Chapter XX: Part II (1)

Some less important chapters had been designed on Euphony, Ambiguity, Negligence, and other points. But as the book would with them have run to too great length, some of the examples have been simply grouped here in independent sections, with what seemed the minimum of comment.

1. JINGLES

To read his tales is a bapt_ism_ of optim_ism_.--_Times._

Sensation is the dir_ect_ eff_ect_ of the _mo_de of _mo_tion of the sensorium.--HUXLEY.

There have been no periodi_cal_ gener_al_ physi_cal_ catastrophes.--HUXLEY.

It is con_tended_, indeed, that these preparations are in_tended_ only....--_Times._

It is in_tend_ed to ex_tend_ the system to this country.--_Times._

M. Sphakianakis con_ducted_ pro_tracted_ negotiations.--_Times._

Those inalienable rights of life, liber_ty_ and proper_ty_ upon which the safe_ty_ of socie_ty_ depends.--CHOATE.

He served his apprenticeship to statesmanship.--BRYCE.

Ap_par_ently pre_par_ed to hold its ground.--_Times._

I awaited a belated train.--R. G. WHITE.

Hand them on silver salvers to the server.--E. F. BENSON.

... adjourned the discus_sion_ of the ques_tion_ of dela_tion_ until to-day.--_Times._

In this house of pover_ty_ and digni_ty_, of past grandeur and present simplici_ty_, the brothers lived together in uni_ty_.--H. CAINE.

Their invalidi_ty_ was caused by a technicali_ty_.--_Times._

... had for consola_tion_ the expan_sion_ of its domin_ion_.--_Spectator._

The essential founda_tion_ of all the organiza_tion_ needed for the promo_tion_ of educa_tion_.--HUXLEY.

The projects of M. Witte _re_lative to the _re_gul_ation_ of the _re_l_ations_ between capital and labour.--_Times._

The remaining instances are of consecutive adverbs in _-ly_. Parallel adverbs, qualifying the same word simultaneously, do not result in a jingle; but in all our instances the two adverbs either qualify different words, or qualify the same word at different times. Thus, in the Huxley sentence, _unquestionably_ either qualifies _is_, or qualifies _true_ only after _largely_ has qualified it: it is not the (universal) truth, but the partial truth, of the proposition that is unquestionable.

When the traffic in our streets becomes entirely mechanically propelled.--_Times._

He lived practically exclusively on milk.--E. F. BENSON.

Critics would probably decidedly disagree.--HUTTON.

The children are functionally mentally defective.--_Times._

What is practically wholly and entirely the British commerce and trade.--_Times._

... who answered, usually monosyllabically, ....--E. F. BENSON.

The policy of England towards Afghanistan is, as formerly, entirely friendly.--_Times._

Money spent possibly unwisely, probably illegally, and certainly hastily.--_Times._

The deer are necessarily closely confined to definite areas.--_Times._

We find Hobbes’s view ... tolerably effectively combated.--MORLEY.

Great mental endowments do not, unhappily, necessarily involve a passion for obscurity.--H. G. WELLS.

The proposition of Descartes is unquestionably largely true.--HUXLEY.

2. ALLITERATION

Alliteration is not much affected by modern prose writers of any experience; it is a novice’s toy. The antithetic variety has probably seen its best days, and the other instances quoted are doubtless to be attributed to negligence.

I must needs trudge at every old _beldam’s bidding_ and every young _minx’s maggot_.--SCOTT.

Onward _gl_ided Dame Ursula, now in _gl_immer and now in _gl_oom.--SCOTT.

I have seen her in the same day as changeful as a _m_armozet, and as stubborn as a _m_ule.--SCOTT.

Thus, in _con_sequence of the _con_tinuance of that grievance, the means of education at the disposal of the _Pr_otestants and _Pr_esbyterians were _st_unted and _st_erilized.--BALFOUR.

A gaunt well with a shattered pent-house _dw_arfed the _dw_elling.--H. G. WELLS.

It shall be lawful to _p_icket _p_remises for the _p_urpose of _p_eacefully _p_ersuading any _p_erson to....--_Times._

3. REPEATED PREPOSITIONS

The founders _of_ the study _of_ the origin _of_ human culture.--MORLEY.

After the manner _of_ the author _of_ the immortal speeches _of_ Pericles.--MORLEY.

Togo’s announcement _of_ the destruction _of_ the fighting power _of_ Russia’s Pacific squadron.--_Times._

The necessity _of_ the modification _of_ the system _of_ administration.--_Times._

An exaggeration _of_ the excesses _of_ the epoch _of_ sentimentalism.--MORLEY.

Hostile to the justice _of_ the principle _of_ the taxing _of_ those values which....--LORD ROSEBERY.

The observation _of_ the facts _of_ the geological succession _of_ the forms _of_ life.--HUXLEY.

Devoid _of_ any accurate knowledge _of_ the mode _of_ development _of_ many groups _of_ plants and animals.--HUXLEY.

One uniform note _of_ cordial recognition _of_ the complete success _of_ the experiment.--_Times._

The first fasciculus _of_ the second volume _of_ the Bishop _of_ Salisbury’s critical edition _of_ St. Jerome’s Revision _of_ the Latin New Testament.--_Times._

The appreciation _of_ the House _of_ the benefits derived _by_ the encouragement afforded _by_ the Government to the operations _of_....--_Times._

The study _of_ the perfectly human theme _of_ the affection _of_ a man _of_ middle age.--_Times._

His conviction _of_ the impossibility _of_ the proposal either _of_ the creation _of_ elective financial boards....--_Daily Express._

Representative _of_ the mind _of_ the age _of_ literature.--RUSKIN.

Indignation _against_ the worst offenders _against_....--_Times._

A belief _in_ language _in_ harmony with....--_Daily Telegraph._

The opposition ... _to_ the submission _to_ the claims.--_Times._

Taken up _with_ warfare _with_ an enemy....--FREEMAN.

Palmerston wasted the strength derived _by_ England _by_ the great war _by_ his brag.--GRANVILLE.

