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Read these lines: "But you were always a good man of business, Jacob, faltered Scrooge. Business! cried the Ghost. Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" What is the Ghost claiming?
AThat his true duty was to his fellow people
BThat trade should always come before charity
CThat his firm had been run at a heavy loss
DThat he should have worked far longer hours
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. That his true duty was to his fellow people
1. Scrooge uses the word business in its narrow sense, meaning a trade well run.
2. The Ghost seizes the same word and widens it, listing mankind, the common welfare, charity, mercy and benevolence.
3. He then shrinks the trade itself to a drop of water beside an ocean.
4. Putting the trade inside the larger duty says which of the two mattered.
5. So the claim is that his real business was his duty to other people, option A.
6. The second choice reverses the comparison, since the ocean here is the duty rather than the trade.
7. Losses and hours are never mentioned, and longer hours are the opposite of the point being made.
_Source: Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave I Marley's Ghost_
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