For the past few hours, I've been toiling away at this impossible passage's question set. If anyone can help, I will be forever grateful! :)
"And, if I hold the true anatomy of myself, I am delineated and naturally framed to such a piece of virtue,--for I am of a constitution so general that it consorts and sympathizes with all things; I have no antipathy, or rather idiosyncrasy, in diet, humor, air, anything...I am no plant that will not prosper out of a garden. All places, all airs, make unto me one country; I am in England everywhere, and under any meridian. I have been shipwrecked, yet am not enemy with the sea or winds; I can study, play, or sleep, in a tempest. In brief I am averse from nothing: my conscience would give me the lie if I should say I absolutely detest or hate any essence, but the devil; or so at least abhor anything, but that we might come to composition. If there be any among those common objects of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, virtue, and religion, the multitude; that numerous piece of monstrosity, which, taken asunder, seem men, and the reasonable creatures of God, but, confused together, make but one great beast, and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra. It is no breach of his good parts. Though the corruption of these times, and the bias of present practice, wheel another way, thus it was in the first and primitive commonwealths, and is yet in the integrity and cradle of well ordered polities: till corruption getteth ground, ruder desires laboring after that which wiser considerations contemn, everyone having a liberty to amass and heap up riches, and they a license or faculty to do or purchase anything."
1. The speaker in this passage presents:
A. an objective self-portrait
B. a view of himself as modest and gregarious
C. a view of himself as one of the common herd
D. a view of himself as a biological creature
E. a view of himself as unique and different from the masses
2. By the expression “delineated and naturally framed” (line 1), the speaker means that he:
A. was created by God
B. inherited his personality from his ancestors
C. is a product of evolution
D. was designed and formed by nature
E. owes what he is to no one
3. When the speaker states “I am no plant” (line 4), he is using:
A. a simile
B. a paradox
C. a symbol
D. an analogy
E. a metaphor
4. In this passage, the speaker initially presents many of his virtues:
A. by bold and positive assertions
B. by the use of examples
C. with humility
D. by means of negative statements
E. with humor and self-deprecation
5. In this passage, the speaker sees himself as:
A. a lover of nature
B. an agnostic
C. a lover of man but not of men
D. a captain of the souls of men
E. a model to be emulated
6. The reader may conclude from this passage that the speaker is:
A. a person with low self-esteem
B. an egoist
C. a man of eminence
D. a man of great piety
E. a man who has suffered greatly
7. In this passage, the speaker claims that all of the following represent the kind of person he is NOT, EXCEPT:
A. one who can readily come to agreement on issues
B. one who fusses about the food served him
C. one who is ready to forgive those who tolerate evil
D. one who is at home nowhere
E. one who is dyspeptic and rancorous
8. In the speaker’s view, man is fundamentally:
A. savage and evil
B. proud, pompous, and egotistical
C. lacking in reason
D. gullible and superstitious
E. noble and virtuous
9. The speaker supports his contention that he is “averse from nothing” (line 8) by citing all of the following examples EXCEPT:
A. he is not a particularly fussy eater
B. he adapts to strange circumstances
C. he accepts the ravages of time and nature
D. he is calm even in the face of adversity
E. he is tolerant of foolish people
10. In this passage, the speaker reveals himself to be all of the following EXCEPT:
A. a deeply religious man
B. a leader of men
C. a critic of social evils
D. a scholarly man
E. a man who has traveled to many places
11. The allusion to Hydra (line 16) is introduced by the speaker to dramatize the tendencies in men of his time to engage in all of the following EXCEPT:
A. enterprises to acquire wealth
B. exploitation of the weak and poor
C. corruption of official
D. sexual freedom
E. attendance at church services
12. The speaker sees himself as being able to function and to maintain his peace in all of the following except:
A. law courts
B. storms at sea
C. public demonstrations
D. slums
E. crowded streets
Thanks in advance! :)