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Read these lines: "Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." What do the quoted lines chiefly convey?
AThat he is grasping and shut off from others
BThat he is generous but very badly understood
CThat he is hard working and rather well liked
DThat he is frightened of losing his own money
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. That he is grasping and shut off from others
1. The first run of words is all about taking and holding: squeezing, grasping, clutching, covetous.
2. The comparison to flint says that no generous spark has ever been struck out of him.
3. The comparison to an oyster says he is closed up and alone.
4. Put together, the two halves give a man who grabs and shuts himself away, option A.
5. The third choice takes hard as a compliment about effort, but here hard is used against him.
_Source: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave I Marley's Ghost_
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