Grablevskij
Member
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2007
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Russian
- Home Country
- Russian Federation
- Current Location
- Russian Federation
UNEASY MONEY By P. G. Wodehouse:
What a gelatine-backboned thing is man, who prides himself on his clear reason and becomes as wet blotting-paper at one glance from bright eyes! A moment before Mr Pickering had thought out the whole subject of woman and marriage in a few bold flashes of his capable brain, and thanked Providence that he was not as those men who take unto themselves wives to their undoing. Now in an instant he had lost that iron outlook. Reason was temporarily out of business. He was slipping.
Could you, please, help me understand that. Is it the changed idiom "take it upon yourself to do sth"? If not, please, help me understand the grammar of this excerpt.
I understood that he was not as those men who marry women, become breadwinners for them and allow them doing nothing.
Michael
What a gelatine-backboned thing is man, who prides himself on his clear reason and becomes as wet blotting-paper at one glance from bright eyes! A moment before Mr Pickering had thought out the whole subject of woman and marriage in a few bold flashes of his capable brain, and thanked Providence that he was not as those men who take unto themselves wives to their undoing. Now in an instant he had lost that iron outlook. Reason was temporarily out of business. He was slipping.
Could you, please, help me understand that. Is it the changed idiom "take it upon yourself to do sth"? If not, please, help me understand the grammar of this excerpt.
I understood that he was not as those men who marry women, become breadwinners for them and allow them doing nothing.
Michael