Unpropitious _for_ any project _for_ the reduction....--_Times._

Called _upon_ to decide _upon_ the reduction....--_Times._

4. SEQUENCE OF RELATIVES

A garret, in _which_ were two small beds, in one of _which_ she gave me to understand another gentleman slept.--BORROW.

Still no word of enlightenment had come _which_ should pierce the thick clouds of doubt _which_ hid the face of the future.--E. F. BENSON.

The ideal of a general alphabet ... is one _which_ gives a basis _which_ is generally acceptable.--H. SWEET.

He enjoyed a lucrative practice, _which_ enabled him to maintain and educate a family with all the advantages _which_ money can give in this country.--TROLLOPE.

The clown _who_ views the pandemonium of red brick _which_ he has built on the estate _which_ he has purchased.--BORROW.

The main thread of the book, _which_ is a daring assault upon that serious kind of pedantry _which_ utters itself in....--L. STEPHEN.

Practical reasons _which_ combine to commend this architectural solution of a problem _which_ so many of us dread....--_Times._

The teachers, _who_ took care that the weaker, _who_ might otherwise be driven to the wall, had ... their fair share.--_Times._

Let the heads and rulers of free peoples tell this truth to a Tsar _who_ seeks to dominate a people _who_ will not and cannot....--_Times._

He made a speech ... _which_ contained a passage on the conditions of modern diplomacy _which_ attracted some attention.--_Times._

There is of course no objection to the recurrence when the relatives are parallel.

5. SEQUENCE OF ‘THAT’ OR OTHER CONJUNCTIONS

Here, as with relatives, the recurrence is objectionable only when one of the clauses is subordinate to the other.

I do not forget _that_ some writers have held _that_ a system is to be inferred.--BALFOUR.

I say _that_ there is a real danger _that_ we may run to the other extreme.--HUXLEY.

It is clear ... _that_ the opinion was _that_ it is not incompatible.--NANSEN.

I find _that_ the view _that_ Japan has now a splendid opportunity ... is heartily endorsed.--_Times._

I must point out _that_ it is a blot on our national education _that_ we have serving....--_Times._

The Chairman replied to the allegation made by the Radical press to the effect _that_ the statement _that_ the British workman will not work as an unskilled labourer in the mines is inaccurate.--_Times._

An official telegram states _that_ General Nogi reports _that_....--_Times._

The conviction _that_ the Tsar must realize _that_ the prestige of Russia is at stake.--_Times._

He was so carried away by his discovery _that_ he ventured on the assertion _that_ the similarity between the two languages was so great _that_ an educated German could understand whole strophes of Persian poetry.--H. SWEET.

I may fairly claim to have no personal interest in defending the council, _although_ I believe, _though_ I am not certain, that....--_Times._

6. METRICAL PROSE

The novice who is conscious of a weakness for the high-flown and the inflated should watch narrowly for metrical snatches in his prose; they are a sure sign that the fit is on him.

Oh, moralists, who treat of happiness / and self-respect, innate in every sphere / of life, and shedding light on every grain / of dust in God’s highway, so smooth below / your carriage-wheels, so rough beneath the tread / of naked feet, bethink yourselves / in looking on the swift descent / of men who _have_ lived in their own esteem, / that there are scores of thousands breathing now, / and breathing thick with painful toil, who in / that high respect have never lived at all, / nor had a chance of life! Go ye, who rest / so placidly upon the sacred Bard / who had been young, and when he strung his harp / was old, ... / go, Teachers of content and honest pride, / into the mine, the mill, the forge, / the squalid depths of deepest ignorance, / and uttermost abyss of man’s neglect, / and say can any hopeful plant spring up / in air so foul that it extinguishes / the soul’s bright torch as fast as it is kindled! /--DICKENS.

But now,--now I have resolved to stand alone,--/ fighting my battle as a man should fight, / seeking for neither help nor sympathy, / and trusting not in self....--CORELLI.

And the gathering orange stain / upon the edge of yonder western peak, / reflects the sunsets of a thousand years.--RUSKIN.

His veins were opened; but he talked on still / while life was slowly ebbing, and was calm / through all the agony of lingering death.--W. W. CAPES.

Can I then trust the evidence of sense? / And art thou really to my wish restored? / Never, oh never, did thy beauty shine / with such bewitching grace, as that which now / confounds and captivates my view! / ... Where hast thou lived? where borrowed this perfection? / ... Oh! I am all amazement, joy and fear! / Thou wilt not leave me! No! we must not part / again. By this warm kiss! a thousand times / more sweet than all the fragrance of the East! / we never more will part. O! this is rapture! / ecstasy! and what no language will explain--SMOLLETT.

7. SENTENCE ACCENT

It is only necessary to read aloud any one of the sentences quoted below, to perceive at once that there is something wrong with its accentuation. To lay down rules on this point would be superfluous, even if it were practicable; for in all doubtful cases the ear can and should decide. A writer who cannot trust himself to balance his sentences properly should read aloud all that he writes. It is useless for him to argue that readers will not read his work aloud, and that therefore the fault of which we are speaking will escape notice. For, although the fault may appear to be exclusively one of sound, it is always in fact a fault of sense: unnatural accentuation is only the outward sign of an unnatural combination of thought. Thus, nine readers out of ten would detect in a moment, without reading aloud, the ill-judged structure in our first example: the writer has tried to do two incompatible things at the same time, to describe in some detail the appearance of his characters, and to begin a conversation; the result is that any one reading the sentence aloud is compelled to maintain, through several lines of new and essential information, the tone that is appropriate only to what is treated as a matter of course. The interrogative tone protests more loudly than any other against this kind of mismanagement; but our examples will show that other tones are liable to the same abuse.

