juccess (excerpt
gk chesterton
'it is perfectly obvious that in any decent occupation (such as bricklaying or writing books) there are only two ways in any special sense of
succeeding. one is by doing very good work, the other is by cheating both are much too simple to require any literary explanation. if you are in for
the high jump, either jump higher than any one else, or manage somehow to pretend that you have done so. if you want to succeed at whist, either
be a good whist player, or play with marked cards. you may want a book about jumping, you may want a book about whist, you may want a book
about cheating at whist
"but you cannot want a book about success. especially you cannot want a book about success such as those which you can now find scattered by
the hundred about the book-market. you may want to jump or to play cards, but you do not want to read wandering statements to the effect that
jumping is jumping, or that games are won by winners. if these writers, for instance, said anything
like this: the jumper must have a clear aim before him. he must desire definitely to jump higher than the other men wore
n
e aked from the sickening
him tong to do his
mer c ol o umping is distinctly competitive, and that, as darwin has gloriously demonstrated, the weakest go
to the wall' that is the kind of thing the book would say, and very useful it would be, no doubt if read out in a low and tense voice to a young
man just about to take the high jump
'or suppose that in the course of his intellectual rambles the philosopher of success dropped upon our other case, that of playing cards, his bracing
advice would run-in playing cards it is very necessary to avoid the mistake (commonly made by maudlin humanitarians and free traders) of
permitting your opponent to win the game. you must have grit and snap and go into win the days of idealism and superstition are over. we live in
a time of science and hard common sense, and it has now been definitely proved that in any game where we are playing if one does not win
the other will' it is all very stirring, of course, but i confess that if i were playing cards i would rather have some decent little book which told
me the rules of the game beyond the rules of the game it is all a question either of talent or dishonesty, and i will undertake to provide either one
or the other - which, it is not for me to say
ked cards,"
how does the sentence "if you want to succeed at whist, either be a good whist play
develop the writer's claim?
it echoes the overall claim of the passage, to discount the need for
books about success
it serves a contrast to the real message about success, that it comes to
those with great virtue
it develop the idea that to gain success is to read lots of books by
writers who truly understand success.
none of these choices explain how the sentence develop the writer's
claim as the overall claim is unclear throughout the passage
d)