To have read

ranjithreddy.k9 wrote:To have read of how the critics scorned Mary Todd Lincoln as a traitor to her birth, how loyal union citizens suspected her of treason, and how many accused her of unpatriotic extravagance is to feel deeply how difficult life was even for the aristocracy of civil war times.

A) To have read of
B) Once one reads of
C) To read of
D) Reading about
E) Having read about

OA : C

Somebody please explain..

ranjithreddy.k9 wrote:To read of how the critics scorned Mary Todd Lincoln as a traitor to her birth, how loyal union citizens suspected her of treason, and how many accused her of unpatriotic extravagance is to feel deeply how difficult life was even for the aristocracy of civil war times.

Jim@Grockit wrote:It's just verb tense. "To have read" = present perfect infinitive, but "To feel" = present infinitive. Unless we mean to say that you can only have those feelings when you have finished reading, we need them to be in the same tense (i.e. you get the feelings at the time you are reading).

sameerballani wrote:

Jim@Grockit wrote:It's just verb tense. "To have read" = present perfect infinitive, but "To feel" = present infinitive. Unless we mean to say that you can only have those feelings when you have finished reading, we need them to be in the same tense (i.e. you get the feelings at the time you are reading).

So in this case we need to go with TO HAVE READ. Because one would feel only when DONE with Reading.
In case both goes in tandem, then we need to read || to feel. Am i correct?

Jim@Grockit wrote:

sameerballani wrote:

Jim@Grockit wrote:It's just verb tense. "To have read" = present perfect infinitive, but "To feel" = present infinitive. Unless we mean to say that you can only have those feelings when you have finished reading, we need them to be in the same tense (i.e. you get the feelings at the time you are reading).

So in this case we need to go with TO HAVE READ. Because one would feel only when DONE with Reading.
In case both goes in tandem, then we need to read || to feel. Am i correct?

No, the idea is that as you read each thing Mary Todd Lincoln endured, you feel how difficult it was. The feeling and the reading are simultaneous. I can see the argument for the present perfect -- your feeling about what she endured would grow as you read and only be complete upon finishing -- but in that case there is still feeling while reading.

There is also a "to X is to Y" construction in English with parallel infinitives (to know me is to love me).

Your position is a valid one, but the parallel construction is more likely to be correct.