The accentuation of each clause or principal member of a sentence is primarily fixed by its relation to the other members: when the internal claims of its own component parts clash with this fixed accentuation--when, for instance, what should be read with a uniformly declining accentuation requires for its own internal purposes a marked rise and fall of accent--reconstruction is necessary to avoid a badly balanced sentence. The passage from Peacock will illustrate this: after _pupils_, and still more after _counterpoint_, the accentuation should steadily decline to the end of the passage; but, conflicting with this requirement, we have the exorbitant claims of a complete anecdote, containing within itself an elaborately accented speech. To represent the anecdote as an insignificant appendage to _pupils_ was a fault of sense; it is revealed to the few who would not have perceived it by the impossibility of reading the passage naturally.

‘Are Japanese Aprils always as lovely as this?’ asked the man in the light tweed suit of two others in immaculate flannels with crimson sashes round their waists and puggarees folded in cunning plaits round their broad Terai hats.--D. SLADEN.

‘Here we are’, he said presently, after they had turned off the main road for a while and rattled along a lane between high banks topped with English shrubs, and looking for all the world like an outskirt of Tunbridge Wells.--D. SLADEN.

I doubt if Haydn would have passed as a composer before a committee of lords like one of his own pupils, who insisted on demonstrating to him that he was continually sinning against the rules of counterpoint; on which Haydn said to him, ‘I thought I was to teach you, but it seems you are to teach me, and I do not want a preceptor’, and thereon he wished his lordship a good morning.--PEACOCK.

She wondered at having drifted into the neighbourhood of a person resembling in her repellent formal chill virtuousness a windy belfry tower, down among those districts of suburban London or appalling provincial towns passed now and then with a shudder, where the funereal square bricks-up the church, that Arctic hen-mother sits on the square, and the moving dead are summoned to their round of penitential exercise by a monosyllabic tribulation-bell.--MEREDITH.

The verb _wonder_ presupposes the reader’s familiarity with the circumstance wondered at; it will not do the double work of announcing both the wonder and the thing wondered at. ‘I wondered at Smith’s being there’ implies that my hearer knew that Smith was there; if he did not, I should say ‘I was surprised to find...’. Accordingly, in this very artificial sentence, the writer presupposes the inconceivable question: ‘What were her feelings on finding that she had drifted ... tribulation-bell?’. To read a sentence of minute and striking description with the declining accentuation that necessarily follows the verb _wondered_ is of course impossible.

How doth the earth terrifie and oppress us with terrible earthquakes, which are most frequent in China, Japan, and those eastern climes, swallowing up sometimes six cities at once!--BURTON.

Of the many possible violations of sentence accent, one--common in inferior writers--is illustrated in the next section.

8. CAUSAL ‘AS’ CLAUSES

There are two admissible kinds of causal ‘as’ clauses--the pure and the mixed. The pure clause assigns as a cause some fact that is already known to the reader and is sure to occur to him in the connexion: the mixed assigns as a cause what is not necessarily known to the reader or present in his mind; it has the double function of conveying a new fact, and indicating its relation to the main sentence. Context will usually decide whether an _as_ clause is pure or mixed; in the following examples, it is clear from the nature of the two clauses that the first is pure, the second mixed:

I have an edition with German notes; but that is of no use, as you do not read German.

I caught the train, but afterwards wished I had not, as I presently discovered that my luggage was left behind.

The second of these, it will be noticed, is unreadable, unless we slur the _as_ to such an extent as practically to acknowledge that it ought not to be there. The reason is that, although a pure clause may stand at any point in the sentence, a mixed one must always precede the main statement. The pure clause, having only the subordinate function normally indicated by _as_, is subordinate in sense as well as in grammar; and the declining accentuation with which it is accordingly pronounced will not be interfered with wherever we may place it. But the mixed clause has another function, that of conveying a new fact, for which _as_ does not prepare us, and which entitles it to an accentuation as full and as varied as that of the main statement. To neutralize the subordinating effect of _as_, and secure the proper accentuation, we must place the clause at the beginning; where this is not practicable, _as_ should be removed, and a colon or semi-colon used instead of a comma. Persistent usage tends of course to remove this objection by weakening the subordinating power of conjunctions: _because_, _while_, _whereas_, _since_, can be used where _as_ still betrays a careless or illiterate writer. There is the same false ring in all the following sentences:

I myself saw in the estate office of a large landed proprietor a procession of peasant women begging for assistance, as owing to the departure of the bread-winners the families were literally starving.--_Times._

Remove _as_, and use a heavier stop.

Very true, Jasper; but you really ought to learn to read, as, by so doing, you might learn your duty towards yourselves.--BORROW.

To read; by so doing, ....

There was a barber and hairdresser, who had been at Paris, and talked French with a cockney accent, the French sounding all the better, as no accent is so melodious as the Cockney.--BORROW.

Use a semicolon and ‘for’; the assertion requires all the support that vigorous accentuation can lend.

One of the very few institutions for which the Popish Church entertains any fear, and consequently respect, as it respects nothing which it does not fear.--BORROW.

_For_ instead of _as_ will best suit this illogical and falsely coordinated sentence.

Everybody likes to know that his advantages cannot be attributed to air, soil, sea, or to local wealth, as mines and quarries, ... but to superior brain, as it makes the praise more personal to him.--EMERSON.

Again the clause is a mixed one. The point of view it suggests is, indeed, sufficiently obvious; but (unlike our typical pure clause above--‘you do not know German’) it depends for its existence upon the circumstances of the main sentence, which may or may not have occurred to the reader before. The full accentuation with which the clause must inevitably be read condemns it at once; use a colon, and remove _as_.

Pure clauses, being from their nature more or less otiose, belong rather to the spoken than to the written language. It follows that a good writer will seldom have a causal _as_ clause of any kind at the end of a sentence. Two further limitations remain to be noticed:

i. When the cause, not the effect, is obviously the whole point of the sentence, _because_, not _as_, should be used; the following is quite impossible English:

I make these remarks as quick shooting at short ranges has lately been so strongly recommended.--_Times._

ii. _As_ should be used only to give the cause of the thing asserted, not the cause of the assertion, nor an illustration of its truth, as in the following instances:

You refer me to the Encyclopaedia: you are mistaken, as I find the Encyclopaedia exactly confirms my view.

