Read To Learn

  The Oyster and the Pearl Q.1: Where does the play take place? Ans:  It takes place in Harry’s shop in OK-by-the. Sea, California, population 909. Q.2: Why is Harry sitting in barber’s chair? Ans:  Harry is having his haircut.  Therefore, he is sitting in the barber’s chair. Q. 3: According to Harry how one can bring merriments to the tired old human hearts? Ans:  Harry thinks that one can bring merriments to the tired old hearts by composing a symphony, painting a picture, writing a book or inventing a philosophy. Q. 4: What is Harry’s philosophy?     (impotant) Ans:  His philosophy is “take-it-easy way”. Q. 5: How much did Harry pay for his barber’s shop? How long has Harry been in OK-by-the-Sea? Ans:  He bought the shop in 75 dollars. He has been living in O.K-by-the-Sea for twenty-four years. Q. 6: How many barbers are there in O.K-by-the-sea? Ans:  Except Harry, there is no other barber ...

  Prose Writers of Later Victorian Period In the later Victorian period there were two great prose-writers—Newman and Pater. Newman was the central figure of the Oxford Movement, while Pater was an aesthete, who inspired the leaders of the Aesthetic Movement in English poetry. Newman and the Oxford Movement The Oxford Movement was an attempt to recover a lost tradition. England had become a Protestant country in the 16th century under the reign of Elizabeth, and had her own Church, called the Anglican Church , which became independent of the control of the Pope at Rome. Before that England was a Catholic country. The Anglican Church insisted on simplicity, and did not encourage elaborate ceremonies. In fact it became too much rational having no faith in rituals and old traditions. Especially in the eighteenth century in England religion began to be ruthlessly attacked by philosophers as well as scienti...

  Novelists of the Later Victorian Period The novel in the later Victorian period took a new trend, and the novels written during this period may be called ‘modern’ novels. George Eliot was the first to write novels in the modern style. Other important novelists of the period were Meredith and Hardy. The year 1859 saw the publication not only of George Eliot’s Adam Bede but also of Meredith’s The Ordeal of Richard Feveral. Though they are vastly different from each other, they stand in sharp contrast to the works of established novelists that appeared the same year—as Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities and Thackeray’s Virginians. The novelists of the early Victorian period—Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope and others—had followed the tradition of English novel established by Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. Their conception of themselves was modest, and their conscious aim nothing much more elevated than Wilkie Collins’s “make them l...

First Year at Harrow by Sir Winston S. Churchill Summary In this essay, the writer has explained the place of examinations in the life of a student and the choice of the right subjects. He tells that he never liked examinations because he could not perform well in the examinations. He tells that examiners asked the questions he could not produce a satisfactory answer for. In the entrance examination at Harrow, the author got zero marks in Latin paper. He just wrote his name and returned the empty answer sheet back. The Headmaster, Mr. Welldon, however, let him be admitted at Harrow. It was both surprising and pleasant for the author. The writer narrates that he was only two from the bottom of the merit list of admissions. While clever boys went for Latin and Greek because in that time these subjects were most important. He was taught English because of his apparent inability to study Latin and Greek. The author worked hard and got good grades in English. His English t...