“Let’s go, we’re burnin’ daylight!” was the catchphrase of Wil Andersen, played by John Wayne, in ‘The Cowboys’ (1972), a very literary allusion inasmuch as ‘we burn daylight’ (i.e. ‘we’re wasting time’) goes back to William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and The Merry Wives of Windsor, not to mention John Dryden’s The Maiden Queen. The picture above shows the Tanfield Railway in County Durham, one of the oldest railways still in operation anywhere in the world. The railway was itself built to carry coal to the Tyne, for shipping to London. Stephenson lived and worked in the area most of his life.
Introduction
Today’s enthusiasts for ‘renewable energy’ have brought Britain’s once-mighty coal industry to an end. Yet judging by George Stephenson’s exchange with William Buckland, the eccentric but brilliant Oxford geologist, there may have been a serious misunderstanding...
ONE Sunday, when the party had just returned from church, they were standing together on the terrace near the Hall, and observed in the distance a railway-train flashing along, tossing behind its long white plume of steam. “Now, Buckland,” said Stephenson, “Can you tell me what is the power that is driving that train?”
“Well,” said the other, “I suppose it is one of your big engines.”
“But what drives the engine?”
“Oh, very likely a canny Newcastle driver.”*
“What do you say to the light of the sun?”
“How can that be?” asked the doctor.
“It is nothing else,” said the engineer, “it is light bottled up in the earth for tens of thousands of years, — light, absorbed by plants and vegetables, — and now, after being buried in the earth for long ages in fields of coal, that latent light is again brought forth and liberated, made to work as in that locomotive, for great human purposes.”
Abridged
Abridged from The Lives of the Engineers by Samuel Smiles (1812-1904).
This was a little joke at Stephenson’s expense, a proud son of Northumberland. (They were actually in Derbyshire, guests of Sir Robert Peel, the former Prime Minister.) In the North East, ‘canny’ doesn’t mean ‘shrewd’ as it does elsewhere; it means ‘likeable, good company’.
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
In conversation with William Buckland, the noted geologist, George Stephenson asked what his companion thought was the fuel for steam locomotives. After a little teasing on both sides, Stephenson made the serious point that coal, as carbonized vegetation, is stored-up sunlight, and that trains are effectively solar-powered. (47 / 60 words)
In conversation with William Buckland, the noted geologist, George Stephenson asked what his companion thought was the fuel for steam locomotives. After a little teasing on both sides, Stephenson made the serious point that coal, as carbonized vegetation, is stored-up sunlight, and that trains are effectively solar-powered.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 40 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, despite, if, must, otherwise, ought, unless, whether.
Archive
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.
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 But. Latent. Long.
2 Earth. Power. Thousand.
3 Being. Forth. White.
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.)
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.
rr (7+1)
airer. airier. eerier. err. rare. rear. roar.
aurora.
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