The Oxford Coxswain did not steer a very good course here, as he kept too close in to the Middlesex shore to obtain full advantage of the tide; it made little difference, however, as his crew continued to gain.--_Times._

My finding the Encyclopaedia’s confirmation was not the cause of mistake, nor the keeping too close the cause of bad steering.

9. WENS AND HYPERTROPHIED MEMBERS

No sentence is to be condemned for mere length; a really skilful writer can fill a page with one and not tire his reader, though a succession of long sentences without the relief of short ones interspersed is almost sure to be forbidding. But the tiro, and even the good writer who is not prepared to take the trouble of reading aloud what he has written, should confine himself to the easily manageable. The tendency is to allow some part of a sentence to develop unnatural proportions, or a half parenthetic insertion to separate too widely the essential parts. The cure, indispensable for every one who aims at a passable style, and infallible for any one who has a good ear, is reading aloud after writing.

1. Disproportionate insertions.

Some simple eloquence distinctly heard, though only uttered in her eyes, unconscious that he read them, as, ‘By the death-beds I have tended, by the childhood I have suffered, by our meeting in this dreary house at midnight, by the cry wrung from me in the anguish of my heart, O father, turn to me and seek a refuge in my love before it is too late!’ may have arrested them.--DICKENS.

Captain Cuttle, though no sluggard, did not turn so early on the morning after he had seen Sol Gills, through the shopwindow, writing in the parlour, with the Midshipman upon the counter, and Rob the Grinder making up his bed below it, but that the clocks struck six as he raised himself on his elbow, and took a survey of his little chamber.--DICKENS.

A perpetual consequent warfare of her spirit and the nature subject to the thousand sensational hypocrisies invoked for concealment of its reviled brutish baseness, held the woman suspended from her emotions.--MEREDITH.

Yesterday, before Dudley Sowerby’s visit, Nataly would have been stirred where the tears which we shed for happiness or repress at a flattery dwell when seeing her friend Mrs. John Cormyn enter....--MEREDITH.

‘It takes’, it is said that Sir Robert Peel observed, ‘three generations to make a gentleman’.--BAGEHOT.

Behind, round the windows of the lower story, clusters of clematis, like large purple sponges, blossomed, miraculously fed through their thin, dry stalks.--E. F. BENSON.

It is a striking exhibition of the power which the groups, hostile in different degrees to a democratic republic, have of Parliamentary combination.--_Spectator._

Sir,--With reference to the custom among some auctioneers and surveyors of receiving secret commissions, which was recently brought to light in a case before the Lord Chief Justice and Justices Kennedy and Ridley (King’s Bench Division), when the L. C. J. in giving judgment for the defendants said:--Unfortunately in commercial circles, in which prominent men played a part, extraordinary mistakes occurred. But a principal who employed an agent to do work for him employed him upon terms that the agent was not liable to get secret commissions. The sooner secret commissions were not approved by an honourable profession, the better it would be for commerce in all its branches. I desire to take this opportunity....--_Times._

In the course of a conversation with a representative of the _Gaulois_, Captain Klado, after repeating his views on the necessity for Russia to secure the command of the sea which have already appeared in the _Times_, replied as follows to a question as to whether, after the new squadron in the course of formation at Libau has reinforced Admiral Rozhdestvensky’s fleet, the Russian and Japanese naval forces will be evenly balanced: [here follows reply]--_Times._

2. Sentences of which the end is allowed to trail on to unexpected length.

But though she could trust his word, the heart of the word went out of it when she heard herself thanked by Lady Blachington (who could so well excuse her at such a time for not returning her call, that she called in a friendly way a second time, warmly to thank her) for throwing open the Concert Room at Lakelands in August, to an entertainment in assistance of the funds for the purpose of erecting an East London Clubhouse, where the children of the poor by day could play, and their parents pass a disengaged evening.--MEREDITH.

How to commence the ceremony might have been a difficulty, but for the zeal of the American Minister, who, regardless of the fact that he was the representative of a sister Power, did not see any question of delicacy arise in his taking a prominent part in proceedings regarded as entirely irregular by the representatives of the Power to which the parties concerned belonged.--D. SLADEN.

The style holds the attention, but perhaps the most subtle charm of the work lies in the inextricable manner in which fact is interwoven with something else that is not exactly fiction, but rather fancy bred of the artist’s talent in projecting upon his canvas his own view of things seen and felt and lived through by those whose thoughts, motives, and actions, he depicts.--_Times._

The cock-bustard that, having preened himself, paces before the hen birds on the plains that he can scour when his wings, which are slow in the air, join with his strong legs to make nothing of grassy leagues on leagues.--_Times._

I don’t so much wonder at his going away, because, leaving out of consideration that spice of the marvellous which was always in his character, and his great affection for me, before which every other consideration of his life became nothing, as no one ought to know so well as I who had the best of fathers in him--leaving that out of consideration, I say, I have often read and heard of people who, having some near and dear relative, who was supposed to be shipwrecked at sea, have gone down to live on that part of the seashore where any tidings of the missing ship might be expected to arrive, though only an hour or two sooner than elsewhere, or have even gone upon her track to the place whither she was bound, as if their going would create intelligence.--DICKENS.

What he had to communicate was the contents of despatches from Tokio containing information received by the Japanese Government respecting infringements of neutrality by the Baltic Fleet in Indo-Chinese waters outside what are, strictly speaking, the territorial limits, and principally by obtaining provisions from the shore.--_Times._

3. Decapitable sentences.

Perhaps the most exasperating form is that of the sentence that keeps on prolonging itself by additional phrases, each joint of which gives the reader hopes of a full stop.

