The Rule of The Road
[A.G. Gardiner (1855-1946) wrote his essays
under the pen name of Alpha. His essays remind us of ‘pleasant things, sunshine
and mirth, laughter and peace’. They are, in fact, a commentary on the Art of
living. The Rule of the Road discusses the important issue of rights and
responsibilities in social life. The rights of one individual end where the
rights of another begin. The writer has brought this point through some
interesting anecdotes.]
That was a jolly story which Mr. Arthur
Ransome told the other day in one of his messages from Petrograd. A stout old
lady was walking with her basket down the middle of a street in Petrograd to
the great confusion of the traffic and with no small peril to herself. It was
pointed out to her that the pavement was the place for foot passengers, but she
replied: ‘I’m going to walk where I like. We’ve got liberty now.’ It did not
occur to the dear old lady that if liberty entitled the foot passenger to walk
down the middle of a road, it also entitled the car driver to drive on the pavement,
and that the end of such liberty would be universal chaos. Everybody would be
getting in everybody else’s way and nobody would get anywhere. Individual
liberty would have become social anarchy. There is a danger of the world
getting liberty-drunk in these days like the old lady with the basket, and it
is just as well to remind ourselves of what the rule of the road means. It
means hat in order that the liberties of all may be preserved, the liberties of
everybody must be curtailed. When the policeman, say at Picadilly Circus, steps
into the middle of the road and puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of
tyranny, but of liberty. You may not think so. You may, being in a hurry and
seeing your motor car pulled up by this insolence of office, feel that your
liberty has been outraged. How dare this fellow interfere with your free use of
the public highway? Then, if you are a reasonable person, you will reflect that
if he did not, incidentally, interfere with you he would interfere with no one,
and the result would be that Piccadilly Circus would be a maelstrom that you
would never cross at all. You have submitted to a curtailment of private
liberty in order that you may enjoy a social order which makes your liberty a
reality. Liberty is not a personal affair only, but a social contract. It is an
accommodation of interests. In matters which do not touch anybody else’s
liberty, of course, I may be as free as I like. If I choose to go down the
Strand in a dressing-gown with long hair and bare feet, who shall raise an
objection? You have liberty to laugh at me, but I have liberty to be
indifferent to you. And if I have a fancy for dyeing my hair, or waxing my
moustache or wearing a tall hat, a frock-coat and sandals, or going to bed late
or getting up early, I shall follow my fancy and ask no man’s permission. In
all these and a thousand other details you and I please ourselves and ask no
one’s leave. We have a whole kingdom in which we rule alone, can do what we
choose, be wise or ridiculous, harsh or easy, conventional or odd. But directly
we step out of that kingdom, our personal liberty of action becomes qualified
by other people’s liberty. I might like to practise on the guitar from midnight
till three in the morning. If I went on to the top of a hill to do it, I could
please myself, but if I do it out in the streets, the neighbours will remind me
that my liberty to play on a guitar must not interfere with their liberty to
sleep in quiet. There are a lot of people in the world, and I have to
accommodate my liberty to their liberties. We are all liable to forget this
and, unfortunately, we are much more conscious of the imperfections of others
in this respect than of our own. I got into a railway carriage at a country
station the other morning and settled down for what the school-boys would call
an hour’s ‘swot’ at a Blue-book. I was not reading it for pleasure. The truth
is that I never do read Blue-books for pleasure. I read them as a lawyer reads
a brief, for the very humble purpose of turning an honest penny out of them.
