(That’s cat-tails, obviously.) And who ever said cats were unpredictable?
ByCharles H. Ross1835-1897
Charles H. Ross1835-1897
Charles Henry Ross (1835 – 12 October 1897) was an English writer, editor, and cartoonist. He wrote six novels, and several plays and pantomimes, but he is best remembered as the creator of the iconic Victorian comic character Ally Sloper. Ross and illustrator Isabelle Émilie de Tessier (aka Marie Duval) turned Sloper, a bald, red-nosed, scheming anti-hero, into a Victorian sensation, and Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday in 1884 is now regarded as the first comic named after and featuring a regular character.
Ernest Tomlinson: Gavotte (Georgian Style)(Click to expand video player)
3m 47s
Gavotte (Georgian Style)
A short, light dance after the eighteenth-century manner.
Charles James Fox MP (1749-1806) relished his notoriety. He gambled heavily, kept a mistress (whom he married, but he failed to mention that), and changed political colours with bewildering ease. Yet he stood up for civil liberties, opposed the slave trade, and once dressed himself in the colours of the American revolutionary army in protest against colonial injustice. His antics exasperated King George III, but Fox was friendly with Prince George, the King’s son.
Précis
One day, the distinguished statesman Charles Fox bet his friend Prince George that during a stroll along St James’s Street, Fox would see more cats. At the end of the street they compared cats, and found that Fox had won. He had rightly guessed that on such a warm, sunny say, the Prince would walk in the shade, and the cats would sleep in the sun.
One broilingONE broiling hot summer’s day Charles James Fox and the Prince of Wales were lounging up St. James’s street, and Fox laid the Prince a wager that he would see more Cats than his Royal Highness would during their promenade, although the Prince might choose which side of the street he thought fit.
On reaching Piccadilly, it turned out that Fox had seen thirteen Cats and the Prince none. The Prince asked for an explanation of this apparent miracle.
“Your Royal Highness,” said Fox, “chose, of course, the shady side of the way as most agreeable. I knew that the sunny side would be left for me, and that Cats prefer the sunshine.”
Think and Speak
From a ’Fifties Classroom
01
Show, Don’t Tell
not based on the passage above
For each little scene below, suggest ways to help someone see it vividly with the mind’s eye. How could you tell ... ?
That a cat was hungry.
That a room had been left hurriedly.
That a man was having trouble with his motorbike.
Based on an exercise in Exercises 12-13 (1933) by N.L. Clay.
02
Verbs of Motion
based on the passage above
Ross describes Fox and the Prince as ‘lounging’ up St James’s Street. There are many other ways of indicating the way people walk or move. Distinguish the following verbs of walking, using sentences or brief scenes:
shuffle
sidle
step
stride
stroll
Clay Lane is based on textbooks written more than
seventy years ago. If you’re planning to take a
formal test, ask your teacher whether these games
are right for you.
For the Writer In You
Americanisms are a Foreign Language
Americanisms are foreign words, and should be so treated. To say this
is not to insult the American language.
Henry Fowler, The King’s English (1906, 3rd ed. 1930)