It was only after the weight of evidence against the economic success of the endeavour became overwhelming that our firm withdrew its support /, and in conjunction with almost the entire British population of the country concentrated its efforts on endeavouring to obtain permission to increase the coloured unskilled labour supply of the mines / so as to be in a position to extend mining operations /, and thus assist towards re-establishing the prosperity of the country /, while at the same time attracting a number of skilled British artisans / who would receive not merely the bare living wage of the white unskilled labourer, but a wage sufficient to enable these artisans to bring their families to the country / and to make their permanent home there.--_Westminster Gazette._

Here may still be seen by the watchful eye the Louisiana heron and smaller egret, all that rapacious plume-hunters have left of their race, tripping like timid fairies in and out the leafy screen / that hides the rank jungle of sawgrass and the grisly swamp where dwells the alligator /, which lies basking, its nostrils just level with the dirty water of its bath, or burrows swiftly in the soft earth to evade the pursuit of those who seek to dislodge it with rope and axe / that they may sell its hide to make souvenirs for the tourists / who, at the approach of summer, hie them north or east with grateful memories of that fruitful land.--F. G. AFLALO.

Running after milkmaids is by no means an ungenteel rural diversion; but let any one ask some respectable casuist (the Bishop of London, for instance), whether Lavengro was not far better employed, when in the country, at tinkering and smithery than he would have been in running after all the milkmaids in Cheshire /, though tinkering is in general considered a very ungenteel employment /, and smithery little better /, notwithstanding that an Orcadian poet, who wrote in Norse about 800 years ago, reckons the latter among nine noble arts which he possessed /, naming it along with playing at chess, on the harp, and ravelling runes /, or as the original has it, ‘treading runes’ /--that is, compressing them into small compass by mingling one letter with another /, even as the Turkish caligraphists ravel the Arabic letters /, more especially those who write talismans.--BORROW.

10. CARELESS REPETITION

Conscious repetition of a word or phrase has been discussed in Part I (Airs and Graces): in the following examples the repetition is unconscious, and proves only that the writer did not read over what he had written.

... a man ... who directly _impresses_ one with the _impression_....--_Times._

For most _of them_ get rid _of them_ more or less completely.--H. SWEET.

The most important distinction between dialogue on the one hand and _purely_ descriptive and narrative pieces on the other hand is a _purely_ grammatical one.--H. SWEET.

And it _may_ be that from a growing familiarity with Canadian winter amusements _may_ in time spring an even warmer regard....--_Times._

It _may_ well induce the uncomfortable reflection that these historical words _may_ prove....--_Times._

The inclusion of _adherents_ would be _adhered_ to.--_Times._

The _remainder remaining_ loyal, fierce fighting commenced.--_Spectator._

Every subordinate shortcoming, every incidental defect, will be _pardoned_. ‘Save us’ is the cry of the moment; and, in the confident hope of safety, any deficiency will be overlooked, and any frailty _pardoned_.--BAGEHOT.

They were _followed_ by jinrikshas _containing_ young girls with very carefully-dressed hair, _carrying_ large bunches of real flowers on their laps, _followed_ in turn by two more coolies _carrying_ square white wooden jars, _containing_ huge silver tinsel flowers.--D. SLADEN.

It can do so, in all reasonable probability, _provided_ its militia character is maintained. But in any case it will _provide_ us at home with the second line army of our needs.--_Times._

_Dressed_ in a subtly ill-_dressed_, expensive mode.--E. F. BENSON.

Toodle being the _family_ name of the apple-faced _family_.--DICKENS.

Artillery firing _extends_ along the whole front, _extending_ for eighty miles.--_Times._

I regard the action and conduct of the Ministry _as_ a whole _as_ of far greater importance.--_Times._

The fleet passed the port _on its way_ through the Straits _on the way_ to the China Sea.--_Times._

Much of his popularity he owed, we believe, to _that_ very timidity _which_ his friends lamented. _That_ timidity often prevented him from exhibiting his talents to the best advantage. But it propitiated Nemesis. It averted _that_ envy _which_ would otherwise have been excited....--MACAULAY.

I will lay down _a pen_ I am so little able to govern.--And I will try to subdue _an impatience which_ ... may otherwise lead me into still more punishable errors.--I will return to _a subject which_ I cannot fly from for ten minutes together.--RICHARDSON.

At the same time it was largely _owing to_ his careful training that so many great Etonian cricketers _owed_ their success.--_Times._

11. COMMON MISQUOTATIONS

These are excusable in talk, but not in print. A few pieces are given correctly, with the usual wrong words in brackets.

An _ill-favoured_ thing, sir, but mine own. (poor)

_Fine_ by degrees and beautifully less. (small)

_That_ last infirmity of noble _mind_. (the: minds)

Make assurance _double_ sure. (doubly)

To-morrow to fresh _woods_ and pastures new. (fields)

The devil can _cite_ Scripture for his purpose. (quote)

Chewing the _food_ of sweet and bitter fancy. (cud)

When _Greeks joined Greeks_, then _was_ the tug of war. (Greek meets Greek: comes)

A goodly apple rotten at the _heart_. (core)

12. UNCOMMON MISQUOTATIONS OF WELL-KNOWN PASSAGES OR PHRASES

It is still worse to misquote what is usually given right, however informal the quotation. The true reading is here added in brackets.

Now for the trappings and the _weeds_ of woe.--_S. Ferrier._ (suits)

She had an instinctive knowledge that she knew her, and she felt her genius _repressed_ by her, as _Julius Caesar’s_ was by _Cassius_.--S. FERRIER. (My genius is _rebuked_ as, it is said, _Mark Antony’s_ was by _Caesar_)

The new drama represented the very age and body of the time, his form and _feature_.--_J. R. Green._ (pressure)

He lifts the veil from the sanguinary affair at Kinchau, and we are allowed glimpses of blockade-running, train-wrecking and cavalry reconnaissance, and of many other moving _incidents_ by flood and field.--_Times._ (accidents)

To him this _rough_ world was but too literally a rack.--LOWELL. (who would, upon the rack of this _tough_ world, stretch him out longer)

Having once begun, they found returning more tedious than _giving_ o’er.--LOWELL. (returning were as tedious as _go_ o’er)

_Posthaec_ [_sic_] meminisse juvabit.--HAZLITT. (et haec olim)

_Quid_ vult valde vult. What they do, they do with a will.--EMERSON. (quod) Quid is not translatable.