Now, if you are reading a book for pleasure it doesn’t matter what is going on
around you. I think I could enjoy a really good novel even in the midst of an
earthquake. But when you are reading a thing as a task, you need reasonable
quiet, and that is what I didn’t get, for at the next station in came a couple
of men, one of whom, talked to his friend for the rest of the journey in a loud
and pompous voice on any and every subject under the sun. If I had asked him to
be good enough to talk in a lower tone, I daresay he would have thought I was a
very rude fellow. It did not occur to him that anybody could have anything
better to do than to listen to him, and I have no doubt he left the carriage convinced
that everybody in it had, thanks to him, had a very illuminating journey, and
would carry away a pleasing impression of his great knowledge. He was obviously
a well-intentioned person. The thing that was wrong with him was that he had
not the social sense. He was not ‘a clubbable man’. A reasonable consideration
for the rights or feelings of others is the foundation of social conduct. Let
us take the guitar as an illustration again. A man who wants to learn to play
on it is entitled to learn it in his own house, even though he is a nuisance to
his neighbours, but it is his business to make the nuisance as slight as possible.
He must practise in the attic and shut the window. He has no right to sit in
his front room, open the window, and blow his noise into his neighbours’ ears with
the maximum of violence. You are interfering with the liberties of your
neighbours if you don’t do what you can to limit the noise to your own
household. Your neighbours may prefer to have their Sunday afternoon
undisturbed, and it is as great an impertinence for you to wilfully trespass on
their peace as it would be to go, unasked, into their gardens and trample on
their flower beds. There are cases, of course, where the clash of liberties seems
to defy compromise. My dear old friend X, who lives in West End Square and who is
an amazing mixture of good nature and irascibility, flies into a passion when
he hears a street piano, and rushes out to order it away. But nearby lives a
distinguished lady of romantic picaresque tastes, who dotes on street pianos, and
attracts them as wasps are attracted to a jar of jam. Whose liberty in this
case should surrender to the other? For the like of me, I cannot say. It is as
reasonable to like street pianos as to dislike them and vice versa. I would give much to
hear Sancho Panza’s1 solution of such a nice
riddle. I suppose the fact is that we can be neither complete anarchists nor
complete socialists in this complex world. We must be a judicious mixture of
both. We have both liberties to preserve our individual liberty and our social liberty.
I shall not permit any authority to say that my child must go to this school or
that, shall specialize in science or arts, shall play cricket or soccer. These things
are personal. But if I proceed to say that my child shall have no education at
all, that he shall be brought up as a primeval savage, or at Mr. Fagins’
academy for pickpockets, then society will politely but firmly tell me that it has
no use for primeval savages and a very stern objection to pickpockets, and that
my child must have a certain minimum of education whether I like it or not. I cannot
have the liberty to be nuisance to my neighbours or make my child a burden and
a danger to the commonwealth. It is in the small matters of conduct, in the
obsevance of 1a character in Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote the
rule of the road, that we pass judgment upon ourselves, and declare that we are
civilized or uncivilized. The great moments of heroism and sacrifice are rare.
It is the little habits of commonplace intercourse that make up the great sum of
life and sweeten or make bitter the journey. I hope my friend in the railway
carriage will reflect on this.
Glossary:
Universal chaos (n): total disorder If we
talk of rights and ignore our duties it would create
a universal chaos.
peril (n) : danger Her life in that hostile house is
in great peril.
jolly (adj) : funny, very interesting, happy and
cheerful All of the boys were in a jolly and relaxed mood at the party.
anarchy (n) : a state of lawlessness and disorder
(usually resulting from a failure of government ) We witnessed a state of
complete anarchy in our country at the time of partition.
curtail (v) : to reduce, cut short We want to curtail the total monthly
expenditure of our family.
tyranny (n) : unfair and strict control over someone He
wished to escape from the tyranny of his step-father.
insolent (adj) : rude and showing no respect His son is
not only naughty but insolent too.
swot (v) : to study a lot in a short time as before
an exam I was busy swotting for my Civics examination.
pompous (adj) : trying to make people think you are very important,
self important, foolishly serious and grand Our boss gave a pompous speech in the party.
