英语词汇seward-s folly的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

Seward’s folly; Seward’s icebox. After having been wounded by John Wilkes Booth’s fellow conspirator Lewis Powell at the same time that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, William Henry Seward recovered and remained in the cabinet of Lin- coln’s successor Andrew Johnson as secretary of state. A vigor- ous opponent of slavery, he had originated the well-known phrases there is a higher law than our constitution and irrepress- ible conflict, the last expressing the state of the nation until it became all slave or all free. Seward’s most important work in Johnson’s administration was the purchase of Alaska from Rus- sia in 1867. Very few had the foresight to appreciate his $7 mil- lion acquisition at the time and because Alaska was purchased almost solely due to his determination, although others had made overtures toward buying it before the Civil War, it was widely called Seward’s folly, or Seward’s icebox. William Henry Seward died in 1872, aged 71, but the famous nicknames were used long after his death, even when fortunes were being made in Alaskan gold and fur. Alaska, from the Aleut A-la-as-ka, “the great country,” became the 49th American state in 1959. The Seward Peninsula in West Alaska on the Bering Strait also bears the statesman’s name, and Bering Strait and Bering Sea honor Captain Vitus Bering, a Dane who, in exploring for Russia in 1741, is believed to have been the first white man to visit Alaska.

词汇	seward-s folly
词源	Seward’s folly; Seward’s icebox. After having been wounded by John Wilkes Booth’s fellow conspirator Lewis Powell at the same time that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, William Henry Seward recovered and remained in the cabinet of Lin- coln’s successor Andrew Johnson as secretary of state. A vigor- ous opponent of slavery, he had originated the well-known phrases there is a higher law than our constitution and irrepress- ible conflict, the last expressing the state of the nation until it became all slave or all free. Seward’s most important work in Johnson’s administration was the purchase of Alaska from Rus- sia in 1867. Very few had the foresight to appreciate his $7 mil- lion acquisition at the time and because Alaska was purchased almost solely due to his determination, although others had made overtures toward buying it before the Civil War, it was widely called Seward’s folly, or Seward’s icebox. William Henry Seward died in 1872, aged 71, but the famous nicknames were used long after his death, even when fortunes were being made in Alaskan gold and fur. Alaska, from the Aleut A-la-as-ka, “the great country,” became the 49th American state in 1959. The Seward Peninsula in West Alaska on the Bering Strait also bears the statesman’s name, and Bering Strait and Bering Sea honor Captain Vitus Bering, a Dane who, in exploring for Russia in 1741, is believed to have been the first white man to visit Alaska.
随便看	you can’t have your cake and eat it too you can’t judge a book by its cover you can’t keep a squirrel on the ground you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow-s ear you can’t win ’em all you could have heard a pin drop you couldn’t detect my interest with a high-powered telescope you don’t have money give yourself volunteer you don’t want to go there you furnish the pictures and i’ll furnish the war you gotta believe you have money give money you have the words but you don’t have the music you know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch you might as well appeal against the thunderstorm you never miss the water till the well runs dry youngberry young folk of the pear garden young in at heart young turk young whippersnapper you pays your money and you take your choice your all-s your epitaph