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Back
in the 1880’s, a big red-bearded man came to call one day on
the French Minister of Education. (1)
The receptionist looked at the card and his face lighted
up.(2)“Monsieur
Verne,” (3)
he said reverently, “pray be seated.
(4)
With all the traveling you do, you must be tired.” Jules
Verne should have been worn out.（5）
He had gone around the world 100 times or more --- once in eighty days.
He had voyaged (6)
60,000 miles under the sea, whizzed
(7)
around the moon, hitchhiked (8)
on comets, explored the center of the earth,chatted
with cannibals in Africa and Bushmen in Australia. (9)There
was very little of the world’s geography that Jules Verne, the writer, had
not visited.(10)
Jules Verne, the man, was as stay-at-home.
(11)
If he was tired it was merely writer’s cramp.
(12)
For forty years he sat in a small room of the red
brick tower of his home, in Amiens, turning out, year in year out,
one book every six months --- more than 100 altogether. (13)
Verne himself had made visits around Europe and North Africa, and one six-week
tour of New York State. And that was all. The world’s
most extraordinary tourist spent less than one of his seventy-seven years
en voyage. (14)
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English
Intensive Reading 
Introduction
