Am I
—tender toward the bashful?
—gentle toward those who are cold and reserved?
—merciful to those whose actions draw ridicule upon themselves?
In conversation, do I recollect those to whom I am speaking, avoid irritating them, keep myself in the background, talk little myself and listen attentively to them?
If I can put to myself each of the tests Cardinal Newman offers in these few pages and can feel myself ring true under each, then may I hope to call myself a gentleman.
Adventures in Lilliput
(Volume V, page 8)
In Gulliver’s Travels Swift has given us a wonderful work in constructive imagination. As has been said elsewhere, the imagination works with the ideas which are present in the mind. It creates nothing, but it may enlarge, diminish or recombine ideas with an infinity of form. In Adventures in Lilliput Swift has used largely the reducing power of his imagination. If he has been accurate, he has reduced everything in the same proportion. An interesting study of this phase of the story may be made by means of questions, which may be answered by reading the text, or by reasoning from the facts given.
In the following exercise, questions and comments are combined in such a way as to assist a boy or girl to verify or disprove the accuracy of Swift’s work. A similar exercise, to illustrate the opposite extreme, may be based upon Adventures in Brobdingnag (page 54). It is hoped, too, that the questions may suggest a method for interpreting other selections.