question_answer

Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow:

In spite of all the honours that were heaped upon him, Pasteur, as it has been said, remained simple at heart. Perhaps, the imagery of his boyhood days, when he drew the familiar scenes of this birthplace and his longing to be a great artist, never wholly left him.

In truth, he did become a great artist, although he abandoned the brush forever after the age of 16.

Like every artist of worth, he put his whole soul and energy into his work, and it was this very energy that in the end wore him out. For him, each sufferer was something more than just a case that has to be cured. He looked upon the fight against hydrophobia as a battle and he was absorbed in his determination to win.

The sight of injured children particularly moved him to an indescribable extent. He suffered with this patients and yet he would not deny himself a share in their suffering. His greatest grief was when sheer physical exhaustion made him give up his active work. But even then, in that pain, he loved to see his former pupils and its was then that he would reiterate his life's principles, that is never cease to work. So well had he kept his percept that he rapidly began to sink from exhaustion.

Finally, on September 27, 1895, when someone leaned over his bed to offer him a cup of milk, he said sadly, "I cannot". With a look of perfect resignation and peace, he seemed to have fallen asleep. He never again opened his eyes to the cares and suffering of the world, which he had done so much to relieve and to conquer. He was within three months of his seventy-third birthday.

(i) How did Pasteur view those who suffered from diseases?

(ii) What tells us that he wanted to become an artist?

(iii) Elaborate the phrase "cannot" in context with the article.

(iv) What was his greatest grief?

(v) What is meant by 'whole soul and energy'?

(vi) What is meant by 'to give up'?

(vii) Find the word opposite to 'float'.

(viii) Find the word opposite to 'weakness'.

Answer:

(i)  Pasteur did not view those who suffered from diseases just as cases that had to be cured but as something much more than that.

(ii) The fact that Pasteur never wholly forgot the imagery of his boyhood days, when he drew the familiar scenes of his birthplace and when he longed to be an artist.

(iii) The phrase "cannot" in context with the article/ implies that Pasteur could not take the pain and exhaustion of being bedridden anymore and he did not want to live like that anymore.

(iv) His greatest grief was when sheer physical exhaustion made him give up his active work.

(v) hard work/complete dedication

(vi) to abandon

(vii) sink

(viii) determination