His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.
"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."
�"To forget it!"
�"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."
�"But the Solar System!" I protested.
"What the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently; "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."
��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� "A Study in Scarlet", by Arthur Conan Doyle, excerpt.
�
Vocabulary key:
�Remarkable - Worthy of notice; extraordinary;
Naive - Simple and guileless;
Hardly - Barely
Astonished - Surprised
Attic - A story or room directly below the roof of a building, especially a house.
Jumbled - To be mixed in a confused way
Assortment - A collection of various kinds; a variety.
Deuce -� (intensifier) Used in such phrases as what the deuce, where the deuce, etc.
I- Answer the questions below:
a) Who is the famous character being described in the text?
b) Did the character know who Thomas Carlyle was? What else was he ignorant of?
�e) When did this story take place?
II- Put the verbs in brackets into the same tense as the verbs in bold: "...when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory...):
� "In the year 1878 I� (to take) my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London." (to take)
� "Having (to complete) my studies there, I (to be) duly (to attach) to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon."
� "The regiment (to be) stationed in India at the time, and before I could join it, the second Afghan war (to have)broken out."
�� "The campaign (to bring) honours and promotion to many, but for me it (to have) nothing but misfortune and disaster."
V- Here is a list of the limits of the character described in the first text:
� 1. Knowledge of Literature.�Nil.
� 2.������������� Philosophy.�Nil.
� 3.������������� Astronomy.�Nil.
� 4.������������� Politics.�Feeble.
� 5.������������� Botany.�Variable.� Well up in belladonna,
����������������������������� opium, and poisons generally.
����������������������������� Knows nothing of practical gardening.
� 6.������������� Geology.�Practical, but limited.
����� �������������������������Tells at a glance different soils
������������������������������ from each other.� After walks has
������������������������������ shown me splashes upon his trousers,
������������������������������ and told me by their colour and
������������������������������ consistence in what part of London
������������������������������ he had received them.
� 7.������������� Chemistry.�Profound.
� 8.������������� Anatomy.�Accurate, but unsystematic.
� 9.������������� Sensational Literature.�Immense.� He appears
����������������������������� to know every detail of every horror
����������������������������� perpetrated in the century.
� 10. Plays the violin well.
� 11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
� 12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.
a) Which subjects does he know best?
b) Which ones does he know less about?
Note: All the texts were taken from "A Study in Scarlet", by Arthur Conan Doyle.
