Work and Leisure

The unit opens with four sayings about work, each printed on a photo of hills or the sky:

Saying	Who said it	What it means
All things are difficult before they are easy.	Thomas Fuller, an English doctor who collected proverbs (1732)	Everything is hard at first: riding a bicycle, typing, algebra. Practice turns hard into easy, so don’t give up at the start.
Any time is a good time to start a company.	Ron Conway, an American investor who has helped hundreds of young companies	Don’t wait for the “perfect” moment to begin your own work or business; good and bad times both bring chances.
We work to earn our leisure.	Aristotle, the Greek thinker (about 350 BCE)	Work is not the goal of life; we work so that we can have free time for the things that make life good: friends, family, learning, art, rest.
Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.	often credited to Frank Ocean, an American singer, though no record of him saying it has been found	Don’t boast about what you are going to do; do it quietly, and let the result speak for you.

Before you read

The picture shows a cartoon ant waving cheerfully and a green grasshopper sitting on the grass beside a tree, with flowers around them.

What kind of text it is

The text is a short story by W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965), a British writer famous for his clear, witty stories. It was first published in 1924. It is told in the first person: the narrator, “I”, is a man who knows the Ramsay brothers.

The story is built like a sandwich. It opens with a fable, The Ant and the Grasshopper, which the narrator learned by heart as a small boy from the French poet Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695), who retold it from the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop. Then it tells a modern story of two brothers: George, the hard-working “ant”, and Tom, the pleasure-loving “grasshopper”. The reader expects the old moral to come true again. Watch for that expectation: Maugham plays with it.

The text, part by part

1. The fable and its moral

As a very small boy, the narrator had to learn some of La Fontaine’s fables (short stories, often about animals, that teach a lesson) by heart, and the moral (the lesson) of each was explained to him. One was The Ant and the Grasshopper, which was devised (made, planned) to teach children that in our imperfect world, industry (hard work) is rewarded and giddiness (silly, careless living for fun) is punished.

In the fable, the ant spends a laborious (hard-working) summer collecting food for the winter, while the grasshopper sits on a blade of grass singing to the sun. When winter comes, the ant has plenty, but the grasshopper has an empty larder (a cupboard or room for storing food). He begs for a little food. The ant asks what he did all summer. The grasshopper says that, if she doesn’t mind his saying so, he sang, day and night. “You sang?” replies the ant. “Then go and dance.” In other words: you had your fun; now suffer for it.

In Maugham’s full story (school extracts often leave this paragraph out), the narrator admits that as a child he could never quite accept the lesson. His sympathies were with the grasshopper, and for a while he never saw an ant without putting his foot on it. It is a joke, and a hint of where the story is going.

2. George in the restaurant

The fable comes back to him when he sees George Ramsay having lunch alone in a restaurant, looking deeply gloomy (sad and hopeless), staring into space as if he carried the weight of the world. The narrator guesses at once: George’s unfortunate brother has been causing trouble again. He goes over and shakes hands. George says he is “not in hilarious (very funny, very cheerful) spirits”: a dry, British way of saying he is miserable. Yes, it is Tom again.

The narrator asks why George doesn’t simply chuck (give up on, throw off) him: he has done everything possible for Tom, who is clearly hopeless. Every family, he thinks, has a black sheep (one member who brings shame on the rest).

3. How Tom went wrong

Tom has been a sore trial (a constant worry and trouble) to George for twenty years. He began life well: he went into business, married and had two children. The Ramsays were respectable (honest, decent, well thought of), and everyone expected Tom to have a useful, honorable career. Then one day, without warning, Tom announced that he didn’t like work and wasn’t suited to marriage. He wanted to enjoy himself. He refused to listen to anyone’s expostulations (strong objections, arguments against it), left his wife and his office, and spent two happy years in the capitals of Europe on the little money he had.

His family heard rumors of his life and were deeply shocked. They wondered what would happen when his money ran out. They soon found out: he borrowed. Tom was charming and unscrupulous (with no sense of right and wrong about how he got things), and the narrator says he had never met anyone it was harder to refuse a loan to. Tom made a steady income from his friends. He used to say that money spent on necessities (things you need) was boring; the fun money was the money spent on luxuries (things you don’t need but enjoy). For luxuries, he depended on George.

4. George pays, again and again

Tom didn’t waste his charm on George, who was serious and insensible to (not moved by) such enticements (temptations, attractions). Once or twice George believed Tom’s promises of amendment (changing for the better) and gave him large sums to make a fresh start. Tom spent them on a motor-car and some very nice jewelry.

