1.a saw a play in Dublin not long ago in which the chief character was an elderly corn-merchant in a small Irish country town. He was a man of many anxieties-his h^art was dicky, his nephew was cheating him, his wife had had the fantastic notion of spending £10 on a holiday. Altogether the pace of life was getting too much for him, and in a moment of despair, he uttered a great cry from the heart: “They tell me there’s an aeroplane now that goes at 1,000 miles an hour. How that’s too fast!”
b. For me that was the most enchanting line in l le play-the man’s com¬plaint was so gloriously irrelevant to his own situation. And besides oemg comic, it struck me as a perfect illustration of the way the Irish get at subtle truths by the most unlikely approaches. You saw what the old fool meant.
Questions:
(i) To whom does the word T stand for?
Answer: Here f stands for the author.
(ii) How were the merchant’s nephew and wife?
Answer: The merchant’s nephew was a cheater who was cheating the merchant. Merchant’s wife was a fantastic woman who was spending 10 pounds on a holiday.
(iii) What was the enchanting line in the play?
Answer: The most enchanting line in the play is “the man’s complaint was so.gloriously irrelevant to his own situation.”
(vi) Find the word from the passage which means: State of hopeless-ness.
Answers: The word is despair.
Not that I have any dislike of rapid movement myself. I enjoy going to a car at ninety miles an hour- So long as I am driving and so long as it is not my car. I adore the machines that hurl you about at Battersea. To dine in London and lunch in New York next day seems to be a most satisfactory experience: I admit it excludes all the real pleasures of travel the sort of fun you get from a country bus in Somerset or Spain but it gives you a superficial sense of drama; it was a sort of excitement our ancestors had to do without, and we might just as well accept it gratefully. No, where speed becomes something unfriendly to me is where the mental activities of our time tend as they naturally do to follow the pace of the machines.
I speak with prejudice because I belong to the tribe of slow thinkers, those who are cursed with 1’esprit Det espaliers: People who light on the most devastating repartee about four hours after the party’s over. I am one of those who are guaranteed to get the lowest marks in any intelligence test because those tests or ail the ones I have come across seem to be designed to measure the speed of your mind more than anything else. Obviously we slow thinkers are terribly handicapped in the business of getting a living. But what I am thinking about just now is not so much the practical use of one’s mind as its use for enjoyment.
(i) What does the author enjoy?
The author enjoys going in a car at ninety miles an hour.
(ii) Which tribe does the author belong to?
The author belongs to the tribes of slow thinkers.
(iii) Who are handicapped and why?
Slow thinkers are terribly handicapped because they are slow at getting a living.
(iv) Explain’I’esprit de I’escaliert’.
‘I’ esprit de I’ espaliers means a man of slow mind.
As an example, when I go to the cinema I find myself in a hopeless fog, and after two or three minutes I have to turn to my wife for enlightenment. I whisper. “Is this the same girl as the one we saw at the beginning?” And she whr.iers back” “No, there are three girls in this film- a tall blonde a short onion, and a medium-sized brunette. Call them A, B, and C. The hero is that m ’ whc akes his hat off when he comes indoors. He is going to fall in love Wiui girls 3. C, A in that order.” And so it proves to be. There you have a mind which has trained itself to work in high gear-though as a matter of fact it can work in other gears just as, well. But my point is that most of my fellow- patients in the cinema do think fast enough to keep up comfortably with rapid changes of scene and action. They think much faster than people did thirty years ago: possibly because those who do not think fast in the High Street nowadays may not get another chance in this world to think at world to think at all.
Questions:
(i) What does the author find when he sees a cinema ?
Answer: The author finds himself in a hopeless fog when he sees a cinema.
(ii) To whom do the letters A B and C stand for?
Answer: ‘A’ stands for a tall blonde, ‘B’ stands for a short blonde and ‘C’ stands for a medium-sized brunette..
(iii) What does the author prove?
Answer: The author proves that there is a mind which has trained itself to work in high gear.
(iv) Make nouns from :
(a) think:thought
(b) beginning. begin.
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