1 . In the early 1870s, Mark Twain was on his way to becoming the world’s most famous writer and humorist. Meanwhile, the tools of writing were undergoing a profound transformation — from fountain pens to typewriters. Like any other new technology, the new writing machine did not perform well enough at first. But when Twain laid eyes on a Remington in a Boston store window, its salesman claimed that the writing tool was quite reliable.
The salesman began to explain it to Twain and his friend. “He showed us samples of its work,” Twain later recalled, “and said it could do fifty-seven words a minute — a statement which we frankly confessed that we did not believe. So he put his type-girl to work, and we timed her by the watch. She actually did the fifty-seven in sixty seconds. We were partly convinced.” They timed the girl over and over again — with the same result always. Twain bought it on the spot at the price of $125.
And he recognized its usefulness almost immediately. In a letter he typed to his brother, Twain wrote: “The machine has several virtues. I believe it will print faster than I can write. One may lean back in his chair & work it. It piles an awful stack of words on one page. It doesn’t untidy things. Of course it saves paper.”
But Twain fell out of love rather swiftly. After a year or two, he found it was damaging his character. He found the machine to be “full of faults — unbearable ones,” he later wrote. Then he gave his machine to his writer pal William Dean Howells. “My morals began to improve,” Twain said.
However, Howells sent the machine back to him after just six months. “I gave it away twice after that,” Twain said, “but it wouldn’t stay,” Trying to get rid of it completely, he settled on a coachman (someone driving a coach pulled by horses) who “was very grateful, because he did not know the animal, and thought I was trying to make him wiser and better.” The coachman eventually traded it to another person.
But Twain would ultimately come back to the uncontrollable creature. His 1883 book, Life on the Mississippi, was the first literary work to be completed on the machine.
1. What made Twain decide to buy the typewriter?| A．The persuasion from one of his friends. | B．An advertisement in a store window. |
| C．The samples of the typewriter’s work. | D．A type-girl’s convincing performance. |
| A．He regretted buying the typewriter. |
| B．He was satisfied with the typewriter. |
| C．He found it difficult to use the typewriter. |
| D．He recommended the typewriter to more friends. |
| A．The writing tool sold by Howells. | B．The animal in Twain’s book. |
| C．The typewriter of Twain’s. | D．The horse pulling the coach. |
| A．To tell a story about Twain and his typewriter. |
| B．To explain the development of the typewriter. |
| C．To show the influence of the typewriter. |
| D．To describe Twain’s unusual character. |