When George finally realized that his brother would never settle down and washed his hands of him (refused to be responsible for him any more), Tom, without a qualm (without the slightest feeling of guilt), began to blackmail him (to get money by threatening to do something that would harm or shame him). It was not pleasant for a respectable lawyer to find his brother shaking cocktails behind the bar of his favorite restaurant, or waiting as a taxi driver outside his club. Tom said serving in a bar or driving a taxi was a perfectly decent job, but if George could oblige him (do him the favor) with a couple of hundred pounds, he wouldn’t mind giving it up, “for the honor of the family”. George paid.

5. Cronshaw and Monte Carlo

Once, Tom nearly went to prison. George was terribly upset. Tom had been wild, thoughtless and selfish before, but never dishonest, by which George meant illegal; if he were prosecuted (taken to court), he would certainly be convicted (found guilty). Yet you can’t let your only brother go to gaol (jail). The man Tom had cheated, Cronshaw, was vindictive (wanting revenge): he called Tom a scoundrel (a dishonest person) and was determined to take him to court. It cost George endless trouble and five hundred pounds to settle the matter.

Then came the sting. The narrator has never seen George so angry as when he heard that Tom and Cronshaw went off together to Monte Carlo (a town of casinos and luxury on the south coast of France, in Monaco) the moment they had cashed the cheque. They had a happy month there. Cronshaw had never really been Tom’s victim: the two had tricked George together.

How the story really ends

The extract printed for schools usually stops at Monte Carlo, but Maugham’s story goes on, and the ending is the whole point of it.

For twenty years Tom gambled, danced, dined in the best restaurants and dressed beautifully. At forty-six he looked thirty-five, charming and good company, though everyone knew he was worthless. George, only a year older, looked sixty. He had never taken more than a fortnight’s holiday in a year, was in his office from half past nine every morning and never left before six, was loyal to his wife and a good father to four daughters, and saved a third of his income. He planned to retire at fifty-five to a little house in the country and grow a garden. He was almost glad to be getting old, because Tom was getting old too: soon, George said, they would see whether it really paid better to work or to be idle.

That is why George is so gloomy in the restaurant. Tom has just been engaged to a woman old enough to be his mother. She has died and left him everything: half a million pounds, a yacht, a house in London and a house in the country. George beats his fist on the table and repeats that it is not fair. And the narrator? He bursts out laughing, so hard that he nearly falls off his chair. George never forgives him. Tom, meanwhile, often invites the narrator to excellent dinners at his charming house in Mayfair, the richest part of London, and still borrows a little money now and then, just out of habit.

So the grasshopper wins. The fable promised that hard work is rewarded and idleness punished; real life, Maugham suggests with a smile, is not that tidy.

Words from the text

Words linked here open in English Vocabulary, where you can see an example and practice them in the word game. The meanings below are the ones the words have in this text.

Word	Meaning here
fable	a short story, often with animals, that teaches a lesson
moral	the lesson a story teaches
industry	hard work (here; it also means factories and businesses)
giddiness	silly, careless behavior, living only for fun (here; it also means dizziness)
larder	a cupboard or small room for storing food
hilarious	extremely funny; not in hilarious spirits: not cheerful at all
black sheep	a family member who brings shame on the others
respectable	honest and decent, so that people think well of you
expostulations	strong arguments against what someone is doing
unscrupulous	with no sense of right and wrong; ready to cheat
enticements	things that tempt or attract you
amendment	a change for the better; also a change made to a law
qualm	a feeling of doubt or guilt; without a qualm: with no guilt at all
blackmail	getting money from someone by threatening to harm or shame them
oblige	to do someone a favor
vindictive	wanting to hurt someone who has hurt you
scoundrel	a dishonest, wicked person
gaol	jail (an old British spelling, said the same way)

A. Replace the words

B. Put the events in order

C. Answer the questions

D. A summary

E. Ant or grasshopper?

In qualm (KWAHM), the l is written but not said: it is a silent letter. English spelling keeps many letters that people stopped saying hundreds of years ago (the k of knight was once said), or that came with a word from another language (French bouquet, Greek pneumonia). Most silent letters follow patterns:

Pattern	Silent	Words from this unit
kn-, gn-, wr-, pn-, ps- at the start	k, g, w, p, p	knave, knight, gnaw, wriggle, pneumonia, pseudo
-mb, -mn at the end	b, n	solemn
b before t	b	doubt
l after a (before k, m)	l	chalk, qualm
gh before t; -eigh	gh	light, knight, neighbor
-ign	g	feign, resign
h at the start of some words	h	heir
French ending -et	t	bouquet, buffet
others		island, receipt, built, archeology

Some jobs we do ourselves; others we pay or ask someone else to do: the barber cuts our hair, the tailor sews our clothes. To say that someone else did it for us, English uses have or get + the thing + the past participle:

Who does it	Sentence
I do it myself	I cut my hair. (with scissors, in front of a mirror)
someone does it for me	I had my hair cut. / I got my hair cut. (at the barber’s)

Have sounds a little more formal; get is more common in everyday talk. Both mean the same here.