Then that wonderful esprit _du_ corps, by which we adopt into our self-love everything we touch.--EMERSON. (de)

Let not him that _putteth_ on his _armour boast_ as _him_ that _taketh_ it off.--_Westminster Gazette._ (girdeth, harness, boast himself, he, putteth)

Elizabeth herself, says Spenser, ‘to mine _open_ pipe inclined her ear’.--J. R. GREEN. (oaten)

He could join the crew of Mirth, and look pleasantly on at a village fair, ‘where the _jolly_ rebecks sound to many a youth and many a maid, dancing in the chequered shade’.--J. R. GREEN. (jocund)

Heathen Kaffirs, et hoc genero, &c.: ....--_Daily Mail._ (genus omne)

If she takes her husband _au pied de lettre_.--_Westm. Gaz._ (de la lettre)

13. Misquotation of Less Familiar Passages

But the greatest wrong is done to readers when a passage that may not improbably be unknown to them is altered.

It was at Dublin or in his castle of Kilcolman, two miles from Doneraile, ‘under the _fall_ of Mole, that mountain hoar’, that he spent the memorable years in which....--J. R. GREEN. (foot)

_Petty_ spites of the village _squire_.--_Spectator._ (pigmy: spire)

14. Misapplied and Misunderstood Quotations and Phrases

Before _leading question or the exception proves the rule_ is written, a lawyer should be consulted; before _cui bono_, Cicero; before _more honoured in the breach than the observance_, Hamlet. A leading question is one that unfairly helps a witness to the desired answer; cui bono has been explained on p. 35; _the exception_, &c., is not an absurdity when understood, but it is as generally used; _more honoured_, &c., means not that the rule is generally broken, but that it is better broken. A familiar line of Shakespeare, on the other hand, gains by being misunderstood: ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’ merely means ‘In one respect, all men are alike’.

But _cui bono_ all this detail of our debt? Has the author given a single light towards any material reduction of it? Not a glimmering.--BURKE.

A rule dated March 3, 1801, which has never been abrogated, lays it down that, to obtain formal leave of absence, a member must show some sufficient cause, such as ... but this rule is more honoured in the breach than in the observance.--_Times._

Every one knows that the Governor-General in Council is invested by statute with the supreme command of the Army and that it would be disastrous to subvert that power. But ‘why drag in Velasquez’? If any one wishes us to infer that Lord Kitchener has, directly or indirectly, proposed to subvert this unquestioned and unquestionable authority, they are very much mistaken.--_Times._ (Why indeed? no worse literary treason than to spoil other people’s wit by dragging it in where it is entirely pointless. Velasquez here outrages those who know the story, and perplexes those who do not)

The Nationalist, M. Archdeacon, and M. Meslier put to the Prime Minister several _leading questions_, such as, ‘Why were you so willing promptly to part with M. Delcassé, and why, by going to the conference, did you agree to revive the debate as to the unmistakable rights...?’ To these pertinent inquiries M. Rouvier did not reply.--_Times._ (Leading questions are necessarily not hostile, as these clearly were)

The happy phrase that an Ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.--_Westminster Gazette._ (Happier when correctly quoted: sent to lie abroad for the good of)

15. ALLUSION

A writer who abounds in literary allusions necessarily appeals to a small audience, to those acquainted with about the same set of books as himself; they like his allusions, others dislike them. Writers should decide whether it is not wise to make their allusions explain themselves. In the first two instances quoted, though the reader who knows the original context has a slight additional pleasure, any one can see what the point is. In the last two, those who have not the honour of the wetnurse’s and Rosamund’s acquaintance feel that the author and the other readers with whom he is talking aside are guilty of bad manners.

The select academy, into whose sacred precincts the audacious Becky Sharp flung back her leaving present of the ‘Dixonary’, survives here and there, but with a different curriculum and a much higher standard of efficiency.--_Times._

Why can’t they stay quietly at home till they marry, instead of trying to earn their living by unfeminine occupations? So croaks Mrs. Partington, twirling her mop; but the tide comes on.--_Times._

Sir,--Were it not for M. Kokovtsoff’s tetchiness in the matter of metaphors, I should feel inclined to see in his protest against my estimates of the decline in the Russian gold reserve and of the increase of the note issue a variant of the classic excuse of Mrs. Easy’s wetnurse for the unlawfulness of her baby.--LUCIEN WOLF.

Three superb glass jars--red, green, and blue--of the sort that led Rosamund to parting with her shoes--blazed in the broad plate-glass windows.--KIPLING.

16. INCORRECT ALLUSION

Every one who detects a writer pretending to more knowledge than he has jumps to the conclusion that the detected must know less than the detective, and cannot be worth his reading. Incorrect allusion of this kind is therefore fatal.

Homer would have seemed arrogantly superior to his audience if he had not called Hebe ‘white-armed’ or ‘ox-eyed’.--_Times._ (He seldom mentions her, and calls her neither)

My access to fortune had not, so far, brought me either much joy or distinction,--but it was not too late for me yet to pluck the golden apples of Hesperides.--CORELLI. (It is hardly possible for any one who knows what the Hesperides were to omit _the_)

My publisher, John Morgeson ... was not like Shakespeare’s Cassio strictly ‘an honourable man’.--CORELLI. (Cassio was an honourable man, but was never called so. Even Cassius has only his share in _So are they all, all honourable men._ Brutus, perhaps?)

A sturdy Benedict to propose a tax on bachelors.--_Westminster Gazette._ (Benedick. In spite of the _Oxford Dictionary_, the differentiation between the saint, Benedict, and the converted bachelor, Benedick, is surely not now to be given up)

But impound the car for a longer or shorter period according to the offence, and that, as the French say, ‘will give them reason to think’.--_Times._ (The French do not say _give reason to think_; and if they did the phrase would hardly be worth treating as not English; they say _give to think_, which is often quoted because it is unlike English)

17. DOVETAILED AND ADAPTED QUOTATIONS AND PHRASES

The fitting into a sentence of refractory quotations, the making of facetious additions to them, and the constructing of Latin cases with English governing words, have often intolerably ponderous effects.

