the lantern; it may reside, like Dancer’s, in the mysterious inwards of psychology149. It may consist with perpetual failure, and find exercise in the continued chase. It has so little bond with externals (such as the observer scribbles150 in his note-book) that it may even touch them not; and the man’s true life, for which he consents to live, lie altogether in the field of fancy. The clergyman, in his spare hours, may be winning battles, the farmer sailing ships, the banker reaping triumph in the arts: all leading another life, plying151 another trade from that they chose; like the poet’s housebuilder, who, after all, is cased in stone,
“By his fireside, as impotent fancy prompts.
In such a case the poetry runs underground. The observer (poor soul, with his documents!) is all abroad. For to look at the man is but to court deception153. We shall see the trunk from which he draws his nourishment154; but he himself is above and abroad in the green dome155 of foliage156, hummed through by winds and nested in by nightingales. And the true realism were that of the poets, to climb up after him like a squirrel, and catch some glimpse of the heaven for which he lives.
And, the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing.
For to miss the joy is to miss all. In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action. That is the explanation, that the excuse. To one who has not the secret of the lanterns, the scene upon the links is meaningless. And hence the haunting and truly spectral157 unreality of realistic books. Hence, when we read the English realists, the incredulous wonder with which we observe the hero’s constancy under the submerging tide of dulness, and how he bears up with his jibbing sweetheart, and endures the chatter158 of idiot girls, and stands by his whole unfeatured wilderness of an existence, instead of seeking relief in drink or foreign travel. Hence in the French, in that meat-market of middle-aged159 sensuality, the disgusted surprise with which we see the hero drift sidelong, and practically quite untempted, into every description of misconduct and dishonour161. In each, we miss the personal poetry, the enchanted162 atmosphere, that rainbow work of fancy that clothes what is naked and seems to ennoble what is base; in each, life falls dead like dough163, instead of soaring away like a balloon into the colours of the sunset; each is true, each inconceivable; for no man lives in the external truth, among salts and acids, but in the warm, phantasmagoric chamber of his brain, with the painted windows and the storied walls.
Of this falsity we have had a recent example from a man who knows far better—Tolstoi’s Powers of Darkness. Here is a piece full of force and truth, yet quite untrue. For before Mikita was led into so dire164 a situation he was tempted160, and temptations are beautiful at least in part; and a work which dwells on the ugliness of crime and gives no hint of any loveliness in the temptation, sins against the modesty of life, and even when a Tolstoi writes it, sinks to melodrama165. The peasants are not understood; they saw their life in fairer colours; even the deaf girl was clothed in poetry for Mikita, or he had never fallen. And so, once again, even an Old Bailey melodrama, without some brightness of poetry and lustre166 of existence, falls into the inconceivable and ranks with fairy tales.
IV
In nobler books we are moved with something like the emotions of life; and this emotion is very variously provoked. We are so moved when Levine labours in the field, when André sinks beyond emotion, when Richard Feverel and Lucy Desborough meet beside the river, when Antony, “not cowardly, puts off his helmet,” when Kent has infinite pity on the dying Lear, when, in Dostoieffky’s Despised and Rejected, the uncomplaining hero drains his cup of suffering and virtue. These are notes that please the great heart of man. Not only love, and the fields, and the bright face of danger, but sacrifice and death and unmerited suffering humbly167 supported, touch in us the vein168 of the poetic. We love to think of them, we long to try them, we are humbly hopeful that we may prove heroes also.
We have heard, perhaps, too much of lesser169 matters. Here is the door, here is the open air. Itur in antiquam silvam.