A. Two conversations

B. Conversations from clues

C. What can you get done there?

A causative verb shows that one person causes another person to do something, or causes something to be done. English has a small family of them, and each takes a different form of the verb after it:

Pattern	Form after it	Example	Meaning
have + person + verb	base form	I had the mechanic repair my scooter.	I arranged it, usually as a service or a job I gave.
get + person + to + verb	to-infinitive	I got my brother to help me.	I persuaded or asked them.
make + person + verb	base form	The teacher made us rewrite the essay.	They had no choice: it was forced.
let + person + verb	base form	Mum let us watch the match.	I allowed it.
have / get + thing + past participle	past participle	I had my scooter repaired. She got her hair cut.	Someone else did it to the thing; who did it doesn’t matter.
be made + to + verb	to-infinitive	We were made to stand in the sun.	the passive of make: someone forced us

The key question is: who or what comes after the causative verb, and does it do the job, or is the job done to it?

• A person who does the job → the base form after have, make, let, or to + verb after get.
• A thing that the job is done to → the past participle.

A. Make sentences from the table

The table has four columns: subjects (Phoolmaya, Santosh, Biraj, I, They); causative verbs (had, will have, make, gets, has, was/were made); objects (my shoes, me/him/her, Suman, his brother, and to dance); and endings (at the party, repaired last Sunday, write a letter tomorrow, to play with him all the time, wash my clothes, to smoke against my will, dig the field, to type the document, send her the mail).

B. have, get or make

C. Rewrite the sentences

D. Choose the right form

A bar chart (or bar graph) shows numbers as bars: the longer the bar, the bigger the number. To describe one in writing, you first say what it shows, then the main trend (going up, going down, staying the same), then the details with numbers, and end with an overall sentence.

A. The chart

The chart, titled Average Daily Attendance, by Month, has the months September to December along the bottom and the number of students (0 to 30) up the side. Read from the bars, the average attendance was about 24 in September, 27 in October, 21 in November and 17 in December.

B. Words for trends

A trend is the general direction in which numbers move. Some words describe the direction, and some also tell how big or how fast the change was:

Size of change	Up	Down
any change	rise, go up, increase, grow, climb	fall, go down, decrease, decline, drop
big and sudden	jump, rocket	plummet, plunge

To say there was no change: remain (stay) steady/stable/constant, maintain the same level, level off. And to say how much, add an adverb: rose slightly, fell sharply, increased steadily, dropped dramatically.

C. Interpret the chart

Before you read

The picture shows horses, a mare with her foals, standing and drinking in a clear stream in a sunlit forest, with flowers on the banks and sunbeams coming through the trees.

What kind of text it is

Leisure is a short poem by the Welsh poet W. H. Davies (1871–1940), published in 1911 in his book Songs of Joy and Others. It has seven couplets (pairs of lines that rhyme: care / stare, boughs / cows, pass / grass…), every line with the same quick, regular beat, like a song. It is one of the best-known short poems in English.

The poem, couplet by couplet

1. The question. The poem opens with a question: what kind of life is it if we are so full of care (worries, busy-ness) that we have no time to stand and stare (to stop and look at things for a long time)? This question is the poem’s whole idea.
2. Under the trees. We have no time to stand under the boughs (big branches) of trees and stare for as long as sheep and cows do. Animals in a field stand still and gaze calmly for hours; busy people never do.
3. In the woods. We have no time, when we walk past woods (an area of trees), to watch where squirrels hide their nuts in the grass.
4. The stream. We have no time to see, in broad daylight, streams full of stars, like skies at night: the sun sparkles on moving water, so that a stream in the daytime glitters like the night sky. This is a simile (a comparison with like).
5. Beauty’s glance. We have no time to turn when Beauty looks at us (a glance is a quick look) and to watch her feet dance. Here beauty is a person: a woman who looks at us and dances. Giving a thing or an idea human qualities is personification.
6. Her smile. We have no time to wait until her mouth can enrich (make richer, fuller) the smile that her eyes began. A real smile starts in the eyes and spreads to the lips; if we hurry away, we never see the whole smile.
7. The answer. The last couplet repeats the first, with one change: not a question now, but a judgment. It is a poor life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.

How the poem works

Device	In the poem
Repetition (anaphora)	“No time to…” begins five couplets in a row, like the tick of a clock: the reader feels how busy we are.
Rhyming couplets	each pair of lines rhymes, which makes the poem easy to remember
Simile	streams full of stars, like skies at night
Personification	Beauty with a glance, dancing feet, a mouth and eyes
Frame (circular structure)	the first and last couplets are almost the same: the question becomes the answer
Rhetorical question	the first couplet asks a question that needs no answer

Words from the poem

Word	Meaning
care	worry, anxiety (in the poem: full of care)
stare	to look at something for a long time
bough	a big branch of a tree
beneath	under
woods	an area of trees, smaller than a forest
glance	a quick look
enrich	to make richer or fuller; to improve
leisure	free time, when you are not working

A. Match the words

B. Answer the questions

C. Your leisure time

A. Before you listen

The picture shows a man at a desk talking on the telephone, with a computer in front of him, and another man in a work shirt standing behind him.