Though his denial of any steps in that direction may be true in his official capacity, _there is probably some smoke in the fire of comment_ to which his personal relations with German statesmen have given rise.--_Times._ (The reversal of smoke and fire may be a slip of the pen or a joke; but the correction of it mends matters little)

It remains to be seen whether ... the pied à terre which Germany hopes she has won by her preliminary action in the Morocco question will form the starting-point for further achievements or will merely represent, like so many other German enterprises, _the end of the beginning_.--_Times._ (The reversal this time is clearly facetious)

But they had gone on adding misdeed to misdeed, they had _blundered after blunder_.--L. COURTNEY.

Germany has, it would appear, yet another card in her hand, a card _of the kind which is useful to players when in doubt_.--_Times._

But the problem of inducing _a refractory camel_ to squeeze himself through the eye of _an inconvenient needle_ is and remains insoluble.--_Times._

But these unsoldierlike recriminations among the Russian officers as well as their luxurious lives and their complete insouciance in the presence of their country’s misfortunes, seems to have _set back the hand on the dial of Japanese rapprochement_.--_Times._

Is there no spiritual purge to make the eye of the camel easier for a South-African millionaire?--_Times._

And so it has come to pass that, not only _where invalids do congregate_, but in places hitherto reserved for the summer recreation of the tourist or the mountaineer there is a growing influx of winter pleasure-seekers.--_Times._

Salmasius alone was not _unworthy sublimi flagello_.--LANDOR.

Even if a change were desirable _with Kitchener duce et auspice_.--_Times._

Charged with carrying out the Military Member’s orders, but having, _pace Sir Edwin Collen_, no authority of his own.--_Times._

It is not in the interests of the Japanese to close the book of the war, until they have placed themselves in the position of beati possidentes.--_Times._ (_Beati possidentes_ is a sentence, meaning _Blessed are those who are in possession_; to fit it into another sentence is most awkward)

Resignation became a virtue of necessity for Sweden in hopes that a better understanding might in time grow out of the new order of things.--_Times._ (In the original phrase, _of necessity_ does not depend on _virtue_, but on _make_; and it is intolerable without the word that gives it its meaning)

Many of the celebrities who in that most frivolous of watering-places do congregate.--BARONESS VON HUTTEN.

If misbehaviour be not checked in an effectual manner before long, there is every prospect that the whips of the existing Motor Act will be transformed into the scorpions of the Motor Act of the future.--_Times._

A special protest should be made against the practice of introducing a quotation in two or three instalments of a word or two, each with its separate suit of quotation marks. The only quotations that should be cut up are those that are familiar enough to need no quotation marks, so that the effect is not so jerky.

The ‘pigmy body’ seemed ‘fretted to decay’ by the ‘fiery soul’ within it.--J. R. GREEN. (The original is:--

A fiery soul which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy-body to decay.--DRYDEN.)

18. Trite Quotation

Quotation may be material or formal. With the first, the writer quotes to support himself by the authority (or to impugn the authority) of the person quoted; this does not concern us. With the second, he quotes to add some charm of striking expression or of association to his own writing. To the reader, those quotations are agreeable that neither strike him as hackneyed, nor rebuke his ignorance by their complete novelty, but rouse dormant memories. Quotation, then, should be adapted to the probable reader’s cultivation. To deal in trite quotations and phrases therefore amounts to a confession that the writer either is uncultivated himself, or is addressing the uncultivated. All who would not make this confession are recommended to avoid (unless in some really new or perverted application--notum si callida verbum reddiderit junctura novum) such things as:

Chartered libertine; balm in Gilead; my prophetic soul; harmless necessary; e pur si muove; there’s the rub; the curate’s egg; hinc illae lacrimae; fit audience though few; a consummation devoutly to be wished; more in sorrow than in anger; metal more attractive; heir of all the ages; curses not loud but deep; more sinned against than sinning; the irony of fate; the psychological moment; the man in the street; the sleep of the just; a work of supererogation; the pity of it; the scenes he loved so well; in her great sorrow; all that was mortal of--; few equals and no superior; leave severely alone; suffer a sea-change.

The plan partook of the nature of that of those ingenious islanders who lived entirely by taking in each other’s washing.--E. F. BENSON.

For he was but moderately given to ‘the cups that cheer but not inebriate’, and had already finished his tea.--ELIOT.

Austria forbids children to smoke in public places; and in German schools and military colleges there are laws upon the subject; France, Spain, Greece, and Portugal _leave_ the matter _severely alone_.--_Westminster Gazette._ (_Severely_ is much worse than pointless here)

They carried compulsory subdivision and restriction of all kinds of skilled labour down to a degree _that would have been laughable enough, if it had only been less destructive_.--MORLEY.

If Diderot had visited ... Rome, even the mighty painter of the Last Judgment ... would have found an interpreter worthy of him. _But it was not to be._--MORLEY.

Mr. de Sélincourt has, of course, _the defects of his qualities_.--_Times._

The beloved _lustige Wien_ [Vienna, that is] of his youth had _suffered a sea-change_. The green glacis down which Sobieski drove the defeated besieging army of Kara Mustafa was blocked by ranges of grand new buildings.--_Westminster Gazette._

19. LATIN ABBREVIATIONS, &c.

No one should use these who is not sure that he will not expose his ignorance by making mistakes with them. Confusion is very common, for instance, between _i. e._ and _e g._ Again, _sic_ should never be used except when a reader might really suppose that there was a misprint or garbling; to insert it simply by way of drawing attention and conveying a sneer is a very heavy assumption of superiority. _Vide_ is only in place when a book or dictionary article is being referred to.

