Introduction
As a rule, people who write well are also well-read, but it should not be supposed that they keep up with everything new that hits the shelves or receives breathless praise in the press. Alfred Gardiner, columnist for the Star, was like many professional writers suspicious of new titles, and preferred the company of characters he had come to know well.
A WEEKLY paper has been asking well-known people what books they re-read. The most pathetic reply made to the inquiry is that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “I seldom re-read now,” says that unhappy man. “Time is so short and literature so vast and unexplored.” What a desolating picture! It is like saying, “I never meet my old friends now. Time is so short and there are so many strangers I have not yet shaken hands with.” I see the poor man, hot and breathless, scurrying over the “vast and unexplored” fields of literature, shaking hands and saying, “How d’ye do?” to everybody he meets and reaching the end of his journey, impoverished and pitiable, like the peasant in Tolstoi’s “How much land does a man need?”*
* A short story collected in What Men Live By, and Other Tales (1885) by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910). The story concerns Pahom, to whom the Bashkir people grant as much land as he could walk around (not unlike Lady Tichborne: see The Tichborne Dole). Suffice it to say that he waxed greedy under a blazing Siberian sun, and ended up with exactly as much land as any man ends up with.
Précis
Reading new books, Arthur Conan Doyle declared, left no time to read anything twice. Alfred Gardiner was reminded of a man too busy meeting new friends to spend time with his old ones, or the peasant in Tolstoy’s story who laboured so hard to stake out a huge tract of land that he won just enough to be buried in. (60 / 60 words)
Reading new books, Arthur Conan Doyle declared, left no time to read anything twice. Alfred Gardiner was reminded of a man too busy meeting new friends to spend time with his old ones, or the peasant in Tolstoy’s story who laboured so hard to stake out a huge tract of land that he won just enough to be buried in.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, because, besides, if, not, otherwise, ought, whether.
Word Games
Sevens Based on this passage
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Variations: 1.expand your answer to exactly fourteen words. 2.expand your answer further, to exactly twenty-one words. 3.include one of the following words in your answer: if, but, despite, because, (al)though, unless.
Jigsaws Based on this passage
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
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