The recording

A woman calls a garage to book her car in for a service (a regular check, with the oil changed and the parts looked at). Read the questions in B and C first, then listen, as many times as you need.

B. Fill in the blanks

C. Answer the questions

Notice how the two speak: the woman uses the causative, I want to get my car serviced, and the mechanic makes promises with will: we’ll fix that, we’ll find out what the matter is when you bring the car in. A slot is a free space in a timetable, and a leak is a hole that lets a liquid escape.

D. At a phone repair center

In an active sentence, the subject does the action: The workers paint the bridge. In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action: The bridge is painted. We use the passive when what happened matters more than who did it, or when we don’t know or don’t need to say who did it.

A. The passive in every tense

The passive is always a form of be + the past participle. The form of be shows the tense; the past participle never changes:

Tense	Active	Passive
Present simple	The workers paint the bridge.	The bridge is painted.
Past simple	The workers painted the bridge.	The bridge was painted.
Future simple	The workers will paint the bridge.	The bridge will be painted.
Present continuous	The workers are painting the bridge.	The bridge is being painted.
Past continuous	The workers were painting the bridge.	The bridge was being painted.
Going to	The workers are going to paint the bridge.	The bridge is going to be painted.
Present perfect	The workers have painted the bridge.	The bridge has been painted.
Past perfect	The workers had painted the bridge.	The bridge had been painted.
Infinitive (have to)	The workers have to paint the bridge.	The bridge has to be painted.
Modals	The workers must paint the bridge.	The bridge must be painted.

To change active to passive: (1) the object becomes the subject; (2) the verb becomes be (in the active verb’s tense, agreeing with the new subject) + past participle; (3) the old subject goes after by, or is left out when it is unimportant (someone, people, they).

Two objects, two passives

Verbs like give, send, show, tell, teach, pay, offer, lend have two objects: a person and a thing. The guide showed the tourists (person) the sights (thing). Either object can become the subject, so there are two passives:

• The person first (more common): The tourists were shown the sights.
• The thing first, with to before the person: The sights were shown to the tourists.

With buy, make, get, cook the person takes for, and the thing-first passive is the usual one: Flowers were bought for the bride.

Two more passives in this unit

• The passive after a modal: can, could, must, should, will, may + be + past participle: The courts can be booked online.
• People believe that… has two passives: It is believed that the center is the largest, or The center is believed to be the largest. The same goes for say, think, know, expect.

B. Change into the passive

C. Complete the passage

The passage is a short news report about a new sports center in a town, opened by the mayor last week: how big it is, how long it took to build, what it offers, who paid for it, and the opening ceremony next Tuesday.

An essay is a piece of writing that explains one topic in an organized way. A good short essay has a title, an introduction (what the topic is, why it matters), a body of two or three paragraphs (one idea each, with examples) and a conclusion (your view, in a sentence or two). Use linking words: first, however, on the other hand, moreover, therefore, in conclusion.

A survey collects the same information from many people, so that we can see a pattern. A pie chart shows the result as a circle cut into slices, each slice as big as its share of the whole.

To draw a slice, find its angle: a whole circle is 360°, so

$$\text{angle of a slice} = \frac{\text{number in the group}}{\text{total number}} \times 360°$$

The ending -ism turns a word into a noun for a belief, a way of behaving, an activity or a condition. It adds a syllable, said “-iz-um” /ɪzəm/: TOUR-ism, OP-ti-mism.

Word	Meaning
optimism	a feeling that good things will happen and that something will succeed (opposite: pessimism)
tourism	the business of providing hotels, services and entertainment for people visiting a place for pleasure
criticism	saying what is wrong with someone or something; also a careful judgment of a book, film or work of art
nationalism	the wish of a people who share a culture, language or history to have their own independent country; also a strong love of one’s nation
alcoholism	the illness caused by drinking too much alcohol regularly
patriotism	love of your country and the wish to defend it
journalism	the work of collecting and writing news for newspapers, magazines, radio, television or news websites
terrorism	the use of violence, especially against ordinary people, to achieve political aims

More: heroism (great courage), Buddhism, Hinduism (religions), socialism, federalism (Nepal is a federal republic), racism (unfair treatment because of race), mechanism (the working parts of a machine).

Practice on this unit in the style of the final exam. Try each one as in the exam, then open the answer.