Read the following passage, and answer the next five questions by choosing the correct options:
Unquestionably a literary life is for the most part an unhappy life; because, if you have genius, you must suffer the penalty of genius; and, if you have only talent, there are so many cares and worries incidental to the circumstances of men of letters, as to make life exceedingly miserable. Besides the pangs of composition, and the continuous disappointment which a true artist feels at his inability to reveal himself, there is the ever-recurring difficulty of gaining the public ear. Young writers are buoyed up by the hope and the belief that they have only to throw that poem at the world's feet to get back in return the laurel-crown; that they have only to push that novel into print to be acknowledged at once as a new light in literature. You can never convince a young author that the editors of magazines and the publishers of books are a practical body of men, who are by no means frantically anxious about placing the best literature before the public. Nay, that for the most part they are mere brokers who conduct their business on the hardest lines of a Profit and Loss account. But supposing your book fairly launches, its perils are only beginning. You have to run the gauntlet of the critics.
A time comes in the life of every author when he regards critics as comical rather than formidable, and goes his way unheeding. But there are sensitive souls that yield under the chastisement and, perhaps after suffering much silent torture, abandon the profession of the pen for ever. Keats, perhaps, is the saddest example of a fine spirit hounded to death by savage criticism; because, whatever his biographers may aver, that furious attack of Gifford and Terry undoubtedly expedited his death. But no doubt there are hundreds who suffer keenly hostile and unscrupulous criticism, and who have to bear that suffering in silence, because it is a cardinal principle in literature that the most unwise thing in the world for an author is to take public notice of criticism in the way of defending himself. Silence is the only safeguard, as it is the only dignified protest against insult and offence.
Match the words/expressions in List - I with their meanings in List - II.
|
List – I |
List - II |
|
(A) pangs of composition |
(I) over enthusiastic |
|
(B) buoyed up by the hope |
(II) middlemen |
|
(C) mere brokers |
(III) dishonest |
|
(D) unscrupulous |
(IV) pain of creativity |
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → (A)-(IV), (B)-(I), (C)-(II), (D)-(III)
| List-I | List-II | Explanation | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| (A) pangs of composition | (IV) pain of creativity | Pangs are sudden sharp pains. Composition is the act of writing a poem, a story or music. The pangs of composition are the pains a writer goes through while creating. | After weeks of the pangs of composition, she finally finished her first novel. |
| (B) buoyed up by the hope | (I) over enthusiastic | To be buoyed up is to be kept cheerful and hopeful, as a buoy keeps something afloat. Young writers, carried along by high hopes, are over enthusiastic about quick success. | The team was buoyed up by the hope of reaching the final. |
| (C) mere brokers | (II) middlemen | A broker is a person who buys and sells on behalf of others, a middleman. The passage calls publishers "mere brokers" who care only for profit. | He bought the flat through a broker. |
| (D) unscrupulous | (III) dishonest | Unscrupulous means having no moral principles, not honest or fair. | An unscrupulous trader sold fake medicines. |
| Also asked in CUET (UG): unscrupulous – 26-05-2025 Slot 1, 14-05-2025 Slot 2, 20-08-2022 Slot 1 |