Sentence:  ...but the blame must rest on the sombre spirit of our forefathers, who wove their <WSD>web</WSD> of life with hardly a single thread of rose-color or gold, and not on me, who have a tropic-love of sunshine, and would gladly gild all the world with it, if I knew where to find so much. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Any interconnected set of persons, places, or things, which when diagrammed resembles a spider's web.