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Unit 22: Precis Writing from Seen and Unseen Passages

Points for Precis making Notes
1. Every man is at his best when he has no problem.
2. A physically and mentally strong man remains at his best even during misfortune.
3. Such a person conquers all difficulties in his way.
4. Man’s real strengths and weaknesses are known only during adversity.
5. Misfortune also gives us a chance to try our friends.
6. It is a great human teacher.
Exercise: 3
I have often thought that a storyteller is born, as well as a poet. It is, I think, certain that some men
have such a peculiar cast of mind that they see things in another light than men of grave dispositions.
Men of a lively imagination and a mirthful temper will represent things to their hearers in the same
manner as they themselves were affected with them; and whereas serious spirits might perhaps have
been disgusted at the sight of some odd occurrences in life, yet the very same occurrences shall please
them in a well-told story, where the disagreeable parts of the images are concealed, and those only
which are pleasing exhibited to the fancy. Storytelling is therefore not an art, but what we call a ‘knack,
it does not so much subsist upon wit as upon humour, and I will add, that it is not perfect without
proper gesticulations of the body, which naturally attend such merry emotions of the mind. I know
very well that a certain gravity of countenance sets some stories off to advantage, where the hearer is
to be surprised in the end; but this is by no means a general rule, for it is frequently convenient to aid
and assist by cheerful looks and whimsical agitations. I will go yet further and affirm that the success
of a story very often depends upon the make of boody and formation of the features of him who
relates it. I have been of this opinion ever since I criticised upon the chin of Dick Dewlap. I very often
had the weakness to repine at the prosperity of his conceits, which made him pass for a wit with the
window at the coffee-house, and the ordinary mechanics that frequent in, nor could I myself forbear
laughing at them most heartily, though upon examination, I thought most of them very flat and
insipid. I found after some time, that the merit of his wit was founded upon the shaking of a fat
paunch, and the tossing up of a pair of rosy jowls. Poor Dick had a fit of sickness, which robbed him of
his fat and his fame at once, and it was full three months before he regained his reputation, which
rose in proportion to his floridity. He is now very jolly and ingenious, and has a good constitution for
wit. (402 words)
Key-words

Dispositions : a general tendency of behaviour
Fancy : imagination
Knack : skill
Subsist : to keep alive
Gesticulations : bodily movements to express something
Countenance : expression of the face
Whimsical : with strong ideas
Agitation : movements, shaking
Relates : narrates
Repine : complain silently
Conceits : abilities
Forbear : to restrain oneself
Insipid : lacking taste
Tossing : moving
Jowls : loose skin and flesh near the lower jaw
Floridity : richness of fat
Ingenious : showing cleverness at making or investing things

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