Shaliapine, first bass at the same opera, has handed in his resignation in consequence of this affair, and also because of affairs in general, vide imprisonment of his great friend Gorki.--_Times._

The industrialist organ is inclined to regret that the league did not fix some definite date such as the year 1910 (sic) or the year 1912, for the completion of this programme.--_Times._ (This is the true use of _sic_; as the years mentioned are not consecutive, a reader might suppose that something was wrong; sic tells him that it is not so)

The _Boersen Courier_ ... maintains that ‘nothing remains for M. Delcassé but to cry Pater peccavi to Germany and to retrieve as quickly as possible his diplomatic mistake (_sic_)’.--_Times._

Let your principal stops be the full stop and comma, with a judicious use of the semicolon and of the other stops where they are absolutely necessary (_i. e._ you could not dispense with the note of interrogation in asking questions).--BYGOTT & JONES. (_e. g._ is wanted, not _i. e._)

20. UNEQUAL YOKEFELLOWS AND DEFECTIVE DOUBLE HARNESS

When a word admits of two constructions, to use both may not be positively incorrect, but is generally as ugly as to drive a horse and a mule in double harness.

They did not _linger in_ the long scarlet colonnades of the temple itself, nor gazing at the dancing for which it is famous.--SLADEN.

This undoubtedly caused prices to rise; but did it not also _cause_ all _Lancashire to work_ short time, many _mills to close_, and a great _restriction_ in the purchases of all our customers for cotton goods?--_Times._

... _set herself_ quietly down _to the care_ of her own household, and _to assist_ Benjamin in the concerns of his trade.--SCOTT.

This correspondent says that not only did the French Government _know that Germany recognized_ the privileges resulting for France from her position in Algeria, but also her general _views_ on the work of reform which it would be the task of the conference to examine.--_Times._

_Teach_ them the ‘_character_ of God’ through the ‘Son’s Life of Love’, _that conscience_ must not be outraged, not because they would be punished if they did, or because they would be handsomely rewarded if they didn’t, but simply because they know a thing is right or wrong....--_Daily Telegraph._

And any one who permits himself this incongruity is likely to be betrayed into actual blunders.

The popularity of the parlements was surely due to the detestation felt for the absolute Monarchy, and because they seemed to half-informed men to be the champions of....--_Times._ (Here _because they seemed_ does not really fit _the popularity ... was_, but _parlements were popular_)

A difference, this, which was not much considered where and when the end of the war was thought to be two or three years off, and that the last blow would be Russia’s.--F. GREENWOOD. (The last clause does not fit _the end of the war was thought_, but _it was thought_)

Attila and his armies, he said, came and disappeared in a very mysterious manner, and _that_ nothing could be said with positiveness about them.--BORROW.

Save him accordingly she did: but no sooner _is he dismissed_, and _Faust has made_ a remark on the multitude of arrows which she is darting forth on all sides, than Lynceus returns.--CARLYLE.

The short drives at the beginning of the course of instruction were intended gradually _to accustom_ the novice to the speed, and _of giving_ him in the pauses an opportunity to fix well in his mind the principles of the automobile.--_Times._

The predecessors of Sir Antony MacDonnell ... were, to use the words of the Prime Minister, ‘the aiders, advisers, and suggesters of their official chiefs’.--_Times._ (Though a chief can have a suggester as well as an adviser, _adviser_ is naturally followed by an objective genitive, but _suggester_ can only be followed by a possessive genitive--except of the suggestion made)

My assiduities expose me rather to her scorn ... than to the treatment due to a man.--RICHARDSON.

One worthy gentleman, who is, perhaps, _better known than popular_ in City restaurants, is never known to have lavished even the humblest copper coin on a waiter.--_Titbits._

Its hands require strengthening and its resources increased.--_Times._

Analogous, but always incorrect, though excusable in various degrees, is the equipping of pairs that should obviously be in double harness with conjunctions or prepositions that do not match--following _neither_ by _or_, _both_ by _as well as_, and the like.

Diderot presented a bouquet which was _neither_ well _or_ ill received.--MORLEY.

Like the Persian noble of old, I ask, ‘that I may _neither_ command _or_ obey’.--EMERSON.

She would hear _nothing_ of a declaration of war, _or_ give any judgment on....--J. R. GREEN.

It appears, then, that _neither_ the mixed and incomplete empiricism considered in the third chapter, _still less_ the pure empiricism considered in the second chapter, affords us....--BALFOUR.

_Scarcely_ was the nice new drain finished _than_ several of the children sickened with diphtheria.--_Spectator._

Which differs from that and who in being used _both_ as an adjective _as well as_ a noun.--H. SWEET.

M. Shipoff _in one and the same breath_ denounces innovations, _yet_ bases the whole electoral system on the greatest innovation in Russian history.--_Times._

It would be _equally_ absurd to attend to all the other parts of an engine and to neglect the principal source of its energy--the firebox--_as_ it is ridiculous to pay particular attention to the cleanliness of the body and to neglect the mouth and teeth.--_Advertisement._

The conception of God in their minds was not _that of_ a Father, but _as_ a dealer out of rewards and punishments.--_Daily Telegraph._

Dr. Dillon, than whom no Englishman has a profounder and more accurate acquaintance _with_ the seamy side--as, indeed, _of_ all aspects of Russian life--assumes....--_Times._

Sir,--_In view of_ the controversy which has arisen concerning the 12 in. Mark VIII guns in the Navy, and especially _to_ the suggestion which might give rise to some doubt as to the efficiency of the wire system of construction....--_Times._

We add three sentences, in the first of which double harness should not have been used because it is too cumbrous, in the second of which it is not correctly possible, and in the third of which the failure to use it is very slovenly.

The odd part of it is that this childish confusion does not only not take from our pleasure, but does not even take from our sense of the author’s talent.--H. JAMES. (far from diminishing our pleasure, does not....)

As to the duration of the Austro-Russian mandate, there seems _little disposition_ here to treat the question in a hard-and-fast spirit, _but rather_ to regard it as....--_Times._ (... spirit; it is rather regarded as....)

To the student of the history of religious opinions in England _few contrasts are more striking when he compares_ the assurance and complacency with which men made profession of their beliefs at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the diffidence and hesitation with which the same are recited at the beginning of the twentieth.--_Daily Telegraph._ (more striking than that between the assurance....)

21. COMMON PARTS