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congregated
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| （使）集合，聚集( congregate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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alley
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| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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lollipops
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| n.棒糖，棒棒糖( lollipop的名词复数 )；（用交通指挥牌让车辆暂停以便儿童安全通过马路的）交通纠察 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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mar
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sparsely
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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gulls
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| n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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rugged
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mighty
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fortress
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brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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coves
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clamorous
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pungent
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bass
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tilted
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wreck
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embarrassment
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secrete
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apprentices
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的名词复数 ) | |
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entanglement
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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shrill
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landmark
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behold
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spires
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gale
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scourging
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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36
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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37
ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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38
wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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39
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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40
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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41
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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42
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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43
iodine
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| n.碘，碘酒 | |
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44
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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45
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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46
turrets
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| （六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车 | |
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47
adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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48
gales
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| 龙猫 | |
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49
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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50
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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51
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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52
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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53
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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54
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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55
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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56
pilloried
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| v.使受公众嘲笑( pillory的过去式和过去分词 )；将…示众；给…上颈手枷；处…以枷刑 | |
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57
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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58
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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59
marrowy
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| adj.多髓的，有力的 | |
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60
urchins
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| n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 )；淘气鬼；猬；海胆 | |
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61
exult
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| v.狂喜，欢腾；欢欣鼓舞 | |
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62
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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63
trumpeting
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| 大声说出或宣告（trumpet的现在分词形式） | |
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64
scouring
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| 擦[洗]净，冲刷，洗涤 | |
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65
scudding
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| n.刮面v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的现在分词 ) | |
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66
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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67
withholding
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| 扣缴税款 | |
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68
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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69
lamentably
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| adv.哀伤地，拙劣地 | |
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70
garnish
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| n.装饰，添饰，配菜 | |
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71
luminary
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| n.名人，天体 | |
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72
buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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73
butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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74
blistered
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| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
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75
naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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76
substantive
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| adj.表示实在的；本质的、实质性的；独立的；n.实词，实名词；独立存在的实体 | |
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77
asses
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| n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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78
shibboleth
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| n.陈规陋习；口令；暗语 | |
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79
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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80
thwarts
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| 阻挠( thwart的第三人称单数 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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81
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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82
crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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83
scaly
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| adj.鱼鳞状的；干燥粗糙的 | |
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84
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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85
foresights
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| 先见（foresight的复数形式） | |
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86
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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87
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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88
fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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89
condiment
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| n.调味品 | |
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90
gatherings
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| 聚集( gathering的名词复数 )； 收集； 采集； 搜集 | |
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91
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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92
stolid
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| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
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93
bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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94
versatility
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| n.多才多艺，多样性，多功能 | |
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95
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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96
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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97
miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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98
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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99
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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100
beleaguered
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|
| adj.受到围困[围攻]的；包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词)；困扰；骚扰 | |
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101
fuming
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| 愤怒( fume的现在分词 )； 大怒； 发怒； 冒烟 | |
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102
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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103
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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104
recondite
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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105
forgone
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| v.没有也行，放弃( forgo的过去分词 ) | |
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106
unearth
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| v.发掘，掘出，从洞中赶出 | |
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107
disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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108
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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109
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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110
whining
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| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
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111
throb
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| v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动 | |
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112
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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113
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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114
epics
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| n.叙事诗( epic的名词复数 )；壮举；惊人之举；史诗般的电影（或书籍） | |
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115
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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116
fable
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| n.寓言；童话；神话 | |
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117
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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118
chuckles
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的名词复数 ) | |
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119
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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120
evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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121
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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122
strands
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| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
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123
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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124
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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125
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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126
revolve
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| vi.(使)旋转；循环出现 | |
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127
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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128
paltry
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| adj.无价值的，微不足道的 | |
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129
animate
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| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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130
junction
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| n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站 | |
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131
scattering
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| n.[物]散射；散乱，分散；在媒介质中的散播adj.散乱的；分散在不同范围的；广泛扩散的；（选票）数量分散的v.散射(scatter的ing形式)；散布；驱散 | |
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132
dross
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| n.渣滓；无用之物 | |
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133
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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134
temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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135
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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136
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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137
paltriest
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| paltry（微小的）的最高级形式 | |
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138
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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139
harping
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| n.反复述说 | |
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140
incompetence
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| n.不胜任，不称职 | |
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141
besieged
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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142
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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143
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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144
spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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145
drearily
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| 沉寂地，厌倦地，可怕地 | |
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146
gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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147
belied
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| v.掩饰( belie的过去式和过去分词 )；证明（或显示）…为虚假；辜负；就…扯谎 | |
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148
stenographer
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| n.速记员 | |
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149
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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150
scribbles
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| n.潦草的书写( scribble的名词复数 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下v.潦草的书写( scribble的第三人称单数 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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151
plying
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| v.使用（工具）( ply的现在分词 )；经常供应（食物、饮料）；固定往来；经营生意 | |
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152
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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153
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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154
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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155
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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156
foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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157
spectral
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| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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158
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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159
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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160
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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161
dishonour
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| n./vt.拒付（支票、汇票、票据等）；vt.凌辱，使丢脸；n.不名誉，耻辱，不光彩 | |
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162
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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163
dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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164
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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165
melodrama
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| n.音乐剧；情节剧 | |
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166
lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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167
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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168
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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169
lesser
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| adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地 | |
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