Essay · Level 4 · 138 words

Reading the River

Q: Why is the river "a dead language to the uneducated passenger"?

Because only trained skill lets one read its signs — Like a language one hasn't learned, the river's meaning is inaccessible without the training Twain acquired.

Q: "Unflagging" as used here most nearly means:

never weakening — Twain praises the river's "unflagging" interest — interest that never tires or diminishes.

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883). Public domain.

The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book — a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. There never was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interest was so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparklingly renewed with every reperusal.

Comprehension questions

1. What does Twain mean by calling the river a "book"?

A He literally read books while on the river.
B The river's surface held meaning that a trained eye could interpret.
C The river was as boring as a textbook.
D Passengers wrote about the river in journals.

Show answer

B. The river's surface held meaning that a trained eye could interpret.
Twain treats the water's "face" as a text whose "secrets" he, unlike the untrained passenger, could read.

2. Why is the river "a dead language to the uneducated passenger"?

A Because passengers could not see the water
B Because only trained skill lets one read its signs
C Because the river had no features
D Because passengers spoke a foreign language

Show answer

B. Because only trained skill lets one read its signs
Like a language one hasn't learned, the river's meaning is inaccessible without the training Twain acquired.

3. "Unflagging" as used here most nearly means:

A never weakening
B frequently changing
C poorly marked
D easily ignored

Show answer

A. never weakening
Twain praises the river's "unflagging" interest — interest that never tires or diminishes.

Source: Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883). Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883). Public domain.