Nobody likes your pompous ways.
swagger (n) : bully, frighten with threats or
domineering manner. He appeared to be a man of immense swagger.
banal (adj) : ordinary and not interesting It was a banal write-up.
irascibility (n) : rudeness, an angry
temper His irascibility is the cause of his frequent quarrels with his wife.
dote on (v) : love or like excessively The new
principal has no hold on the situation because he is doting on some sycophants and
flatterers only.
trespass (v) : to go into someone’s private land without
permission It was written on the board : ‘Trespassing is prohibited’.
savage (adj) : very cruel and violent The punishment
given to John seemed a little too savage.
primeval savage (n) : an uncivilized brute
belonging to the earliest ages. Man has evolved a long way from a primeval
savage to\ become the master of universe.
nuisance (n) : problem, something that causes annoyance I
cannot tolerate this nuisance of a dog in the house.
judicious (adj) : intelligent, wise His
judicious
handling
of the case saved the situation from getting worse.
LANGUAGE EXERCISES
A. Comprehension Questions
(i) Answer the following questions in your own words in 10-12 words:
1. Why was the stout old lady walking down
the middle of a road?
Ans. The stout old lady was walking down the middle of a road
because she thought that it was her right to do so. She said that she had got
liberty and she could walk wherever she liked.
1. How was the stout old
lady mistaken about liberty?
Ans. She was protecting her personal freedom. She never
realized that others too had certain rights which should be equally protected
.Thus, she was mistaken about liberty.
2. What does the policeman
at Picadilly Circus symbolize?
Ans. The policeman at Picadilly Circus symbolize liberty,
and not tyranny. He puts a little check on personal liberty so that there is
social liberty.
3. Can we do whatever we
feel like doing?
Ans. No, we cannot do
whatever we feel like doing. Freedom is a social contract, and it cannot be
misused in a civilized society.
4. What was the writer
reading during the journey?
Ans. The author was
reading a Blue-book during the journey.
5. Why did the writer of
"The Rule of the Road" need a reasonable silence in the compartment?
Ans. He was reading a blue-book. He was reading it for
serious purpose. So he needed reasonable silence to understand it.
6. Who disturbed the writer
of "The Rule of the Road"?
Ans. A fellow passenger disturbed him. He was an intruder. He
was talking in such a loud voice that the author could not read his book
seriously.
7. What was the intruding
passenger talking of?
Ans.
He did not have the social sense. He was talking any and every subjects under
the sun.
8. What is the basis of
social contract?
Ans. A reasonable consideration before the rights and
feelings of others is the basic of social contract.
9. ‘We should be a judicious
mixture of both.’ What does the writer of 'The Rule of the Road' mean by his
statement.
Ans. By this statement, the writer means to say that in our
life, there should be a mixture of both- our individual freedom and our social
freedom. It means that what wer ourselves do, we must allow others to do the
same thing.
(i)
Answer the following
questions in your own words in 30-50 words.
1. What is the theme of the
essay ‘The Rule of the Road’? Explain.
Ans. The theme of the essay is
that liberty is not a personal affair, it is a social contract. Our personal
freedom should not disturb the freedom of other. A sweet combination of
personal and social freedom is essential for the journey of life.
2. Describe, in your own
words, how the writer was disturbed doing his train journey.
Ans. The writer was
reading a blue-book during his train journey. A new passenger entered his
railway compartment. This fellow began to talk irrelevantly. The noise of his
talking was so loud that the writer felt disturbed.
3. ‘Liberty is not a
personal affair only, but a social contract.’ Explain in 50-60 words.
Ans. Exercise of freedom is not a personal matter. If it
cause harm to others, it is against social contract . We should exercise our
rights in a reasonable and responsible manner. But we must respect the rights
of others also.
B. Vocabulary Exercises
II(i) Match the phrases in column A with their meaning in column B.
A B
pointed
out to ignore
of
course to think about
to
have a fancy for to
come to mind
to be
indifferent to to come out quickly
to
occur without
doubt
to
look after
showed, explained
to
fly into a passion to have a liking
for
to
rush out
to go mad
to
reflect on to
take care of
Ans.
pointed out showed, explained
of course without doubt
to have a fancy for have a liking for
to be indifferent to to ignore
to occur
to come to mind
to look after to take care of
to fly into a passion to to go mad
to rush out to come out quickly
to reflect on to think about
(ii) Add the correct suffixes
to the words given in the brackets and fill in
the blanks, choosing words from
the list given below:
____ dom, ____ ful, ___ ness, ____ hood.
1. We must work hard for our freedom (free)
2. The difference between madness and wisdom (wise) is measured
by success.
