A Letter to God – Class 10 English Chapter 1 Notes & NCERT PDF

Overview

Chapter 1 of First Flight pairs a prose story about faith — A Letter to God — with two short poems by Robert Frost, Dust of Snow and Fire and Ice. The story asks what we should put our faith in; the poems show how a tiny moment can change a mood, and how human passions can destroy the world.

A Letter to God — Part 1: The Hailstorm

The only house in the valley sits on the crest of a low hill. Lencho, a farmer who knows his fields intimately, watches the north-east sky all morning. His field of ripe corn, dotted with flowers, "always promised a good harvest"; it only needs rain.

During dinner the rain comes, and Lencho is overjoyed:

"These aren't raindrops falling from the sky, they are new coins. The big drops are ten cent pieces and the little ones are fives."

Suddenly a strong wind blows and very large hailstones fall. For an hour hail beats down on the whole valley. "The field was white, as if covered with salt." Not a leaf is left; the corn is totally destroyed. Lencho says, "A plague of locusts would have left more than this… This year we will have no corn."

Part 2: The Letter

The family has "a single hope: help from God". Lencho — "an ox of a man, working like an animal in the fields, but still he knew how to write" — writes a letter asking God for a hundred pesos to sow his field again and to live until the next crop. He writes "To God" on the envelope and posts it.

A postman laughs and shows the letter to the postmaster, "a fat, amiable fellow", who also laughs but turns serious: "What faith! I wish I had the faith of the man who wrote this letter." So as not to shake the writer's faith in God, he decides to answer it. He collects money from his employees, gives part of his own salary, and asks friends to give "for an act of charity". He can gather only a little more than half — and sends it with a letter signed with a single word: God.

Part 3: The Irony

Lencho shows "not the slightest surprise" on seeing the money — such is his confidence — but he becomes angry when he counts it. He writes a second letter:

"God: Of the money that I asked for, only seventy pesos reached me. Send me the rest, since I need it very much. But don't send it to me through the mail because the post office employees are a bunch of crooks. Lencho."

The irony: the very people who helped him out of kindness are the ones Lencho accuses of stealing.

Characters: Lencho (hard-working, unquestioning faith, naive, ungrateful to the real helpers); his wife (hopeful — "God willing"); the postmaster (kind, generous, admires faith).

Two conflicts: humans vs nature (the hailstorm destroys the crop); humans vs humans (Lencho distrusts the post office employees).

Poem: Dust of Snow — Robert Frost

The way a crow / Shook down on me / The dust of snow / From a hemlock tree / Has given my heart / A change of mood / And saved some part / Of a day I had rued.

The poet was in a sad, regretful mood. A crow on a hemlock tree (a poisonous plant) shakes snow onto him. This small, ordinary moment lifts his mood and saves the rest of a day he had rued (regretted). The crow and the hemlock usually suggest gloom, yet here they bring joy — a little thing touches a larger thing. Form: one sentence in two stanzas; rhyme scheme abab cdcd.

Poem: Fire and Ice — Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire / Some say in ice. / From what I've tasted of desire / I hold with those who favour fire.

Fire stands for desire — greed, avarice, lust, fury, conflict. Ice stands for hate — coldness, indifference, rigidity, cruelty, intolerance. The poet says desire would destroy the world; but if it had to perish twice, hatred (ice) "is also great / And would suffice". Rhyme scheme: aba abc bcb — the interlinked rhymes bring out the contrasting ideas.

Word Power

Board Exam Focus

Model answer outline — "What is the irony in the situation?"

Model answer outline — "How does Frost present nature in Dust of Snow?"

Model answer outline — "What do fire and ice stand for?" Fire = desire/greed/fury; ice = hate/coldness/indifference; either is enough to destroy the world.

Grammar & Language Focus

Common Mistakes