The Milky Way, pictured from Giglio Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast of Tuscany, Italy. The work of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) stirred a widespread interest in mathematics and astronomy, which by Stephenson’s day had become a popular hobby with magazines full of hard maths and physics, such as The Ladies’ Diary. Stephenson’s contemporaries Sir Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday (another who shared Stephenson’s religious awe) could command lecture rooms full of open-mouthed lay audiences fascinated by their world of wonder.
Introduction
Many Victorian scientists rebelled against the Church, at that time dominated by a colourless Calvinism that stifled wonder and mistrusted enthusiasm. But in private, many retained a powerful sense of the reality of God through wondering at his creation, as railway pioneer George Stephenson did.
WHILST walking in the woods or through the grounds, he [George Stephenson] would arrest his friend’s attention by allusion to some simple object, — such as a leaf, a blade of grass, a bit of bark, a nest of birds, or an ant carrying its eggs across the path, — and descant in glowing terms upon the creative power of the Divine Mechanician, whose contrivances were so exhaustless and so wonderful. This was a theme upon which he was often accustomed to dwell in reverential admiration, when in the society of his more intimate friends.
One night, when walking under the stars, and gazing up into the field of suns, each the probable centre of a system, forming the Milky Way, a friend said to him, “What an insignificant creature is man in sight of so immense a creation as that!” “Yes!” was his reply; “but how wonderful a creature also is man, to be able to think and reason, and even in some measure to comprehend works so infinite!”*
From ‘The Lives of the Engineers’ by Samuel Smiles (1812-1904).
See Romans 1:20: “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead”.
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
George Stephenson was once walking under the stars and waxing lyrical over the wonders of God’s creation, when a companion remarked on the insignificance of Man in the face of it. Stephenson, agreed, but also gently reminded him that God thinks enough of Man to have endowed him with the capacity to understand something of what he has made. (59 / 60 words)
George Stephenson was once walking under the stars and waxing lyrical over the wonders of God’s creation, when a companion remarked on the insignificance of Man in the face of it. Stephenson, agreed, but also gently reminded him that God thinks enough of Man to have endowed him with the capacity to understand something of what he has made.
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: about, although, besides, if, since, unless, until, who.
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 Attention. Each. Even.
2 More. Nest. Through.
3 Path. Probable. Wood.
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.
nst (5)
inset. nauseate. nest. onset. unseat.
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