3. Human journey from childhood (child) to manhood (man) is full of surprises.
4.Turthfulness (truthful) is essential for sweetness (sweet) in
life.
5. Parenthood (parent) is an art.
6. Happiness (happy) is an intrinsic quality.
(iii) Fill in the blanks with suitable words from amongst those given
in the box:
eccentric
despised
lante followed
questions blew tub
pressed
There once lived in Athens a very wise man
called Diogenes. He was an eccentric fellow. To show people how he despised wealth and luxury, he lived in an old tub. One day he
came to the market–place with a lighted lantern in broad daylight. He looked at
the face of everyone he met with his lantern. People followed him wondering
as to what he was searching. But he did not answer their question. At last he blew out his lantern and went in to his
tub
.When people pressed
him for an answer he replied, “I was looking for an honest man; but there is
not a single such man in all Athens.”
C. Grammar Exercises
(i) Punctuate the following sentences:
a. but why isnt it absurd i persisted i can
buy as many things as i like he replied.
b. John said i am in a hurry and cant spare
time.
c. phatik was furious he cried if you don’t
get down this minute i ll thrash you.
d. what an easy paper said ashok was it set
by a kind examiner.
e. on tuesday the prime minister of
afghanistan would reach India.
Ans.
a.
“But why? Isn’t
it absurd?” I persisted. ”I can buy as many things as I like,” he replied.
b.
John said, “I am
in a hurry and can’t spare time.”
c.
Phatik was
furious. He cried,” If you don’t get down this minute, I’ll thrash you.”
d.” what an easy paper!” said ashok.” Was it set by a kind
examiner?”
e. On Tuesday, the prime minister of Afghanistan would reach
India.
(ii) Rearrange the following
words and phrases to form meaningful sentences:
a.
game / is / glorious / Cricket / a / of / uncertainties.
Ans. Cricket is a game of
glorious uncertainties.
b.
a / city / very / large / Mumbai / is.
Ans. Mumbai is a very large
city.
c.
has / thirty-nine / Jupiter / satellites / the / planet / in /
solar / system / largest / the.
Ans. Jupiter, the largest
planet in the solar system, has thirty- nine satellites.
d.
imaginary / line / equator / equal / halves / earth / into / that /
divides / the / two / an / is / the.
Ans. The equator is an
imaginary line that divides the earth into two equal halves.
(iii) Fill in the blanks with correct form of the verb given in
brackets:
a.
Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar has been nominated (nominate)
for this year’s Grammy Award for his album Full Circle.
b. This is the fourth time he has been nominated
(nominate) for the music world’s top award.
c. Shankar has already won (already won) two Grammy
Awards.
d. ‘Full Circle’, which was recorded
(record) in October 2000, features (feature) Shankar’s rendering of the night raga Kaushi
Kanhara.
D. Pronunciation Practice
The plural morpheme - e (s) is pronounced in three
ways:
a.
/ z /
b. /IZ /
c. / s /
Read the following words now with the correct
sound at the final position:
a. bags b. washes c. caps
heads benches books
breathes
judges laughs
flies asses cats
plays kisses jumps
E. Creative Writing and Extended Reading
1. Read Norman Vincent Peale’s book The New Art
of Living. List ten guidelines that should help man to live better.
2. Write a paragraph on:
i.
Rights and Duties Go Together
ii
. Value of Discipline in Life
iii. Individual Liberty Vs Social
Responsibiliy
Just a little fun: There was a young
person from Perth, Who was born on
the day of his birth. He was married,
they say, On his wife’s
wedding day, And died when he
quitted this earth
