Robert Louis Stevenson and his family at Valima on the island of Upolu, Samoa, in 1892. Left to right: Mary Carter, maid to Stevenson’s mother; Lloyd Osbourne, Stevenson’s stepson; Margaret Balfour, Stevenson’s mother; Isobel Strong, Stevenson’s stepdaughter; Robert Louis Stevenson; Austin Strong, the Strong’s son; Stevenson’s wife Fanny Stevenson; and Joseph Dwight Strong, Isobel’s husband. In her sister Nellie’s opinion, Fanny was “both physically and mentally the very antithesis of the gay, hilarious, open-minded and open-hearted Stevenson, and for that very reason perhaps the woman in all the world best fitted to be his life comrade and helpmate.”
I DARESAY, if one were a woman, one would like to marry a man who was capable of doing this, but not quite one who had done so. It is just a little bit abject, and somehow just a little bit gross; and marriages in which one of the parties has been thus battered into consent scarcely form agreeable subjects for meditation.*
Love should run out to meet love with open arms. Indeed, the ideal story is that of two people who go into love step for step, with a fluttered consciousness, like a pair of children venturing together into a dark room. From the first moment when they see each other, with a pang of curiosity, through stage after stage of growing pleasure and embarrassment, they can read the expression of their own trouble in each other’s eyes. There is here no declaration, properly so called; the feeling is so plainly shared, that as soon as the man knows what it is in his own heart, he is sure of what it is in the woman’s.
Abridged
Abridged from ‘The works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Volume III: Miscellanies’ (1895) by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).
If any English author has achieved this alchemy, and made dogged suitors into sympathetic characters, it is P. G. Wodehouse. “I am a married man,” says a Whisky-and-Splash to Mr Mulliner in A Few Quick Ones (1959), “and it took me two years and more boxes of chocolates than I care to think of to persuade the lady who is now my wife to sign on the dotted line.” One of Wodehouse’s own favourites from among his novels was Sam the Sudden (1925), in which Sam Shotter pursues Kay Derrick with a particularly unwavering determination. Eve Halliday, in Leave it to Psmith (1923), has to put up with two such suitors at once.
Questions for Critics
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Précis
For a woman to be pursued relentlessly, said Stevenson, might be romantic in theory; but in practice, it is perhaps rather alarming. Better to find a partner with whom one can walk hand-in-hand into love, with whom love is a shared adventure in which each knows what the other is feeling without needing to be told. (56 / 60 words)
For a woman to be pursued relentlessly, said Stevenson, might be romantic in theory; but in practice, it is perhaps rather alarming. Better to find a partner with whom one can walk hand-in-hand into love, with whom love is a shared adventure in which each knows what the other is feeling without needing to be told.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: about, although, besides, despite, may, must, or, ought.
Archive
Word Games
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Cease. Planet. Sure.
2 Answer. Half. Innumerable.
3 Forty. Just. Party.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Statements, Questions and Commands Find in Think and Speak
Use each word below in a sentence. Try to include at least one statement, one question and one command among your sentences. Note that some verbs make awkward or meaningless words of command, e.g. need, happen.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Meet. 2 Step. 3 Quarter. 4 Face. 5 Expect. 6 Fire. 7 Continue. 8 Bite. 9 Determine.
Variations: 1. use a minimum of seven words for each sentence 2. include negatives, e.g. isn’t, don’t, never 3. use the words ‘must’ to make commands 4. compose a short dialogue containing all three kinds of sentence: one statement, one question and one command
Homophones Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that sound the same, but differ in spelling and also in meaning. Compose your own sentences to bring out the differences between them.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1.
Scene.
Seen.
2.
Aye.
Eye.
3.
Way.
Weigh.
Whey.
4.
But.
Butt.
5.
Groan.
Grown.
6.
Knew.
New.
7.
Hart.
Heart.
8.
Wood.
Would.
9.
Red.
Read.
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
wng (5)
awing. owing. weeing. wing. wooing.
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