Question 245
HardOriginal questionThe Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was a matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and . The fire burnt brightly, and the soft of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his , embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere, when thought runs gracefully free of the of precision. And he put it to us in this way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new (as we thought it) and his fecundity.
“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a .”
“Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?” said Filby, an person with red hair.
“I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere .”
“That is all right,” said the Psychologist.
"Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon." What does this suggest?
Show the answer and explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
"His patents" means inventions of his, and the chairs are described as if they hugged the guests.
The playful words show how comfortable, and how inventive, his furniture was.
Worth noting
The chairs "embraced" the guests, so they were sitting, and comfortably.
- Concept
- Interpreting playful personification
- Typical timeTypical
- 55 s
- Your timeYours
- —
Ten questions from Literary passages, at your own pace.