Does Swift keep the correct proportions when he says that Gulliver’s bullets are about the size of the heads of the Lilliputians? Would “an hundred and fifty of their beds sewn together make up the breadth and length” of a bed large enough for Gulliver?
How large would a Lilliputian horse be? Does it seem wonderful that Gulliver’s hat could be brought from the seashore with “only five horses”?
It is unnecessary to carry the questioning any further. Anyone who reads the stories will find an infinity of questions suggesting themselves to him, and he will doubtless get no little pleasure and profit from attempting to answer them. As will be seen, some of the questions are not simple. If Swift has been wise he has not reduced everything arbitrarily on a horizontal scale to one-twelfth of its apparent size, capacity, weight, or strength, but has properly apportioned all. The reader may find that he will be called upon for some nice discrimination, before he can judge correctly as to the accuracy with which Swift has used his scale of reduction.
The Heart of Bruce
(Volume V, page 316)
1. What is meant by “frost lay hoar”? “Hoar” means “white” or “gray.” (It was early in the morning before the sun had melted the frost.)
2. What kind of armour did they wear? What kind of “ships” rode in the bay? (Remember this happened about six hundred years ago.)
3. What caused the foam that was swept away? Why did they gaze back in silence?
4. Why does the poet call them purple hues, and why does he say they decayed? (Recall the lines: “’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, and clothes the mountain in its azure hue.” Did you ever notice the purple on distant hills? What causes it?)
5. What is the “battle-van”? (The front rank.)